A case of co-production of climate-health research ethical rules with members of grassroots women's organizations in South America

Project leader: Romina Rekers

Duration: 6/12/2025-6/12/2026

Funded by: World Health Organization

Third-party funded project (§§ 26-28 UG) (ongoing)

 

Climate change requires revising ethical principles and rules in health research. One of the circumstances that make this revision necessary is that the temporal and geographical distribution of risks and benefits of health research will vary under different future climate scenarios. For example, the Global South can currently be seen as the main beneficiary of research on climate-sensitive infectious diseases. However, under different future climate scenarios, this research will also benefit countries in the global North, some of which are already experiencing the effects of topicalization on the burden of infectious diseases.

Despite the importance of climate-health research, this agenda is underdeveloped in many regions, such as South America. In the region, setting priorities for climate-health research and developing ethical guidelines for climate-health research is an unfinished task that should be developed taking into account local factors that limit the feasibility of climate-health strategies, limit their transformative potential, and increase the likelihood of maladaptation. This project aims to develop ethical guidelines for climate-health research with grassroots women's organisations in South America.

Scientists can contribute to the co-production of climate-health ethical principles and rules by developing methodologies to open up and integrate knowledge systems. This integration should include normative knowledge systems. Reflective equilibrium is the dominant method in moral philosophy and has been adopted to address bioethical issues, while philosophers using it have developed conceptions of justice that have influenced climate change research and policy. 

This project aims to co-produce ethical rules for climate-health research by integrating reflective equilibrium and transdisciplinary research. We will use a methodology that we have called transdisciplinary reflective equilibrium. Transdisciplinary reflective equilibrium (Rekers et all. draft). This novel methodology involves 1) an ethical conversation with stakeholders leading to 2) a normative rather than statistical outcome. 3) Both the conversation and its outcome have causal and constitutive effects on the participants and their communities. 4) Academic and non-academic participants have equal control over the research process. The equal control of non-academic participants is ensured by: a) giving them the opportunity to propose new variations of the experiment, and b) giving them the opportunity to challenge the results of the tasks carried out by the academic participants (evaluation of cases, judgments, and principles).

Research Team

Dr. Romina Rekers, Department of Philosophy, University of Graz, Austria/ FLACSO, Argentina

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lukas Meyer, Department of Philosophy, University of Graz, Austria

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ilona M. Otto, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria

Univ. -Prof. Dr. Marcelo de Araujo, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Dr. Harald Stelzer, Department of Philosophy, University of Graz, Austria

MSc Kehkashan Mansoor, Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, University of Graz, Austria

Dr. Pedro Fior, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Dr. Carlos Yabar, Universidad de San Martín de Porres/Instituto Nacional de Salud, Peru

BA. María Victoria Gerbaldo, Climate Ethics and Development Foundation, Argentina

BA. Marcia Videla Ayala, Climate Ethics and Development Foundation, Paraguay

Lucas Rekers, Climate Ethics and Development Foundation, Argentina/Youth Climate & Health Network