Research Ethics in the Digital Age. Ethics for the Social Sciences and Humanities in Times of Mediatization and Digitization.
September 6th – 12th, 2015 in Dresden, Germany

Eighteen junior researchers from twenty countries at the Summer School for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Brilliant junior researchers from four continents and various disciplines accepted the call from the TU Dresden to spend the entire week discussing and presenting their research concerning research ethics in the context of “The Summer of Excellence”.  They were selected out of 50 applicants by means of a peer-review process. “The Summer School dealt with the question of how the transition of media and digitalization changes the ethics of research”, explains Lutz Hagen, the Director of the Institute for Communication Sciences and Director of the Center for Social Science Methods. He headed the program committee, which consisted of TU professors from various faculties of the Department of Arts and Social Sciences: Thomas Köhler (Center for Media, Prof. of Education Technology), Joachim Scharloth (Prof. of Applied Linguistics), Christian Schwarke (Prof. of Systematic Theology) und Anne Lauber-Rönsberg (Prof. of Intellectual Property Rights) - reinforced through the information technology expertise of Thorsten Strufe (Prof. of Data Privacy and Security).

In his keynote, held in the Deutsche Hygiene Museum, philosopher Luciano Floridi from the University of Oxford outlined first and foremost a new interpretation of ethics. Such is the way to navigate answering ethical questions in modern times “in a sea of uncertainty”. The solution consists of taking the individual out of the center and considering ethics instead as a question of the condition of societies. Above all science needs more time to solve problems that result from a growing complexity.

In the following days, the participants presented varying aspects and approaches to ethical questions with keynotes, workshops, and poster-presentations in the Andreas Pfitzmann building. Lutz Hagen was also pleased with the many prestigious contributors from the TU Dresden, who were brought in for the keynotes. Contributors such as computer scientist Wolfgang Nagel, nanoscientist Gianaurelio Cuniberti, communications scientist Corinna Lüthje, and anatomist Christian May.

Research norms and methods were considered from the viewpoint of diverse disciplines, especially in terms of digitalization and by means of discussing concrete cases. A specific focal point was the role of social networks on the internet, and how they can reveal unethical conduct in research. Gerhard Dannemann from Humboldt University spoke of “‘Crowd-Based’ Documentation of Plagiarism”, which dealt with “VroniPlag”, a platform that is infamous in Germany. Ivan Oransky, a medic from the US, introduced his platform "Retraction Watch", which documents cases of retracted publications from scientific journals applying peer-reviews.

In the evening discussion forums, the interdisciplinarity of the daily theme as well as the practical issues stood at the center of discussion. Corinna Lüthje, a participant in the panel on “Multidisciplinary Aspects of Research Ethics” summarized it in one point: “There are clearly many different disciplinary perspectives, and yet there are also surprising congruities: for example, medics and social scientists are relatively close together - we both work with people.” The theme is also relevant within the sciences, a point proven especially through various scandals that were revealed within recent years and led to the establishing of certain processes, such as bringing the peer review process into the foreground.

“During the preparation it became very clear, that the theme of the Summer School is indeed very relevant, even though scientific publications about it are few and far between.” added Farina Dobrick (IfK), who, together with Jana Fischer (IfK), took over the organisation and constituted a part of the program committee.

In the meantime, the conference itself indicates positive signs. The young researchers proved themselves just as discussion-friendly as scholarly, according to Lutz Hagen. “That is a wholly wonderful group of people, and if one listens to these young individuals from all parts of the globe, it becomes completely clear, how inevitable it is for the TU Dresden and science as a whole to work much more interdisciplinarily and cross-culturally.”

The German Excellence Initiative funded this event.