RAPID: Ethical Decision-Making about Conducting Essential Research in a Pandemic: Experiences of Principal Investigators and Research Personnel

The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted researchers with unprecedented challenges. One of these challenges is the need to determine whether ongoing or new research projects are essential to conduct in-person during the crisis, and if so, which research personnel should conduct this research. Such decisions have been made all the more difficult by the challenges that plague them, including extreme time pressures, insufficient or vague guidance, competing personal and professional trade-offs, and uncertain ramifications for those affected by these decisions. A thorough understanding of the ethical and practical dimensions of these decisions is needed to help researchers and institutional officials better prepare for managing the scientific workforce during future crises. This project aims to understand how principal investigators have made these decisions during the current pandemic and identify the factors in their environments that shaped their decision-making, and how these decisions impact research personnel in their lab (e.g., graduate students, postdocs, technicians, staff scientists). Data from this project can help improve understanding about how principal investigators might approach challenging decision-making during similar future situations and how research personnel perceive and are affected by these decisions. Fostering enhanced awareness of and deepened appreciation for the unique challenges such emergencies pose to essential researchers will be valuable for researchers and the broader community that benefits from their work.

This project addresses two primary research questions: 1) what ethical considerations and practical challenges shape principal investigators? decision-making about whether and how to conduct in-person research projects during the COVID-19 pandemic?, and 2) how do research personnel ethically appraise their PI?s decisions and decision processes in light of their relationship and the context of the pandemic? Data collection will proceed using a mixed-methods approach to synthesize quantitative survey-based information from principal investigators and research personnel and interviews with select researchers, graduate students, and research staff. Initial surveys will be completed by hundreds of NSF- and NIH-funded scientists and research assistants, and follow-up interviews will be conducted with select participants. Data will then be synthesized, analyzed, and interpreted. Findings will be disseminated widely to benefit researchers in future emergencies. Answering these questions contributes to the research on ethical decision-making, ethical research cultures, research leadership, and pandemic policy-making.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.