Ten simple rules for socially responsible science, PLOS Computational Biology, 23 March 2023
Alon Zivony, Rasha Kardosh, Liadh Timmins, Niv Reggev.
Abstract
Guidelines concerning the potentially harmful effects of scientific studies have historically focused on ethical considerations for minimizing risk for participants. However, studies can also indirectly inflict harm on individuals and social groups through how they are designed, reported, and disseminated. As evidenced by recent criticisms and retractions of high-profile studies dealing with a wide variety of social issues, there is a scarcity of resources and guidance on how one can conduct research in a socially responsible manner. As such, even motivated researchers might publish work that has negative social impacts due to a lack of awareness. To address this, we propose 10 simple rules for researchers who wish to conduct socially responsible science. These rules, which cover major considerations throughout the life cycle of a study from inception to dissemination, are not aimed as a prescriptive list or a deterministic code of conduct. Rather, they are meant to help motivated scientists to reflect on their social responsibility as researchers and actively engage with the potential social impact of their research.
Citation.
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Citation: Zivony A, Kardosh R, Timmins L, Reggev N (2023) Ten simple rules for socially responsible science. PLoS Comput Biol 19(3): e1010954. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010954
Editor: Russell Schwartz, Carnegie Mellon University, UNITED STATES
Published: March 23, 2023
Copyright: © 2023 Zivony et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This research was partially supported by the Israel Science Foundation, grant number 540/20, to N.R. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors report no competing interests.
