Ethics & Society Review

The Ethics and Society Review (ESR) is a process that facilitates ethical and societal reflection as a requirement to access funding. 

This process forces researchers to describe their project’s most salient risks to society, to subgroups in society, and globally as well as how they plan to mitigate those risks. Grant funding is not released by participating institutions until the researchers complete the ESR process on their proposed project. By conditioning funding on the ESR process, we engage researchers at the formative stages of their research, when projects are still open to change, and ensure broad engagement with the process rather than self-selection of just those who are motivated.

Ethics and Society Review is led by Michael Bernstein, Margaret Levi, David Magnus, and Debra Satz with support from Ashlyn Jaeger, Betsy Rajala, and Quinn Waeiss.

Ethics and Society Review has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Public Interest Technology - University Network, Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and Stanford’s Ethics, Society, and Technology Hub.

For more information, please contact CASBS Program Director Betsy Rajala (betsy.rajala@stanford.edu).

Resources

Ethics and Society Review toolkit

Publications

White paper- Ethics and Society Review of Artificial Intelligence Research