TY - JOUR
T1 - Governing 'dual-use' research in Canada
T2 - A policy review
AU - Williams-Jones, Bryn
AU - Olivier, Catherine
AU - Smith, Elise
N1 - Funding Information:
Canada has ethics and integrity policies that apply to publicly financed research, most notably the Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (TAF) (Tri-Agencies 2011) and the second edition of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans (TCPS2) (Interagency Panel on Research Ethics 2010). While these policies do not refer specifically to ‘dual-use’, they do provide a broad regulatory framework for promoting academic integrity and ethical research, including possible dual-use research (under our broad definition). For example, the TCPS2 requires researchers at institutions receiving grants from the one of the three federal funding agencies (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) and who are conducting research involving human participants, to submit their projects for ethics review by a research ethics board (REB) at their host institution (e.g. university, research institute, hospital, medical research centre). The REB has the power to require modifications to proposals to ensure that the research meets the highest ethical standards, but this mandate is limited to research involving human participants. It should be noted, however, that the TCPS2 and the TAF apply only to research conducted in institutions receiving funds from one of the three federal granting councils. These guidelines do not apply to research conducted in government or industrial settings, unless the research is done in collaboration with university researchers; nor are there equivalent policies or ethics guidelines for government or private sector research. This creates a notable ‘gap’ in the current regulatory framework.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by a contract to Bryn Williams-Jones from the Health Canada Centre of Expertise, and led to the production of a report entitled ‘Policies to Mitigate/ Minimize the Unintended Consequences of Research in Canada — Governing ‘Dual-Use’, submitted on 31 March 2012 to the Bioethics, Innovation and Policy Integration Division, Science Policy Directorate, Strategic Policy Branch, Health Canada. The present manuscript is an expanded version of that unpublished report.
PY - 2014/2
Y1 - 2014/2
N2 - National and international organisations have implemented governance mechanisms to address a diversity of ethical, security and policy challenges raised by advances in research and innovation. These challenges become particularly complex when research or innovations are considered 'dualuse', i.e. can lead to both beneficial and harmful uses, and in particular, civilian (peaceful) and military (hostile) applications. While many countries have mechanisms (i.e. export controls) to govern the transfer of dual-use technology (e.g. nuclear, cryptography), it is much less clear how dual-use research from across the range of academic disciplines can or should be governed. Using the Canadian research and policy context as case study, this paper will first, examine the governance mechanisms currently in place to mitigate the negative implications of dual-use research and innovation; second, compare these with other relevant international governance contexts; and finally, propose some ways forward (i.e. a risk analysis approach) for developing more robust governance mechanisms.
AB - National and international organisations have implemented governance mechanisms to address a diversity of ethical, security and policy challenges raised by advances in research and innovation. These challenges become particularly complex when research or innovations are considered 'dualuse', i.e. can lead to both beneficial and harmful uses, and in particular, civilian (peaceful) and military (hostile) applications. While many countries have mechanisms (i.e. export controls) to govern the transfer of dual-use technology (e.g. nuclear, cryptography), it is much less clear how dual-use research from across the range of academic disciplines can or should be governed. Using the Canadian research and policy context as case study, this paper will first, examine the governance mechanisms currently in place to mitigate the negative implications of dual-use research and innovation; second, compare these with other relevant international governance contexts; and finally, propose some ways forward (i.e. a risk analysis approach) for developing more robust governance mechanisms.
KW - Canada
KW - Dual-use research
KW - Governance
KW - Policy
KW - Regulations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897868960&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1093/scipol/sct038
DO - 10.1093/scipol/sct038
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84897868960
SN - 0302-3427
VL - 41
SP - 76
EP - 93
JO - Science and Public Policy
JF - Science and Public Policy
IS - 1
M1 - sct038
ER -