Research

Ethics must both be a central topic of focus for our research and integral to the way we pursue research. The MSU Ethics Institute supports and enhances existing and emerging centers of research excellence in ethics, and the processes and procedures that ensure the ethical conduct of research (data ethics, research communication, and ensuring a safe environment where researchers conduct high-quality collaborative research). A primary focus of the research efforts of the MSU Ethics Institute will be on ethically informed participatory action research pursued in collaboration with local, regional, and global communities.

Goals

The MSU Ethics Institute will work with the Office of Research and Innovation to establish ethics research centers in strategic areas, foster research strengths in ethics, and support the ethical conduct of research across the University. To accomplish this, the MSU Ethics Institute will: 

  1. Establish and support five ethics centers with strategic foci on existing and emerging research strengths that connect with grand challenges within Michigan and across the globe;
  2. Provide competitive research grants and fellowships for faculty research in ethics;
  3. Fund student-led, faculty-supervised, research projects in ethics;
  4. Establish an endowed Professorial Assistant Program for Ethics in the Honors College;
  5. Create and support an MSU Faculty Fellows-in-Residence Program;
  6. Establish and support a Visiting Fellows program that will attract major scholars in the field for a semester- or year-long residencies at MSU;
  7. Identify and fund a cohort of MSU Faculty Affiliates with the MSU Ethics Institute;
  8. Revise, manage, and develop a training program in research ethics for all MSU faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students;
  9. Conduct cross-university programs on research and data ethics that serve the need for a wide variety of university stakeholders, and facilitate development of new knowledge around data ethics; and
  10. Support the graduate school and the university at large in creating formal mentoring programs for undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral candidates, and play an active part in creating a safe research culture.