Background

Responsible Research & Innovation in scientific-technical research and development projects requires above all an examination of the ethical, legal and social issues raised by the innovation process (Ethical, Legal and Social Implications or Aspects, ELSI/ELSA for short). This serves to shape research and development in a responsible and people-oriented manner.
In this context, questions regarding the integration of ethical, legal and social aspects may be difficult to assess for researchers. Therefore, an automated ELSI screening & assessment tool as a platform-independent desktop application was developed at the Institute for Digital Ethics at Hochschule der Medien in Stuttgart in the ELSI-SAT project from 2018 to 2020. This supports researchers in identifying essential ELSI-relevant questions in their respective research project (www.elsi-sat.de).

Research questions and objectives

In the follow-up project ELSI-SAT Health & Care, the ELSI-SAT tool will now be modified and extended, especially for the specific requirements of innovations in the health and care sector. Above all, a content-related extension on the domain-specific level of human-technology interaction in the health and care context is to be created, technically implemented and validated. In a comprehensive needs analysis, the essential specific ELSI aspects will be identified and subsequently implemented in the software. Those include, for example, the acceptance of innovative medical methods, the legal evaluation of data-intensive applications of personalized medicine, the question of who holds the responsibility for the use of AI in diagnostics, or ensuring justice and solidarity in the health and care system. With the support of ELSI-SAT, developers of innovation and research projects can assess significant ethical, legal and social implications of the technology at an early stage and align the development process with the emergence of a responsible, sustainable and promising technology.