Notice No. 2025-47 (10 June 2025): Manipulating viruses, manipulating the climate? How can we judge what is responsible in research?

Abstract

In this opinion, COMETS questions the responsibility of scientists when conducting research that presents a high potential for collective risks to populations and/or the environment. This recurring question of research ethics is particularly acute today, due to several factors: the growing power and accessibility of technologies capable of causing large-scale, serious, and even irreversible damage; the context of environmental and health crises, which may lead some to place sometimes excessive hopes in scientific research and encourage risk-taking without a shared framework; the context in which research itself is evolving, marked by increasing competition between teams and between states, and by the promotion of high-risk, high-gain research.