The webinar, organised within the activities of Task 2.5 “FOSSR Ethical Issues” led by the Interdepartmental Center for Research Ethics and Integrity (CID Ethics–CNR), provides an overview of the main ethical aspects inherent in social science research, particularly within the context of Research Infrastructures.
The first part highlights the importance of rigorous research design and of responsible data sharing to safeguard participants’ dignity, autonomy, safety and wellbeing, while also presenting the procedures involved in preparing a research project for obtaining ethical clearance.
The second part examines the specific ethical considerations related to open social science, with particular attention to the complexity of balancing ethical principles (e.g., protecting research participants) with scientific needs (e.g., ensuring that data are reusable).
Overall, an ethics by design approach is encouraged to allow researchers to anticipate the potential societal implications of their work, identify possible risks, and mitigate harm from the earliest stages of project planning.
Complete agenda
10:00: Research Ethics: from Principles to Practice (Roberta Martina Zagarella, CID Ethics-CNR)
10:45: The Complexity of Ethics in Open Social Science Research (Giulia Sciolli, CID Ethics-CNR)
11:30: Discussion and Q&A
Speakers
Roberta Martina Zagarella, CID Ethics-CNR
Roberta Martina Zagarella earned a PhD in “Philosophy of Language, Mind, and Educational Processes” (Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy) and a PhD in “Langues et Lettres” (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium). Since 2015, she has been working at the National Research Council (CNR, Italy). She currently serves as Head of the Research Ethics Unit of the CNR Interdepartmental Center for Research Ethics and Integrity and as Head of the Scientific Secretariat of the Ethical Clearance Subcommittee of the CNR Research Ethics and Integrity Committee. She has also been working for the PNRR project FOSSR as Task Leader of the activities dedicated to the ethics mentoring of the project, and is currently part of the “Data access & use” Team of the Data Archive for Social Sciences in Italy (DASSI) – the Italian node and service provider for CESSDA ERIC. In 2022 she obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification as Associate Professor in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Language (11/C4). Her research interests include research ethics and integrity, philosophy of language, argumentation theory, and rhetoric, with special attention to biomedical and ethical issues.
Giulia Sciolli, CID Ethics-CNR
Giulia Sciolli is a social anthropologist specialised in the study of biomedicine, the psy sciences, mental health and the ethics of care. She is currently Researcher at the Interdepartmental Center for Research Ethics and Integrity of the National Research Council (Italy). Here she also serves as a member of the Scientific Secretariat of the Research Ethics and Integrity Committee and has been working for the PNRR project FOSSR as part of the task dedicated to the ethics mentoring of the project. Her PhD and postdoc work, based at the University of Cambridge (UK), ethnographically examined the practices and ethics of care in an Italian treatment centre for eating disorders. At Cambridge University she is currently Affiliated Researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology, where she has also been teaching research methodology and research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students. She regularly presents her work at seminars, Master modules and conferences aimed both at scholars and at healthcare professionals.