The PRO-RES Project has produced a guidance FRAMEWORK that encourages policymakers and their advisors to seek evidence for their decisions from research that has been conducted ethically, responsibly and with integrity.
The Framework resides in
https://prores-project.eu/(opens in new window). The Framework will support policies constructed on ethical evidence, cover the wide spectrum of non-medical research and offer practical solutions for all evidence-seeking stakeholders, that will comply with the highest standards of research ethics and integrity. The Framework has been explored and tested with the appropriate constituencies and across the full range of stakeholders. These include the producers of research, disseminators and intermediaries, influencers, policy advisers, decision-makers and implementers.
To answer the “Who is this for?” question: it is for policymakers keen to use ethical evidence; it is for policy advisors seeking to offer advice based on responsible sources; it is for researchers and their funders wishing to make sure that policies will be based upon their ethically produced evidence; it is for think tanks wishing to enhance their legitimacy by demonstrating that their reports have been produced with integrity and it is also available for citizens to make their own assessment about the evidential sources of the policies that directly affect them.
Work performed, in order to create the framework:
1. Identify and categorise stakeholders, guidelines and codes, across the EU area and across non-medical disciplines, to ensure that the organisation and channelling of expertise, in the context of policy advice, is well understood.
2. Drafting the Framework: PRO-RES worked towards building a research ethics and integrity framework devised cooperatively with, and seen as acceptable by, the full range of relevant stakeholders and similar in form to Oviedo/Helsinki.This included several consultation processes, such as: thematic workshops, in depth person interviews, online events, discussion in various fora and one conference.
3. Testing the Framework: ‘Bench testing’ of the framework (in vitro) will be conducted in ‘thought experiments’ with working groups selected from the partners.
4. Finalising the Framework / Dissemination: The final framework will incorporate all the feedback from the consultation process as well as the test cases. We have consulted several hundreds of stakeholders, across europe, from various non-medical disciplines and across the "policy advise" spectrum.
5. Roadmapping activities for future ethical issues
6. Financial tools to calculate the impact of non-adoption of ethical guidelines in large scale projects, aimed at giving a new tool for business regulators and highlighting the economic cost of ethical non-compliance.
