Welome to Changer
CHAllenges and innovative chaNGes in research Ethics Reviews (CHANGER) is a three-year Coordination and Support Action (CSA) project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon WIDERA programme aiming to promote changes in research ethics reviews by strengthening the capacities of researchers to incorporate ethical judgements in the project design and implementation, and by supporting capacity building of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) to address new challenges posed by new technologies and new research practices.
Vision & Objectives
Trust in science and technology, as well as the usefulness and acceptability of innovation, depends on the ethical quality of research. Emerging technologies, transformative research, new research actors and changing research practices continuously create new ethical questions, risks, rights and responsibilities.
Research Ethics Committees, also known as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), connect researchers, research participants and society through the ethical review of research projects. They play a critical role in protecting the rights, dignity and well-being of research participants, as well as animal welfare and environmental integrity.
However, traditional ethics review models are increasingly challenged by disruptive technologies and rapidly changing research practices. Many emerging technologies cannot be fully assessed during the pre-funding stage because research methods, applications and associated risks may evolve throughout the project life cycle.
CHANGER therefore sought to promote more adaptive and supportive approaches to ethics review. By combining strengthened REC capacities with ethics-by-design, the project has encouraged researchers to integrate ethical considerations, responsibility and accountability throughout research design and implementation.
CHANGER aimed to:
- provide an evidence base on the challenges that contemporary research poses to ethics review;
- develop and pilot innovative approaches that embed ethics-by-design and support a shift from policing towards constructive guidance by RECs;
- develop tools enabling RECs and researchers to assess and strengthen their capacities to address emerging challenges and new human rights;
- improve knowledge of ethical challenges arising from the changing research environment;
- strengthen the skills of ethics review experts and researchers;
- identify the policy implications of the proposed approaches and tools; and
- promote policy choices supporting the uptake and dissemination of innovative ethics review approaches across the European Research Area.
The interdisciplinary CHANGER partnership has brought together extensive expertise in research ethics review, research integrity oversight and human rights, enabling the development of innovative responses to the changing needs of research ethics governance.
WP2 - Evaluation of current ethics reviews in a changing research environment
Work Package 2 was designed to establish an evidence base on the challenges affecting ethics review in a rapidly changing research environment.
WP2 Objectives
WP2 aimed to:
- identify existing challenges, practices and approaches in research ethics review;
- review relevant evidence from scientific literature, other sources and EU-funded projects;
- create an evidence map reflecting experiences across different scientific disciplines;
- examine ethics review in crisis situations, including the COVID-19 pandemic; and
- evaluate current European approaches by assessing their strengths and weaknesses in relation to emerging technologies, new research actors and new forms of research.
Mapping Ethical Challenges in Emerging Technologies
As part of WP2, CHANGER conducted a scoping review of 756 academic articles and 78 deliverables from EU-funded projects published between 2014 and 2024. The review followed the methodological frameworks of the Campbell Collaboration and the Joanna Briggs Institute.
By combining AI-assisted text mining with manual expert verification, the review identified 18 key ethical challenges across nine technology domains.
The findings have provided a structured overview of the ethical issues associated with emerging technologies and highlighted areas in which evidence, guidance or ethics review capacity remains limited.
Creation of the Evidence and Gap Map
The results of the scoping review were synthesised into an interactive and dynamic Evidence and Gap Map (EGM).
The EGM presents the available evidence on ethical challenges across the nine technology domains and makes it possible to identify both well-researched topics and areas in which significant knowledge gaps remain.
It has been developed as a practical resource for researchers, Research Ethics Committees, policymakers and other stakeholders. By making the evidence easier to explore and compare, the EGM supports further research, capacity building and the development of more responsive approaches to research ethics governance.
