gms | German Medical Science

“Responsible Science” is an international research innovation program which is predicted high potential and which will be a guiding principle of targeting new research funding programs and evaluating criteria.

The Responsible Science approach is based on the idea of actively involving society in scientific research processes. The goal is to interlink two kinds of knowledge and approaches to jointly generate new knowledge and understanding ("population” and science). Especially nursing research projects could benefit from this, as there is already a tradition of involving stakeholders. Applied to nursing science, the inclusion of society, in contrast to other areas of science, means two things: firstly, people who are directly affected by a phenomenon/topic (experience this directly) and, secondly, people who are indirectly involved in this topic through their professional role and have different knowledge. The target group to be involved may therefore include patients (directly affected) and their relatives as well as caregivers (indirectly affected).

The aim of the methodical discussion is to critically reflect the possibilities and limitations of the Responsible Science approach. Taking the example of a drug self-management project, the interlinking of different kind knowledge in the various phases of the research process is discussed. Challenges regarding methods, different perspectives as well as different levels of participation and the challenge of working with so-called “untrained experts” are discussed. The focus will be on the basic principles of Responsible Science: participation, inclusion and openness, circularity and adaptivity and multi-methodology.