Ethics of Health Research and Innovation

This chapter discusses ethical dimensions of health research and innovation development and implementation. Ethics, or moral philosophy, is the investigation of principles and normative standards that guide people in making practical decisions and carrying out morally acceptable actions, all things considered. We argue that ethical considerations are everyone’s responsibility and that ethics does not require special skills or a privileged knowledge of theories, terminology, rules or formulas. We introduce the salient principles of ethics that are the most clearly involved in the ethical conduct of human-oriented research, including core principles of i) respect for persons, ii) concern for individual wellbeing, and iii) justice across the population. We discuss developing ethics applications for review and approval, and key points in the Product Innovation Pathway model wherein ethical principles need to be considered.