Research Ethics and Bioethics Methodology Working Group

Institute for Ethics, History and Philosophy of Medicine

The Research Ethics and Bioethics Methodology Working Group focuses on various ethical and regulatory challenges that arise in the context of clinical and other health-related research (e.g., research in the health professions), such as risk-benefit assessment, informed consent, and ensuring the professionalism and integrity of research. In this context, the Working Group also addresses issues related to the ethics of animal experimentation and the ethics of translational research. Members of the working group also research and teach on topics in public health ethics. This includes the treatment of ethics domains in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) reports.

The Working Group combines empirical methods of the social sciences with normative-ethical approaches (so-called “empirical bioethics”) in order to conduct practice-oriented analyses and formulate recommendations. To this end, it is also involved in the development and reflection of (research) methods in medical ethics, such as systematic reviews in medical/bioethics, methods of processing and synthesizing ethical aspects in HTA reports or methods for developing ethics guidelines. In this context, the group investigates the methodological relationship between normative-ethical theory and empirical research. The Working Group also provides a space for theoretical reflection on medical (research) practice and its concepts (e.g. evidence-based medicine) and thus aims to contribute to the philosophy of medicine and theoretical discourses.