Monday, January 19, 2009
FP7 grant for Jeroen van den Hoven & partners
Together with consortium partners Jeroen van den Hoven, scientific director of 3TU.Ethics and full professor at the Philosophy Department of TU Delft, has received a research grant from the FP7 programme of the European Union. Title of the project is “Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications” (ETICA). The project has a total size of 834.000 euro, of which 71.000 euro will go to Van den Hoven. It will be spend on a postdoc position.
Abstract of the ETICA project
The ETICA project will identify emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and their potential application areas in order to analyse and evaluate ethical issues arising from these. By including a variety of stakeholders and disciplinary perspectives, it will grade and rank foreseeable ethical risks. Based on the study governance arrangements currently used to address ICT ethics in Europe, ETICA will recommend concrete governance structures to address the most salient ethical issues identified. These recommendations will form the basis of more general policy recommendations aimed at adressing ethical issues in emerging ICTs before or as they arise. Taking an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach will ensure that ethical issues are identified early, recommendations will be viable and acceptable, and relevant policy suggestions will be developed.
Relevance of the project
This will contribue to the larger aims of the FP7 Science in Society programme by developing democratic and open governance of ICT. Given the high importance of ICT to further a number of European policy goals, it is important that ethical issues are identified and addressed early. The provision of viable policy suggestions will have an impact well beyond the scientific community. Ethical issues have the potential to jeopardise the success of individual technical solutions. The acceptance of the scientific-technological basis of modern society requires that ethical questions are addressed openly and transparently. The ETICA project is therefore a contribution to the European Research Area and also to the quality of life of European citizens. Furthermore, ethical awareness can help the European ICT industry gain a competitive advantage over less sensitive competitors, thus contributing to the economic well-begin of Europe.
Consortium partners
| De Montfort University (main applicant) | UK | Bernd Stahl |
| VTT Technical Research Centre | Finland | Veikko Ikonen |
| Institute for Technology Assessment and Policy Analysis | Germany | Gerhard Banse |
| FUNDP - University of Namur | Belgium | Phillipe Goujon |
| Steinbeis University Berlin | Germany | Rafael Capurro |
| Budapest University of Technology and Economics | Hungary | Ivan Szekely |
| University of Łódź | Poland | Wieslaw Oleksy |
| Analytica Social and Economic Research | UK | Ursula Huws |
| EUREX - European association of innovation SMEs | UK | Robert Jennings |
| TeleRegions Network (TRN) | Belgium | Kjell Peterson |
| EEMA - European association for e-identity and security | UK | Roger Dean |
Website of the ETICA project
The official website of the ETICA project is www.etica-project.eu.
