Filling the Network Gap in Research Ethics: Analyzing Ethical Issues at Scale in Big Team Science

Scientific research increasingly involves large, multidisciplinary teams networked across multiple institutions to develop new technologies. Despite the rise of complex research networks and big team science, there has been little analysis to date of the ethical challenges facing these networks. The extensive literature on the ethical issues confronting individual researchers and small teams (the micro level) and on the larger societal challenges flowing from research and new technology (the macro level) leave a troubling gap in between, at the meso level of the research network involved in big team science. Yet the ability of complex networks to conduct research ethically – which is essential if the results are to be deemed reliable and trustworthy – depends on recognizing the ethical issues that emerge at this intermediate network level, identifying the values that should guide networks in addressing those issues, and equipping research leaders to build a culture supporting the ethical conduct of research across the laboratories and institutions that comprise the network. This paper calls out the problem, analyzing the gap and recommending next steps.