Centre for Professional Ethics

Research Centre for Global Development (C4Globe)

The Centre of Professional Ethics’ projects and activities are designed to maximise benefit for society. We work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure lasting impact and the sustainability of our work.

For example, through the TRUST project, we led the development of the TRUST Code - A Global Code of Conduct for Equitable Research Partnerships. The TRUST Code aims to prevent 'ethics dumping', i.e. the export of research, which would be prohibited or severely restricted in a high-income country, to a low-or-middle-income country.

The code is now a mandatory reference document for recipients of EU funding and forms the basis of NATURE's new approach to ethics and inclusion in global research. 

Overview

The Centre for Professional Ethics is an internationally renowned research institution. Established in 1993, it is one of the oldest ethics research centres in the world and has gained a reputation for excellence in various areas of ethics, especially global justice and human rights and medicine. Since Professor of Moral Philosophy, Doris Schroeder, became Director of the Centre in 2004, the majority of projects and activities have dealt with questions of global research ethics, benefit sharing, and access to medicines. Of key importance for the Centre is that projects have an impact in the real world and are of practical benefit.

Research Ethics

Since 2003, we have worked with the San people of South Africa, including in supporting the development of their own Code of Research Ethics. This is believed to be the first code of conduct for research developed by an indigenous group in Africa, according to a NATURE article.

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PREPARED Project at UN University Bonn, 2022, photo Iddah Akinyi
PREPARED Project at UN University Bonn, 2022, photo Iddah Akinyi