Our Mission

Trust in ethics

Public trust in science needs reliable and informed ethics experts and ethics review processes. We want to widen the pool of ethics reviewers with expertise in new technologies and educate on the risks of globalised research. irecs will make a significant contribution to improving the Horizon Europe ethics review process.

Equality in ethics

As globalisation increases, so does the risk of ethics dumping — or moving ethically dubious research to nations with less safeguards for research subjects across national borders. We are identifying and training researchers to protect science and new technologies from ethics dumping.

Improve conduct, not just capacity

We are working with ethics reviewers, committees, research funders and researchers themselves to improve conduct in the ethics review process. The success of irecs is measured by how we can change the ethics process for the better. We want the transformative power of new technology to be melded with the protection and promotion of fundamental human rights and values.