Social responsibility and professional ethics of Croatian researchers

Acronym: RESETH

Coordinator: Institute for Social Research in Zagreb

Financed by: Croatian Science Foundation (IP-2022-10-2911)

Project duration: December 16, 2023 – December 15, 2027

The main research focus of this project is on what it means to be a socially responsible researcher and how the social responsibility of science is understood, described, experienced and practised by Croatian researchers in the natural, biomedical, technical, and social sciences. The basis of the social responsibility of science is connected with the professional ethics of science through the values, attitudes and behaviour of researchers. Our project explores what a socially responsible researcher is from the bottom up perspective, as well as the meaning and content that come from the scientific community itself and through its everyday research practice. In Croatia, there are no research projects, analyses or theoretical works that are deeply focused on the topic of social responsibility of scientists. Even in the international context, studies on scientists are rare and mostly refer to life sciences and biotechnology, and have been conducted on relatively small samples. There are practically no studies on the social responsibility of science in times of social crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The scientific goals of the project are to provide insight into the meanings that Croatian researchers attach to social responsibility, and in the light of recent and future social crises. Our further goal is to describe the processes, experiences, and behaviours related to social responsibility before and during the research process and in public outreach. This project will also analyse the social responsibility of science in the national context. Together with surveys and semi-structured interviews, we will use creative research methods. The broader social goals are to contribute to policies related to the social responsibility of science in Croatia, to contribute to the reflexivity of scientists about the relationship between science and society and the role of science in society, and to contribute to ideas related to the role of the public in the science system.

This project will be carried out through three interconnected research streams. Those are RS 1 - Conceptions of social responsibility of science, RS 2 - Social responsibility and everyday research, and RS3 - National context of social responsibility of science.

RS 1 - Conceptions of social responsibility of science. Based on the theories and findings related to the conceptions of social responsibility of science, rationalities described in published papers and results related to ethnographic research, but also based on preliminary findings of the CSF SOCRES project, in this stream we will explore the conceptions that Croatian researchers have on social responsibility of science. Through semi-structured interviews and the use of creative methods we will explore researchers’ perceptions and meanings, experiences related to present, past and future relationships of science and society, the role of science and its responsibilities, especially in the context of present and future social crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. In addition, we will use a survey to explore values and attitudes of researchers, their professional ethics related to the social responsibility of science, through comparison with the results from 26 years ago, we will be able to say more of changes in professional ethics of Croatian scientists, and we will also compare results with the international findings. We will be interested not just in disciplinary differences between different conceptions and related professional ethics, but also in differences related to socio-demographic characteristics, especially gender and age differences.

RS 2 - Social responsibility of science and everyday research. The aim of our project is to understand the ‘sense and meaning making’ of responsible science and related experiences and behaviour from the bottom up within the science itself, to discover how this sense and meaning making influences everyday decision-making and behaviour of Croatian scientists and social scientists in their research process, project decisions, publishing decisions, evaluation process, teamwork and institutional dynamics. In this research stream, we will explore through semi-structured interviews personal meanings of being a researcher related to professional identity. We will use semi-structured interviews and creative research methods to evoke emergent meanings of researchers through their reflection on different aspects of social responsibility of science, in their everyday work, choosing of research questions, research strategies, teamwork, publishing strategies and communication with wider public. As in the RS 1, we will be interested not just in disciplinary differences but also in the socio-demographic, especially gender and age differences of meaning making, experiences and practices related to social responsibility of science and everyday research.

RS 3 - National context of social responsibility of science.  All the sense and meaning making and behaviour related to social responsibility does not happen in vacuum. Therefore, we do find policies and structural factors that influence, support and surround the science as a system in Croatia important, but as a contextual basis of the project, not its focal point. Therefore, those contextual variables that are important for the RESETH project will be analysed and described in one part by using available secondary EU (Eurobarometer) and FP7 and Horizon 2020 projects data, and by using EU RRI related indicators, while collecting primary data from Croatian research performing organizations, where available. We will also analyse national and institutional bodies related to research ethics and social responsibility of science, their procedure role and influence. We are also interested in the content and discourse of available official documents that are related to the social responsibility of science, and their development in the last 30 years. In addition to the widening of our understanding of the social context of social responsibility of science, we will conduct a survey on a representative sample of Croatian citizens that will give us an insight into the attitudes and opinions of citizens on social responsibility of science especially in times of social crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

The project anticipates the publication of 11 research reports and at least six scientific papers in high-quality publications.