The Division of Research and Innovation invites you to join us for a presentation focused on introducing the audience to the Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) program at the National Science Foundation. The presentation will be held via Zoom from 10-11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 3.  

The ER2 program aims to support fundamental research about what constitutes or promotes responsible and ethical conduct of research. The ER2 program seeks to encourage science, technology, engineering and mathematics researchers, practitioners and educators at all career stages to conduct research with integrity and to educate others about responsible and ethical conduct of research.

The presentation will include a brief history of the ER2 program and a brief description of the types of proposals that are supported by the program and the merit review process. A portion of the time will be set aside to address questions from the audience. 

About the ER2 Program 

The ER2 program supports studies that advance the understanding of research integrity and the ethics of conducting research. The program also supports investigating the ethical consequences of research activities in emerging scientific and technological areas. Topics of interest to the program include but are not limited to ethical dimensions of: 

• Environmental, environmental justice, geoengineering or climate change research. 

• Research involving emerging technologies such as gene editing, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics or cryptography. 

• Emerging technologies and their impacts on research practices such as authorship, collaboration, mentoring, peer review or research misconduct. 

• Research that is co-designed with practitioners or users or that involves bringing together teams from multiple sectors (for example, academia, industry and non-profit). 

• Data-related research practices such as collection, governance, access, ownership, management, sharing and reporting. 

• Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in STEM research, including mentoring of students and postdocs with disabilities. 

• The prevention of sexual harassment in STEM fields. 

• STEM research in international contexts. 

• Research with Indigenous populations or other historically underrepresented groups in STEM or in locations that are owned or considered sacred by Indigenous communities. 

Jason Borenstein

The presentation will be given by Jason Borenstein, a program director within the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. He is part of the team that oversees the Ethical and Responsible Research Program. His duties include coordinating the merit review process for grant proposals submitted to the ER2 Program and administering awards. Borenstein's research interests include robot and artificial intelligence ethics, engineering ethics, research ethics and bioethics. 

Please RSVP to this online event here. 

An invitation to the Zoom meeting will be sent out on Wednesday, Nov. 2.