Mainstreaming ethics in policy and research: from capacity to translation

The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the urgent need for global leadership in supporting and enabling context-sensitive ethical expertise in policy making and research.

New and emerging ethical challenges, including the climate threat to health, the growth of emerging technologies and AI, and the implications of novel research methodologies, similarly demand global leadership, not least in promoting epistemic justice in an ethical discourse still dominated by high income country perspectives.

Such leadership needs to promote: (1) inclusive debate on ethical issues in the context of contemporary urgent and/or emerging global health challenges; (2) the translation and mainstreaming of ethical thinking into global health research policy and decision-making; and (3) support for capacity strengthening of ethics in global health research, policy and decision-making.

To meet these needs, this proposal sets out three interconnected work-packages, each of which will contribute to the three aims: (1) the development of an ‘Ethics2Policy Platform’ to bring together the ethics, policymaking and communications/ journalism communities; (2) a collaborative programme of work on the ethics and governance of emerging technologies and Innovation; and (3) strengthening of capacity and support for global networking and mentoring through the annual Global Forum on Bioethics in Research.