Digital Ethics

The ERCIM Working Group on digital ethics organises a yearly event: the Forum Beyond Compliance on research ethics in the digital age, usually co-located with the ERCIM Fall Meeting.

Subscribe to ERCIM digital ethics mailing list (~3 emails/year)

Coming Soon: ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance on Digital Ethics in Research

The 5th edition of the ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance on Research Ethics in the Digital Age will take place on 29–30 October 2026 in Porto, Portugal. This year we will explore three themes, examining how we conduct research on or with:

AI companions and vulnerable publics
Explainable AI (XAI) limitations and vulnerability
The need for National Digital Ethics Committees

More information

Mission & Vision

Our primary mission is to inform the whole ERCIM community about key issues and best practices in digital ethics. We want to develop digital ethics literacy within ERCIM in ways that address the actual ethical issues that researchers face at ERCIM. We want to disseminate insights from digital ethics experts at ERCIM and beyond, and facilitate discussions with international experts in researching or implementing digital ethics policies.

We are also building a network of digital ethics experts at ERCIM (and beyond), and anyone who is committed to fostering digital ethics in their ERCIM communities, and provide them with an inclusive space for collective dialogue and collaborative exploration.

Our Working Group is welcoming new members to our monthly discussions. We are also welcoming one or more curators to lead the knowledge dissemination.

Activities

To offer a space of reflection on the real-world ethical challenges that academics face, we organise the Forum Beyond Compliance: a yearly event on research ethics in the digital age (usually co-located with the ERCIM Fall Meeting). It addresses an audience of both researchers and members of research ethics boards, who face ethical issues in their daily activities, especially issues for which there are not yet well-established consensual answers.

The Forum Beyond Compliance aims at advancing the discussion about those issues. Beyond establishing ethical norms to comply with, the forum explores the foundations for debating ethical problems in the practical settings of academia. It includes keynotes, presentations, tutorials and interactive sessions, and provides ample time for open discussions.

We also maintain a curated set of resources, including video of keynotes and talks on ERCIM YouTube channel, written summaries of the Forum Beyond Compliance, a mailing list for forum attendants and digital ethics experts at ERCIM, and occasional news items for the whole ERCIM community.