The 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology (4TU.Ethics) is a virtual research centre whose members also teach in areas where the results of their current research can be transferred within an educational setting as well as into the public domain i.e. public institutions, knowledge institutes, and industry.
Some of the central research questions in our core programme are: How can we see to it that newly emerging and converging technologies and infrastructures express our considered moral judgements and widely endorsed public values? How can we assess our technology in the light of public moral values like sustainability, user autonomy, safety, privacy, accountability, democracy and quality of life? What role should public actors play in decision making about technological risks in design? And how are our norms and values affected themselves by technological developments?
Research themes include the requirements for responsible innovation, the possibility of value-sensitive design, ethical parallel research (ethical investigations in close collaboration with programmes of technological development), ethical technology assessment, the ethics of technological risks, the anthropology and ethics of human-technology relations, and many others. Technologies covered include information and communication technology, biomedical technology, nanotechnology, industrial design, environmental technology, architecture and urban planning, neuro- and cognitive technology, military technology, and others.