The course includes lectures and exercises in three different modules:

(1) Basic Research Ethics

Key ethical issues and concepts (such as autonomy and informed consent). Research misconduct. The researcher responsible for research consequences. The relevance of the research norms of basic ethical theories. Ethical review and research ethics committees, the new law on research ethics review.

(2) Researchers and Sustainable Development

Key concepts and issues. Ethical responsibility for sustainability. The moral responsibility of researchers, engineers and experts. Interactions between science, policy and society. Corporate responsibility.

(3) Innovation and Intellectual Property 

Key concepts and issues. Innovation - Different ways to create value and impact from research results. IP and contracts - Different ways of protecting intellectual property and common agreement in the innovation process and how they work in practice.

After completed course, the student shall be able to:

·       identify and describe common research ethical problems.

·       analyse the research ethical problems taking relevant empirical factors into account.

·       suggest possible solutions to the research ethical problems.

·       analyse the concepts of Sustainable Development, Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities in relation to science and technology.

·       reflect on the role of research and researchers for achieving a sustainable and equal development.

·       identify different types of intellectual property created in the research .

·       reflect on and identify potential ways of protecting and creating value from the intellectual property created in the research.

The course in online only. Zoom links are provided on the Canvas page.

The first scheduled event is March 28.

Below follows an outline of the course learning activities. Further below, there is more detailed information about every learning activity. 

• One lecture. The lecture is given online, and participation can be taken from anywhere. 
• Six seminars. 
  • Seminars 1-4 target the areas of research ethics and sustainable development in research contexts. 
    • Written seminar submissions. Accompanied with each of seminar 1-4, there are two written submissions that one has to submit.
  • Seminar 5-6 are given by KTH Innovation.
    • A workshop - seminar 5. Before the seminar, you will complete a digital IP module (link will be sent by email).  
    • An oral presentation - seminar 6. After the workshop, you will do an individual oral presentation about IP (intellectual property) management. 
• An interview. The course has a mandatory assignment in which one is supposed to interview one of one's supervisor(s).

Overview of pedagogical approach

The course design is based on a “flipped learning” pedagogical approach. The fundamental idea of this approach is that the student does most of the work before the scheduled time in class and that the student makes preparatory assignments before the class. The time in class can thereby be devoted to applying the students' knowledge from the preparations and to enabling the conditions for deeper learning (“insights”) during the scheduled time in class.

You are therefore expected to spend a considerable amount of time before each class.

Expected workload

To get a sense of how much work is needed for the preparatory assignments, the following calculation can serve as a guide: The course is 2 hp, which corresponds to ca 53 h (Calculation: 1.5hp corresponds to a week of full-time studies (=40 hours), then it follows that 2 hp 40h*2/1.5 = 53 h 20 min)

What does this mean for expectations of your own work in the course? Scheduled time is in total 12 hours (Part 1 & 2: 4 seminars, 2 hours each, for a total of 8 hours. Part 3: One workshop, 3 hours, plus one individual oral exam, 1 hour.) This implies that in addition to the scheduled time, you are expected to work ca 41 hours (53 - 12) outside class.

The distribution of these 41 hours should approximately be as follows:
6 hours per assignment in parts 1 & 2 (in total 24 hours).
6 hours for the online part "IP Management in Research at KTH" in part 3.
3 hours for the oral assignment in part 3. 

9 hours for preparing, making, and interviewing with your supervisor about the topics of parts 1 & 2 in the course. If this sounds complicated, the following table will hopefully make it clearer:

Lectures

This course includes one lecture, and it will be held online - Introduction and Reserach ethics. The placement of the lecture in the TimeEdit course schedule is a more precise schedule for when it will be held. The meeting link will be found on Canvas.

Seminars

The course includes a mandatory seminar series comprised of six seminars. Each seminar covers selected course contents from the lectures and course texts. Seminars are intended as a collaborative learning activity where you practice critically discussing course content and applying course content to cases, with instruction and support from teaching staff. The overall topics covered during the seminar series are as follows: 

1. Research ethics: Integrity and Practice (course week 3) 
2. Research ethics: Collaboration in research (course week 6)
3. Sustainability and Equality: The notion of "sustainable" and knowledge growth (course week 7)
4. Sustainability and Equality: Gender, equality, discrimination, and opportunities (course week 9). 
5. Innovation and Intellectual Property: Workshop (course week 11)
6. Innovation and Intellectual Property: Presentation (course week 11-13)

Since completion of the seminar series yields course credits, the seminars feature mandatory activities: (1) preparing and submitting a pre-seminar assignment, (2) actively participating in the seminar, and (3) submitting a post-seminar assignment. Missing activities result in seminar incompletion and thus no course credits. Additionally, 50% of the seminars (i.e., two) must be attended in person. 

Before each seminar, 1-4, you read the assigned readings (reading texts available on Canvas). You must also submit a mandatory "before-seminar" assignment (see Canvas for deadlines). This assignment forms the base for the talks during the seminar, hence why they are required. In the seminar, you will be working together with other students on exercises as instructed by the teacher. The exercises are formulated in such a way as to promote critical reflection and discussion, as well as to practice the application of course concepts to case scenarios. You are expected to engage actively with the course content and work on the exercises during the seminar. It means that you are expected to have properly engaged with the relevant course material beforehand and made an honest attempt at understanding it. Arisen questions and reflections can be addressed in the seminar. Passive attendance at the seminar will be marked as not attending. After each seminar, you must submit a post-seminar assignment (see Canvas for details), showing that you have been active during the seminars as well as having taken in and reflected on what was being discussed. 

After each seminar 1-4, you are required to submit an "after-seminar" assignment (see Canvas for deadlines). The purpose of this assignment is to make you reflect on what you discussed during the seminar, relative to the topic-related views you had created for yourself before the seminar. What new insight did you have when discussing the topics during the seminar? Are there things you view differently, having heard others' views? Are some of your own views retained or even strengthened, having discussed them with your peers? From the teacher's perspective, this after-seminar assignment forms the basis for the summative assessment of the particular seminar, and it is therefore reviewed with a more careful eye (as compared to the before-assignment).  

If one is unable/miss to attend and/or submitting any of the associated seminar assignments, one is required to do a compensation assignment instead, making up for the missed (mandatory) learning activity. As implied above, maximally two such compensation assignments are allowed to be done. See Canvas for details concerning such compensation assignments. 

Seminar contents and reading instructions

All course texts can be found on Canvas. 

Seminar 1 – Integrity and practice in research

Texts: 

• The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Available here: https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/
• Chapters 1-4 in Good research practice (Vetneskapsrådet 2024). Available here: https://www.vr.se/english/analysis/reports/our-reports/2025-07-03-good-research-practice-2024.html 

Topics relevant for the seminar:   

• What is "good research practice"?
• Violations of Research Integrity.

Seminar 2 – Collaboration and publication ethics

Texts: 

• Chapters 5-8 in Good research practice (Vetenskapsrådet 2024). Available here: https://www.vr.se/english/analysis/reports/our-reports/2025-07-03-good-research-practice-2024.html 

Topics relevant for the seminar:  

• Collaboration in research.
• Publication ethics.

Seminar 3: The notion of "sustainability" and knowledge growth 

Texts: 

• Hansson, S.O., 2010. Technology and the notion of sustainability. Technology in Society, 32(4), pp.274-279.

Topics relevant for the seminar:   

• Sustainability.
• Growth of knowledge.

Seminar 4: Gender, equality, and discrimination

Texts: 

• Official webpages on Gender, equality, discrimination, and equal opportunities (see assignment 4).

Topics relevant for the seminar:   

• Definitions of key terms
• Gender and inequality in academia

Seminar 5: Innovation and Intellectual Property: Workshop

Welcome to this workshop led by KTH Innovation. During this workshop, we will go through and reflect on different ways to create value and impact from research results, IP, contracts, and different ways of protecting intellectual property and common agreement in the innovation process, and how they work in practice. 

Before the workshop, you will complete a digital IP module and answer the quiz question. You will receive a link by email to register for the online IP course. The deadline to finalize the online IP course will be the 3rd of June at 13:00. We estimate that it will take you somewhere between 3 and 5 hours in total to finish the course. A Zoom link for the meeting can be found on Canvas.

Seminar 6: Innovation and Intellectual property: Oral presentation

After the workshop, we will meet you individually in a short meeting (10-15 min) for the oral presentation. We will discuss your specific results and IP and how you should manage them to make sure that you understand the basic concepts of IP management. For the oral presentation, you will revise the assignments in the online IP course ”IP Inventory”  (Module 1) and ”How can you create impact” (Module 2) - don’t change answers in Canvas, copy to another document, e.g. word or PPT. After the oral presentation, you upload the document. A sign-up form can be found on Canvas.

Interview 

The course includes a mandatory assignment in which you are supposed to interview one of your supervisor(s). You are supposed to interview your supervisor on the topics that have been discussed in the course, and write up the answers in a short report.

• Start by booking a time with your supervisor for the interview. Preferably, you can do this in connection with a supervision meeting. The interview should not take more than 60 minutes.
• Prepare an interview guide that covers the topics we have discussed in the course. You are free to choose questions that you are most interested in hearing what your supervisor has to say.
• Choose at least one topic from each of seminars in the course (start thinking of this when you are preparing and participating in each seminar).
• Also, be mindful of your supervisor's time. Limit the number of questions so that they can be answered in the time allocated for the interview. If you have not done interviews before, Google for "semi-structured interview guide" in order to get some help.
• Make the interview. (Do not record the interview.)
• Write 1-2 pages (A4) with the results of the interview with your supervisor. 
• Include the following information:
  • Name of the interviewee subject
  • The date, time, and place you made the interview.
  • Append the questions (your interview guide) as an appendix.

The course's content and structure are centered around the following texts.

• The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Available here: https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/
• Chapters 1-8 in Good research practice (Vetenskapsrådet 2017). Available here: https://www.vr.se/english/analysis/reports/our-reports/2017-08-31-good-research-practice.html
• Hansson, S.O., 2010. Technology and the notion of sustainability. Technology in Society, 32(4), pp.274-279.

Students at KTH with a permanent disability can get support during studies from Funka:

Funka - compensatory support for students with disabilities

• HEM1 - Home assignments, 2.0 credits, grading scale: P, F

Based on recommendation from KTH’s coordinator for disabilities, the examiner will decide how to adapt an examination for students with documented disability.

The examiner may apply another examination format when re-examining individual students.

If the course is discontinued, students may request to be examined during the following two academic years.

HEM1 - Seminars, 2.0 credits

Each module is examined as Pass/Fail. To get a Pass/Fail for the course, you need to pass every module.

To get a pass on the module, you need to submit the relevant assignments on time and attend the classes. If you are unable to attend a class, you can still pass by making an extra assignment. Contact the responsible teacher for that module in case you cannot attend a class.

If one misses or is unable to attend one or more seminars, one will be given a compensation assignment (for each seminar missed) that is considered to make up for the missed learning opportunity. See the Canvas page for more information on this. 

• All members of a group are responsible for the group's work.
• In any assessment, every student shall honestly disclose any help received and sources used.
• In an oral assessment, every student shall be able to present and answer questions about the entire assignment and solution.