The historical preoccupation of the Université Catholique de Lille for the field of ethics covers all its service missions to the students and their families, civil society, companies, associations, and patients. It is now reflected by a strong ambition to become an internationally recognized university that bears a tremendous ethical movement aiming, through recognized and multidisciplinary research, to place human purpose at the heart of developments and innovations.
A historical commitment to ethics research
Ethics research concerns almost all the University’s institutions and is based on more than 30 years of research on ethical issues related to the contemporary world’s anthropological and socio-economic mutations.
The Department of Ethics, created in 1984, has structured this research. In 2016, this department became ETHICS – EA 7446 , a certified and multidisciplinary research unit of the Université Catholique de Lille. It welcomes teacher-researchers, postdoctoral students, and PhD students in philosophy, economics, and sciences.
The research concerned applied ethics and human issues, as well as their incorporation into contemporary society and the environment. It focuses on topics as varied and contemporary as:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Digital Health
- Influence
- Cooperation between and with Persons with Disabilities
- Business Ethics
- Economic and Financial Ethics
- End of Life Ethics
- Family and Contemporary Subject Ethics
Ethics committee of research and scientific integrity
Respect for scientific integrity and ethical principles of research is a requirement that is now formal at the national, European, and international levels. It mainly concerns empirical research, whether from the medical sciences, the so-called exact sciences, or the human and social sciences, and research addressing complex or sensitive topics. It is enforced by the editorial committees of scientific journals and books and by the selection committees of scientific project calls.
The Institut Catholique de Lille ESR has created a Comité d’Éthique de la Recherche et d’Intégrité Scientifique (CERIS – Committee on Ethics of Research and Scientific Integrity) to support and raise awareness among its teacher-researchers, researchers, and PhD students, in accordance with these requirements. The CERIS can also be seized for general ethical issues falling within the ethics of research and/or scientific integrity, to produce an opinion, and to work for the diffusion of ethical research culture within the institution.
The CERIS missions are the following:
- Developing and disseminating a code of scientific integrity
- Responding to inquiries or requests
- Raising the awareness of teacher-researchers, researchers, administrative staff, and students about ethical themes chosen by the CERIS members or desired by the internal institutions of the ICL ESR
Consisting of 3 teacher-researchers and/or researchers of the ICL ESR, 4 teacher-researchers or external experts, and 2 representatives of civil society, the role of the CERIS is to provide new perspectives by means of a reflection on the ethical issues of a research project, a particular issue, or a more general theme, in which there is a doubt about the actions which should be reasonably performed and the behaviors to be adopted.
Any person or group of employees within the ICL ESR may submit inquiries or requests to the committee. This may be done on the Y.O.D.A site by emailing a submission form to the committee (CERIS@univ-catholille.fr). The CERIS members will then examine the inquiry or request to determine if it meets their mission criteria. Following this, the president will assign it to a member for follow-up. Subsequently, a notice will be established and transmitted to the interested persons in relation to their research project or posted online when the inquiry or request concerns general ethical issues in order to enhance research ethics and scientific integrity across the whole ICL ESR.
