About

The Center for Ethics and Human Values’ CARE (Conversations About Research Ethics) program, led by Prof. Dana Howard of the Division of Bioethics and Department of Philosophy, supports Ohio State’s Shared Values by providing a space for researchers of all disciplines, and at all stages of training, to engage with the ethical challenges which they face in conducting their research. Our multidisciplinary community, including researchers and insights from across the sciences and humanities, seeks to go beyond questions of compliance and understand what it really means to conduct research with ethics and integrity every day. 

Every semester, we convene around our CARE Panels, which bring together experts and leaders from around the world with experienced OSU faculty to discuss cutting-edge issues in research ethics. We go into further depth in our 8-hour CARE Training Program in the Responsible Conduct of Research, which satisfies ethics training requirements for federally funded grants.   

Why CARE? 

When we reflect on the ethical challenges which arise in research, we often bring to mind two extremes: newspaper headlines about retracted articles, falsified data, and disgraced scientists, and the detailed, compliance-oriented directions which researchers receive from institutional review boards.  What we miss is the fact that every day researchers face everyday ethical challenges in conducting their research arising from social inequalities, funding structures, publication practices, and the demands of professional advancement.  

These are not questions which we can meet just by asking what federal regulations or institutional oversight committees say; these are questions about what exactly the right thing to do is when the answer is far from obvious. The CARE program and its community of scholars seek to navigate precisely these sorts of questions.

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