New Project: ETICA Project kicks off [29.05.2009]

The goal of the EU project ETICA (Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications) is to identify and tackle ethical pitfalls of new instances and applications of information and communication technologies before these can become genuine pitfalls. The project kicked off with a general assembly of project partners and advisors in Brussels from 22 to 24 April of this year. The project, which is worth €1 million and partly funded by the EU's 7th Framework programme, is scheduled to run for just over two years.

The project consists of five interlinked work packages. ITAS is leading the work package, entitled "evaluation", which is to rank emerging technologies and their related ethical issues from the complementary viewpoints of technology assessment, ethics, gender issues and the law. The two final work packages are on governance and coordination of the project as well as on policy aspects and recommendations.

The project is being coordinated by Bernd Carsten Stahl, Reader in Critical Research in Technology in the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University, Leicester (UK) ITAS' partners in the Evaluation work package are the Steinbeis University, Berlin (Professor Rafael Capurro), Eötvös Károly Public Policy Institute, Budapest (Professor Iván Székely) and the University of Lódz (Professor Elzbieta Oleksy). The project advisory board consists of representatives of regional authorities, small and medium-sized enterprises and research.

Contact for further information:
Dr. Bernd Carsten Stahl, De Montfort University, Leicester
Dr. Michael Rader, ITAS

• Project description here