introduction for ethics research paper

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Ann Med Surg (Lond)
• v.86(5); 2024 May
• PMC11060189

Ethics in scientific research: a lens into its importance, history, and future

Associated data.

Not applicable.

Introduction

Ethics are a guiding principle that shapes the conduct of researchers. It influences both the process of discovery and the implications and applications of scientific findings 1 . Ethical considerations in research include, but are not limited to, the management of data, the responsible use of resources, respect for human rights, the treatment of human and animal subjects, social responsibility, honesty, integrity, and the dissemination of research findings 1 . At its core, ethics in scientific research aims to ensure that the pursuit of knowledge does not come at the expense of societal or individual well-being. It fosters an environment where scientific inquiry can thrive responsibly 1 .

The need to understand and uphold ethics in scientific research is pertinent in today’s scientific community. First, the rapid advancement of technology and science raises ethical questions in fields like biotechnology, biomedical science, genetics, and artificial intelligence. These advancements raise questions about privacy, consent, and the potential long-term impacts on society and its environment 2 . Furthermore, the rise in public perception and scrutiny of scientific practices, fueled by a more informed and connected populace, demands greater transparency and ethical accountability from researchers and institutions.

This commentary seeks to bring to light the need and benefits associated with ethical adherence. The central theme of this paper highlights how upholding ethics in scientific research is a cornerstone for progress. It buttresses the fact that ethics in scientific research is vital for maintaining the trust of the public, ensuring the safety of participants, and legitimizing scientific findings.

Historical perspective

Ethics in research is significantly shaped by past experiences where a lack of ethical consideration led to negative consequences. One of the most striking examples of ethical misconduct is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study 3 conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service. In this study, African American men in Alabama were used as subjects to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis. They were not informed of their condition and were denied effective treatment, even after penicillin became available as a cure in the 1940s 3 .

From an ethical lens today, this is a gross violation of informed consent and an exploitation of a vulnerable population. The public outcry following the revelation of the study’s details led to the establishment of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research 4 . This commission eventually produced the Belmont Report in 1979 4 , setting forth principles such as respect for persons, beneficence, and justice, which now underpin ethical research practices 4 .

Another example that significantly impacted ethical regulations was the thalidomide tragedy of the late 1950s and early 1960s 5 . Thalidomide was marketed as a safe sedative for pregnant women to combat morning sickness in Europe. Thalidomide resulted in the birth of approximately ten thousand children with severe deformities due to its teratogenic effects 5 , which were not sufficiently researched prior to the drug’s release. This incident underscored the critical need for comprehensive clinical testing and highlighted the ethical imperative of understanding and communicating potential risks, particularly for vulnerable groups such as pregnant women. In response, drug testing regulations became more rigorous, and the importance of informed consent, especially in clinical trials, was emphasized.

The Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971, led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo is another prime example of ethical oversight leading to harmful consequences 6 . The experiment, which aimed to study the psychological effects of perceived power, resulted in emotional trauma for participants. Underestimating potential psychological harm with no adequate systems to safeguard human participants from harm was a breach of ethics in psychological studies 6 . This case highlighted the necessity for ethical guidelines that prioritize the mental and emotional welfare of participants, especially in psychological research. It led to stricter review processes and the establishment of guidelines to prevent psychological harm in research studies. It influenced the American Psychological Association and other bodies to refine their ethical guidelines, ensuring the protection of participants’ mental and emotional well-being.

Impact on current ethical standards

These historical, ethical oversights have been instrumental in shaping the current landscape of ethical standards in scientific research. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study led to the Belmont Report in 1979, which laid out key ethical principles such as respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. It also prompted the establishment of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to oversee research involving human subjects. The thalidomide tragedy catalyzed stricter drug testing regulations and informed consent requirements for clinical trials. The Stanford Prison Experiment influenced the American Psychological Association to refine its ethical guidelines, placing greater emphasis on the welfare and rights of participants.

These historical episodes of ethical oversights have been pivotal in forging the comprehensive ethical frameworks that govern scientific research today. They serve as stark reminders of the potential consequences of ethical neglect and the perpetual need to prioritize the welfare and rights of participants in any research endeavor.

One may ponder on the reason behind the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where African American men with syphilis were deliberately left untreated. What led scientists to prioritize research outcomes over human well-being? At the time, racial prejudices, lack of understanding of ethical principles in human research, and regulatory oversight made such studies pass. Similarly, the administration of thalidomide to pregnant women initially intended as an antiemetic to alleviate morning sickness, resulted in unforeseen and catastrophic birth defects. This tragedy highlights a critical lapse in the pre-marketing evaluation of drugs’ safety.

Furthermore, the Stanford prison experiment, designed to study the psychological effects of perceived power, spiraled into an ethical nightmare as participants suffered emotional trauma. This begs the question on how these researchers initially justified their methods. From today’s lens of ethics, the studies conducted were a complete breach of misconduct, and I wonder if there were any standards that guided primitive research in science.

Current ethical standards and guidelines in research

Informed consent.

This mandates that participants are fully informed about the nature of the research, including its objectives, procedures, potential risks, and benefits 7 , 8 . They must be given the opportunity to ask questions and must voluntarily agree to participate without coercion 7 , 8 . This ensures respect for individual autonomy and decision-making.

Confidentiality and privacy

Confidentiality is pivotal in research involving human subjects. Participants’ personal information must be protected from unauthorized access or disclosure 7 , 8 . Researchers are obliged to take measures to preserve the anonymity and privacy of participants, which fosters trust and encourages participation in research 7 , 8 .

Non-maleficence and beneficence

These principles revolve around the obligation to avoid harm (non-maleficence) and to maximize possible benefits while minimizing potential harm (beneficence) 7 , 8 . Researchers must ensure that their studies do not pose undue risks to participants and that any potential risks are outweighed by the benefits.

Justice in research ethics refers to the fair selection and treatment of research participants 8 . It ensures that the benefits and burdens of research are distributed equitably among different groups in society, preventing the exploitation of vulnerable populations 8 .

The role of Institutional Review Boards (IRB)

Institutional Review Boards play critical roles in upholding ethical standards in research. An IRB is a committee established by an institution conducting research to review, approve, and monitor research involving human subjects 7 , 8 . Their primary role is to ensure that the rights and welfare of participants are protected.

Review and approval

Before a study commences, the IRB reviews the research proposal to ensure it adheres to ethical guidelines. This includes evaluating the risks and benefits, the process of obtaining informed consent, and measures for maintaining confidentiality 7 , 8 .

Monitoring and compliance

IRB also monitors ongoing research projects to ensure compliance with ethical standards. They may require periodic reports and can conduct audits to ensure ongoing adherence to ethical principles 7 , 8 .

Handling ethical violations

In cases where ethical standards are breached, IRB has the authority to impose sanctions, which can range from requiring modifications to the study to completely halting the research project 7 , 8 .

Other agencies and boards enforcing standards

Beyond IRB, there are other regulatory bodies and agencies at national and international levels that enforce ethical standards in research. These include:

The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) in the United States, which oversees compliance with the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects.

The World Health Organization (WHO) , which provides international ethical guidelines for biomedical research.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) , which sets ethical standards for the publication of biomedical research.

These organizations, along with IRB, form a comprehensive network that ensures the ethical conduct of scientific research. They safeguard the integrity of research using the reflections and lesson learnt from the past.

Benefits of ethical research

Credible and reliable outcomes, why is credibility so crucial in research, and how do ethical practices contribute to it.

Ethical practices such as rigorous peer review, transparent methodology, and adherence to established protocols ensure that research findings are reliable and valid 9 . When studies are conducted ethically, they are less likely to be marred by biases, fabrications, or errors that could compromise credibility. For instance, ethical standards demand accurate data reporting and full disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest 9 , which directly contribute to the integrity and trustworthiness of research findings.

How do ethical practices lead to socially beneficial outcomes?

Ethical research practices often align with broader societal values and needs, leading to outcomes that are not only scientifically significant but also socially beneficial. By respecting principles like justice and beneficence, researchers ensure that their work with human subjects contributes positively to society 7 , 8 . For example, ethical guidelines in medical research emphasize the need to balance scientific advancement with patient welfare, ensuring that new treatments are both effective and safe. This balance is crucial in addressing pressing societal health concerns while safeguarding individual rights and well-being.

Trust between the public and the scientific community

The relationship between the public and the scientific community is heavily reliant on trust, which is fostered through consistent ethical conduct in research. When the public perceives that researchers are committed to ethical standards, it reinforces their confidence in the scientific process and its outcomes. Ethical research practices demonstrate a respect for societal norms and values, reinforcing the perception that science serves the public good.

Case studies

Case study 1: the development and approval of covid-19 vaccines.

The development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines within a short time is a testament to how adherence to ethical research practices can achieve credible and beneficial outcomes. Strict adherence to ethical guidelines, even in the face of a global emergency, ensured that the vaccines were developed swiftly. However, safety standards were compromised to some extent as no animal trials were done before humans. The vaccine development was not transparent to the public, and this fuelled the anti-vaccination crowd in some regions. Ethical compliance, including rigorous testing and transparent reporting, should expedite scientific innovation while maintaining public trust.

Case study 2: The CRISPR babies

What ethical concerns were raised by the creation of the crispr babies, and what were the consequences.

The creation of the first genetically edited babies using CRISPR technology in China raised significant ethical concerns 10 . The lack of transparency, inadequate consent process, and potential risks to the children can be likened to ethical misconduct in genetic engineering research. This case resulted in widespread condemnation from the scientific community and the public, as well as international regulatory frameworks and guidelines for genetic editing research 10 .

Recommendation and conclusion

Continuous education and training.

The scientific community should prioritize ongoing education and training in ethics for researchers at all levels, ensuring awareness and understanding of ethical standards and their importance.

Enhanced dialogue and collaboration

Encourage multidisciplinary collaborations and dialogues between scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and the public to address emerging ethical challenges and develop adaptive guidelines.

Fostering a culture of ethical responsibility

Institutions and researchers should cultivate an environment where ethical considerations are integral to the research process, encouraging transparency, accountability, and social responsibility.

Global standards and cooperation

Work toward establishing and harmonizing international ethical standards and regulatory frameworks, particularly in areas like genetic engineering and AI, where the implications of research are global.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was not required for this editorial.

Informed consent was not required for this editorial

Sources of funding

No funding was received for this research.

Author contribution

G.D.M. wrote this paper.

Conflicts of interest disclosure

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Research registration unique identifying number (UIN)

Goshen David Miteu.

Data availability statement

Provenance and peer review.

Not commissioned, externally peer-reviewed.

Sponsorships or competing interests that may be relevant to content are disclosed at the end of this article.

Published online 21 March 2024

Site Search

• How to Search
• Advisory Group
• Editorial Board
• OEC Fellows
• History and Funding
• Using OEC Materials
• Collections
• Research Ethics Resources
• Ethics Projects
• Communities of Practice
• Get Involved
• Submit Content
• Open Access Membership
• Become a Partner

Introduction: What is Research Ethics?

Research Ethics is defined here to be the ethics of the planning, conduct, and reporting of research. This introduction covers what research ethics is, its ethical distinctions, approaches to teaching research ethics, and other resources on this topic.

What is Research Ethics

Why Teach Research Ethics

Animal Subjects

Biosecurity

Collaboration

Conflicts of Interest

Data Management

Human Subjects

Peer Review

Publication

Research Misconduct

Social Responsibility

Stem Cell Research

Whistleblowing

Descriptions of educational settings , including in the classroom, and in research contexts.

Case Studies

Other Discussion Tools

Information about the history and authors of the Resources for Research Ethics Collection

What is Research Ethics?

Research Ethics is defined here to be the ethics of the planning, conduct, and reporting of research. It is clear that research ethics should include:

• Protections of human and animal subjects

However, not all researchers use human or animal subjects, nor are the ethical dimensions of research confined solely to protections for research subjects. Other ethical challenges are rooted in many dimensions of research, including the:

• Collection, use, and interpretation of research data
• Methods for reporting and reviewing research plans or findings
• Relationships among researchers with one another
• Relationships between researchers and those that will be affected by their research
• Means for responding to misunderstandings, disputes, or misconduct
• Options for promoting ethical conduct in research

The domain of research ethics is intended to include nothing less than the fostering of research that protects the interests of the public, the subjects of research, and the researchers themselves.

Ethical Distinctions

In discussing or teaching research ethics, it is important to keep some basic distinctions in mind.

• It is important not to confuse moral claims about how people ought to behave with descriptive claims about how they in fact do behave. From the fact that gift authorship or signing off on un-reviewed data may be "common practice" in some contexts, it doesn't follow that they are morally or professionally justified. Nor is morality to be confused with the moral beliefs or ethical codes that a given group or society holds (how some group thinks people should live). A belief in segregation is not morally justified simply because it is widely held by a group of people or given society. Philosophers term this distinction between prescriptive and descriptive claims the 'is-ought distinction.'  
• A second important distinction is that between morality and the law. The law may or may not conform to the demands of ethics (Kagan, 1998). To take a contemporary example: many believe that the law prohibiting federally funded stem cell research is objectionable on moral (as well as scientific) grounds, i.e., that such research can save lives and prevent much human misery. History is full of examples of bad laws, that is laws now regarded as morally unjustifiable, e.g., the laws of apartheid, laws prohibiting women from voting or inter-racial couples from marrying.  
• It is also helpful to distinguish between two different levels of discussion (or two different kinds of ethical questions): first-order or "ground-level" questions and second-order questions.  
• First-order moral questions concern what we should do. Such questions may be very general or quite specific. One might ask whether the tradition of 'senior' authorship should be defended and preserved or, more generally, what are the principles that should go into deciding the issue of 'senior' authorship. Such questions and the substantive proposals regarding how to answer them belong to the domain of what moral philosophers call 'normative ethics.'  
• Second-order moral questions concern the nature and purpose of morality itself. When someone claims that falsifying data is wrong, what exactly is the standing of this claim? What exactly does the word 'wrong' mean in the conduct of scientific research? And what are we doing when we make claims about right and wrong, scientific integrity and research misconduct? These second-order questions are quite different from the ground-level questions about how to conduct one's private or professional life raised above. They concern the nature of morality rather than its content, i.e., what acts are required, permitted or prohibited. This is the domain of what moral philosophers call 'metaethics' (Kagan, 1998).

Ethical Approaches

Each of these approaches provides moral principles and ways of thinking about the responsibilities, duties and obligations of moral life. Individually and jointly, they can provide practical guidance in ethical decision-making.

• One of the most influential and familiar approaches to ethics is deontological ethics, associated with Immanuel Kant (1742-1804). Deontological ethics hold certain acts as right or wrong in themselves, e.g., promise breaking or lying. So, for example, in the context of research, fraud, plagiarism and misrepresentation are regarded as morally wrong in themselves, not simply because they (tend to) have bad consequences. The deontological approach is generally grounded in a single fundamental principle: Act as you would wish others to act towards you OR always treat persons as an end, never as a means to an end.  
• From such central principles are derived rules or guidelines for what is permitted, required and prohibited. Objections to principle-based or deontological ethics include the difficulty of applying highly general principles to specific cases, e.g.: Does treating persons as ends rule out physician-assisted suicide, or require it? Deontological ethics is generally contrasted to consequentialist ethics (Honderich, 1995).  
• According to consequentialist approaches, the rightness or wrongness of an action depends solely on its consequences. One should act in such a way as to bring about the best state of affairs, where the best state of affairs may be understood in various ways, e.g., as the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain or maximizing the satisfaction of preferences. A theory such as Utilitarianism (with its roots in the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) is generally taken as the paradigm example of consequentialism. Objections to consequentialist ethics tend to focus on its willingness to regard individual rights and values as "negotiable." So, for example, most people would regard murder as wrong independently of the fact that killing one person might allow several others to be saved (the infamous sacrifice of an ailing patient to provide organs for several other needy patients). Similarly, widespread moral opinion holds certain values important (integrity, justice) not only because they generally lead to good outcomes, but in and of themselves.
• Virtue ethics focuses on moral character rather than action and behavior considered in isolation. Central to this approach is the question what ought we (as individuals, as scientists, as physicians) to be rather than simply what we ought to do. The emphasis here is on inner states, that is, moral dispositions and habits such as courage or a developed sense of personal integrity. Virtue ethics can be a useful approach in the context of RCR and professional ethics, emphasizing the importance of moral virtues such as compassion, honesty, and respect. This approach has also a great deal to offer in discussions of bioethical issues where a traditional emphasis on rights and abstract principles frequently results in polarized, stalled discussions (e.g., abortion debates contrasting the rights of the mother against the rights of the fetus).  
• The term 'an ethics of care' grows out of the work of Carol Gilligan, whose empirical work in moral psychology claimed to discover a "different voice," a mode of moral thinking distinct from principle-based moral thinking (e.g., the theories of Kant and Mill). An ethics of care stresses compassion and empathetic understanding, virtues Gilligan associated with traditional care-giving roles, especially those of women.  
• This approach differs from traditional moral theories in two important ways. First, it assumes that it is the connections between persons, e.g., lab teams, colleagues, parents and children, student and mentor, not merely the rights and obligations of discrete individuals that matter. The moral world, on this view, is best seen not as the interaction of discrete individuals, each with his or her own interests and rights, but as an interrelated web of obligations and commitment. We interact, much of the time, not as private individuals, but as members of families, couples, institutions, research groups, a given profession and so on. Second, these human relationships, including relationships of dependency, play a crucial role on this account in determining what our moral obligations and responsibilities are. So, for example, individuals have special responsibilities to care for their children, students, patients, and research subjects.  
• An ethics of care is thus particularly useful in discussing human and animal subjects research, issues of informed consent, and the treatment of vulnerable populations such as children, the infirm or the ill.  
• The case study approach begins from real or hypothetical cases. Its objective is to identify the intuitively plausible principles that should be taken into account in resolving the issues at hand. The case study approach then proceeds to critically evaluate those principles. In discussing whistle-blowing, for example, a good starting point is with recent cases of research misconduct, seeking to identify and evaluate principles such as a commitment to the integrity of science, protecting privacy, or avoiding false or unsubstantiated charges. In the context of RCR instruction, case studies provide one of the most interesting and effective approaches to developing sensitivity to ethical issues and to honing ethical decision-making skills.  
• Strictly speaking, casuistry is more properly understood as a method for doing ethics rather than as itself an ethical theory. However, casuistry is not wholly unconnected to ethical theory. The need for a basis upon which to evaluate competing principles, e.g., the importance of the well-being of an individual patient vs. a concern for just allocation of scarce medical resources, makes ethical theory relevant even with case study approaches.  
• Applied ethics is a branch of normative ethics. It deals with practical questions particularly in relation to the professions. Perhaps the best known area of applied ethics is bioethics, which deals with ethical questions arising in medicine and the biological sciences, e.g., questions concerning the application of new areas of technology (stem cells, cloning, genetic screening, nanotechnology, etc.), end of life issues, organ transplants, and just distribution of healthcare. Training in responsible conduct of research or "research ethics" is merely one among various forms of professional ethics that have come to prominence since the 1960s. Worth noting, however, is that concern with professional ethics is not new, as ancient codes such as the Hippocratic Oath and guild standards attest (Singer, 1986).
• Adams D, Pimple KD (2005): Research Misconduct and Crime: Lessons from Criminal Science on Preventing Misconduct and Promoting Integrity. Accountability in Research 12(3):225-240.
• Anderson MS, Horn AS, Risbey KR, Ronning EA, De Vries R, Martinson BC (2007): What Do Mentoring and Training in the Responsible Conduct of Research Have To Do with Scientists' Misbehavior? Findings from a National Survey of NIH-Funded Scientists . Academic Medicine 82(9):853-860.
• Bulger RE, Heitman E (2007): Expanding Responsible Conduct of Research Instruction across the University. Academic Medicine. 82(9):876-878.
• Kalichman MW (2006): Ethics and Science: A 0.1% solution. Issues in Science and Technology 23:34-36.
• Kalichman MW (2007): Responding to Challenges in Educating for the Responsible Conduct of Research, Academic Medicine. 82(9):870-875.
• Kalichman MW, Plemmons DK (2007): Reported Goals for Responsible Conduct of Research Courses. Academic Medicine. 82(9):846-852.
• Kalichman MW (2009): Evidence-based research ethics. The American Journal of Bioethics 9(6&7): 85-87.
• Pimple KD (2002): Six Domains of Research Ethics: A Heuristic Framework for the Responsible Conduct of Research. Science and Engineering Ethics 8(2):191-205.
• Steneck NH (2006): Fostering Integrity in Research: Definitions, Current Knowledge, and Future Directions. Science and Engineering Ethics 12:53-74.
• Steneck NH, Bulger RE (2007): The History, Purpose, and Future of Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research. Academic Medicine. 82(9):829-834.
• Vasgird DR (2007): Prevention over Cure: The Administrative Rationale for Education in the Responsible Conduct of Research. Academic Medicine. 82(9):835-837.
• Aristotle. The Nichomachean Ethics.
• Beauchamp RL, Childress JF (2001): Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th edition, NY: Oxford University Press.
• Bentham, J (1781): An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.
• Gilligan C (1993): In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Glover, Jonathan (1977): Penguin Books.
• Honderich T, ed. (1995): The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kagan S (1998): Normative Ethics. Westview Press.
• Kant I (1785): Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
• Kant I (1788): Critique of Practical Reason.
• Kant I (1797): The Metaphysics of Morals.
• Kant I (1797): On a Supposed right to Lie from Benevolent Motives.
• Kuhse H, Singer P (1999): Bioethics: An Anthology. Blackwell Publishers.
• Mill JS (1861): Utilitarianism.
• Rachels J (1999): The Elements of Moral Philosophy, 3rd edition, Boston: McGraw-Hill.
• Regan T (1993): Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, 3rd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. The history of ethics.
• Singer P (1993): Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press.

The Resources for Research Ethics Education site was originally developed and maintained by Dr. Michael Kalichman, Director of the Research Ethics Program at the University of California San Diego. The site was transferred to the Online Ethics Center in 2021 with the permission of the author.

Related Resources

Submit Content to the OEC   Donate

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 2055332. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Published on October 18, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on May 9, 2024.

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from people.

The goals of human research often include understanding real-life phenomena, studying effective treatments, investigating behaviors, and improving lives in other ways. What you decide to research and how you conduct that research involve key ethical considerations.

These considerations work to

• protect the rights of research participants
• enhance research validity
• maintain scientific or academic integrity

Table of contents

Why do research ethics matter, getting ethical approval for your study, types of ethical issues, voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, potential for harm, results communication, examples of ethical failures, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research ethics.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe for research subjects.

You’ll balance pursuing important research objectives with using ethical research methods and procedures. It’s always necessary to prevent permanent or excessive harm to participants, whether inadvertent or not.

Defying research ethics will also lower the credibility of your research because it’s hard for others to trust your data if your methods are morally questionable.

Even if a research idea is valuable to society, it doesn’t justify violating the human rights or dignity of your study participants.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

Before you start any study involving data collection with people, you’ll submit your research proposal to an institutional review board (IRB) .

An IRB is a committee that checks whether your research aims and research design are ethically acceptable and follow your institution’s code of conduct. They check that your research materials and procedures are up to code.

If successful, you’ll receive IRB approval, and you can begin collecting data according to the approved procedures. If you want to make any changes to your procedures or materials, you’ll need to submit a modification application to the IRB for approval.

If unsuccessful, you may be asked to re-submit with modifications or your research proposal may receive a rejection. To get IRB approval, it’s important to explicitly note how you’ll tackle each of the ethical issues that may arise in your study.

There are several ethical issues you should always pay attention to in your research design, and these issues can overlap with each other.

You’ll usually outline ways you’ll deal with each issue in your research proposal if you plan to collect data from participants.

Voluntary participation means that all research subjects are free to choose to participate without any pressure or coercion.

All participants are able to withdraw from, or leave, the study at any point without feeling an obligation to continue. Your participants don’t need to provide a reason for leaving the study.

It’s important to make it clear to participants that there are no negative consequences or repercussions to their refusal to participate. After all, they’re taking the time to help you in the research process , so you should respect their decisions without trying to change their minds.

Voluntary participation is an ethical principle protected by international law and many scientific codes of conduct.

Take special care to ensure there’s no pressure on participants when you’re working with vulnerable groups of people who may find it hard to stop the study even when they want to.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Informed consent refers to a situation in which all potential participants receive and understand all the information they need to decide whether they want to participate. This includes information about the study’s benefits, risks, funding, and institutional approval.

You make sure to provide all potential participants with all the relevant information about

• what the study is about
• the risks and benefits of taking part
• how long the study will take
• your supervisor’s contact information and the institution’s approval number

Usually, you’ll provide participants with a text for them to read and ask them if they have any questions. If they agree to participate, they can sign or initial the consent form. Note that this may not be sufficient for informed consent when you work with particularly vulnerable groups of people.

If you’re collecting data from people with low literacy, make sure to verbally explain the consent form to them before they agree to participate.

For participants with very limited English proficiency, you should always translate the study materials or work with an interpreter so they have all the information in their first language.

In research with children, you’ll often need informed permission for their participation from their parents or guardians. Although children cannot give informed consent, it’s best to also ask for their assent (agreement) to participate, depending on their age and maturity level.

Anonymity means that you don’t know who the participants are and you can’t link any individual participant to their data.

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, and videos.

In many cases, it may be impossible to truly anonymize data collection . For example, data collected in person or by phone cannot be considered fully anonymous because some personal identifiers (demographic information or phone numbers) are impossible to hide.

You’ll also need to collect some identifying information if you give your participants the option to withdraw their data at a later stage.

Data pseudonymization is an alternative method where you replace identifying information about participants with pseudonymous, or fake, identifiers. The data can still be linked to participants but it’s harder to do so because you separate personal information from the study data.

Confidentiality means that you know who the participants are, but you remove all identifying information from your report.

All participants have a right to privacy, so you should protect their personal data for as long as you store or use it. Even when you can’t collect data anonymously, you should secure confidentiality whenever you can.

Some research designs aren’t conducive to confidentiality, but it’s important to make all attempts and inform participants of the risks involved.

As a researcher, you have to consider all possible sources of harm to participants. Harm can come in many different forms.

• Psychological harm: Sensitive questions or tasks may trigger negative emotions such as shame or anxiety.
• Social harm: Participation can involve social risks, public embarrassment, or stigma.
• Physical harm: Pain or injury can result from the study procedures.
• Legal harm: Reporting sensitive data could lead to legal risks or a breach of privacy.

It’s best to consider every possible source of harm in your study as well as concrete ways to mitigate them. Involve your supervisor to discuss steps for harm reduction.

Make sure to disclose all possible risks of harm to participants before the study to get informed consent. If there is a risk of harm, prepare to provide participants with resources or counseling or medical services if needed.

Some of these questions may bring up negative emotions, so you inform participants about the sensitive nature of the survey and assure them that their responses will be confidential.

The way you communicate your research results can sometimes involve ethical issues. Good science communication is honest, reliable, and credible. It’s best to make your results as transparent as possible.

Take steps to actively avoid plagiarism and research misconduct wherever possible.

Plagiarism means submitting others’ works as your own. Although it can be unintentional, copying someone else’s work without proper credit amounts to stealing. It’s an ethical problem in research communication because you may benefit by harming other researchers.

Self-plagiarism is when you republish or re-submit parts of your own papers or reports without properly citing your original work.

This is problematic because you may benefit from presenting your ideas as new and original even though they’ve already been published elsewhere in the past. You may also be infringing on your previous publisher’s copyright, violating an ethical code, or wasting time and resources by doing so.

In extreme cases of self-plagiarism, entire datasets or papers are sometimes duplicated. These are major ethical violations because they can skew research findings if taken as original data.

You notice that two published studies have similar characteristics even though they are from different years. Their sample sizes, locations, treatments, and results are highly similar, and the studies share one author in common.

Research misconduct

Research misconduct means making up or falsifying data, manipulating data analyses, or misrepresenting results in research reports. It’s a form of academic fraud.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement about data analyses.

Research misconduct is a serious ethical issue because it can undermine academic integrity and institutional credibility. It leads to a waste of funding and resources that could have been used for alternative research.

Later investigations revealed that they fabricated and manipulated their data to show a nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield also neglected to disclose important conflicts of interest, and his medical license was taken away.

This fraudulent work sparked vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers. The rate of MMR vaccinations in children fell sharply, and measles outbreaks became more common due to a lack of herd immunity.

Research scandals with ethical failures are littered throughout history, but some took place not that long ago.

Some scientists in positions of power have historically mistreated or even abused research participants to investigate research problems at any cost. These participants were prisoners, under their care, or otherwise trusted them to treat them with dignity.

To demonstrate the importance of research ethics, we’ll briefly review two research studies that violated human rights in modern history.

These experiments were inhumane and resulted in trauma, permanent disabilities, or death in many cases.

After some Nazi doctors were put on trial for their crimes, the Nuremberg Code of research ethics for human experimentation was developed in 1947 to establish a new standard for human experimentation in medical research.

In reality, the actual goal was to study the effects of the disease when left untreated, and the researchers never informed participants about their diagnoses or the research aims.

Although participants experienced severe health problems, including blindness and other complications, the researchers only pretended to provide medical care.

When treatment became possible in 1943, 11 years after the study began, none of the participants were offered it, despite their health conditions and high risk of death.

Ethical failures like these resulted in severe harm to participants, wasted resources, and lower trust in science and scientists. This is why all research institutions have strict ethical guidelines for performing research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Cohort study
• Peer review
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias
• Social desirability bias

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. These principles include voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, potential for harm, and results communication.

Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from others .

These considerations protect the rights of research participants, enhance research validity , and maintain scientific integrity.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe.

Anonymity means you don’t know who the participants are, while confidentiality means you know who they are but remove identifying information from your research report. Both are important ethical considerations .

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, or videos.

You can keep data confidential by using aggregate information in your research report, so that you only refer to groups of participants rather than individuals.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement but a serious ethical failure.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bhandari, P. (2024, May 09). Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved July 1, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/research-ethics/

Is this article helpful?

Pritha Bhandari

Other students also liked, data collection | definition, methods & examples, what is self-plagiarism | definition & how to avoid it, how to avoid plagiarism | tips on citing sources, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 13 July 2021

Assisting you to advance with ethics in research: an introduction to ethical governance and application procedures

• Shivadas Sivasubramaniam 1 ,
• Dita Henek Dlabolová 2 ,
• Veronika Kralikova 3 &
• Zeenath Reza Khan 3  

International Journal for Educational Integrity volume  17 , Article number:  14 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

18k Accesses

13 Citations

4 Altmetric

Metrics details

Ethics and ethical behaviour are the fundamental pillars of a civilised society. The focus on ethical behaviour is indispensable in certain fields such as medicine, finance, or law. In fact, ethics gets precedence with anything that would include, affect, transform, or influence upon individuals, communities or any living creatures. Many institutions within Europe have set up their own committees to focus on or approve activities that have ethical impact. In contrast, lesser-developed countries (worldwide) are trying to set up these committees to govern their academia and research. As the first European consortium established to assist academic integrity, European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI), we felt the importance of guiding those institutions and communities that are trying to conduct research with ethical principles. We have established an ethical advisory working group within ENAI with the aim to promote ethics within curriculum, research and institutional policies. We are constantly researching available data on this subject and committed to help the academia to convey and conduct ethical behaviour. Upon preliminary review and discussion, the group found a disparity in understanding, practice and teaching approaches to ethical applications of research projects among peers. Therefore, this short paper preliminarily aims to critically review the available information on ethics, the history behind establishing ethical principles and its international guidelines to govern research.

The paper is based on the workshop conducted in the 5th International conference Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond, in Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania in 2019. During the workshop, we have detailed a) basic needs of an ethical committee within an institution; b) a typical ethical approval process (with examples from three different universities); and c) the ways to obtain informed consent with some examples. These are summarised in this paper with some example comparisons of ethical approval processes from different universities. We believe this paper will provide guidelines on preparing and training both researchers and research students in appropriately upholding ethical practices through ethical approval processes.

Introduction

Ethics and ethical behaviour (often linked to “responsible practice”) are the fundamental pillars of a civilised society. Ethical behaviour with integrity is important to maintain academic and research activities. It affects everything we do, and gets precedence with anything that would include/affect, transform, or impact upon individuals, communities or any living creatures. In other words, ethics would help us improve our living standards (LaFollette, 2007 ). The focus on ethical behaviour is indispensable in certain fields such as medicine, finance, or law, but is also gaining recognition in all disciplines engaged in research. Therefore, institutions are expected to develop ethical guidelines in research to maintain quality, initiate/own integrity and above all be transparent to be successful by limiting any allegation of misconduct (Flite and Harman, 2013 ). This is especially true for higher education organisations that promote research and scholarly activities. Many European institutions have developed their own regulations for ethics by incorporating international codes (Getz, 1990 ). The lesser developed countries are trying to set up these committees to govern their academia and research. World Health Organization has stated that adhering to “ ethical principles … [is central and important]... in order to protect the dignity, rights and welfare of research participants ” (WHO, 2021 ). Ethical guidelines taught to students can help develop ethical researchers and members of society who uphold values of ethical principles in practice.

As the first European-wide consortium established to assist academic integrity (European Network for Academic Integrity – ENAI), we felt the importance of guiding those institutions and communities that are trying to teach, research, and include ethical principles by providing overarching understanding of ethical guidelines that may influence policy. Therefore, we set up an advisory working group within ENAI in 2018 to support matters related to ethics, ethical committees and assisting on ethics related teaching activities.

Upon preliminary review and discussion, the group found a disparity in understanding, practice and teaching approaches to ethical applications among peers. This became the premise for this research paper. We first carried out a literature survey to review and summarise existing ethical governance (with historical perspectives) and procedures that are already in place to guide researchers in different discipline areas. By doing so, we attempted to consolidate, document and provide important steps in a typical ethical application process with example procedures from different universities. Finally, we attempted to provide insights and findings from practical workshops carried out at the 5th International Conference Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond, in Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania in 2019, focussing on:

• highlighting the basic needs of an ethical committee within an institution,

• discussing and sharing examples of a typical ethical approval process,

• providing guidelines on the ways to teach research ethics with some examples.

We believe this paper provides guidelines on preparing and training both researchers and research students in appropriately upholding ethical practices through ethical approval processes.

Background literature survey

Responsible research practice (RRP) is scrutinised by the aspects of ethical principles and professional standards (WHO’s Code of Conduct for responsible Research, 2017). The Singapore statement on research integrity (The Singapore Statement on Research integrity, 2010) has provided an internationally acceptable guidance for RRP. The statement is based on maintaining honesty, accountability, professional courtesy in all aspects of research and maintaining fairness during collaborations. In other words, it does not simply focus on the procedural part of the research, instead covers wider aspects of “integrity” beyond the operational aspects (Israel and Drenth, 2016 ).

Institutions should focus on providing ethical guidance based on principles and values reflecting upon all aspects/stages of research (from the funding application/project development stage upto or beyond project closing stage). Figure  1 summarizes the different aspects/stages of a typical research and highlights the needs of RRP in compliance with ethical governance at each stage with examples (the figure is based on Resnik, 2020 ; Žukauskas et al., 2018 ; Anderson, 2011 ; Fouka and Mantzorou, 2011 ).

Summary of the enabling ethical governance at different stages of research. Note that it is imperative for researchers to proactively consider the ethical implications before, during and after the actual research process. The summary shows that RRP should be in line with ethical considerations even long before the ethical approval stage

Individual responsibilities to enhance RRP

As explained in Fig.  1 , a successfully governed research should consider ethics at the planning stages prior to research. Many international guidance are compatible in enforcing/recommending 14 different “responsibilities” that were first highlighted in the Singapore Statement (2010) for researchers to follow and achieve competency in RRP. In order to understand the purpose and the expectation of these ethical guidelines, we have carried out an initial literature survey on expected individual responsibilities. These are summarised in Table  1 .

By following these directives, researchers can carry out accountable research by maximising ethical self-governance whilst minimising misconducts. In our own experiences of working with many researchers, their focus usually revolves around ethical “clearance” rather than behaviour. In other words, they perceive this as a paper exercise rather than trying to “own” ethical behaviour in everything they do. Although the ethical principles and responsibilities are explicitly highlighted in the majority of international guidelines [such as UK’s Research Governance Policy (NICE, 2018 ), Australian Government’s National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (Difn website a - National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NSECHR), 2018 ), the Singapore Statement (2010) etc.]; and the importance of holistic approach has been argued in ethical decision making, many researchers and/or institutions only focus on ethics linked to the procedural aspects.

Studies in the past have also highlighted inconsistencies in institutional guidelines pointing to the fact that these inconsistencies may hinder the predicted research progress (Desmond & Dierickx 2021 ; Alba et al., 2020 ; Dellaportas et al., 2014 ; Speight 2016 ). It may also be possible that these were and still are linked to the institutional perceptions/expectations or the pre-empting contextual conditions that are imposed by individual countries. In fact, it is interesting to note many research organisations and HE institutions establish their own policies based on these directives.

Research governance - origins, expectations and practices

Ethical governance in clinical medicine helps us by providing a structure for analysis and decision-making. By providing workable definitions of benefits and risks as well as the guidance for evaluating/balancing benefits over risks, it supports the researchers to protect the participants and the general population.

According to the definition given by National Institute of Clinical care Excellence, UK (NICE 2018 ), “ research governance can be defined as the broad range of regulations, principles and standards of good practice that ensure high quality research ”. As stated above, our literature-based research survey showed that most of the ethical definitions are basically evolved from the medical field and other disciplines have utilised these principles to develop their own ethical guidance. Interestingly, historical data show that the medical research has been “self-governed” or in other words implicated by the moral behaviour of individual researchers (Fox 2017 ; Shaw et al., 2005 ; Getz, 1990 ). For example, early human vaccination trials conducted in 1700s used the immediate family members as test subjects (Fox, 2017 ). Here the moral justification might have been the fact that the subjects who would have been at risk were either the scientists themselves or their immediate families but those who would reap the benefits from the vaccination were the general public/wider communities. However, according to the current ethical principles, this assumption is entirely not acceptable.

Historically, ambiguous decision-making and resultant incidences of research misconduct have led to the need for ethical research governance in as early as the 1940’s. For instance, the importance of an international governance was realised only after the World War II, when people were astonished to note the unethical research practices carried out by Nazi scientists. As a result of this, in 1947 the Nuremberg code was published. The code mainly focussed on the following:

Informed consent and further insisted the research involving humans should be based on prior animal work,

The anticipated benefits should outweigh the risk,

Research should be carried out only by qualified scientists must conduct research,

Avoiding physical and mental suffering and.

Avoiding human research that would result in which death or disability.

(Weindling, 2001 ).

Unfortunately, it was reported that many researchers in the USA and elsewhere considered the Nuremberg code as a document condemning the Nazi atrocities, rather than a code for ethical governance and therefore ignored these directives (Ghooi, 2011 ). It was only in 1964 that the World Medical Association published the Helsinki Declaration, which set the stage for ethical governance and the implementation of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process (Shamoo and Irving, 1993 ). This declaration was based on Nuremberg code. In addition, the declaration also paved the way for enforcing research being conducted in accordance with these guidelines.

Incidentally, the focus on research/ethical governance gained its momentum in 1974. As a result of this, a report on ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research was published in 1979 (The Belmont Report, 1979 ). This report paved the way to the current forms of ethical governance in biomedical and behavioural research by providing guidance.

Since 1994, the WHO itself has been providing several guidance to health care policy-makers, researchers and other stakeholders detailing the key concepts in medical ethics. These are specific to applying ethical principles in global public health.

Likewise, World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), and International Convention for the Protection of Animals (ICPA) provide guidance on animal welfare in research. Due to this continuous guidance, together with accepted practices, there are internationally established ethical guidelines to carry out medical research. Our literature survey further identified freely available guidance from independent organisations such as COPE (Committee of Publication Ethics) and ALLEA (All European Academics) which provide support for maintaining research ethics in other fields such as education, sociology, psychology etc. In reality, ethical governance is practiced differently in different countries. In the UK, there is a clinical excellence research governance, which oversees all NHS related medical research (Mulholland and Bell, 2005 ). Although, the governance in other disciplines is not entirely centralised, many research funding councils and organisations [such as UKRI (UK-Research and Innovation; BBSC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council; MRC (Medical Research Council); EPSRC (Economic and Social Research Council)] provide ethical governance and expect institutional adherence and monitoring. They expect local institutional (i.e. university/institutional) research governance for day-to-day monitoring of the research conducted within the organisation and report back to these funding bodies, monthly or annually (Department of Health, 2005). Likewise, there are nationally coordinated/regulated ethics governing bodies such as the US Office for Human Research Protections (US-OHRP), National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) in the USA and Canada respectively (Mulholland and Bell, 2005 ). The OHRP in the USA formally reviews all research activities involving human subjects. On the other hand, in Canada, CIHR works with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). They together have produced a Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) (Stephenson et al., 2020 ) as ethical governance. All Canadian institutions are expected to adhere to this policy for conducting research. As for Australia, the research is governed by the Australian code for the responsible conduct of research (2008). It identifies the responsibilities of institutions and researchers in all areas of research. The code has been jointly developed by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC) and Universities Australia (UA). This information is summarized in Table  2 .

Basic structure of an institutional ethical advisory committee (EAC)

The WHO published an article defining the basic concepts of an ethical advisory committee in 2009 (WHO, 2009 - see above). According to this, many countries have established research governance and monitor the ethical practice in research via national and/or regional review committees. The main aims of research ethics committees include reviewing the study proposals, trying to understand the justifications for human/animal use, weighing the merits and demerits of the usage (linking to risks vs. potential benefits) and ensuring the local, ethical guidelines are followed Difn website b - Enago academy Importance of Ethics Committees in Scholarly Research, 2020 ; Guide for Research Ethics - Council of Europe, 2014 ). Once the research has started, the committee needs to carry out periodic surveillance to ensure the institutional ethical norms are followed during and beyond the study. They may also be involved in setting up and/or reviewing the institutional policies.

For these aspects, IRB (or institutional ethical advisory committee - IEAC) is essential for local governance to enhance best practices. The advantage of an IRB/EEAC is that they understand the institutional conditions and can closely monitor the ongoing research, including any changes in research directions. On the other hand, the IRB may be overly supportive to accept applications, influenced by the local agenda for achieving research excellence, disregarding ethical issues (Kotecha et al., 2011 ; Kayser-Jones, 2003 ) or, they may be influenced by the financial interests in attracting external funding. In this respect, regional and national ethics committees are advantageous to ensure ethical practice. Due to their impartiality, they would provide greater consistency and legitimacy to the research (WHO, 2009 ). However, the ethical approval process of regional and national ethics committees would be time consuming, as they do not have the local knowledge.

As for membership in the IRBs, most of the guidelines [WHO, NICE, Council of Europe, (2012), European Commission - Facilitating Research Excellence in FP7 ( 2013 ) and OHRP] insist on having a variety of representations including experts in different fields of research, and non-experts with the understanding of local, national/international conflicts of interest. The former would be able to understand/clarify the procedural elements of the research in different fields; whilst the latter would help to make neutral and impartial decisions. These non-experts are usually not affiliated to the institution and consist of individuals representing the broader community (particularly those related to social, legal or cultural considerations). IRBs consisting of these varieties of representation would not only be in a position to understand the study procedures and their potential direct or indirect consequences for participants, but also be able to identify any community, cultural or religious implications of the study.

Understanding the subtle differences between ethics and morals

Interestingly, many ethical guidelines are based on society’s moral “beliefs” in such a way that the words “ethics”‘and “morals” are reciprocally used to define each other. However, there are several subtle differences between them and we have attempted to compare and contrast them herein. In the past, many authors have interchangeably used the words “morals”‘and “ethics”‘(Warwick, 2003 ; Kant, 2018 ; Hazard, GC (Jr)., 1994 , Larry, 1982 ). However, ethics is linked to rules governed by an external source such as codes of conduct in workplaces (Kuyare et al., 2014 ). In contrast, morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong. Quinn ( 2011 ) defines morality as “ rules of conduct describing what people ought and ought not to do in various situations … ” while ethics is “... the philosophical study of morality, a rational examination into people’s moral beliefs and behaviours ”. For instance, in a case of parents demanding that schools overturn a ban on use of corporal punishment of children by schools and teachers (Children’s Rights Alliance for England, 2005 ), the parents believed that teachers should assume the role of parent in schools and use corporal or physical punishment for children who misbehaved. This stemmed from their beliefs and what they felt were motivated by “beliefs of individuals or groups”. For example, recent media highlights about some parents opposing LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) education to their children (BBC News, 2019 ). One parent argued, “Teaching young children about LGBT at a very early stage is ‘morally’ wrong”. She argued “let them learn by themselves as they grow”. This behaviour is linked to and governed by the morals of an ethnic community. Thus, morals are linked to the “beliefs of individuals or group”. However, when it comes to the LGBT rights these are based on ethical principles of that society and governed by law of the land. However, the rights of children to be protected from “inhuman and degrading” treatment is based on the ethical principles of the society and governed by law of the land. Individuals, especially those who are working in medical or judicial professions have to follow an ethical code laid down by their profession, regardless of their own feelings, time or preferences. For instance, a lawyer is expected to follow the professional ethics and represent a defendant, despite the fact that his morals indicate the defendant is guilty.

In fact, we as a group could not find many scholarly articles clearly comparing or contrasting ethics with morals. However, a table presented by Surbhi ( 2015 ) (Difn website c ) tries to differentiate these two terms (see Table  3 ).

Although Table 3 gives some insight on the differences between these two terms, in practice many use these terms as loosely as possible mainly because of their ambiguity. As a group focussed on the application of these principles, we would recommend to use the term “ethics” and avoid “morals” in research and academia.

Based on the literature survey carried out, we were able to identify the following gaps:

there is some disparity in existing literature on the importance of ethical guidelines in research

there is a lack of consensus on what code of conduct should be followed, where it should be derived from and how it should be implemented

The mission of ENAI’s ethical advisory working group

The Ethical Advisory Working Group of ENAI was established in 2018 to promote ethical code of conduct/practice amongst higher educational organisations within Europe and beyond (European Network for Academic Integrity, 2018 ). We aim to provide unbiased advice and consultancy on embedding ethical principles within all types of academic, research and public engagement activities. Our main objective is to promote ethical principles and share good practice in this field. This advisory group aims to standardise ethical norms and to offer strategic support to activities including (but not exclusive to):

● rendering advice and assistance to develop institutional ethical committees and their regulations in member institutions,

● sharing good practice in research and academic ethics,

● acting as a critical guide to institutional review processes, assisting them to maintain/achieve ethical standards,

● collaborating with similar bodies in establishing collegiate partnerships to enhance awareness and practice in this field,

● providing support within and outside ENAI to develop materials to enhance teaching activities in this field,

● organising training for students and early-career researchers about ethical behaviours in form of lectures, seminars, debates and webinars,

● enhancing research and dissemination of the findings in matters and topics related to ethics.

The following sections focus on our suggestions based on collective experiences, review of literature provided in earlier sections and workshop feedback collected:

a) basic needs of an ethical committee within an institution;

b) a typical ethical approval process (with examples from three different universities); and

c) the ways to obtain informed consent with some examples. This would give advice on preparing and training both researchers and research students in appropriately upholding ethical practices through ethical approval processes.

Setting up an institutional ethical committee (ECs)

Institutional Ethical Committees (ECs) are essential to govern every aspect of the activities undertaken by that institute. With regards to higher educational organisations, this is vital to establish ethical behaviour for students and staff to impart research, education and scholarly activities (or everything) they do. These committees should be knowledgeable about international laws relating to different fields of studies (such as science, medicine, business, finance, law, and social sciences). The advantages and disadvantages of institutional, subject specific or common (statutory) ECs are summarised in Fig.  2 . Some institutions have developed individual ECs linked to specific fields (or subject areas) whilst others have one institutional committee that overlooks the entire ethical behaviour and approval process. There is no clear preference between the two as both have their own advantages and disadvantages (see Fig. 2 ). Subject specific ECs are attractive to medical, law and business provisions, as it is perceived the members within respective committees would be able to understand the subject and therefore comprehend the need of the proposed research/activity (Kadam, 2012 ; Schnyder et al., 2018 ). However, others argue, due to this “ specificity ”, the committee would fail to forecast the wider implications of that application. On the other hand, university-wide ECs would look into the wider implications. Yet they find it difficult to understand the purpose and the specific applications of that research. Not everyone understands dynamics of all types of research methodologies, data collection, etc., and therefore there might be a chance of a proposal being rejected merely because the EC could not understand the research applications (Getz, 1990 ).

Summary of advantages and disadvantages of three different forms of ethical committees

[N/B for Fig. 2 : Examples of different types of ethical application procedures and forms used were discussed with the workshop attendees to enhance their understanding of the differences. GDPR = General Data Protection Regulation].

Although we recommend a designated EC with relevant professional, academic and ethical expertise to deal with particular types of applications, the membership (of any EC) should include some non-experts who would represent the wider community (see above). Having some non-experts in EC would not only help the researchers to consider explaining their research in layperson’s terms (by thinking outside the box) but also would ensure efficiency without compromising participants/animal safety. They may even help to address the common ethical issues outside research culture. Some UK universities usually offer this membership to a clergy, councillor or a parliamentarian who does not have any links to the institutions. Most importantly, it is vital for any EC members to undertake further training in addition to previous experience in the relevant field of research ethics.

Another issue that raises concerns is multi-centre research, involving several institutions, where institutionalised ethical approvals are needed from each partner. In some cases, such as clinical research within the UK, a common statutory EC called National Health Services (NHS) Research Ethics Committee (NREC) is in place to cover research ethics involving all partner institutions (NHS, 2018 ). The process of obtaining approval from this type of EC takes time, therefore advanced planning is needed.

Ethics approval forms and process

During the workshop, we discussed some anonymised application forms obtained from open-access sources for qualitative and quantitative research as examples. Considering research ethics, for the purpose of understanding, we arbitrarily divided this in two categories; research based on (a) quantitative and (b) qualitative methodologies. As their name suggests their research approach is extremely different from each other. The discussion elicited how ECs devise different types of ethical application form/questions. As for qualitative research, these are often conducted as “face-to-face” interviews, which would have implications on volunteer anonymity.

Furthermore, discussions posited when the interviews are replaced by on-line surveys, they have to be administered through registered university staff to maintain confidentiality. This becomes difficult when the research is a multi-centre study. These types of issues are also common in medical research regarding participants’ anonymity, confidentially, and above all their right to withdraw consent to be involved in research.

Storing and protecting data collected in the process of the study is also a point of consideration when applying for approval.

Finally, the ethical processes of invasive (involving human/animals) and non-invasive research (questionnaire based) may slightly differ from one another. Following research areas are considered as investigations that need ethical approval:

research that involves human participants (see below)

use of the ‘products’ of human participants (see below)

work that potentially impacts on humans (see below)

research that involves animals

In addition, it is important to provide a disclaimer even if an ethical approval is deemed unnecessary. Following word cloud (Fig.  3 ) shows the important variables that need to be considered at the brainstorming stage before an ethical application. It is worth noting the importance of proactive planning predicting the “unexpected” during different phases of a research project (such as planning, execution, publication, and future directions). Some applications (such as working with vulnerable individuals or children) will require safety protection clearance (such as DBS - Disclosure and Barring Service, commonly obtained from the local police). Please see section on Research involving Humans - Informed consents for further discussions.

Examples of important variables that need to be considered for an ethical approval

It is also imperative to report or re-apply for ethical approval for any minor or major post-approval changes to original proposals made. In case of methodological changes, evidence of risk assessments for changes and/or COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations) should also be given. Likewise, any new collaborative partners or removal of researchers should also be notified to the IEAC.

Other findings include:

in case of complete changes in the project, the research must be stopped and new approval should be seeked,

in case of noticing any adverse effects to project participants (human or non-human), these should also be notified to the committee for appropriate clearance to continue the work, and

the completion of the project must also be notified with the indication whether the researchers may restart the project at a later stage.

Research involving humans - informed consents

While discussing research involving humans and based on literature review, findings highlight the human subjects/volunteers must willingly participate in research after being adequately informed about the project. Therefore, research involving humans and animals takes precedence in obtaining ethical clearance and its strict adherence, one of which is providing a participant information sheet/leaflet. This sheet should contain a full explanation about the research that is being carried out and be given out in lay-person’s terms in writing (Manti and Licari 2018 ; Hardicre 2014 ). Measures should also be in place to explain and clarify any doubts from the participants. In addition, there should be a clear statement on how the participants’ anonymity is protected. We provide below some example questions below to help the researchers to write this participant information sheet:

What is the purpose of the study?

Why have they been chosen?

What will happen if they take part?

What do they have to do?

What happens when the research stops?

What if something goes wrong?

What will happen to the results of the research study?

Will taking part be kept confidential?

How to handle “vulnerable” participants?

How to mitigate risks to participants?

Many institutional ethics committees expect the researchers to produce a FAQ (frequently asked questions) in addition to the information about research. Most importantly, the researchers also need to provide an informed consent form, which should be signed by each human participant. The five elements identified that are needed to be considered for an informed consent statement are summarized in Fig.  4 below (slightly modified from the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects ( 2018 ) - Diffn website c ).

Five basic elements to consider for an informed consent [figure adapted from Diffn website c ]

The informed consent form should always contain a clause for the participant to withdraw their consent at any time. Should this happen all the data from that participant should be eliminated from the study without affecting their anonymity.

Typical research ethics approval process

In this section, we provide an example flow chart explaining how researchers may choose the appropriate application and process, as highlighted in Fig.  5 . However, it is imperative to note here that these are examples only and some institutions may have one unified application with separate sections to demarcate qualitative and quantitative research criteria.

Typical ethical approval processes for quantitative and qualitative research. [N/B for Fig. 5 - This simplified flow chart shows that fundamental process for invasive and non-invasive EC application is same, the routes and the requirements for additional information are slightly different]

Once the ethical application is submitted, the EC should ensure a clear approval procedure with distinctly defined timeline. An example flow chart showing the procedure for an ethical approval was obtained from University of Leicester as open-access. This is presented in Fig.  6 . Further examples of the ethical approval process and governance were discussed in the workshop.

An example ethical approval procedures conducted within University of Leicester (Figure obtained from the University of Leicester research pages - Difn website d - open access)

Strategies for ethics educations for students

Student education on the importance of ethics and ethical behaviour in research and scholarly activities is extremely essential. Literature posits in the area of medical research that many universities are incorporating ethics in post-graduate degrees but when it comes to undergraduate degrees, there is less appetite to deliver modules or even lectures focussing on research ethics (Seymour et al., 2004 ; Willison and O’Regan, 2007 ). This may be due to the fact that undergraduate degree structure does not really focus on research (DePasse et al., 2016 ). However, as Orr ( 2018 ) suggested, institutions should focus more on educating all students about ethics/ethical behaviour and their importance in research, than enforcing punitive measures for unethical behaviour. Therefore, as an advisory committee, and based on our preliminary literature survey and workshop results, we strongly recommend incorporating ethical education within undergraduate curriculum. Looking at those institutions which focus on ethical education for both under-and postgraduate courses, their approaches are either (a) a lecture-based delivery, (b) case study based approach or (c) a combined delivery starting with a lecture on basic principles of ethics followed by generating a debate based discussion using interesting case studies. The combined method seems much more effective than the other two as per our findings as explained next.

As many academics who have been involved in teaching ethics and/or research ethics agree, the underlying principles of ethics is often perceived as a boring subject. Therefore, lecture-based delivery may not be suitable. On the other hand, a debate based approach, though attractive and instantly generates student interest, cannot be effective without students understanding the underlying basic principles. In addition, when selecting case studies, it would be advisable to choose cases addressing all different types of ethical dilemmas. As an advisory group within ENAI, we are in the process of collating supporting materials to help to develop institutional policies, creating advisory documents to help in obtaining ethical approvals, and teaching materials to enhance debate-based lesson plans that can be used by the member and other institutions.

Concluding remarks

In summary, our literature survey and workshop findings highlight that researchers should accept that ethics underpins everything we do, especially in research. Although ethical approval is tedious, it is an imperative process in which proactive thinking is essential to identify ethical issues that might affect the project. Our findings further lead us to state that the ethical approval process differs from institution to institution and we strongly recommend the researchers to follow the institutional guidelines and their underlying ethical principles. The ENAI workshop in Vilnius highlighted the importance of ethical governance by establishing ECs, discussed different types of ECs and procedures with some examples and highlighted the importance of student education to impart ethical culture within research communities, an area that needs further study as future scope.

Declarations

The manuscript was entirely written by the corresponding author with contributions from co-authors who have also taken part in the delivery of the workshop. Authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. We can also confirm that there are no potential competing interests with other organisations.

Availability of data and materials

Authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Abbreviations

ALL European academics

Australian research council

Biotechnology and biological sciences research council

Canadian institutes for health research

Committee of publication ethics

Ethical committee

European network of academic integrity

Economic and social research council

International convention for the protection of animals

institutional ethical advisory committee

Institutional review board

Immaculata university of Pennsylvania

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender

Medical research council)

National health services

National health services nih national institute of health (NIH)

National institute of clinical care excellence

National health and medical research council

Natural sciences and engineering research council

National research ethics committee

National statement on ethical conduct in human research

Responsible research practice

Social sciences and humanities research council

Tri-council policy statement

World Organization for animal health

Universities Australia

UK-research and innovation

US office for human research protections

Alba S, Lenglet A, Verdonck K, Roth J, Patil R, Mendoza W, Juvekar S, Rumisha SF (2020) Bridging research integrity and global health epidemiology (BRIDGE) guidelines: explanation and elaboration. BMJ Glob Health 5(10):e003237. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-003237

Article   Google Scholar  

Anderson MS (2011) Research misconduct and misbehaviour. In: Bertram Gallant T (ed) Creating the ethical academy: a systems approach to understanding misconduct and empowering change in higher education. Routledge, pp 83–96

BBC News. (2019). Birmingham school LGBT LESSONS PROTEST investigated. March 8, 2019. Retrieved February 14, 2021, available online. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-47498446

Children’s Rights Alliance for England. (2005). R (Williamson and others) v Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Session 2004–05. [2005] UKHL 15. Available Online. URL: http://www.crae.org.uk/media/33624/R-Williamson-and-others-v-Secretary-of-State-for-Education-and-Employment.pdf

Council of Europe. (2014). Texts of the Council of Europe on bioethical matters. Available Online. https://www.coe.int/t/dg3/healthbioethic/Texts_and_documents/INF_2014_5_vol_II_textes_%20CoE_%20bio%C3%A9thique_E%20(2).pdf

Dellaportas S, Kanapathippillai S, Khan, A and Leung, P. (2014). Ethics education in the Australian accounting curriculum: a longitudinal study examining barriers and enablers. 362–382. Available Online. URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2014.930694 , 23, 4, 362, 382

DePasse JM, Palumbo MA, Eberson CP, Daniels AH (2016) Academic characteristics of orthopaedic surgery residency applicants from 2007 to 2014. JBJS 98(9):788–795. https://doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.15.00222

Desmond H, Dierickx K (2021) Research integrity codes of conduct in Europe: understanding the divergences. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12851

Difn website a - National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NSECHR). (2018). Available Online. URL: https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-code-responsible-conduct-research-2018

Difn website b - Enago academy Importance of Ethics Committees in Scholarly Research (2020, October 26). Available online. URL: https://www.enago.com/academy/importance-of-ethics-committees-in-scholarly-research/

Difn website c - Ethics vs Morals - Difference and Comparison. Retrieved July 14, 2020. Available online. URL: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

Difn website d - University of Leicester. (2015). Staff ethics approval flowchart. May 1, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2020. Available Online. URL: https://www2.le.ac.uk/institution/ethics/images/ethics-approval-flowchart/view

European Commission - Facilitating Research Excellence in FP7 (2013) https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/fp7/89888/ethics-for-researchers_en.pdf

European Network for Academic Integrity. (2018). Ethical advisory group. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: http://www.academicintegrity.eu/wp/wg-ethical/

Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects. (2018). Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available Online. URL: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/19/2017-01058/federal-policy-for-the-protection-of-human-subjects#p-855

Flite, CA and Harman, LB. (2013). Code of ethics: principles for ethical leadership Perspect Health Inf Mana; 10(winter): 1d. PMID: 23346028

Fouka G, Mantzorou M (2011) What are the major ethical issues in conducting research? Is there a conflict between the research ethics and the nature of nursing. Health Sci J 5(1) Available Online. URL: https://www.hsj.gr/medicine/what-are-the-major-ethical-issues-in-conducting-research-is-there-a-conflict-between-the-research-ethics-and-the-nature-of-nursing.php?aid=3485

Fox G (2017) History and ethical principles. The University of Miami and the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Program URL  https://silo.tips/download/chapter-1-history-and-ethical-principles # (Available Online)

Getz KA (1990) International codes of conduct: An analysis of ethical reasoning. J Bus Ethics 9(7):567–577

Ghooi RB (2011) The nuremberg code–a critique. Perspect Clin Res 2(2):72–76. https://doi.org/10.4103/2229-3485.80371

Hardicre, J. (2014) Valid informed consent in research: an introduction Br J Nurs 23(11). https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2014.23.11.564 , 567

Hazard, GC (Jr). (1994). Law, morals, and ethics. Yale law school legal scholarship repository. Faculty Scholarship Series. Yale University. Available Online. URL: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3322&context=fss_papers

Israel, M., & Drenth, P. (2016). Research integrity: perspectives from Australia and Netherlands. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of academic integrity (pp. 789–808). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-098-8_64

Kadam R (2012) Proactive role for ethics committees. Indian J Med Ethics 9(3):216. https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2012.072

Kant I (2018) The metaphysics of morals. Cambridge University Press, UK https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316091388

Kayser-Jones J (2003) Continuing to conduct research in nursing homes despite controversial findings: reflections by a research scientist. Qual Health Res 13(1):114–128. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732302239414

Kotecha JA, Manca D, Lambert-Lanning A, Keshavjee K, Drummond N, Godwin M, Greiver M, Putnam W, Lussier M-T, Birtwhistle R (2011) Ethics and privacy issues of a practice-based surveillance system: need for a national-level institutional research ethics board and consent standards. Can Fam physician 57(10):1165–1173.  https://europepmc.org/article/pmc/pmc3192088

Kuyare, MS., Taur, SR., Thatte, U. (2014). Establishing institutional ethics committees: challenges and solutions–a review of the literature. Indian J Med Ethics. https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2014.047

LaFollette, H. (2007). Ethics in practice (3rd edition). Blackwell

Larry RC (1982) The teaching of ethics and moral values in teaching. J High Educ 53(3):296–306. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1982.11780455

Manti S, Licari A (2018) How to obtain informed consent for research. Breathe (Sheff) 14(2):145–152. https://doi.org/10.1183/20734735.001918

Mulholland MW, Bell J (2005) Research Governance and Research Funding in the USA: What the academic surgeon needs to know. J R Soc Med 98(11):496–502. https://doi.org/10.1258/jrsm.98.11.496

National Institute of Health (NIH) Ethics in Clinical Research. n.d. Available Online. URL: https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/recruit/ethics.html

NHS (2018) Flagged Research Ethics Committees. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://www.hra.nhs.uk/about-us/committees-and-services/res-and-recs/flagged-research-ethics-committees/

NICE (2018) Research governance policy. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://www.nice.org.uk/Media/Default/About/what-we-do/science-policy-and-research/research-governance-policy.pdf

Orr, J. (2018). Developing a campus academic integrity education seminar. J Acad Ethics 16(3), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-018-9304-7

Quinn, M. (2011). Introduction to Ethics. Ethics for an Information Age. 4th Ed. Ch 2. 53–108. Pearson. UK

Resnik. (2020). What is ethics in Research & why is it Important? Available Online. URL: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/index.cfm

Schnyder S, Starring H, Fury M, Mora A, Leonardi C, Dasa V (2018) The formation of a medical student research committee and its impact on involvement in departmental research. Med Educ Online 23(1):1. https://doi.org/10.1080/10872981.2018.1424449

Seymour E, Hunter AB, Laursen SL, DeAntoni T (2004) Establishing the benefits of research experiences for undergraduates in the sciences: first findings from a three-year study. Sci Educ 88(4):493–534. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.10131

Shamoo AE, Irving DN (1993) Accountability in research using persons with mental illness. Account Res 3(1):1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989629308573826

Shaw, S., Boynton, PM., and Greenhalgh, T. (2005). Research governance: where did it come from, what does it mean? Research governance framework for health and social care, 2nd ed. London: Department of Health. https://doi.org/10.1258/jrsm.98.11.496 , 98, 11, 496, 502

Book   Google Scholar  

Speight, JG. (2016) Ethics in the university |DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119346449 scrivener publishing LLC

Stephenson GK, Jones GA, Fick E, Begin-Caouette O, Taiyeb A, Metcalfe A (2020) What’s the protocol? Canadian university research ethics boards and variations in implementing tri-Council policy. Can J Higher Educ 50(1)1): 68–81

Surbhi, S. (2015). Difference between morals and ethics [weblog]. March 25, 2015. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available Online. URL: http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-morals-and-ethics.html

The Belmont Report (1979). Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/sites/default/files/the-belmont-report-508c_FINAL.pdf

The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity. (2020). Nicholas Steneck and Tony Mayer, Co-chairs, 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity; Melissa Anderson, Chair, Organizing Committee, 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://wcrif.org/documents/327-singapore-statement-a4size/file

Warwick K (2003) Cyborg morals, cyborg values, cyborg ethics. Ethics Inf Technol 5(3):131–137. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:ETIN.0000006870.65865.cf

Weindling P (2001) The origins of informed consent: the international scientific commission on medical war crimes, and the Nuremberg code. Bull Hist Med 75(1):37–71. https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2001.0049

WHO. (2009). Research ethics committees Basic concepts for capacity-building. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://www.who.int/ethics/Ethics_basic_concepts_ENG.pdf

WHO. (2021). Chronological list of publications. Retrieved February 14, 2021. Available online. URL: https://www.who.int/ethics/publications/year/en/

Willison, J. and O’Regan, K. (2007). Commonly known, commonly not known, totally unknown: a framework for students becoming researchers. High Educ Res Dev 26(4). 393–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360701658609

Žukauskas P, Vveinhardt J, and Andriukaitienė R. (2018). Research Ethics In book: Management Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility Eds Jolita Vveinhardt IntechOpenEditors DOI: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70629 , 2018

Download references

Acknowledgements

Authors wish to thank the organising committee of the 5th international conference named plagiarism across Europe and beyond, in Vilnius, Lithuania for accepting this paper to be presented in the conference.

Not applicable as this is an independent study, which is not funded by any internal or external bodies.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Human Sciences, University of Derby, DE22 1, Derby, GB, UK

Shivadas Sivasubramaniam

Department of Informatics, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská, 1665, Brno, Czechia

Dita Henek Dlabolová

Centre for Academic Integrity in the UAE, Faculty of Engineering & Information Sciences, University of Wollongong in Dubai, Dubai, UAE

Veronika Kralikova & Zeenath Reza Khan

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

The manuscript was entirely written by the corresponding author with contributions from co-authors who have equally contributed to presentation of this paper in the 5th international conference named plagiarism across Europe and beyond, in Vilnius, Lithuania. Authors have equally contributed for the information collection, which were then summarised as narrative explanations by the Corresponding author and Dr. Zeenath Reza Khan. Then checked and verified by Dr. Dlabolova and Ms. Králíková. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shivadas Sivasubramaniam .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

We can also confirm that there are no potential competing interest with other organisations.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Sivasubramaniam, S., Dlabolová, D.H., Kralikova, V. et al. Assisting you to advance with ethics in research: an introduction to ethical governance and application procedures. Int J Educ Integr 17 , 14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-021-00078-6

Download citation

Received : 17 July 2020

Accepted : 25 April 2021

Published : 13 July 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-021-00078-6

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Higher education
• Ethical codes
• Ethics committee
• Post-secondary education
• Institutional policies
• Research ethics

International Journal for Educational Integrity

ISSN: 1833-2595

• Submission enquiries: Access here and click Contact Us
• General enquiries: [email protected]

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings
• My Bibliography
• Collections
• Citation manager

Save citation to file

Email citation, add to collections.

• Create a new collection
• Add to an existing collection

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search, create a file for external citation management software, your rss feed.

• Search in PubMed
• Search in NLM Catalog
• Add to Search

Module one: introduction to research ethics

Affiliation.

• 1 University of the Witwatersrand Division of Bioethics WITS 2050, South Africa. [email protected].
• PMID: 15748175
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-8847.2005.00099.x

This module will introduce you to the ethical concepts underlying applied ethical decision-making in the area of research involving human participants. We will also learn what the issues are that people involved in research on research ethics are concerned with. Ethics without an understanding of historical and legal context makes arguably little sense. It is for this reason that this module will begin with a brief history of research ethics and ends with a brief overview of the relevant national and international guidelines pertaining to ethical issues in research involving human participants.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

• [Clinical trials in developing countries: who should define ethics?]. Béréterbide F, Hirsch F. Béréterbide F, et al. Bull Soc Pathol Exot. 2008 Apr;101(2):102-5. Bull Soc Pathol Exot. 2008. PMID: 18543701 Review. French.
• Research involving children: regulations, review boards and reform. Gandhi R. Gandhi R. J Health Care Law Policy. 2005;8(2):264-330. J Health Care Law Policy. 2005. PMID: 16471026 Review. No abstract available.
• Rethinking research ethics. Rhodes R. Rhodes R. Am J Bioeth. 2005 Winter;5(1):7-28. doi: 10.1080/15265160590900678. Am J Bioeth. 2005. PMID: 16036651
• Module three: vulnerable/special participant populations. Lott JP. Lott JP. Dev World Bioeth. 2005 Mar;5(1):30-54. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-8847.2005.00101.x. Dev World Bioeth. 2005. PMID: 15748177
• Informed consent in clinical research: policies and practices in Singapore. Ramachandran AJ. Ramachandran AJ. J Biolaw Bus. 2003;6(1):65-75. J Biolaw Bus. 2003. PMID: 15239181
• Search in MeSH

LinkOut - more resources

Full text sources.

• Citation Manager

NCBI Literature Resources

MeSH PMC Bookshelf Disclaimer

The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited.

An Introduction to Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 30 May 2019
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Ron Iphofen 2  

491 Accesses

1 Citations

This chapter outlines the aims for the handbook. A main aim is to be a first point of contact for contemporary information, issues, and challenges in the fields of research ethics and scientific integrity. It is aimed at researchers, reviewers, and policymakers to help them pursue the best ways forward in seeking ethics and integrity in all research across disciplines, methods, subjects, participants, and contexts. The authors form a global network of scholars, practitioners, and researchers with a range of experience and insights that scope a challenging field but one that is vital to the maintenance of research standards and public confidence in science. Fact-based policymaking remains under threat from political and ideological pressures. Scientists and researchers in all disciplines and professions hold a clear responsibility to protect their subjects, research participants, and society from pressures, interests, and prejudices that risk undermining the value of their work. This overview outlines how the handbook is constructed and how readers might gain from it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Integrity: Research

Ethics and integrity in research.

Cadwalladr C (2018) Our Cambridge Analytica scoop shocked the world. But the whole truth remains elusive, The Guardian , 23rd December Accessed at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/23/cambridge-analytica-facebook-scoop-carole-cadwalladr-shocked-world-truth-still-elusive

Cadwalladr C (2019) Cambridge Analytica a year on: ‘a lesson in institutional failure’, The Guardian, 17 March, accessed at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-year-on-lesson-in-institutional-failure-christopher-wylie

Cohen S, Young J (1973) The manufacture of news: a reader. Sage, London

Google Scholar  

Collingridge D (1980) The social control of technology. Frances Pinter, London

ESOMAR (2016) https://www.esomar.org/what-we-do/code-guidelines

Evans RJ (2002) Telling lies about Hitler: the holocaust, history and the David Irving trial. Verso, London

Fuhrman J (2013) Super immunity. HarperCollins, London

Goldacre B (2001) Bad pharma. HarperCollins, London

Gross J (2018) Poland’s death camp law is designed to falsify history, Financial Times, February 6, accessed at: https://www.ft.com/content/1c183f56-0a6a-11e8-bacb-2958fde95e5e

Hutton W, Adonis A (2018) Saving Britain: how we must change to prosper in Europe. Abacus, London

Ioris AAR (2015) Cracking the nut of agribusiness and global food insecurity: in search of a critical agenda of research. Geoforum 63:1–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.05.004

Article   Google Scholar  

Iphofen R (2017) Epistemological metaphors: orders of knowledge and control in the Encyclopedist myths of cyberspace. International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies. (ISSN 2356-5926) 4(2):122–141. https://www.ijhcs.com/index.php/ijhcs/article/view/3128

Levitt SD, Dubner SJ (2005) Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything. Allen Lane, London

Levitt SD, Dubner SJ (2009) SuperFreakonomics: global cooling, patriotic prostitutes, and why suicide bombers should buy life insurance. Harper Collins, New York

Portes R (2017) Who needs experts? The London Business Review, 9th May. Accessed at: https://www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/lbsr/who-needs-experts

Posner M (2006) Social sciences under attack in the UK (1981–1983), La revue pour l’histoire du CNRS [], 7|2002, 20 October 2006, 09 January 2017. http://histoire-cnrs.revues.org/547 ; https://doi.org/10.4000/histoire-cnrs.547

Schrag Z (2010) Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Independent Research Consultant, Chatelaillon Plage, France

Ron Iphofen

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ron Iphofen .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Chatelaillon Plage, France

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Iphofen, R. (2019). An Introduction to Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. In: Iphofen, R. (eds) Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_62-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76040-7_62-1

Received : 17 March 2019

Accepted : 01 May 2019

Published : 30 May 2019

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-76040-7

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-76040-7

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Religion and Philosophy Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Humanities

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Essay Guides
• Other Essays
• How to Write an Ethics Paper: Guide & Ethical Essay Examples
• Speech Topics
• Basics of Essay Writing
• Essay Topics
• Main Academic Essays
• Research Paper Topics
• Basics of Research Paper Writing
• Miscellaneous
• Chicago/ Turabian
• Data & Statistics
• Methodology
• Admission Writing Tips
• Admission Advice
• Other Guides
• Student Life
• Studying Tips
• Understanding Plagiarism
• Academic Writing Tips
• Basics of Dissertation & Thesis Writing

• Research Paper Guides
• Formatting Guides
• Basics of Research Process
• Admission Guides
• Dissertation & Thesis Guides

How to Write an Ethics Paper: Guide & Ethical Essay Examples

Table of contents

Use our free Readability checker

An ethics essay is a type of academic writing that explores ethical issues and dilemmas. Students should evaluates them in terms of moral principles and values. The purpose of an ethics essay is to examine the moral implications of a particular issue, and provide a reasoned argument in support of an ethical perspective.

Writing an essay about ethics is a tough task for most students. The process involves creating an outline to guide your arguments about a topic and planning your ideas to convince the reader of your feelings about a difficult issue. If you still need assistance putting together your thoughts in composing a good paper, you have come to the right place. We have provided a series of steps and tips to show how you can achieve success in writing. This guide will tell you how to write an ethics paper using ethical essay examples to understand every step it takes to be proficient. In case you don’t have time for writing, get in touch with our professional essay writers for hire . Our experts work hard to supply students with excellent essays.

What Is an Ethics Essay?

An ethics essay uses moral theories to build arguments on an issue. You describe a controversial problem and examine it to determine how it affects individuals or society. Ethics papers analyze arguments on both sides of a possible dilemma, focusing on right and wrong. The analysis gained can be used to solve real-life cases. Before embarking on writing an ethical essay, keep in mind that most individuals follow moral principles. From a social context perspective, these rules define how a human behaves or acts towards another. Therefore, your theme essay on ethics needs to demonstrate how a person feels about these moral principles. More specifically, your task is to show how significant that issue is and discuss if you value or discredit it.

Purpose of an Essay on Ethics

The primary purpose of an ethics essay is to initiate an argument on a moral issue using reasoning and critical evidence. Instead of providing general information about a problem, you present solid arguments about how you view the moral concern and how it affects you or society. When writing an ethical paper, you demonstrate philosophical competence, using appropriate moral perspectives and principles.

Things to Write an Essay About Ethics On

Before you start to write ethics essays, consider a topic you can easily address. In most cases, an ethical issues essay analyzes right and wrong. This includes discussing ethics and morals and how they contribute to the right behaviors. You can also talk about work ethic, code of conduct, and how employees promote or disregard the need for change. However, you can explore other areas by asking yourself what ethics mean to you. Think about how a recent game you watched with friends started a controversial argument. Or maybe a newspaper that highlighted a story you felt was misunderstood or blown out of proportion. This way, you can come up with an excellent topic that resonates with your personal ethics and beliefs.

Ethics Paper Outline

Sometimes, you will be asked to submit an outline before writing an ethics paper. Creating an outline for an ethics paper is an essential step in creating a good essay. You can use it to arrange your points and supporting evidence before writing. It also helps organize your thoughts, enabling you to fill any gaps in your ideas. The outline for an essay should contain short and numbered sentences to cover the format and outline. Each section is structured to enable you to plan your work and include all sources in writing an ethics paper. An ethics essay outline is as follows:

• Background information
• Thesis statement
• Restate thesis statement
• Summarize key points
• Final thoughts on the topic

Using this outline will improve clarity and focus throughout your writing process.

Ethical Essay Structure

Ethics essays are similar to other essays based on their format, outline, and structure. An ethical essay should have a well-defined introduction, body, and conclusion section as its structure. When planning your ideas, make sure that the introduction and conclusion are around 20 percent of the paper, leaving the rest to the body. We will take a detailed look at what each part entails and give examples that are going to help you understand them better.  Refer to our essay structure examples to find a fitting way of organizing your writing.

Ethics Paper Introduction

An ethics essay introduction gives a synopsis of your main argument. One step on how to write an introduction for an ethics paper is telling about the topic and describing its background information. This paragraph should be brief and straight to the point. It informs readers what your position is on that issue. Start with an essay hook to generate interest from your audience. It can be a question you will address or a misunderstanding that leads up to your main argument. You can also add more perspectives to be discussed; this will inform readers on what to expect in the paper.

Ethics Essay Introduction Example

You can find many ethics essay introduction examples on the internet. In this guide, we have written an excellent extract to demonstrate how it should be structured. As you read, examine how it begins with a hook and then provides background information on an issue. 

In this example, the first sentence of the introduction makes a claim or uses a question to hook the reader.

Ethics Essay Thesis Statement

An ethics paper must contain a thesis statement in the first paragraph. Learning how to write a thesis statement for an ethics paper is necessary as readers often look at it to gauge whether the essay is worth their time.

When you deviate away from the thesis, your whole paper loses meaning. In ethics essays, your thesis statement is a roadmap in writing, stressing your position on the problem and giving reasons for taking that stance. It should focus on a specific element of the issue being discussed. When writing a thesis statement, ensure that you can easily make arguments for or against its stance.

Ethical Paper Thesis Example

Look at this example of an ethics paper thesis statement and examine how well it has been written to state a position and provide reasons for doing so:

The above thesis statement example is clear and concise, indicating that this paper will highlight the effects of dishonesty in society. Moreover, it focuses on aspects of personal and professional relationships.

Ethics Essay Body

The body section is the heart of an ethics paper as it presents the author's main points. In an ethical essay, each body paragraph has several elements that should explain your main idea. These include:

• A topic sentence that is precise and reiterates your stance on the issue.
• Evidence supporting it.
• Examples that illustrate your argument.
• A thorough analysis showing how the evidence and examples relate to that issue.
• A transition sentence that connects one paragraph to another with the help of essay transitions .

When you write an ethics essay, adding relevant examples strengthens your main point and makes it easy for others to understand and comprehend your argument. 

Body Paragraph for Ethics Paper Example

A good body paragraph must have a well-defined topic sentence that makes a claim and includes evidence and examples to support it. Look at part of an example of ethics essay body paragraph below and see how its idea has been developed:

Ethics Essay Conclusion

A concluding paragraph shares the summary and overview of the author's main arguments. Many students need clarification on what should be included in the essay conclusion and how best to get a reader's attention. When writing an ethics paper conclusion, consider the following:

• Restate the thesis statement to emphasize your position.
• Summarize its main points and evidence.
• Final thoughts on the issue and any other considerations.

You can also reflect on the topic or acknowledge any possible challenges or questions that have not been answered. A closing statement should present a call to action on the problem based on your position.

Sample Ethics Paper Conclusion

The conclusion paragraph restates the thesis statement and summarizes the arguments presented in that paper. The sample conclusion for an ethical essay example below demonstrates how you should write a concluding statement.  

In the above extract, the writer gives final thoughts on the topic, urging readers to adopt honest behavior.

How to Write an Ethics Paper?

As you learn how to write an ethics essay, it is not advised to immediately choose a topic and begin writing. When you follow this method, you will get stuck or fail to present concrete ideas. A good writer understands the importance of planning. As a fact, you should organize your work and ensure it captures key elements that shed more light on your arguments. Hence, following the essay structure and creating an outline to guide your writing process is the best approach. In the following segment, we have highlighted step-by-step techniques on how to write a good ethics paper.

1. Pick a Topic

Before writing ethical papers, brainstorm to find ideal topics that can be easily debated. For starters, make a list, then select a title that presents a moral issue that may be explained and addressed from opposing sides. Make sure you choose one that interests you. Here are a few ideas to help you search for topics:

• Review current trends affecting people.
• Think about your personal experiences.
• Study different moral theories and principles.
• Examine classical moral dilemmas.

Once you find a suitable topic and are ready, start to write your ethics essay, conduct preliminary research, and ascertain that there are enough sources to support it.

2. Conduct In-Depth Research

Once you choose a topic for your essay, the next step is gathering sufficient information about it. Conducting in-depth research entails looking through scholarly journals to find credible material. Ensure you note down all sources you found helpful to assist you on how to write your ethics paper. Use the following steps to help you conduct your research:

• Clearly state and define a problem you want to discuss.
• This will guide your research process.
• Develop keywords that match the topic.
• Begin searching from a wide perspective. This will allow you to collect more information, then narrow it down by using the identified words above.

3. Develop an Ethics Essay Outline

An outline will ease up your writing process when developing an ethic essay. As you develop a paper on ethics, jot down factual ideas that will build your paragraphs for each section. Include the following steps in your process:

• Review the topic and information gathered to write a thesis statement.
• Identify the main arguments you want to discuss and include their evidence.
• Group them into sections, each presenting a new idea that supports the thesis.
• Write an outline.
• Review and refine it.

Examples can also be included to support your main arguments. The structure should be sequential, coherent, and with a good flow from beginning to end. When you follow all steps, you can create an engaging and organized outline that will help you write a good essay.

4. Write an Ethics Essay

Once you have selected a topic, conducted research, and outlined your main points, you can begin writing an essay . Ensure you adhere to the ethics paper format you have chosen. Start an ethics paper with an overview of your topic to capture the readers' attention. Build upon your paper by avoiding ambiguous arguments and using the outline to help you write your essay on ethics. Finish the introduction paragraph with a thesis statement that explains your main position.  Expand on your thesis statement in all essay paragraphs. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence and provide evidence plus an example to solidify your argument, strengthen the main point, and let readers see the reasoning behind your stance. Finally, conclude the essay by restating your thesis statement and summarizing all key ideas. Your conclusion should engage the reader, posing questions or urging them to reflect on the issue and how it will impact them.

5. Proofread Your Ethics Essay

Proofreading your essay is the last step as you countercheck any grammatical or structural errors in your essay. When writing your ethic paper, typical mistakes you could encounter include the following:

• Spelling errors: e.g., there, they’re, their.
• Homophone words: such as new vs. knew.
• Inconsistencies: like mixing British and American words, e.g., color vs. color.
• Formatting issues: e.g., double spacing, different font types.

While proofreading your ethical issue essay, read it aloud to detect lexical errors or ambiguous phrases that distort its meaning. Verify your information and ensure it is relevant and up-to-date. You can ask your fellow student to read the essay and give feedback on its structure and quality.

Ethics Essay Examples

Writing an essay is challenging without the right steps. There are so many ethics paper examples on the internet, however, we have provided a list of free ethics essay examples below that are well-structured and have a solid argument to help you write your paper. Click on them and see how each writing step has been integrated. Ethics essay example 1

Ethics essay example 2

Ethics essay example 3

Ethics essay example 4

College ethics essay example 5

Ethics Essay Writing Tips

When writing papers on ethics, here are several tips to help you complete an excellent essay:

• Choose a narrow topic and avoid broad subjects, as it is easy to cover the topic in detail.
• Ensure you have background information. A good understanding of a topic can make it easy to apply all necessary moral theories and principles in writing your paper.
• State your position clearly. It is important to be sure about your stance as it will allow you to draft your arguments accordingly.
• When writing ethics essays, be mindful of your audience. Provide arguments that they can understand.
• Integrate solid examples into your essay. Morality can be hard to understand; therefore, using them will help a reader grasp these concepts.

Bottom Line on Writing an Ethics Paper

Creating this essay is a common exercise in academics that allows students to build critical skills. When you begin writing, state your stance on an issue and provide arguments to support your position. This guide gives information on how to write an ethics essay as well as examples of ethics papers. Remember to follow these points in your writing:

• Create an outline highlighting your main points.
• Write an effective introduction and provide background information on an issue.
• Include a thesis statement.
• Develop concrete arguments and their counterarguments, and use examples.
• Sum up all your key points in your conclusion and restate your thesis statement.

Contact our academic writing platform and have your challenge solved. Here, you can order essays and papers on any topic and enjoy top quality. 

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

You may also like

Imagine living in a world where people only lie, and honesty is becoming a scarce commodity. Indeed, modern society is facing this reality as truth and deception can no longer be separated. Technology has facilitated a quick transmission of voluminous information, whereas it's hard separating facts from opinions.

The moral implications of dishonesty are far-reaching as they undermine trust, integrity, and other foundations of society, damaging personal and professional relationships. 

Honesty is an essential component of professional integrity. In many fields, trust and credibility are crucial for professionals to build relationships and success. For example, a doctor who is dishonest about a potential side effect of a medication is not only acting unethically but also putting the health and well-being of their patients at risk. Similarly, a dishonest businessman could achieve short-term benefits but will lose their client’s trust.

In conclusion, the implications of dishonesty and the importance of honesty in our lives cannot be overstated. Honesty builds solid relationships, effective communication, and better decision-making. This essay has explored how dishonesty impacts people and that we should value honesty. We hope this essay will help readers assess their behavior and work towards being more honest in their lives.

Writing Ethical Papers: Top Tips to Ace Your Assignment

17 August, 2021

13 minutes read

Author:  Kate Smith

Writing a complex essay paper can be a tough task for any student, especially for those who do not have their skills developed well or do not have enough time for lengthy assignments. At the same time, the majority of college students need to keep their grades high to maintain their right to receive merit-based scholarships and continue their studies the next year. To help you with your ethical papers writing, we created this guide. Below, you will find out what an ethical paper is, how to structure it and write it efficiently. 

What is an Ethical Paper?

An ethics paper is a type of an argumentative assignment that deals with a certain ethical problem that a student has to describe and solve. Also, it can be an essay where a certain controversial event or concept is elaborated through an ethical lens (e.g. moral rules and principles), or a certain ethical dilemma is explained. Since ethics is connected to moral concepts and choices, a student needs to have a fair knowledge of philosophy and get ready to answer questions related to relationships, justice, professional and social duties, the origin of good and evil, etc., to write a quality paper. Also, writing an ethics paper implies that a student should process a great amount of information regarding their topic and analyze it according to paper terms.

General Aspects of Writing an Ethics Paper

Understanding the ethical papers’ features.

Every essay has differences and features that make it unique. Writing ethical papers implies that a student will use their knowledge of morality and philosophy to resolve a certain ethical dilemma or solve a situation. It can also be a paper in which a student needs to provide their reasoning on ethical or legal circumstances that follow a social issue. Finally, it can be an assignment in which an ethical concept and its application are described. On the contrary, a history essay deals with events that took place somewhen earlier, while a narrative essay is a paper where students demonstrate their storytelling skills, etc.

Defining What Type of Essay Should Be Written

Most of the time, ethical paper topics imply that a student will write an argumentative essay; however, ethics essays can also be descriptive and expository. Each of these essay types has different guidelines for writing, so be sure you know them before you start writing your papers on ethics. In case you missed this step in your ethical paper preparation stage, you would end up writing a paper that misses many important points.

Studying the Ethical Paper Guidelines

Once you get your ethical paper assignment, look through the guidelines that your instructor provided to you. If you receive them during the class, don’t hesitate to pose any questions immediately to remove any misunderstanding before writing an ethics paper outline, or ask for references that you need to use. When you are about to write your first draft, don’t rush: read the paper instructions once again to make sure you understand what is needed from you.

Paying Attention to the Paper Topic

The next thing you need to pay attention to is the ethical paper topic: once you are given one, make sure it falls into the scope of your educational course. After that, consider what additional knowledge may be needed to elaborate on your topic and think about what courses of your program could be helpful for it. Once you are done, read through your topic again to recheck whether you understand your assignment right.

Understanding the Notions of Ethical Arguments, Ethical and Legal Implications, and Ethical Dilemma

Last but not least, another important factor is that a student has to understand the basic terms of the assignment to write a high-quality paper. Ethical arguments are a set of moral rules that are used to defend your position on an ethical issue stated in your essay topic. We refer to ethical versus legal implications when we think about the compensation for certain ethical dilemma outcomes and whether it should be a moral punishment or legal judgment. An ethical dilemma itself refers to a problem or situation which makes an individual doubt what position to take: e.g, abortion, bribery, corruption, etc.

Writing Outline and Structure of an Ethics Paper

Every essay has a structure that makes it a solid piece of writing with straight reasoning and argumentation, and an ethics paper is not an exclusion. This paper has an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Below, we will describe how each part of ethical papers should be organized and what information they should contain.

First comes the introduction. It is the opening part of your paper which helps a reader to get familiar with your topic and understand what your paper will be about. Therefore, it should contain some information on your ethics paper topics and a thesis statement, which is a central statement of your paper.

The essay body is the most substantive part of your essay where all the reasoning and arguments should be presented. Each paragraph should contain an argument that supports or contradicts your thesis statement and pieces of evidence to support your position. Pick at least three arguments to make your position clear in your essay, and then your paper will be considered well-structured.

The third part of an ethics paper outline is a conclusion, which is a finishing essay part. Its goal is to wrap up the whole essay and make the author’s position clear for the last time. The thoughtful formulation in this essay part should be especially clear and concise to demonstrate the writer’s ability to make conclusions and persuade readers.

Also, don’t forget to include the works cited page after your writing. It should mention all the reference materials that you used in your paper in the order of appearance or in the alphabetical one. This page should be formatted according to the assigned formatting style. Most often, the most frequently used format for ethical papers is APA.

20 Examples of Ethical Paper Topics

• Are there any issues in the 21st century that we can consider immoral and why?
• What is corporate ethics?
• Why is being selfish no longer an issue in 2023?
• Euthanasia: pros and cons
• Marijuana legalization: should it be allowed all over the world?
• Is abortion an ethical issue nowadays?
• Can we invent a universal religion appropriate for all?
• Is the church necessary to pray to God?
• Can we forgive infidelity and should we do it?
• How to react if you are witnessing high school bullying?
• What are the ways to respond to a family abusing individual?
• How to demand your privacy protection in a digital world?
• The history of the American ethical thought
• Can war be ethical and what should the conflicting sides do to make it possible?
• Ethical issues of keeping a zoo in 2023
• Who is in charge of controlling the world’s population?
• How to achieve equality in the world’s rich and poor gap?
• Is science ethical?
• How ethical is genetic engineering?
• Why many countries refuse to go back to carrying out the death penalty?

Ethical Papers Examples

If you still have no idea about how to write an ethics paper, looking through other students’ successful examples is always a good idea. Below, you can find a relevant ethics paper example that you can skim through and see how to build your reasoning and argumentation in your own paper.

https://www.currentschoolnews.com/education-news/ethics-essay-examples/

https://sites.psu.edu/academy/2014/11/18/essay-2-personal-ethics-and-decision-making/

Ethical Papers Writing Tips

Choose a topic that falls into the ethics course program.

In case you were not given the ethics paper topic, consider choosing it yourself. To do that, brainstorm the ethical issues that fascinate you enough to do research. List all these issues on a paper sheet and then cross out those that are too broad or require expertise that you don’t have. The next step you need to take is to choose three or four ethical topics for papers from the list and try to do a quick search online to find out whether these topics are elaborated enough to find sources and reference materials on them. Last, choose one topic that you like the most and find the most relevant one in terms of available data for reference.

Do your research

Once the topic is chosen and organized, dive deeper into it to find the most credible, reliable, and trusted service. Use your university library, online scientific journals, documentaries, and other sources to get the information from. Remember to take notes while working with every new piece of reference material to not forget the ideas that you will base your argumentation on.

Follow the guidelines for a paper outline

During the preparation for your ethical paper and the process of writing it, remember to follow your professor’s instructions (e.g. font, size, spacing, citation style, etc.). If you neglect them, your grade for the paper will decrease significantly.

Write the essay body first

Do not rush to start writing your ethics papers from the very beginning; to write a good essay, you need to have your outline and thesis statement first. Then, go to writing body paragraphs to demonstrate your expertise on the issue you are writing about. Remember that one supporting idea should be covered in one paragraph and should be followed by the piece of evidence that confirms it.

Make sure your introduction and conclusion translate the same message

After your essay body is done, write a conclusion and an introduction for your paper. The main tip regarding these ethics paper parts is that you should make them interrelated: your conclusion has to restate your introduction but not repeat it. Also, a conclusion should wrap up your writing and make it credible for the audience.

Add citations

Every top-quality paper has the works cited page and citations to demonstrate that the research on the topic has been carried out. Therefore, do not omit this point when formatting your paper: add all the sources to the works cited page and pay attention to citing throughout the text. The latter should be done according to the formatting style indicated in your instructions.

Edit your paper

Last but not least is the editing and proofreading stage that you need to carry out before you submit your paper to your instructor. Consider keeping your first draft away from sight for a day or two to have a rest, and then go back to check it for errors and redundant phrases. Don’t rush to change anything immediately after finishing your writing since you are already tired and less focused, so some mistakes may be missed.

Writing Help by Handmadewriting

If you feel that you need help with writing an ethics paper in view of its chellnging nature, you can contact us and send an order through a respective button. You can add your paper details by following all steps of the order placing process that you will find on the website. Once your order is placed, we will get back to you as soon as possible. You will be able to contact your essay writer and let them know all your wishes regarding your ethical paper.

Our writers have expertise in writing ethical papers including, so you don’t need to worry about the quality of the essay that you will receive. Your assignment will be delivered on time and at a reasonable price. Note that urgent papers will cost slightly more than assignments with a postponed deadline, so do not wait too long to make your order. We will be glad to assist you with your writing and guarantee 24/7 support until you receive your paper.

Lastly, remember that no paper can be written overnight, so if you intend to complete your paper in a few hours, you can end up writing only a first draft with imperfections. If you have only half a day before your task is due, feel free to place an urgent order, and we will deliver it in just three hours.

A life lesson in Romeo and Juliet taught by death

Due to human nature, we draw conclusions only when life gives us a lesson since the experience of others is not so effective and powerful. Therefore, when analyzing and sorting out common problems we face, we may trace a parallel with well-known book characters or real historical figures. Moreover, we often compare our situations with […]

Ethical Research Paper Topics

Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]

Art Research Paper Topics

Students obtaining degrees in fine art and art & design programs most commonly need to write a paper on art topics. However, this subject is becoming more popular in educational institutions for expanding students’ horizons. Thus, both groups of receivers of education: those who are into arts and those who only get acquainted with art […]

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Write an Ethics Paper

Last Updated: May 16, 2023 Approved

This article was co-authored by Emily Listmann, MA . Emily Listmann is a Private Tutor and Life Coach in Santa Cruz, California. In 2018, she founded Mindful & Well, a natural healing and wellness coaching service. She has worked as a Social Studies Teacher, Curriculum Coordinator, and an SAT Prep Teacher. She received her MA in Education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education in 2014. Emily also received her Wellness Coach Certificate from Cornell University and completed the Mindfulness Training by Mindful Schools. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 100% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 253,028 times.

Writing an ethics paper can present some unique challenges. For the most part, the paper will be written like any other essay or research paper, but there are some key differences. An ethics paper will generally require you to argue for a specific position rather than simply present an overview of an issue. Arguing this position will also involve presenting counterarguments and then refuting them. Finally, ensuring that your reasoning is valid and sound and citing the appropriate sources will allow you to write an ethics paper that will satisfy any critic.

Getting Started

• What is the main objective of the assignment?
• What specific things do you need to do in order to get a good grade?
• How much time will you need to complete the assignment?

• For example, you might begin with a topic of "ethical problems of euthanasia." This is very broad, and so forms a good starting point.

• Remember, you may refine your topic even further after you have begun writing your paper. This is perfectly acceptable, and is part of the advantage of writing a paper in multiple drafts.

• For example, you might include issues such as: "describing specifically what is meant by 'extreme, constant pain.' "Other issues might include, "the rights and responsibilities of physicians regarding euthanasia," and "voluntary versus involuntary euthanasia."
• After making this list, group or order them in some way. For example, you might imagine yourself taking the position that euthanasia is acceptable in this circumstance, and you could order the issues based on how you would draw supporting evidence and build your claim.

Developing Your Thesis Statement

• In your thesis, you should take a specific stand on the ethical issue. For example, you might write your thesis as follows: "Euthanasia is an immoral option even when patients are in constant, extreme pain."

• For example, this thesis statement is ambiguous: "Patients should not undergo euthanasia even when suffering constant, extreme pain." With how it's worded, it's unclear whether you mean that euthanasia should be outlawed or that it is morally wrong.
• Clarify your position to create a strong thesis: "Euthanasia is an immoral option even when patients are in constant, extreme pain."

• For example, in the thesis, "It is immoral for patients to choose euthanasia even when suffering constant, extreme pain," the moral burden is on the patient's actions. The author of this thesis would need to make sure to focus on the patient in the essay and not to focus on the moral implications of the doctor's actions.
• If the thesis you have written does not reflect what you want to argue in your paper, start over and draft a new thesis statement.

Conducting Research

• Ask a librarian for help finding sources if you are not sure how to access your library’s databases.
• A simple way to strengthen your argument through citations is by incorporating some relevant statistics. Simple statistics can have a major impact if presented after you've made a bold assertion. For instance, you may claim that the patient's family members would be unduly traumatized if the patient chose euthanasia, and then cite a university study that catalogued a majority of families reporting trauma or stress in this situation.
• Another helpful citation is one in which the broad issue itself is discussed. For instance, you might cite a prominent ethicist's position on your issue to strengthen your position.

• The author and his or her credentials. Does the source provide the author’s first and last name and credentials (M.D., Ph.D, etc.)? Steer clear of sources without an author attached to them or that lack credentials when credentials seem crucial, such as in an article about a medical subject. [3] X Research source
• Type of publication. Is the publication a book, journal, magazine, or website? Is the publisher an academic or educational institution? Does the publisher have a motive other than education? Who is the intended audience? Ask yourself these questions to determine if this source is reliable. For example, a university or government website might be reliable, but a site that sells items may be biased toward what they're selling.
• Citations. How well has the author researched his or her topic? Check the author’s bibliography or works cited page. If the author has not provided any sources, then you may want to look for a different source. [4] X Research source
• Bias. Has the author presented an objective, well-reasoned account of the topic? If the sources seems skewed towards one side of the argument, then it may not be a good choice. [5] X Research source
• Publication date. Does this source present the most up to date information on the subject? If the sources is outdated, then try to find something more recent. [6] X Research source

• To check for comprehension after reading a source, try to summarize the source in your own words and generate a response to the author’s main argument. If you cannot do one or both of these things, then you may need to read the source again.
• Creating notecards for your sources may also help you to organize your ideas. Write the citation for the source on the top of the notecard, then write a brief summary and response to the article in the lined area of the notecard. [7] X Research source

• Remember to indicate when you have quoted a source in your notes by putting it into quotation marks and including information about the source such as the author’s name, article or book title, and page number. [8] X Research source

Writing and Revising Your Ethics Paper

• To expand on your outline, write a couple of sentences describing and/or explaining each of the items in your outline. Include a relevant source for each item as well.

• Check your outline to see if you have covered each of these items in this order. If not, you will need to add a section and use your sources to help inform that section.

• In your first draft, focus on the quality of the argument, rather than the quality of the prose. If the argument is structured well and each conclusion is supported by your reasoning and by cited evidence, you will be able to focus on the writing itself on the second draft.
• Unless major revisions are needed to your argument (for example, if you have decided to change your thesis statement), use the second draft to strengthen your writing. Focus on sentence lengths and structures, vocabulary, and other aspects of the prose itself.

• Try to allow yourself a few days or even a week to revise your paper before it is due. If you do not allow yourself enough time to revise, then you will be more prone to making simple mistakes and your grade may suffer as a result. [10] X Research source

• Does my paper fulfill the requirements of the assignment? How might it score according to the rubric provided by my instructor?
• What is your main point? How might you clarify your main point?
• Who is your audience? Have you considered their needs and expectations?
• What is your purpose? Have you accomplished your purpose with this paper?
• How effective is your evidence? How might your strengthen your evidence?
• Does every part of your paper relate back to your thesis? How might you improve these connections?
• Is anything confusing about your language or organization? How might your clarify your language or organization?
• Have you made any errors with grammar, punctuation, or spelling? How can you correct these errors?
• What might someone who disagrees with you say about your paper? How can you address these opposing arguments in your paper? [11] X Research source

• As you read your paper out loud, highlight or circle any errors and revise as necessary before printing your final copy.

Community Q&A

• If at all possible, have someone else read through your paper before submitting it. They can provide valuable feedback on style as well as catching grammatical errors. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 1

Things You'll Need

• Word-processing software
• Access to your library’s databases
• Pencil and highlighter

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/688/1/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/553/03/
• ↑ http://guides.jwcc.edu/content.php?pid=65900&sid=538553
• ↑ http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/notes-from-research
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/658/05/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/561/05/

About This Article

To write an ethics paper, start by researching the issue you want to write about and evaluating your sources for potential bias and trustworthiness. Next, develop a thesis statement that takes a specific stand on the issue and create an outline that includes the key arguments. As you write, avoid using words like “could” or “might,” which will seem ambiguous to the reader. Once you’ve finished your paper, take a break for a few days so your mind is clear, then go back and revise what you wrote, focusing on the quality of your argument. For tips from our Education reviewer on how to annotate source material as you research, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Kristal Okeke

Apr 3, 2017

Did this article help you?

Tumelo Ratladi

Aug 9, 2016

Timela Crutcher

Dec 11, 2016

Aug 29, 2016

Jimm Hopper

Apr 18, 2018

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter

1st Edition

Research and Publication Ethics An Introduction

• Taylor & Francis eBooks (Institutional Purchase) Opens in new tab or window

Description

This book provides a comprehensive overview of research and publication ethics and guides young researchers on how to conduct ethical research and publish their work responsibly. It presents an understanding of ethical practices in research and how they apply to research and publication by examining the different ethical theories and their application. The book also discusses the different factors influencing ethical decision-making and probes into the ethical issues that can arise in the research process. It explores the different forms of scientific misconduct, such as data fabrication and falsification, plagiarism, and conflicts of interest, and provides strategies for ethical research. The book also details the impact of scientific misconduct on research and publication and the strategies for preventing and detecting misconduct. Aligning to the belief that promoting ethical research practices is essential for advancing science and society, this book will be helpful for young researchers, scholars, aspiring researchers, and academicians interested in ethical research practices in multiple disciplines.

Table of Contents

Nimit Chowdhary , BE(Mech) MBA, PhD (Management), is a Professor and Head at the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has more than 30 years of postgraduate teaching and research experience. He has been a full professor for close to 17 years, serving in all the country's regions. He has also been a professor at Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) in Mexico and Shaoxing University, China. He has also taught at the University of Girona, Spain; the University of Gotland, Sweden; and GEA Academy, Slovenia. Recently, he was associated as adjunct faculty with Arizona State University, USA. He has received awards and accolades in and outside of India for his academic contributions. He is a recipient of the AICTE Career Award for Young Teachers; SIDA Fellowship, Sweden; Guest Scholarship, Sweden; Linnaeus Palme Exchange Programme Grants, Sweden; PIMG Research Excellence Award, Gwalior; and Scholars’ Grant (EMTM), Erasmus Mundus, Europe, among others. Recently he was chosen for the prestigious LEAP programme at Oxford University. His research has focused on tourism marketing, destination, services, and entrepreneurship. He is a referred researcher in many international journals and has researched for UGC, ICSSR, AICTE and MoT-GoI worth around Rs. 50 Lakhs. He has supervised 23 PhDs, authored 14 books (including those with Taylor & Francis, Macmillan, Goodfellow, and Sage), edited six books (including with Taylor & Francis and Emerald), and contributed more than 225 papers. Sunayana , MBA, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Management Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia’s Department of Management Studies. She has earned a PhD in Management Studies from Jiwaji University in Gwalior, MP, and an MBA from Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati University in Ajmer. At the Government Engineering College in Jhalawar, Rajasthan, she previously held the position of lecturer. She has been a teacher for more than 14 years. She has given talks at numerous conferences in India and overseas and published more than 20 papers in reputable national and international publications. She teaches cross-cultural issues, training and development, strategic management, and business ethics. Her areas of research interest are tourism, strategic management, and business ethics. Monika Prakash , MBA, MCom, PhD, is a Professor and Head at the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM), Noida. Earlier, she headed the IITTM Noida, IITTM Nellore and IITTM Gwalior as the Nodal Officer. She has over 25 years of university-level teaching experience and has been a full professor since 2013. She leads the prestigious Incredible India Tourist Facilitator Programme (IITFP) and is also the Nodal Officer of the Central Nodal Agency for Sustainable Tourism (CNA-ST) of the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. In addition, she is a researcher, trainer, and academic administrator. She has published more than 45 papers and ten books. She has supervised doctoral research and led funded research from the Ministry of Tourism and ICSSR, among others. She has presented papers and moderated/chaired national and international conference sessions. She has travelled extensively in and outside of the country.

About VitalSource eBooks

VitalSource is a leading provider of eBooks.

• Access your materials anywhere, at anytime.
• Customer preferences like text size, font type, page color and more.
• Take annotations in line as you read.

Multiple eBook Copies

This eBook is already in your shopping cart. If you would like to replace it with a different purchasing option please remove the current eBook option from your cart.

Book Preview

The country you have selected will result in the following:

• Product pricing will be adjusted to match the corresponding currency.
• The title Perception will be removed from your cart because it is not available in this region.

How to Write an Ethics Paper or Essay With Tips and Examples

• Icon Calendar 8 June 2024
• Icon Page 3974 words
• Icon Clock 18 min read

An ethics essay is one type of essays that students write to present their ideas about what is good or bad, right or wrong, white or black, and approved or prohibited in terms of various theories, approaches, techniques, practices, actions, behaviors, responsibilities, morals, results, obligations, virtues, and others, developing essential writing skills. When writing an ethics paper, students should understand that such an essay differs from other assignments, and it focuses on elaborating on issues with ethical or moral implications in philosophy. Basically, this elaboration entails writers arguing for a stand on an ethical or moral issue. Moreover, when writing such a composition, students should follow a basic essay structure: introduction-body-conclusion. In each of these sections, learners should capture critical elements, such as a thesis statement in the introduction part, topic sentences in body paragraphs, and a thesis restatement in the conclusion part. Hence, students need to learn how to write a good ethics paper or essay to demonstrate their knowledge of philosophy by using ethical and moral sides of an issue.

General Aspects

Academic writing is a broad discipline that exposes students to critical skills, including interpretation, explanation, reflection, and analysis of many essay topics. Basically, essay writing is one of the academic exercises that enable students to build these skills. One of the essay types that students write is a research paper on ethics. In this case, writers begin a research paper about ethics by introducing an assigned topic, explaining its significance, and presenting a clear thesis statement. When writing ethics essays in philosophy, students address issues related to morality, such as aspects of right and wrong or good and bad. Then, such concepts of ethics and morals underlie the importance of the right behaviors. In various settings, such as workplaces, humans establish codes of ethics and conduct to guide behavior. Therefore, when writing such compositions, a student’s focus is on how humans embrace or disregard good morals in society.

What Is an Ethics Paper and Its Purpose

According to its definition, an ethics paper is a written work that examines moral issues, ethical dilemmas, and contradicting cases, exploring questions of right and wrong. The primary purpose of writing an ethics paper is to examine and analyze various ethical theories, apply them to real-life situations, and present well-reasoned arguments to support a specific viewpoint on an author (Baron et al., 2014). Through this process, such a work aims to stimulate critical thinking and ethical reasoning analysis, helping people to understand different moral perspectives and refine their own beliefs. By examining the lens of ethical principles and their applications, such essays contribute to academic discourse, guide professional practices, and enhance moral awareness. At the individual level, people learn how to reflect on their values and the implications of their choices (Gorichanaz, 2023). Besides, an ethics paper typically includes an introduction with a thesis statement, a literature review, arguments and counterarguments, an analysis, and a conclusion. In terms of pages and words, the length of such a work can vary based on specific course requirements, topic’s complexity, guidelines provided by the instructor or institution, and academic levels:

High School

• Pages: 2-5 pages
• Words: 500-1250 words

College (Undergraduate)

• Pages: 5-10 pages
• Words: 1250-2500 words

University (Advanced Undergraduate or Honors)

• Pages: 10-15 pages
• Words: 2500-3750 words

Master’s

• Pages: 20-30 pages
• Words: 5000-7500 words
• Pages: 30-50 pages or more
• Words: 7500-12,500+ words

1. Defining Features or Characteristics

Like all other types of papers , an ethics essay has unique features that define it as an academic text. Writing ethics involves explaining and evaluating moral principles, applying them to specific situations, and providing reasoned arguments supported by evidence (Stichler, 2014). To some extent, these features influence an essay structure of a paper. Basically, the first feature is proof of the importance of a topic. In this case, students show this importance by constructing essay topics as challenging issues facing society, hence talking about it. Then, the second characteristic is a thesis statement, and learners in philosophy formulate them to shed light on a topic. Further on, the third feature is arguments that support a thesis, and the fourth characteristic is possible counterarguments. Moreover, the fifth feature is a rebuttal, where writers insist on the strengths of their arguments while acknowledging possible or real counterarguments. In turn, the sixth characteristic is a sum-up of an ethics paper. Here, authors emphasize a thesis statement by justifying arguments in their favor that they provide in a written document. Therefore, to write a professional ethics paper, people clearly define a specific moral issue, use relevant ethical theories, provide reasoned arguments, and cite scholarly sources (Stichler, 2014). In turn, an argument can be considered as an ethical argument if this statement meets certain criteria that distinguish it from other types of claims. Here are key characteristics that make an argument an ethical argument:

• Moral Principles: The argument is based on moral principles or ethical theories and involves considerations of right and wrong, justice, fairness, duty, virtue, or other good/bad concepts.
• Normative Statements: Moral claims include normative statements, which prescribe how people ought to act rather than merely describing how they do act.
• Reasoned Justifications: The statement provides reasoned justifications for its claims, relying on logical reasoning rather than emotional appeals or mere opinions.
• Universalizability: Philosophical approaches often aim for universalizability, meaning the principles applied in the argument should be applicable to all similar situations, not just the specific case being discussed.
• Consideration of Stakeholders: The argument takes into account the impact on all relevant stakeholders, considering how the actions or policies will affect different individuals or groups.
• Ethical Theories and Principles: The claim often references established moral theories and principles, such as utilitarianism (maximizing overall happiness), deontology (duty-based ethics), virtue ethics (focusing on character), or rights-based approaches.
• Consistency: Strong arguments strive for consistency, ensuring moral principles applied are coherent and do not lead to contradictory conclusions in different situations.
• Moral Language: The sentence uses moral language, such as “right,” “wrong,” “ought,” “duty,” “rights,” “justice,” “virtue,” and others, to articulate its points.
• Impartiality: It often requires impartiality, and key decisions should not be biased by personal interests but should consider the perspective of others affected.
• Ethical Reflection: The claim involves ethical reflection, encouraging critical examination of moral beliefs and assumptions to arrive at a well-reasoned conclusion.

2. How Does an Ethics Paper Differ From Other Essays

There are many types of essays that students write under a discipline of philosophy. Basically, each essay type has unique characteristics, and they distinguish it from other papers. For an ethics essay, these characteristics include addressing a moral issue, using an ethical lens to make arguments regarding a controversial matter, or explaining a dilemma (Jansen & Ellerton, 2018). Ideally, this type of paper focuses on elaborating on ethics and morality. In contrast, a narrative essay focuses on telling the writer’s story, while an informative essay focuses on educating the audience concerning a topic. Moreover, while some papers, like narrative or college application essays, utilize the first-person language, an ethics essay takes a formal approach to a third-person language. As a result, a good ethics paper clearly defines a particular moral problem, applies relevant ethical theories, presents balanced arguments, and provides well-reasoned conclusions.

3. How to Know if Students Need to Write an Ethics Paper or Essay

Generally, before students write some types of papers, they first consider the department or tutor’s requirements. Basically, these requirements can provide direct instructions, including a research topic, an essay outline, or a grading rubric (Baron et al., 2014). In this case, the latter helps students to understand the basic expectations of educational departments or tutors. Therefore, when students do not get direct instructions about their ethics topics, they can always know what type of essay they need to write by reading grading essay rubric requirements. For ethics papers, such prompts require students to take a stand on an issue of profound ethical or moral implications, such as fraud. In turn, key elements that tell students that they need to write an ethics paper or essay include providing an ethical argument, elaborating on a moral dilemma, or expounding on ethical and legal implications.

4. How Do Students Know if They Need to Write an Ethics Paper by Looking at an Essay Topic

Students consider the instructions given by departments or tutors when writing essays. Basically, these instructions provide directions on essay topics, and students should address them when writing their papers. When writing an ethics paper, students can know that they need to write this type of essay by looking at the department or tutor’s topic. Moreover, this ethics topic may require people to provide valid arguments concerning a matter, elaborate on a moral dilemma, or state whether an issue is ethical or legal (Deaton, 2019). In turn, a central message of a topic should require students to address an issue via a philosophical lens. As a result, to write an ethical dilemma paper, people describe a specific moral problem, discuss conflicting values, analyze possible solutions using philosophical theories, and conclude with a reasoned decision.

5. The Meaning of an Ethical Argument, Ethical Dilemma, and Ethical v. Legal Implications

Key elements that define an ethics paper include ethical arguments, moral dilemmas, and ethical and legal implications. For example, the term “ethical arguments” refers to a concept of taking a stand on an issue with moral implications and defending it (Baines, 2009). In this case, writers make relevant arguments to support their perspectives on an issue raising moral questions, such as fraud. Then, the term “ethical dilemma” refers to a situation where individuals find themselves whenever they face an issue raising ethical or moral questions, such as bribery (Baines, 2009). Moreover, authors are torn between two options, with one option having severe moral implications. In turn, the term “ethical versus legal implications” refers to a situation where a writer has to decide whether an issue, such as bribery, needs ethical or legal redress (Baines, 2009). Hence, ethical dilemmas mean the complexity of making moral decisions and require a balance between conflicting values and principles, while some examples of them are:

Examples of Ethical & Moral Themes

• Ethical Dimensions of Artificial Intelligence: Concerns and Potential Solutions
• The Ethics and Legality of Child Adoption
• The Pros and Cons of Taking Vitamin Supplements
• Plastic Surgery and the Pursuit of Beauty
• Human Cloning: Is It Ethical?
• Death Penalty: Key Pros and Cons
• Abortion as an Intervention Against Teen Pregnancy
• Is Voting a Moral or Legal Duty?
• Does Driving an Electric Car Indicate Responsible Citizenship?
• Social Media Use and Privacy
• Should Schools Enact Anti-Bullying Policies?
• Does Social Media Use Enhance or Undermine Socialization?
• Combating Music Piracy: Should Governments Get Involved?
• Organic Foods vs. Processed Foods: Which Is Healthier?
• Global Warming and the Extinction of Animal and Plant Species
• Should Politics and Church Separate?
• Is It Justified to Bribe to Avoid a Legal Penalty?
• Should Nurses Be Allowed to Assist Terminally Ill Patients to End Their Lives?
• Corporate Fraud: Who Should Take Responsibility?
• Is Corporate Social Responsibility a Humanitarian or Commercial Concept?

Ethics Paper Format

Note: This ethics paper format is general, while some sections can be added, deleted, or combined with each other depending on the scope, requirements, instructions, and purpose.

Ethics Paper Outline

Like any other essay, an ethics paper follows a specific structure that underscores its outline. Basically, this structure comprises three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion. When writing these sections, students must ensure they address all the essential defining features stated previously in their ethics essays or papers. When doing so, writers should confirm that the introduction and conclusion sections take 10 percent of the total word count of an ethics paper or essay, while the body, which is the main text, should be 80 percent. Hence, an essay outline of an ethics paper should look as below:

I. Introduction

A. Hook sentence. B. Background information on an ethical dilemma. C. Writer’s claim – A thesis statement covering a moral part.

II. Body Paragraphs

A. Argument

• state a position of an argument;
• support this position with evidence;
• explain how this evidence is right toward this argument and evidence;
• conclude why this argument is valid.

B. Counterargument

• provide a counterargument to a position in the first body paragraph;
• include evidence that supports this counterargument, being opposite to an argument in the previous section;
• explain how this counterargument and evidence in this paragraph are correct by using an opposite perspective;
• finish why this counterargument is valid for this case.

C. Rebuttal

• define the weaknesses of a counterargument;
• cover credible evidence that supports such weaknesses;
• write how these weaknesses make a counterargument irrelevant;
• end with a statement that explains why a counterargument is not valid compared to an argument.

III. Conclusion

A. Restate a thesis. B. Sum up on the argument, counterargument, and rebuttal. C. State a paper’s final claim with a moral lesson.

Explaining Each Section of an Ethics Paper Structure

When writing the introduction section, authors of an ethics paper should be brief and concise. Here, students should inform the audience about the purpose of writing by accurately expounding on an ethical issue they intend to address (Baron et al., 2014). In essence, this aspect means highlighting their stand concerning an issue. Moreover, formulating a thesis statement helps to accomplish this goal. In this case, writers frame their minds and structure their compositions via the use of arguments, and they defend their stand on an issue of profound moral implications. Notably, when writing the introduction part, which signals the start of an ethical paper or essay, learners should begin with a hook to grab the readers’ attention. This sentence can be a popular misconception or a question that writers intend to answer when writing an ethics paper or essay. In turn, the next examples of starters can help writers to begin their ethical analysis and set the stage for a thorough exploration of the topic:

• Moral implications of [issue] are complex and involve different considerations, such as … .
• One of the most pressing ethical questions surrounding [issue] is whether … .
• From the perspective of deontological ethics, [action] can be viewed as … .
• A utilitarian approach to [issue] would suggest … .
• The principle of autonomy plays a crucial role in the debate over [issue], as it emphasizes … .
• In considering the ethical dimensions of [issue], it is important to weigh the potential benefits against … .
• The controversy over [issue] highlights the tension between [value 1] and [value 2] … .
• Philosophical lenses, such as [theory 1], [theory 2], and [theory 3] provide a framework for understanding [issue] by focusing on … .
• The debate over [issue] raises significant moral concerns, including … .
• Examining [issue] through the lens of [ethical theory] reveals … .

II. Body Section

When writing the body of an ethics paper or essay, students should use a thesis statement as a reference point. In other words, they should use a thesis statement to come up with several ideas or arguments in defense of their stand on an assigned ethical or moral issue identified in the introduction part (Deaton, 2019). Basically, rules of academic writing dictate that students should begin each body paragraph with a topic sentence, whose purpose is to introduce a claim or idea they intend to elaborate on in the section. Then, it is advisable that, when writing the body section, learners should use different paragraphs to separate arguments logically. Moreover, students should follow a sandwich rule when writing every body paragraph of an ethics paper or essay. In turn, such a paragraph structure means providing a claim, supporting it with evidence, explaining its relevance to the paper’s thesis, and ending with a transition sentence to be connected with the next paragraph logically.

The conclusion part is the last section of an ethics paper. In particular, an ethics essay should capture several themes in this section. Firstly, writers should restate a thesis statement. Secondly, they should summarize the main points made in body paragraphs. Further on, this aspect means summarizing the writer’s arguments for their stands toward an issue with moral implications (Baines, 2009). In turn, authors should reiterate the paper’s topic and state why it was essential to address an ethical or moral issue. Besides, students need to avoid providing new information in this section.

Example of an Ethics Paper

Topic – Euthanasia: Is It Ethical?

I. Introduction Sample

Terminal illness is a condition of profound pain and suffering for those affected, including the patients and their families. Today, some scientists support euthanasia, the aspect of assisting terminally ill patients in ending their lives. While health professionals should do everything to help their patients to avoid suffering, assisting them in ending their lives is unethical and immoral.

II. Examples of Body Paragraphs

Life is a sacred thing, and no human being has any justification for ending it, regardless of whose it is. For example, the premise of a debate about euthanasia, which refers to assisted suicide, is the prevalence of terminal illnesses that subject individuals to a life of pain, suffering, and dependence. Without any hope of recovery, some individuals have opted to end their lives with the help of their loved ones or health professionals. While there is every reason to empathize with these individuals’ fate, there is no basis for supporting their desire to end their lives. In turn, the sanctity of life does not allow human beings to end life, no matter the circumstances.

If there seems to be no hope of recovery, ending life is counterproductive in an age of significant scientific and technological advancements. Basically, scientists are working round the clock to find cures for incurable diseases that have proven to be a threat to humanity. For example, today, smallpox is no longer a threat because a cure is found (Persson, 2010). Therefore, the fact that there may be no cure for a disease today does not mean that there will not be a cure tomorrow. Naturally, human beings rely on hope to overcome moments of darkness, such as a terminal illness diagnosis. Nonetheless, it is the effort of the scientific community that has always brought hope to humanity. In this light, there is no ethical or moral justification for euthanasia.

Euthanasia is not only a solution to terminal illness but also a sign of hopelessness and despair. When patients take the root of assisted suicide, it means that they give up on looking for alternatives in dealing with a problem. In this case, the fact that a terminal illness does not have a cure does not imply that it cannot be managed. Moreover, individuals who love a terminally ill person, such as family members and friends, hope to spend more time with them before an inevitable time happens. As such, terminally ill patients should use their families and health professionals to live longer. In essence, this aspect reflects true humanity – standing firm and determining amid of insurmountable odds. On that truth alone, euthanasia is an idea that deserves no thought or attention.

III. Conclusion Sample

There is nothing more devastating than a terminal illness diagnosis. Basically, such news punctures the hope of many individuals, families, and communities. Nonetheless, patients should not lose hope and despair to the point of wanting to end their lives because of being diagnosed with a terminal illness. Because life is sacred and there is always a higher probability of medical breakthroughs in an age of scientific and technological advancement, euthanasia is an unethical and immoral solution to a terminal illness.

Persson, S. (2010). Smallpox, syphilis, and salvation: Medical breakthroughs that changed the world . East Gosford, New South Wales: Exisle Publishing.

Essay writing is an essential academic exercise that enables students to develop writing skills. When writing an ethics paper or essay, students focus on taking a stand on an issue with ethical or moral implications. In this case, writers create a thesis statement that expresses their perspective on a moral issue, which can be an ethical dilemma. In the main text, authors provide arguments that defend their thesis statements. Hence, when writing an ethics paper or essay, students should master the following tips:

• Develop the introduction-body-conclusion paper outline.
• Introduce an assigned topic briefly and concisely in the introduction section.
• Write a strong thesis statement covering a moral problem.
• Use separate body paragraphs to introduce and defend arguments.
• Ensure to provide a counterargument and a rebuttal.
• Restate a central thesis statement in the conclusion section, including a summary of the main points (arguments that defend the paper’s thesis).

Baines, B. K. (2009). Ethical wills: Putting your values on paper . Da Capo Press.

Baron, P., Poxon, B., & Jones, L. (2014). How to write ethics and philosophy essays . PushMe Press.

Deaton, M. (2019). Ethics in a nutshell: The philosopher’s approach to morality in 100 pages . Notaed Press.

Gorichanaz, T. (2023). A compass for what matters: Applying virtue ethics to information behavior. Open Information Science , 7 (1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2022-0151

Jansen, M., & Ellerton, P. (2018). How to read an ethics paper. Journal of Medical Ethics , 44 (12), 810–813. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2018-104997

Stichler, J. F. (2014). The ethics of research, writing, and publication. HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal , 8 (1), 15–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/193758671400800103

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

How to Cite a Podcast in APA 7 With Schemes and Examples

• Icon Calendar 15 October 2020
• Icon Page 733 words

How to Cite a Podcast in MLA 9 With Examples and Illustrations

• Icon Calendar 13 October 2020
• Icon Page 778 words

Professional Ethics Research Paper Topics

This page provides a comprehensive list of professional ethics research paper topics , offering students studying ethics a valuable resource for their academic endeavors. Delve into the diverse world of professional ethics, explore its significance, and discover a wide array of research paper topics that can enrich your studies. Whether you seek to understand the ethical dimensions of various professions or wish to analyze ethical challenges in professional settings, this page is your gateway to a wealth of knowledge in the field of professional ethics. Additionally, learn about the writing services offered by iResearchNet, which can help you excel in your research paper assignments. Explore this page and take the first step toward crafting a compelling research paper on professional ethics.

100 Professional Ethics Research Paper Topics

Professional ethics stands as a cornerstone in the realm of ethical studies, guiding individuals and organizations toward responsible and morally sound conduct within their respective fields. It is through the lens of professional ethics that we scrutinize the behavior, values, and dilemmas that arise within various professions. This page provides an invaluable resource for students delving into the intricate world of professional ethics. By exploring the extensive list of research paper topics curated here, you will gain insights into the ethical dimensions of diverse professions and the challenges they face. Through in-depth analysis and critical examination, you can contribute to the ongoing discourse on professional ethics. Dive into this comprehensive collection, and discover the myriad topics awaiting exploration in this vital field.

Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services

Get 10% off with 24start discount code.

Healthcare Professions

• Ethical considerations in organ transplantation.
• The role of confidentiality in healthcare ethics.
• Medical malpractice and professional responsibility.
• Bioethical dilemmas in end-of-life care.
• Ethical implications of pharmaceutical marketing.
• Mental health professionals’ duty to protect confidentiality.
• Patient autonomy and decision-making in medical ethics.
• Ethical challenges in clinical trials and research.
• Ethics of healthcare resource allocation.
• Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide debates.

Legal and Judicial Professions

• Legal ethics and attorney-client privilege.
• Judicial impartiality and the rule of law.
• Ethical dilemmas in criminal defense.
• Professional ethics in corporate law.
• Judges’ recusal and conflicts of interest.
• Prosecutorial misconduct and accountability.
• The role of ethics in alternative dispute resolution.
• Legal ethics in the age of technology.
• The death penalty and ethical considerations.
• Ethical issues in international human rights law.

Business and Corporate Ethics

• Corporate social responsibility and ethical business practices.
• Workplace ethics and employee rights.
• Ethical dimensions of business advertising.
• The role of whistleblowers in corporate ethics.
• Environmental ethics in business and sustainability.
• Ethics in international business negotiations.
• Leadership ethics and the impact on organizational culture.
• Ethical considerations in outsourcing and globalization.
• Corporate governance and ethical decision-making.
• Business ethics in the digital age.

Journalism and Media Ethics

• Ethical challenges in reporting on sensitive topics.
• Journalistic objectivity and the pursuit of truth.
• The role of ethics in photojournalism and image manipulation.
• Media ownership and its implications for journalistic ethics.
• The impact of social media on ethical journalism.
• Whistleblowing in the media industry.
• Ethical considerations in celebrity reporting.
• Censorship, freedom of the press, and ethical dilemmas.
• Conflict of interest in journalism.
• Privacy issues in the digital media era.

Education and Academic Ethics

• Plagiarism and academic integrity.
• Ethical issues in student-teacher relationships.
• The role of ethics in academic publishing.
• Educational equity and ethical considerations.
• Ethical dilemmas in standardized testing.
• Academic freedom and its ethical boundaries.
• The ethics of diversity and inclusion in education.
• Ethics in research involving human subjects.
• Student rights and educational ethics.
• The ethics of technology in the classroom.

Engineering and Technology Ethics

• Ethical considerations in artificial intelligence development.
• Privacy concerns in the digital age.
• The impact of automation on job ethics.
• Environmental ethics in engineering and technology.
• Ethical dilemmas in genetic engineering.
• Cybersecurity and ethical responsibilities.
• Ethical dimensions of autonomous vehicles.
• Intellectual property and technology ethics.
• Ethical issues in biotechnology research.
• The role of ethics in software development.

Social Work and Counseling Ethics

• Ethical principles in counseling and psychotherapy.
• Confidentiality and informed consent in counseling.
• Ethical challenges in child welfare services.
• The intersection of spirituality and counseling ethics.
• Cultural competence and ethical practice in social work.
• Ethical considerations in addiction counseling.
• Dual relationships in therapeutic settings.
• The ethics of mental health advocacy.
• Social justice and ethical social work practice.
• Ethical issues in gerontology and elder care.

Environmental Ethics

• Conservation ethics and wildlife protection.
• Climate change ethics and global responsibility.
• Environmental justice and ethics.
• Ethical dimensions of sustainable agriculture.
• The ethics of natural resource management.
• Biodiversity preservation and ethical considerations.
• Pollution control and environmental ethics.
• Eco-friendly technology and ethical innovation.
• Corporate responsibility for environmental ethics.
• Ethical considerations in eco-tourism.

Military and Defense Ethics

• The ethics of military intervention and just war theory.
• Soldiers’ moral responsibilities in combat.
• Ethical dilemmas in intelligence operations.
• The use of drones and unmanned warfare ethics.
• Cyber warfare and its ethical implications.
• Military leadership ethics and responsibility.
• Ethical considerations in nuclear deterrence.
• War crimes, accountability, and international law.
• The ethics of humanitarian assistance in conflict zones.
• Military ethics in the digital age.

Public Service and Government Ethics

• Public officials’ duty to uphold the law and ethical conduct.
• Corruption, transparency, and government ethics.
• Whistleblowing and ethics in public service.
• Ethical dimensions of public health policy.
• Ethical challenges in international diplomacy.
• Accountability and ethical governance.
• The role of ethics in disaster management.
• Ethical considerations in intelligence agencies.
• Lobbying, special interests, and government ethics.
• Ethical issues in public-private partnerships.

The compilation above represents merely a fraction of the vast landscape of research paper topics within professional ethics. As you delve into these categories, you’ll find that professional ethics transcends specific vocations, touching on fundamental principles of responsibility, integrity, and accountability. By exploring these topics, students can gain a deeper understanding of the ethical considerations that underpin various professions and industries. From healthcare to journalism, from business to environmental preservation, professional ethics plays a pivotal role in shaping our society.

The Range of Professional Ethics Research Paper Topics

Introduction.

Professional ethics is a cornerstone of ethical studies, offering a compass to navigate the complex terrain of our working lives. As students delve into the world of ethical research, they encounter the multifaceted domain of professional ethics. This page serves as a gateway to exploring the ethical considerations that underpin various vocations and industries, providing a rich tapestry of research paper topics to explore.

Exploring Professional Ethics

Professional ethics, nestled within the larger field of applied ethics, plays a pivotal role in guiding the moral conduct of individuals and organizations in diverse professions. At its core, it seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical ethical principles and the practical realities encountered in professional life.

In various fields, ethical considerations are woven into the fabric of daily practice. For instance, healthcare professionals grapple with dilemmas related to patient autonomy, confidentiality, and end-of-life decisions. Journalists strive to balance the pursuit of truth with concerns regarding privacy and sensitivity. Business leaders navigate the intricate interplay of corporate social responsibility and profit margins.

Research in professional ethics extends beyond academia, impacting real-world practices. By examining the ethical dimensions of specific professions, scholars and practitioners can contribute to the development of ethical guidelines, policies, and practices. Such research aids in addressing ethical challenges, fostering responsible conduct, and safeguarding the integrity of professions.

Range of Research Paper Topics

Professional ethics offers a diverse array of research paper topics that span different vocations and industries, each with its unique ethical considerations. These topics shed light on the moral dimensions of professions and are integral to ethical studies:

Within the expansive realm of professional ethics, students can explore topics ranging from the ethical dilemmas in organ transplantation to legal ethics and the attorney-client privilege. They can delve into corporate social responsibility in business ethics or investigate ethical challenges in reporting sensitive topics in journalism ethics.

Ethical dimensions are not confined to traditional professions. In the ever-evolving world of technology, the ethics of artificial intelligence development and privacy concerns in the digital age are pressing topics. Additionally, questions about conservation ethics and wildlife protection resonate in environmental ethics.

These are but a few examples of the vast landscape of professional ethics research paper topics. Whether you are drawn to the complexities of healthcare, the legal arena, business ethics, or any other profession, the study of professional ethics offers a captivating journey into the moral dimensions of our working lives.

In conclusion, professional ethics is an essential facet of ethical studies, guiding individuals and organizations to uphold principles of responsibility, integrity, and accountability within their respective professions. As students embark on their exploration of professional ethics research paper topics, they enter a realm where ethical principles are put to the test in real-world scenarios.

The breadth of topics within professional ethics mirrors the diversity of professions themselves. Each field presents unique ethical challenges and dilemmas, providing a fertile ground for ethical inquiry. Through rigorous research and thoughtful analysis, students and scholars have the opportunity to contribute to ethical frameworks that shape our society and professions.

We encourage you to delve into the ethical considerations of your chosen profession, for it is within this exploration that you will uncover insights, perspectives, and solutions that can lead to a more ethical and responsible world of work. Embrace the journey, and let your research on professional ethics illuminate the path toward ethical excellence in your chosen field.

Custom Research Paper Writing Services

When it comes to embarking on the journey of academic research, the importance of expert guidance cannot be overstated. Crafting a compelling and rigorous research paper is a meticulous task that demands a profound understanding of the subject matter, rigorous research skills, and adept writing prowess. At iResearchNet, we recognize the paramount significance of these elements, and that’s why we bring to you a team of expert degree-holding writers who are poised to assist you in your research endeavors.

Our commitment to excellence in academic writing services stems from the belief that your research should not only meet academic standards but should also contribute meaningfully to your field of study. Our seasoned writers, with their wealth of knowledge and expertise, are dedicated to helping you achieve precisely that.

• Expert Degree-Holding Writers : Our team comprises writers with advanced degrees in various fields. They possess both the academic acumen and the practical experience to tackle research papers with authority.
• Custom Written Works : Every research paper we produce is custom-crafted to meet your unique requirements. We believe in the originality and authenticity of your work.
• In-Depth Research : Thorough research forms the bedrock of any great research paper. Our writers are adept at diving deep into scholarly sources and extracting relevant insights.
• Custom Formatting : We understand the importance of adhering to specific formatting styles. Your paper will be meticulously formatted as per your guidelines.
• Top Quality : Quality is non-negotiable for us. Our stringent quality control measures ensure that your paper is of the highest standard.
• Customized Solutions : We recognize that each research paper is unique. Our approach is highly flexible, and we tailor our services to your specific needs.
• Flexible Pricing : We understand the budget constraints of students. Our pricing structure is competitive and adaptable to your financial considerations.
• Short Deadlines : We excel in meeting tight deadlines. If you have a pressing submission date, we can deliver your paper within as little as three hours.
• Timely Delivery : We value punctuality. Your research paper will be delivered promptly, allowing you ample time for review and submission.
• 24/7 Support : Our customer support team is available round the clock to address your queries and concerns. We believe in providing constant support throughout your research journey.
• Absolute Privacy : Your privacy is paramount. We guarantee the confidentiality of your personal information and the work we do for you.
• Easy Order Tracking : Our user-friendly platform allows you to track the progress of your research paper at every stage, ensuring transparency and peace of mind.
• Money-Back Guarantee : We are confident in the quality of our services. If, for any reason, you are not satisfied, we offer a money-back guarantee.

We take pride in offering a comprehensive suite of services that encompass every facet of research paper writing. From the moment you entrust us with your research paper, we embark on a journey to deliver excellence, ensuring that your academic endeavors are met with success.

Choosing iResearchNet for your research paper assistance means choosing a partner dedicated to your academic triumph. Our team of expert writers, combined with our unwavering commitment to quality and excellence, positions us as the ideal companion on your research journey.

As you delve into the world of professional ethics research paper topics or any other subject, remember that you are not alone. iResearchNet is here to provide the expertise, support, and guidance you need to craft research papers that stand out. With our custom solutions, timely deliveries, and commitment to your academic success, we invite you to experience research paper writing at its finest. Together, we will unlock the door to scholarly excellence.

Join the ranks of students who have benefited from our services and discover the difference that iResearchNet can make in your academic journey.

Secure Your Academic Success with iResearchNet

Are you ready to elevate your academic journey and make a meaningful impact in the realm of professional ethics? Look no further! At iResearchNet, we’re here to turn your aspirations into accomplishments.

Embarking on a research paper in professional ethics is a commendable endeavor, but we understand that it can be a daunting task. That’s where we come in. Our team of expert degree-holding writers is eager to partner with you on this exciting academic journey.

Why Choose Us?

• Unparalleled Expertise : Our writers are seasoned professionals with advanced degrees in various fields, including ethics. They bring both academic knowledge and practical experience to the table, ensuring that your research paper is a cut above the rest.
• Custom-Crafted Excellence : Your research paper will be custom-written, tailored to your specific requirements. We believe in the originality and authenticity of your work.
• Convenience and Quality : We’ve streamlined the entire process, from order placement to delivery. Experience hassle-free, top-quality service that aligns perfectly with your academic goals.
• Meeting Deadlines : Whether you have a looming deadline or need a paper in as little as three hours, we’ve got you covered. Our punctuality ensures that you never miss a submission date.
• Comprehensive Support : Our customer support team is available 24/7 to address your questions and concerns. We are your partners in academic success, offering unwavering support at every step.

Imagine the confidence of submitting a research paper that reflects your dedication and academic prowess. With iResearchNet by your side, that dream is well within reach. Order your custom professional ethics research paper today and witness the transformation in your academic pursuits.

Unleash Your Academic Potential

The path to scholarly excellence begins with a single step—a step that takes you closer to achieving your academic goals and making a meaningful contribution to the field of professional ethics. By choosing iResearchNet, you’re choosing a partner dedicated to your success.

Don’t let the complexity of professional ethics research papers deter you. Embrace the opportunity to excel, backed by a team of experts who share your commitment to academic achievement.

Order your custom professional ethics research paper now, and embark on a journey that promises academic fulfillment and intellectual growth. Your future of scholarly excellence awaits!

Unlock Your Potential with iResearchNet. Place your order today!

ORDER HIGH QUALITY CUSTOM PAPER

Introduction to Ethics

• September 2021
• This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations

No file available

To read the file of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

An Introduction to Ethics Research Paper

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Utilitarianism theory, kant’s moral approach, reference list.

Ethics is a necessity for organizations and human existence, without ethics, organizations or an individual action would be indiscriminate and purposeless. An ethical dilemma encompasses the decision to choose between two or more equitably satisfactory course of action, where one option constraints choosing the other, or obligation to choose amongst equally unacceptable options.

The Economic Competitiveness Group, ECP is a global company consisting of professional planners, management consultants and economists dedicated in assisting clients attain viable economic success by embracing creativity, group based policy, distinct cooperative implementation practice and a multitude of associated organized and company building services (Economic Competitiveness Group, 2011).

More specifically, ECG has aided regions to design and implement action based economic development strategies to achieve their needs. In enduring to empower its clients to achieve economic goals, ECG is faced with unethical dilemma of corruption (Economic Competitiveness Group, 2011).

The weakness has been deeply ingrained in the organization as a precondition to win major contracts especially when competition exists among its competitors.

This paper discusses two ethical theories. The paper also relates these theories in the operations of the ECG.

Utilitarian theory tends to characterize an organization trend in fulfilling its needs of self as well as fulfilling the needs of other people. The principle in the utilitarian approach designates that; any action should incorporate certain principles, which create satisfaction, within oneself and others. According to Nina (2005), an action that results in the moral rectitude and content should always be viewed as very useful.

As the theory asserts, an organization has to decide what is convenient for it to sustain integrity and remain unique among the others besides fulfilling the needs of its clients. ECG can incorporate this approach in assessing the unethical effect that corruption can stand in its quest for securing contracts from its clients.

Thus, according to Nina (2005), any activity that provides mutual satisfaction is right, and any action that provides otherwise is unfortunate. The utilitarian theory provides a organization and the human ethical guidelines, that reinforces moral principles and practices.

This moral theory is also known as the obligatory theory (deontology). Kant’s moral theory is in contrast with the utilitarian application and it depicts a small correlation exists between actual, moral philosophy and the consequences of an action (Hinman, 2007). The Kant’s approach observes that reverence for the ethical order must be present.

By embracing this approach, whenever an action is done positively, the cost, whether good or bad does not matter. Ethical law helps in defining what our consciousness sees is incorrect or good. Thus, it helps to free our minds from guilty thoughts. According to Hinman Naturally, moral principle asserts that bribing to obtain a favor is wrong (2007).

This theory can be of importance for ECG in assessing its business practices. A sincere, and transparency strategy of gaining or winning an organization improve support efficiency and integrity. ECG can appreciate the Kant’s moral philosophy. This will provide an opportunity in assessing the abhorrent practices of corruption in its quest in sustaining its competitive advantage among similar firms.

Thus, in recognizing the Kant’s theory, ECG will be in appropriate positioning in assessing the unethical implication of corruption. Correct choice of the instrumental value can results also in the attainment of an intrinsic value for ECG.

Economic Competitiveness Group, (2011). The Company Description . Web.

Hinman, L. M. (2007). Ethics: a Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory, Connecticut: Cengage Learning.

Nina, R. (2005). The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics, New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Ethics. "The Moral of the Story" by Nina Rosenstand
• "Black Swan" by Darren Aronofsky: Film Analysis
• The Microcomputer: Medical Application
• The Ethical Perspective Concept and Types
• Waterboarding in Time of War: Is It Justifiable?
• Personal and Social Changes
• Ethical egoism in public and private lives
• Ethical Research Conduct
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, May 21). An Introduction to Ethics. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-ethics-research-paper/

"An Introduction to Ethics." IvyPanda , 21 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-ethics-research-paper/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'An Introduction to Ethics'. 21 May.

IvyPanda . 2019. "An Introduction to Ethics." May 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-ethics-research-paper/.

1. IvyPanda . "An Introduction to Ethics." May 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-ethics-research-paper/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "An Introduction to Ethics." May 21, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-ethics-research-paper/.

• - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

• My email alerts
• BMA member login
• Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Search form

• Advanced search
• Search responses
• Search blogs
• Trends in...

Trends in cardiovascular disease incidence among 22 million people in the UK over 20 years: population based study

• Related content
• Peer review
• Geert Molenberghs , professor 4 ,
• Geert Verbeke , professor 4 ,
• Francesco Zaccardi , associate professor 5 ,
• Claire Lawson , associate professor 5 ,
• Jocelyn M Friday , data scientist 1 ,
• Huimin Su , PhD student 2 ,
• Pardeep S Jhund , professor 1 ,
• Naveed Sattar , professor 6 ,
• Kazem Rahimi , professor 3 ,
• John G Cleland , professor 1 ,
• Kamlesh Khunti , professor 5 ,
• Werner Budts , professor 1 7 ,
• John J V McMurray , professor 1
• 1 School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Health, British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Research Centre, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
• 2 Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
• 3 Deep Medicine, Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
• 4 Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics (I-BioStat), Hasselt University and KU Leuven, Belgium
• 5 Leicester Real World Evidence Unit, Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
• 6 College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
• 7 Congenital and Structural Cardiology, University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium
• Correspondence to: N Conrad nathalie.conrad{at}kuleuven.be (or @nathalie_conrad on X)
• Accepted 1 May 2024

Objective To investigate the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) overall and by age, sex, and socioeconomic status, and its variation over time, in the UK during 2000-19.

Design Population based study.

Setting UK.

Participants 1 650 052 individuals registered with a general practice contributing to Clinical Practice Research Datalink and newly diagnosed with at least one CVD from 1 January 2000 to 30 June 2019.

Main outcome measures The primary outcome was incident diagnosis of CVD, comprising acute coronary syndrome, aortic aneurysm, aortic stenosis, atrial fibrillation or flutter, chronic ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, peripheral artery disease, second or third degree heart block, stroke (ischaemic, haemorrhagic, and unspecified), and venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism). Disease incidence rates were calculated individually and as a composite outcome of all 10 CVDs combined and were standardised for age and sex using the 2013 European standard population. Negative binomial regression models investigated temporal trends and variation by age, sex, and socioeconomic status.

Results The mean age of the population was 70.5 years and 47.6% (n=784 904) were women. The age and sex standardised incidence of all 10 prespecified CVDs declined by 19% during 2000-19 (incidence rate ratio 2017-19 v 2000-02: 0.80, 95% confidence interval 0.73 to 0.88). The incidence of coronary heart disease and stroke decreased by about 30% (incidence rate ratios for acute coronary syndrome, chronic ischaemic heart disease, and stroke were 0.70 (0.69 to 0.70), 0.67 (0.66 to 0.67), and 0.75 (0.67 to 0.83), respectively). In parallel, an increasing number of diagnoses of cardiac arrhythmias, valve disease, and thromboembolic diseases were observed. As a result, the overall incidence of CVDs across the 10 conditions remained relatively stable from the mid-2000s. Age stratified analyses further showed that the observed decline in coronary heart disease incidence was largely restricted to age groups older than 60 years, with little or no improvement in younger age groups. Trends were generally similar between men and women. A socioeconomic gradient was observed for almost every CVD investigated. The gradient did not decrease over time and was most noticeable for peripheral artery disease (incidence rate ratio most deprived v least deprived: 1.98 (1.87 to 2.09)), acute coronary syndrome (1.55 (1.54 to 1.57)), and heart failure (1.50 (1.41 to 1.59)).

Conclusions Despite substantial improvements in the prevention of atherosclerotic diseases in the UK, the overall burden of CVDs remained high during 2000-19. For CVDs to decrease further, future prevention strategies might need to consider a broader spectrum of conditions, including arrhythmias, valve diseases, and thromboembolism, and examine the specific needs of younger age groups and socioeconomically deprived populations.

Introduction

Since the 1970s, the prevention of coronary disease, both primary and secondary, has improved considerably, largely attributable to public health efforts to control risk factors, such as antismoking legislation, and the widespread use of drugs such as statins. 1 2

Improvements in mortality due to heart disease have, however, stalled in several high income countries, 3 and reports suggest that the incidence of heart disease might even be increasing among younger people. 4 5 6 Conversely, along with coronary heart disease, other cardiovascular conditions are becoming relatively more prominent in older people, altering the profile of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in ageing societies. The importance of non-traditional risk factors for atherosclerotic diseases, such as socioeconomic deprivation, has also been increasingly recognised. Whether socioeconomic deprivation is as strongly associated with other CVDs as with atherosclerosis is uncertain, but it is important to understand as many countries have reported an increase in socioeconomic inequalities. 7

Large scale epidemiological studies are therefore needed to investigate secular trends in CVDs to target future preventive efforts, highlight the focus for future clinical trials, and identify healthcare resources required to manage emerging problems. Existing comprehensive efforts, such as statistics on CVD from leading medical societies or the Global Burden of Diseases studies, have helped toward this goal, but reliable age standardised incidence rates for all CVDs, how these vary by population subgroups, and changes over time are currently not available. 8 9 10

We used a large longitudinal database of linked primary care, secondary care, and death registry records from a representative sample of the UK population 11 12 to assess trends in the incidence of 10 of the most common CVDs in the UK during 2000-19, and how these differed by sex, age, socioeconomic status, and region.

Data source and study population

We used anonymised electronic health records from the GOLD and AURUM datasets of Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). CPRD contains information on about 20% of the UK population and is broadly representative of age, sex, ethnicity, geographical spread, and socioeconomic deprivation. 11 12 It is also one of the largest databases of longitudinal medical records from primary care in the world and has been validated for epidemiological research for a wide range of conditions. 11 We used the subset of CPRD records that linked information from primary care, secondary care from Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES admitted patient care and HES outpatient) data, and death certificates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Linkage was possible for a subset of English practices, covering about 50% of the CPRD records. Data coverage dates were 1 January 1985 to 31 December 2019 for primary care data (including drug prescription data), 1 April 1997 to 30 June 2019 for secondary care data, and 2 January 1998 to 30 May 2019 for death certificates.

Included in the study were men and women registered with a general practice for at least one year during the study period (1 January 2000 to 30 June 2019) whose records were classified by CPRD as acceptable for use in research and approved for HES and ONS linkage.

Study endpoints

The primary endpoint was the first presentation of CVD as recorded in primary or secondary care. We investigated 10 CVDs: acute coronary syndrome, aortic aneurysm, aortic stenosis, atrial fibrillation or flutter, chronic ischaemic heart disease, heart failure, peripheral artery disease, second or third degree heart block, stroke (ischaemic, haemorrhagic, or unspecified), and venous thromboembolism (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism). We defined incident diagnoses as the first record of that condition in primary care or secondary care regardless of its order in the patient’s record.

Diseases were considered individually and as a composite outcome of all 10 CVDs combined. For the combined analyses, we calculated the primary incidence (considering only the first recorded CVD in each patient, reflecting the number of patients affected by CVDs) and the total incidence (considering all incident CVD diagnoses in each patient, reflecting the cumulative number of CVD diagnoses). We performed sensitivity analyses including diagnoses recorded on death certificates.

To identify diagnoses, we compiled a list of diagnostic codes based on the coding schemes in use in each data source following previously established methods. 13 14 15 We used ICD-10 (international classification of diseases, 10th revision) codes for diagnoses recorded in secondary care, ICD-9 (international classification of diseases, ninth revision) (in use until 31 December 2000) and ICD-10 codes for diagnoses recorded on death certificates (used in sensitivity analyses only), the UK Office of Population Censuses and Surveys classification (OPCS-4) for procedures performed in secondary care settings, and a combination of Read, SNOMED, and local EMIS codes for diagnoses recorded in primary care records (see supplementary table S1). 16 Supplementary texts S1, S2, and S3 describe our approach to the generation of the diagnostic code list as well as considerations and sensitivity analyses into the validity of diagnoses recorded in UK electronic health records.

We selected covariates to represent a range of known cardiovascular risk factors. For clinical data, including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, smoking status, cholesterol (total:high density lipoprotein ratio), and body mass index (BMI), we abstracted data from primary care records as the most recent measurement within two years before the incident CVD diagnosis. BMI was categorised as underweight (<18.5), normal (18.5-24.9), overweight (25-29.9), and obesity (≥30). Information on the prevalence of chronic kidney disease, dyslipidaemia, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes was obtained as the percentage of patients with a diagnosis recorded in their primary care or secondary care record at any time up to and including the date of a first CVD diagnosis. Patients’ socioeconomic status was described using the index of multiple deprivation 2015, 17 a composite measure of seven dimensions (income, employment, education, health, crime, housing, living environment) and provided by CPRD. Measures of deprivation are calculated at small area level, covering an average population of 1500 people, and are presented in fifths, with the first 20% and last 20% representing the least and most deprived areas, respectively. We extracted information on ethnicity from both primary and secondary care records, and we used secondary care data when records differed. Ethnicity was grouped into four categories: African/Caribbean, Asian, white, and mixed/other. Finally, we extracted information on cardiovascular treatments (ie, aspirin and other antiplatelets, alpha adrenoceptor antagonists, aldosterone antagonists/mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor antagonists, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, diuretics, nitrates, oral anticoagulants, and statins) as the number of patients with at least two prescriptions of each drug class within six months after incident CVD, among patients alive and registered with a general practitioner 30 days after the diagnosis. Supplementary table S2 provides a list of substances included in each drug class. Prescriptions were extracted from primary care records up to 31 December 2019.

Statistical analyses

Categorical data for patient characteristics are presented as frequencies (percentages), and continuous data are presented as means and standard deviations (SDs) for symmetrically distributed data or medians and interquartile ranges (IQRs) for non-symmetrically distributed data, over the whole CVD cohort and stratified by age, sex, socioeconomic status, region, and calendar year of diagnosis. For variables with missing entries, we present numbers and percentages of records with missing data. For categorical variables, frequencies refer to complete cases.

Incidence rates of CVD were calculated by dividing the number of incident diagnoses by the number of patient years in the cohort. Category specific rates were computed separately for subgroups of age, sex, socioeconomic status, region, and calendar year of diagnosis. Age calculations were updated for each calendar year. To ensure calculations referred to incident diagnoses, we excluded individuals, from both the numerator and the denominator populations, with a disease of interest diagnosed before the study start date (1 January 2000), or within the first 12 months of registration with their general practice. Time at risk started at the latest of the patient’s registration date plus 12 months, 30 June of their birth year, or study start date; and stopped at the earliest of death, transfer out of practice, last collection date of the practice, incidence of the disease of interest, or linkage end date (30 June 2019). Disease incidence was standardised for age and sex 18 using the 2013 European standard population 19 in five year age bands up to age 90 years.

Negative binomial regression models were used to calculate overall and category specific incidence rate ratios and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). 20 Models were adjusted for calendar year of diagnosis, age (categorised into five years age bands), sex, socioeconomic status, and region. We chose negative binomial models over Poisson models to account for potential overdispersion in the data. Sensitivity analyses comparing Poisson and negative binomial models showed similar results.

Study findings are reported according to the RECORD (reporting of studies conducted using observational routinely collected health data) recommendations. 21 We performed statistical analyses in R, version 4.3.3 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria).

Patient and public involvement

No patients or members of the public were directly involved in this study owing to constraints on funding and time.

A total of 22 009 375 individuals contributed data between 1 January 2000 and 30 June 2019, with 146 929 629 patient years of follow-up. Among those we identified 2 906 770 new CVD diagnoses, affecting 1 650 052 patients. Mean age at first CVD diagnosis was 70.5 (SD 15.0) years, 47.6% (n=784 904) of patients were women, and 11.6% (n=191 421), 18.0% (n=296 554), 49.7% (n=820 892), and 14.2% (n=233 833) of patients had a history of chronic kidney disease, dyslipidaemia, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, respectively, at the time of their first CVD diagnosis ( table 1 ).

Characteristics of patients with a first diagnosis of CVD, 2000-19. Values are number (percentage) unless stated otherwise

• View inline

During 2017-19, the most common CVDs were atrial fibrillation or flutter (age-sex standardised incidence 478 per 100 000 person years), heart failure (367 per 100 000 person years), and chronic ischaemic heart disease (351 per 100 000 person years), followed by acute coronary syndrome (190 per 100 000 person years), venous thromboembolism (183 per 100 000 person years), and stroke (181 per 100 000 patient years) ( fig 1 ).

Incidence of a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease per 100 000 person years, 2000-19. Incidence rates are age-sex standardised to the 2013 European standard population. Any cardiovascular disease refers to the primary incidence of cardiovascular disease across the10 conditions investigated (ie, number of patients with a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease). See supplementary table S4 for crude incidence rates by age and sex groups. IRR=incidence rate ratio

• Download figure
• Open in new tab
• Download powerpoint

Temporal trends

The primary incidence of CVDs (ie, the number of patients with CVD) decreased by 20% during 2000-19 (age-sex standardised incidence rate ratio 2017-19 v 2000-02: 0.80 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.88)). However, the total incidence of CVD (ie, the total number of new CVD diagnoses) remained relatively stable owing to an increasing number of subsequent diagnoses among patients already affected by a first CVD (incidence rate ratio 2017-19 v 2000-02: 1.00 (0.91 to 1.10)).

The observed decline in CVD incidence was largely due to declining rates of atherosclerotic diseases, in particular acute coronary syndrome, chronic ischaemic heart disease, and stroke, which decreased by about 30% during 2000-19. The incidence of peripheral artery disease also declined, although more modestly (incidence rate ratio 2017-19 v 2000-02: 0.89 (0.80 to 0.98)) ( fig 1 ).

The incidence of non-atherosclerotic heart diseases increased at varying rates, with incidence of aortic stenosis and heart block more than doubling over the study period (2017-19 v 2000-02: 2.42 (2.13 to 2.74) and 2.22 (1.99 to 2.46), respectively) ( fig 1 ). These increasing rates of non-atherosclerotic heart diseases balanced the reductions in ischaemic diseases so that the overall incidence of CVD across the 10 conditions appeared to reach a plateau and to remain relatively stable from 2007-08 (incidence rate ratio 2017-19 v 2005-07: 1.00 (0.91 to 1.10)) ( fig 2 ).

Age standardised incidence of cardiovascular disease by sex, 2000-19. Any cardiovascular disease refers to the primary incidence of cardiovascular disease across the 10 conditions investigated (ie, number of patients with a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease). IRR=incidence rate ratio

Age stratified analyses further showed that the observed decrease in incidence of chronic ischaemic heart disease, acute coronary syndrome, and stroke was largely due to a reduced incidence in those aged >60 years, whereas incidence rates in those aged <60 years remained relatively stable ( fig 3 and fig 4 ).

Sex standardised incidence of cardiovascular disease in all age groups. Any cardiovascular disease refers to the primary incidence of cardiovascular disease across the 10 conditions investigated (ie, number of patients with a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease)

Sex standardised incidence of cardiovascular diseases by age subgroups <69 years. Any cardiovascular disease refers to the primary incidence of cardiovascular disease across the 10 conditions investigated (ie, number of patients with a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease)

Age at diagnosis

CVD incidence was largely concentrated towards the end of the life span, with a median age at diagnosis generally between 65 and 80 years. Only venous thromboembolism was commonly diagnosed before age 45 years ( fig 5 ). Over the study period, age at first CVD diagnosis declined for several conditions, including stroke (on average diagnosed 1.9 years earlier in 2019 than in 2000), heart block (1.3 years earlier in 2019 than in 2000), and peripheral artery disease (1 year earlier in 2019 than in 2000) (see supplementary figure S1). Adults with a diagnosis before age 60 years were more likely to be from lower socioeconomic groups and to have a higher prevalence of several risk factors, including obesity, smoking, and high cholesterol levels (see supplementary table S3).

Incidence rates of cardiovascular diseases calculated by one year age bands and divided into a colour gradient of 20 quantiles to reflect incidence density by age. IQR=interquartile range

Incidence by sex

Age adjusted incidence of all CVDs combined was higher in men (incidence rate ratio for women v men: 1.46 (1.41 to 1.51)), with the notable exception of venous thromboembolism, which was similar between men and women. The incidence of aortic aneurysms was higher in men (3.49 (3.33 to 3.65)) ( fig 2 ). The crude incidence of CVD, however, was similar between men and women (1069 per 100 000 patient years and 1176 per 100 000 patient years, respectively), owing to the higher number of women in older age groups. Temporal trends in disease incidence were generally similar between men and women ( fig 2 ).

Incidence by socioeconomic status

The most deprived socioeconomic groups had a higher incidence of any CVDs (incidence rate ratio most deprived v least deprived: 1.37 (1.30 to 1.44)) ( fig 6 ). A socioeconomic gradient was observed across almost every condition investigated. That gradient did not decrease over time, and it was most noticeable for peripheral artery disease (incidence rate ratio most deprived v least deprived: 1.98 (1.87 to 2.09)), acute coronary syndrome (1.55 (1.54 to 1.57)), and heart failure (1.50 (1.41 to 1.59)). For aortic aneurysms, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, and aortic stenosis, socioeconomic inequalities in disease incidence appeared to increase over time.

Age-sex standardised incidence rates of cardiovascular diseases by socioeconomic status (index of multiple deprivation 2015). Any cardiovascular disease refers to the primary incidence of cardiovascular disease across the 10 conditions investigated (ie, number of patients with a first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease). Yearly incidence estimates were smoothed using loess (locally estimated scatterplot smoothing) regression lines

Regional differences

Higher incidence rates were seen in northern regions (north west, north east, Yorkshire and the Humber) of England for all 10 conditions investigated, even after adjusting for socioeconomic status. Aortic aneurysms and aortic stenosis had the strongest regional gradients, with incidence rates about 30% higher in northern regions compared with London. Geographical variations remained modest, however, and did not appear to change considerably over time (see supplementary figure S2).

Sensitivity analyses

In sensitivity analyses that used broader disease definitions, that included diagnoses recorded on death certificates, that relied on longer lookback periods for exclusion of potentially prevalent diagnoses, or that were restricted to diagnoses recorded during hospital admissions, temporal trends in disease incidence appeared similar (see supplementary figures S3-S6).

Secondary prevention treatments

The proportion of patients using statins and antihypertensive drugs after a first CVD diagnosis increased over time, whereas the use of non-dihydropyridines calcium channel blockers, nitrates, and diuretics decreased over time. Non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants increasingly replaced vitamin K anticoagulants (see supplementary figure S7).

The findings of this study suggest that important changes occurred in the distribution of CVDs during 2000-19 and that several areas are of concern. The incidence of non-atherosclerotic heart diseases was shown to increase, the decline in atherosclerotic disease in younger people was stalling, and socioeconomic inequalities had a substantial association across almost every CVD investigated.

Implications for clinical practice and policy

Although no causal inference can be made from our data, the decline in rates of ischaemic diseases coincided with reductions in the prevalence of risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, and raised cholesterol levels in the general population over the same period, 22 and this finding suggests that efforts in the primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic diseases have been successful. The decline in stroke was not as noticeable as that for coronary heart disease, which may reflect the rising incidence of atrial fibrillation. The variation in trends for peripheral artery disease could be due to differences in risk factors (eg, a stronger association with diabetes), the multifaceted presentations and causes, and the introduction of systematic leg examinations for people with diabetes. 23 24

All the non-atherosclerotic diseases, however, appeared to increase during 2000-19. For some conditions, such as heart failure, the observed increase remained modest, whereas for others, such as aortic stenosis and heart block, incidence rates doubled. All analyses in this study were standardised for age and sex, to illustrate changes in disease incidence independently of changes in population demographics. Whether these trends solely reflect increased awareness, access to diagnostic tests, or even screening (eg, for abdominal aortic aneurysm 25 ) and coding practices, is uncertain. Reductions in premature death from coronary heart disease may have contributed to the emergence of these other non-atherosclerotic CVDs. Regardless, the identification of increasing numbers of people with these problems has important implications for health services, especially the provision of more surgical and transcatheter valve replacement, pacemaker implantation, and catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation. Importantly, these findings highlight the fact that for many cardiovascular conditions such as heart block, aortic aneurysms, and non-rheumatic valvular diseases, current medical practice remains essentially focused on the management of symptoms and secondary prevention and that more research into underlying causes and possible primary prevention strategies is needed. 26 27

These varying trends also mean that the contribution of individual CVDs towards the overall burden has changed. For example, atrial fibrillation or flutter are now the most common CVDs in the UK. Atrial fibrillation is also a cause (and consequence) of heart failure, and these two increasingly common problems may amplify the incidence of each other. Venous thromboembolism and heart block also appeared as important contributors to overall CVD burden, with incidence rates similar to those of stroke and acute coronary syndrome, yet both receive less attention in terms of prevention efforts.

The stalling decline in the rate of coronary heart disease in younger age groups is of concern, has also been observed in several other high income countries, and may reflect rising rates of physical inactivity, obesity, and type 2 diabetes in young adults. 4 6 28 The stalled decline suggests prevention approaches may need to be expanded beyond antismoking legislation, blood pressure control, and lipid lowering interventions to include the promotion of physical activity, weight control, and use of new treatments shown to reduce cardiovascular risk in people with type 2 diabetes. 29 Although CVD incidence is generally low in people aged <60 years, identifying those at high risk of developing CVD at a young age and intervening before problems occur could reduce premature morbidity and mortality and have important economic implications.

Our study further found that socioeconomic inequalities may contribute to CVD burden, and that this association is not restricted to selected conditions but is visible across most CVDs. The reasons behind the observed increase in risk in relation to socioeconomic inequalities are likely to be multifactorial and to include environmental, occupational, psychosocial, and behavioural risk factors, including established cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, obesity, nutrition, air pollution, substance misuse, and access to care. 30 How these findings apply to different countries is likely to be influenced by socioeconomic structures and healthcare systems, although health inequalities have been reported in numerous countries. 30 One important factor in the present study is that access to care is free at the point of care in the UK, 31 and yet socioeconomic inequalities persist despite universal health coverage and they did not appear to improve over time. Independently of the specificities of individual countries, our findings highlight the importance of measuring and considering health inequalities and suggest that dealing with the social determinants of health—the conditions under which people are born, live, work, and age—could potentially bring substantial health improvements across a broad range of chronic conditions.

Finally, our results reflect disease incidence based on diagnostic criteria, screening practices, availability, and accuracy of diagnostic tests in place at a particular time and therefore must be interpreted within this context. 32 Several of the health conditions investigated are likely to being sought and detected with increased intensity over the study period. For example, during the study period the definition of myocardial infarction was revised several times, 33 34 35 and high sensitivity troponins were progressively introduced in the UK from 2010. These more sensitive markers of cardiac injury are thought to have increased the detection rates for less severe disease. 36 37 Similarly, increased availability of computed tomography may have increased detection rates for stroke. 38 These changes could have masked an even greater decline in these conditions than observed in the present study. Conversely, increased use of other biochemical tests (such as natriuretic peptides) and more sensitive imaging techniques might have increased the detection of other conditions. 39 40 41 The implementation of a screening programme for aortic aneurysm and incentive programmes aimed at improving coding practices, including the documentation of CVD, associated risk factors and comorbidities, and treatment of these, are also likely to have contributed to the observed trends. 25 42 43 As a result, the difference in incidence estimates and prevalence of comorbidities over time may not reflect solely changes in the true incidence but also differences in ascertainment of people with CVD. 44 Nonetheless, long term trends in large and unconstrained populations offer valuable insights for healthcare resource planning and for the design of more targeted prevention strategies that could otherwise not be answered by using smaller cohorts, cross sectional surveys, or clinical trials; and precisely because they are based on routinely reported diagnoses they are more likely to capture the burden of disease as experienced by doctors and health services.

Strengths and limitations of this study

A key strength of this study is its statistical power, with >140 million person years of data. The large size of the cohort allowed us to perform incidence calculations for a broad spectrum of conditions, and to examine the influence of age, sex, and socioeconomic status as well as trends over 20 years. One important limitation of our study was the modest ethnic diversity in our cohort and the lack of information on ethnicity for the denominator population, which precluded us from stratifying incidence estimates by ethnic group. Our analyses were also limited by the unavailability or considerable missingness of additional variables potentially relevant to the development of CVD, such as smoking, body mass index, imaging data, women specific cardiovascular risk factors (eg, pregnancy associated hypertension and gestational diabetes), and blood biomarkers. Further research may also need to consider an even wider spectrum of CVDs, including individual types of valve disease, pregnancy related conditions, and infection related heart diseases. Research using databases with electronic health records is also reliant on the accuracy of clinical coding input by doctors in primary care as part of a consultation, or in secondary care as part of a hospital admission. We therefore assessed the validity of diagnoses in UK electronic health records data and considered it to be appropriate in accordance with the >200 independent validation studies reporting an average positive predictive value of about 90% for recorded diagnoses. 45 Observed age distributions were also consistent with previous studies and added to the validity of our approach. Nevertheless, our results must be interpreted within the context and limitations of routinely collected data from health records, diagnostic criteria, screening practices, the availability and accuracy of diagnostic tests in place at that time, and the possibility that some level of miscoding is present or that some bias could have been introduced by restricting the cohort to those patients with at least 12 months of continuous data.

Conclusions

Efforts to challenge the notion of the inevitability of vascular events with ageing, and evidence based recommendations for coronary heart disease prevention, have been successful and can serve as a model for other non-communicable diseases. Our findings show that it is time to expand efforts to improve the prevention of CVDs. Broadening research and implementation efforts in both primary and secondary prevention to non-atherosclerotic diseases, tackling socioeconomic inequalities, and introducing better risk prediction and management among younger people appear to be important opportunities to tackle CVDs.

What is already known on this topic

Recent data show that despite decades of declining rates of cardiovascular mortality, the burden from cardiovascular disease (CVD) appears to have stalled in several high income countries

What this study adds

This observational study of a representative sample of 22 million people from the UK during 2000-19 found reductions in CVD incidence to have been largely restricted to ischaemic heart disease and stroke, and were paralleled by a rising number of diagnoses of cardiac arrhythmias, valve disease, and thromboembolic events

Venous thromboembolism and heart block were important contributors to the overall burden of CVDs, with incidence rates similar to stroke and acute coronary syndromes

Improvements in rates of coronary heart disease almost exclusively appeared to benefit those aged >60 years, and the CVD burden in younger age groups appeared not to improve

Ethics statements

Ethical approval.

This study was approved by the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Independent Scientific Advisory Committee.

Data availability statement

Access to Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data is subject to a license agreement and protocol approval process that is overseen by CPRD’s research data governance process. A guide to access is provided on the CPRD website ( https://www.cprd.com/data-access ) To facilitate the subsequent use and replication of the findings from this study, aggregated data tables are provided with number of events and person years at risk by individual condition and by calendar year, age (by five year age band), sex, socioeconomic status, and region (masking field with fewer than five events, as per CPRD data security and privacy regulations) on our GitHub repository ( https://github.com/nathalieconrad/CVD_incidence ).

Acknowledgments

We thank Hilary Shepherd, Sonia Coton, and Eleanor L Axson from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink for their support and expertise in preparing the dataset underlying these analyses.

Contributors: NC and JJVM conceived and designed the study. NC, JJVM, GM, and GV designed the statistical analysis plan and NC performed the statistical analysis. All authors contributed to interpreting the results, drafting the manuscript, and the revisions. NC, GM, and GV had permission to access the raw data and NC and GM verified the raw data. All authors gave final approval of the version to be published and accept responsibility to submit the manuscript for publication. NC and JJVM accept full responsibility for the conduct of the study, had access to aggregated data, and controlled the decision to publish. They are the guarantors. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

Funding: This study was funded by a personal fellowship from the Research Foundation Flanders (grant No 12ZU922N), a research grant from the European Society of Cardiology (grant No App000037070), and the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence (grant No RE/18/6/34217). The funders had no role in considering the study design or in the collection, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the report, or decision to submit the article for publication.

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: NC is funded by a personal fellowship from the Research Foundation Flanders and a research grant from the European Society of Cardiology. JMF, PSJ, JGC, NS, and JJVM are supported by British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence. PSJ and JJVM are further supported by the Vera Melrose Heart Failure Research Fund. JJVM has received funding to his institution from Amgen and Cytokinetics for his participation in the steering sommittee for the ATOMIC-HF, COSMIC-HF, and GALACTIC-HF trials and meetings and other activities related to these trials; has received payments through Glasgow University from work on clinical trials, consulting, and other activities from Alnylam, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Cardurion, Dal-Cor, GlaxoSmithKline, Ionis, KBP Biosciences, Novartis, Pfizer, and Theracos; and has received personal lecture fees from the Corpus, Abbott, Hikma, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Medscape/Heart.Org, Radcliffe Cardiology, Alkem Metabolics, Eris Lifesciences, Lupin, ProAdWise Communications, Servier Director, and Global Clinical Trial Partners. NS declares consulting fees or speaker honorariums, or both, from Abbott Laboratories, Afimmune, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Lilly, Hanmi Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche Diagnostics, and Sanofi; and grant support paid to his university from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Novartis, and Roche Diagnostics. KK has acted as a consultant or speaker or received grants for investigator initiated studies for Astra Zeneca, Bayer, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis, Lilly, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Boehringer Ingelheim, Oramed Pharmaceuticals, Roche, and Applied Therapeutics. KK is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands (ARC EM) and the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). CL is funded by an NIHR Advanced Research Fellowship (NIHR-300111) and supported by the Leicester BRC. PSJ has received speaker fees from AstraZeneca, Novartis, Alkem Metabolics, ProAdWise Communications, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and Intas Pharmaceuticals; has received advisory board fees from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Novartis; has received research funding from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Analog Devices; his employer, the University of Glasgow, has been remunerated for clinical trial work from AstraZeneca, Bayer, Novartis, and Novo Nordisk; and is the Director of Global Clinical Trial Partners. HS is supported by the China Scholarship Council. Other authors report no support from any organisation for the submitted work, no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years, and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Transparency: The lead author (NC) affirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained.

Dissemination to participants and related patient and public communities: Results from this study will be shared with patient associations and foundations dedicated to preventing cardiovascular diseases, such as the European Heart Network and the American Heart Association. To reach the public, findings will also be press released alongside publication of this manuscript. Social media (eg, X) will be used to draw attention to the work and stimulate debate about its findings. Finally, the underlying developed algorithms will be freely available for academic use at https://github.com/nathalieconrad/CVD_incidence .

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

• ↵ Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Gobal Burden of Diseases Viz Hub. 2023. https://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/
• Ananth CV ,
• Rutherford C ,
• Rosenfeld EB ,
• O’Flaherty M ,
• Allender S ,
• Scarborough P ,
• Andersson C ,
• Abdalla SM ,
• Mensah GA ,
• Johnson CO ,
• GBD-NHLBI-JACC Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases Writing Group
• Almarzooq ZI ,
• American Heart Association Council on Epidemiology and Prevention Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee
• Townsend N ,
• Atlas Writing Group, European Society of Cardiology
• Herrett E ,
• Gallagher AM ,
• Bhaskaran K ,
• ↵ Wolf A, Dedman D, Campbell J, et al. Data resource profile: Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Aurum. International Journal of Epidemiology. 2019 Mar 11 [cited 2019 Mar 22]; https://academic.oup.com/ije/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyz034/5374844
• Verbeke G ,
• Molenberghs G ,
• Ferguson LD ,
• ↵ Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. What coding systems are used in CPRD data? 2023. https://www.cprd.com/defining-your-study-population
• ↵ Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). The English Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015: Guidance. 2015; pp1-7. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2015
• ↵ Kirkwood B, Sterne J. Essential medical statistics. 2010.
• ↵ Eurostat’s task force. Revision of the European Standard Population Report. 2013.
• Benchimol EI ,
• Guttmann A ,
• RECORD Working Committee
• ↵ NHS Digital. Health Survey for England, 2021 part 1. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/health-survey-for-england/2021
• Criqui MH ,
• ↵ Health and Social Care Information Centre. Quality and Outcomes Framework - Indicators 2011-12. 2011. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/quality-and-outcomes-framework-achievement-prevalence-and-exceptions-data/quality-and-outcomes-framework-2011-12
• Jacomelli J ,
• Summers L ,
• Stevenson A ,
• Earnshaw JJ
• Vahanian A ,
• Beyersdorf F ,
• ESC/EACTS Scientific Document Group
• Glikson M ,
• Nielsen JC ,
• Kronborg MB ,
• ESC Scientific Document Group
• Stevenson C ,
• Peeters A ,
• Federici M ,
• Schultz WM ,
• Verbakel JY ,
• Thygesen K ,
• Alpert JS ,
• Joint ESC/ACCF/AHA/WHF Task Force for the Redefinition of Myocardial Infarction
• Joint ESC/ACCF/AHA/WHF Task Force for the Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction
• Sandoval Y ,
• High-STEACS investigators
• Camargo ECS ,
• Singhal AB ,
• Wiener RS ,
• Schwartz LM ,
• Sappler N ,
• Roalfe AK ,
• Lay-Flurrie SL ,
• Ordóñez-Mena JM ,
• Herbert A ,
• Wijlaars L ,
• Zylbersztejn A ,
• Cromwell D ,
• ↵ NHS Digital. Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), 2019-20. Indicator definitions. 2020. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/quality-and-outcomes-framework-achievement-prevalence-and-exceptions-data/2019-20
• Pronovost PJ
• Thomas SL ,
• Schoonen WM ,

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Open access
• Published: 05 January 2024

Enhancing geometric representations for molecules with equivariant vector-scalar interactive message passing

• Yusong Wang 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Tong Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9483-0050 1   na1 ,
• Shaoning Li 1   na1 ,
• Xinheng He 1 , 3 , 4 ,
• Mingyu Li 1 , 5 ,
• Zun Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8763-8327 1 ,
• Nanning Zheng 2 ,
• Bin Shao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9790-5687 1 &
• Tie-Yan Liu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0476-8020 1  

Nature Communications volume  15 , Article number:  313 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

5856 Accesses

2 Citations

4 Altmetric

Metrics details

• Chemical biology
• Computational biology and bioinformatics
• Computational models
• Molecular modelling
• Protein structure predictions

Geometric deep learning has been revolutionizing the molecular modeling field. Despite the state-of-the-art neural network models are approaching ab initio accuracy for molecular property prediction, their applications, such as drug discovery and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, have been hindered by insufficient utilization of geometric information and high computational costs. Here we propose an equivariant geometry-enhanced graph neural network called ViSNet, which elegantly extracts geometric features and efficiently models molecular structures with low computational costs. Our proposed ViSNet outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on multiple MD benchmarks, including MD17, revised MD17 and MD22, and achieves excellent chemical property prediction on QM9 and Molecule3D datasets. Furthermore, through a series of simulations and case studies, ViSNet can efficiently explore the conformational space and provide reasonable interpretability to map geometric representations to molecular structures.

Similar content being viewed by others

Computational design of soluble and functional membrane protein analogues

Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3

Machine learning-aided generative molecular design

Introduction.

Molecular modeling plays a crucial role in modern scientific and engineering fields, aiding in the understanding of chemical reactions, facilitating new drug development, and driving scientific and technological advancements 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . One commonly used method in molecular modeling is density functional theory (DFT). DFT enables accurate calculations of energy, forces, and other chemical properties of molecules 5 , 6 . However, due to the large computational requirements, DFT calculations often demand significant computational resources and time, particularly for large molecular systems or high-precision calculations. Machine learning (ML) offers an alternative solution by learning from reference data with ab initio accuracy and high computational efficiency 7 , 8 . Gradient-domain machine learning (GDML) 9 constructs accurate molecular force fields using conservation of energy and limited samples from ab initio molecular dynamics trajectories, enabling cost-effective simulations while maintaining accuracy. Symmetric GDML (sGDML) 10 further improves force field construction by incorporating physical symmetries, achieving CCSD(T)-level accuracy for flexible molecules. An exact iterative approach (Global sGDML) 11 extends sGDML to global force fields for molecules with several hundred atoms, maintaining correlations of atomic degree and accurately describing complex molecules and materials. In recent years, deep learning (DL) has demonstrated its powerful ability to learn from raw data without any hand-crafted features in many fields and thus attracted more and more attention. However, the inherent drawback of deep learning, which requires large amounts of data, has become a bottleneck for its application to more scenarios 12 . To alleviate the dependency on data for DL potentials, recent works have incorporated the inductive bias of symmetry into neural network design, known as geometric deep learning (GDL). Symmetry describes the conservation of physical laws, i.e., the unchanged physical properties with any transformations such as translations or rotations. It allows GDL to be extended to limited data scenarios without any data augmentation.

Equivariant graph neural network (EGNN) is one of the representative approaches in GDL, which has extensive capability to model molecular geometry 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 . A popular kind of EGNN conducts equivariance from directional information and involves geometric features to predict molecular properties. GemNet 20 extends the invariant DimeNet/DimeNet++ 16 , 17 with dihedral information. They explicitly extract geometric information in the Euclidean space with first-order geometric tensor, i.e., setting l max  = 1. PaiNN 18 and equivariant transformer 19 further adopt vector embedding and scalarize the angular representation implicitly via the inner product of the vector embedding itself. They reduce the complexity of explicit geometry extraction by taking the angular information into consideration. Another mainstream approach to achieving equivariance is through group representation theory, which can achieve higher accuracy but comes with large computational costs. NequIP, Allegro, and MACE 12 , 22 , 23 achieve state-of-the-art performance on several molecular dynamics simulation datasets leveraging high-order geometric tensors. On the one hand, algorithms based on group representation theory have strong mathematical foundations and are able to fully utilize geometric information using high-order geometric tensors. On the other hand, these algorithms often require computationally expensive operations such as the Clebsch–Gordan product (CG-product) 24 , making them possibly suitable for periodic systems with elaborate model design but impractical for large molecular systems such as chemical and biological molecules without periodic boundary conditions.

In this study, we propose ViSNet (short for “Vector-Scalar interactive graph neural Network"), which alleviates the dilemma between computational costs and sufficient utilization of geometric information. By incorporating an elaborate runtime geometry calculation (RGC) strategy, ViSNet implicitly extracts various geometric features, i.e., angles, dihedral torsion angles, and improper angles in accordance with the force field of classical MD with linear time complexity, thus significantly accelerating model training and inference while reducing the memory consumption. To extend the vector representation, we introduce spherical harmonics and simplify the computationally expensive Clebsch–Gordan product with the inner product. Furthermore, we present a well-designed vector–scalar interactive equivariant message passing (ViS-MP) mechanism, which fully utilizes the geometric features by interacting vector hidden representations with scalar ones. When comprehensively evaluated on some benchmark datasets, ViSNet outperforms all state-of-the-art algorithms on all molecules in MD17, revised MD17 and MD22 datasets and shows superior performance on QM9, Molecule3D dataset indicating the powerful capability of molecular geometric representation. ViSNet also has won the PCQM4Mv2 track in the OGB-LCS@NeurIPS2022 competition ( https://ogb.stanford.edu/neurips2022/results/ ). We then performed molecular dynamics simulations for each molecule on MD17 driven by ViSNet trained only with limited data (950 samples). The highly consistent interatomic distance distributions and the explored potential energy surfaces between ViSNet and quantum simulation illustrate that ViSNet is genuinely data-efficient and can perform simulations with high fidelity. To further explore the usefulness of ViSNet to real-world applications, we used an in-house dataset that consists of about 10,000 different conformations of the 166-atom mini-protein Chignolin derived from replica exchange molecular dynamics and calculated at the DFT level. When evaluated on the dataset, ViSNet also achieved significantly better performance than empirical force fields, and the simulations performed by ViSNet exhibited very close force calculation to DFT. In addition, ViSNet exhibits reasonable interpretability to map geometric representation to molecular structures. The contributions of ViSNet can be summarized as follows:

Proposing an RGC module that utilizes high-order geometric tensors to implicitly extract various geometric features, including angles, dihedral torsion angles, and improper angles, with linear time complexity.

Introducing ViS-MP mechanism to enable efficient interaction between vector hidden representations and scalar ones and fully exploit the geometric information.

Achieving state-of-the-art performance in six benchmarks for predicting energy, forces, HOMO-LUMO gap, and other quantum properties of molecules.

Performing molecular dynamics simulations driven by ViSNet on both small molecules and 166-atom Chignolin with high fidelity.

Demonstrating reasonable model interpretability between geometric features and molecular structures.

Overview of ViSNet

ViSNet is a versatile EGNN that predicts potential energy, atomic forces as well as various quantum chemical properties by taking atomic coordinates and numbers as inputs. As shown in Fig.  1 a, the model is composed of an embedding block and multiple stacked ViSNet blocks, followed by an output block. The atomic number and coordinates are fed into the embedding block followed by ViSNet blocks to extract and encode geometric representations. The geometric representations are then used to predict molecular properties through the output block. It is worth noting that ViSNet is an energy-conserving potential, i.e., the predicted atomic forces are derived from the negative gradients of the potential energy with respect to the coordinates 9 , 10 .

a Model sketch of ViSNet. ViSNet embeds the 3D structures of molecules and extracts the geometric information through a series of ViSNet blocks and outputs the molecule properties such as energy, forces, and HOMO–LUMO gap through an output block. b Flowchart of one ViSNet Block. One ViSNet block consists of two modules: (i) Scalar2Vec , responsible for attaching scalar embeddings to vectors.; (ii) Vec2Scalar , renovates scalar embeddings built on RGC strategy. The inputs of Scalar2Vec are the node embedding h i , edge embedding f i j , direction unit \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) and the relative positions between two atoms. The edge-fusion graph attention module (serves as \({\phi }_{{\rm {m}}}^{{\rm {s}}}\) ) takes as input h i and the output of the dense layer following f i j , and outputs scalar messages. Before aggregation, each scalar message is transformed through a dense layer, and then fused with the unit of the relative position \({\overrightarrow{u}}_{ij}\) and its own direction unit \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{j}\) . We further compute the vector messages and aggregate them all among the neighborhood. Through a gated residual connection, the final residual \({{\Delta }}{\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) is produced. In Vec2Scalar module, by Hadamard production of aggregated scalar messages and the output of RGC-Angle calculation and adding a gated residual connection, the final Δ h i is figured out. Likewise, combining the projected f i j and the output of RGC-Dihedral calculation, the final Δ f i j is determined.

The success of classical force fields shows that geometric features such as interatomic distances, angles, dihedral torsion angles, and improper angles in Fig.  2 are essential to determine the total potential energy of molecules. The explicit extraction of invariant geometric representations in previous studies often suffers from a large amount of time or memory consumption during model training and inference. Given an atom, the calculation of angular information scales \({{{{{{{\mathcal{O}}}}}}}}({{{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}}}^{2})\) with the number of neighboring atoms, while the computational complexity is even \({{{{{{{\mathcal{O}}}}}}}}({{{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}}}^{3})\) for dihedrals 20 . To alleviate this problem, inspired by Sch¨utt et al. 18 , we propose runtime geometry calculation (RGC), which uses an equivariant vector representation (termed as direction unit) for each node to preserve its geometric information. RGC directly calculates the geometric information from the direction unit which only sums the vectors from the target node to its neighbors once. Therefore, the computational complexity can be reduced to \({{{{{{{\mathcal{O}}}}}}}}({{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}})\) . Notably, beyond employing angular information that has been used in PaiNN 18 and ET 19 , ViSNet further considers the dihedral torsion and improper angle calculation with higher geometric tensors.

The bonded terms consist of bond length, bond angle, dihedral torsion, and improper angle. The RGC module depicts all bonded terms of classical MD as model operations in linear time complexity. Yellow arrow \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) denotes the direction unit in Eq. ( 1 ).

Considering the sub-structure of a toy molecule with four atoms shown in Fig.  2 , the angular information of the target node i could be conducted from the vector \({\overrightarrow{r}}_{ij}\) as follows:

where \({\overrightarrow{r}}_{ij}\) is the vector from node i to its neighboring node j , \({\overrightarrow{u}}_{ij}\) is the unit vector of \({\overrightarrow{r}}_{ij}\) . Here, we define the direction unit \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) as the sum of all unit vectors from node i to its all neighboring nodes j , where node i is the intersection of all unit vectors. As shown in Eq. ( 2 ), we calculate the inner product of the direction unit \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) which represents the sum of the inner products of unit vectors from node i to all its neighboring nodes. Combining with Eq. ( 1 ), the inner product of direction \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) finally stands for the sum of cosine values of all angles formed by node i and any two of its neighboring nodes.

Similar to runtime angle calculation, we also calculate the vector rejection 25 of the direction unit \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) of node i and \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{j}\) of node j on the vector \({\overrightarrow{u}}_{ij}\) and \({\overrightarrow{u}}_{ji}\) , respectively.

where \({{{{{{{{\rm{Rej}}}}}}}}}_{\overrightarrow{b}}(\overrightarrow{a})\) represents the vector component of \(\overrightarrow{a}\) perpendicular to \(\overrightarrow{b}\) , termed as the vector rejection. \({\overrightarrow{u}}_{ij}\) and \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) are defined in Eq. ( 1 ). \({\overrightarrow{w}}_{ij}\) represents the sum of the vector rejection \({{{{{{{{\rm{Rej}}}}}}}}}_{{\overrightarrow{u}}_{ij}}({\overrightarrow{u}}_{im})\) and \({\overrightarrow{w}}_{ji}\) represents the sum of the vector rejection \({{{{{{{{\rm{Rej}}}}}}}}}_{{\overrightarrow{u}}_{ji}}({\overrightarrow{u}}_{jn})\) . The inner product between \({\overrightarrow{w}}_{ij}\) and \({\overrightarrow{w}}_{ji}\) is then calculated to conduct dihedral torsion angle information of the intersecting edge e i j as follows:

The improper angle is derived from a pyramid structure forming by 4 nodes. As the last toy molecule shown in Fig.  2 , node i is the vertex of the pyramid, and the improper torsion angle is formed by two adjacent planes with an intersecting edge e i j . We can also calculate the improper angle by vector rejection:

In the same way, the inner product between \({\overrightarrow{t}}_{ij}\) and \({\overrightarrow{t}}_{ji}\) indicates the summation of improper angle information formed by e i j :

Multiple works have shown the effectiveness of high-order geometric tensors for molecular modeling 12 , 22 , 26 , 27 . However, the computational overheads of these approaches are generally expansive due to the CG-product, impeding their further application for large systems. In this work, we convert the vectors to high-order representation with spherical harmonics but discard CG-product with the inner product following the idea of RGC. We find that the extended high-order geometric tensors can still represent the above angular information in the form of Legendre polynomials according to the addition theorem:

where the P l is the Legendre polynomial of degree l , Y l , m denotes the spherical harmonics function and \({Y}_{l,m}^{*}\) denotes its complex conjugation. We sum the product of different order l to obtain the scalar angular representation, which is the same operation as the inner product. It is worth noting that such an extension does not increase the model size and keeps the model architecture unchanged. We also provide proof about the rotational invariance of the RGC strategy in the section “Proofs of the rotational invariance of RGC ”.

In order to make full use of geometric information and enhance the interaction between scalars and vectors, we designed an effective vector–scalar interactive message-passing mechanism with respect to the intersecting nodes and edges for angles and dihedrals, respectively. It is important to note that previous studies 18 , 19 primarily focused on updating node features, whereas our approach updates both node and edge features during message passing, leading to a more comprehensive geometric representation. The key operations in ViS-MP are given as follows:

where h i denotes the scalar embedding of node i , f i j stands for the edge feature between node i and node j . \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) represents the embedding of the direction unit mentioned in RGC. The superscript of variables indicates the index of the block that the variables belong to. We omit the improper angle here for brevity. A comprehensive version is depicted in Supplementary. ViS-MP extends the conventional message passing, aggregation, and update processes with vector–scalar interactions. Eqs. ( 8 ) and ( 9 ) depict our message-passing and aggregation processes. To be concrete, scalar messages m i j incorporating scalar embedding h j , h i , and f i j are passed and then aggregated to node i through a message function \({\phi }_{m}^{s}\) (Eq. ( 8 )). Similar operations are applied for vector messages \({\overrightarrow{m}}_{i}^{l}\) of node i that incorporates scalar message m i j , vector \({\overrightarrow{r}}_{ij}\) and vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{j}\) (Eq. ( 9 )). Equations ( 10 ) and ( 11 ) demonstrate the update processes. h i is updated by the aggregated scalar message output m i while the inner product of \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) is updated through an update function \({\phi }_{un}^{s}\) . Then \({\overrightarrow{f}}_{ij}\) is updated by the inner product of the rejection of the vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) and \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{j}\) through an update function \({\phi }_{ue}^{s}\) . Finally, the vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) is updated by both scalar and vector messages through an update function \({\phi }_{un}^{v}\) . Notably, the vectors update function, i.e., ϕ v require to be equivariant. The detailed message and update functions can be found in the Methods section. A proof about the equivariance of ViS-MP can be found in Supplementary Methods.

In summary, the geometric features are extracted by inner products in the RGC strategy and the scalar and vector embeddings are cyclically updating each other in ViS-MP so as to learn a comprehensive geometric representation from molecular structures.

Accurate quantum chemical property predictions

We evaluated ViSNet on several prevailing benchmark datasets including MD17 9 , 10 , 28 , revised MD17 29 , MD22 30 , QM9 31 , Molecule3D 32 , and OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 33 for energy, force, and other molecular property prediction. MD17 consists of the MD trajectories of seven small organic molecules; the number of conformations in each molecule dataset ranges from 133,700 to 993,237. The dataset rMD17 is a reproduced version of MD17 with higher accuracy. MD22 is a recently proposed MD trajectories dataset that presents challenges with respect to larger system sizes (42–370 atoms). Large molecules such as proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and supramolecules are included in MD22. QM9 consists of 12 kinds of quantum chemical properties of 133,385 small organic molecules with up to 9 heavy atoms. Molecule3D is a recently proposed dataset including 3,899,647 molecules collected from PubChemQC with their ground-state structures and corresponding properties calculated by DFT. We focus on the prediction of the HOMO–LUMO gap following ComENet 34 . OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 is a quantum chemistry dataset originally curated under the PubChemQC including a DFT-calculated HOMO–LUMO gap of 3,746,619 molecules. The 3D conformations are provided for 3,378,606 training molecules but not for the validation and test sets. The training details of ViSNet on each benchmark are described in the “Methods” section.

We compared ViSNet with the state-of-the-art algorithms, including DimeNet 16 , PaiNN 18 , SpookyNet 21 , ET 19 , GemNet 20 , UNiTE 35 , NequIP 12 , SO3KRATES 36 , Allegro 22 , MACE 23 and so on. As shown in Table  1 (MD17), Table  2 (rMD17), and Table  3 (MD22), it is remarkable that ViSNet outperformed the compared algorithms for both small (MD17 and rMD17) and large molecules (MD22) with the lowest mean absolute errors (MAE) of predicted energy and forces. On the one hand, compared with PaiNN, ET, and GemNet, ViSNet incorporated more geometric information and made full use of geometric information in ViS-MP, which contributes to the performance gains. On the other hand, compared with NequIP, Allegro, SO3KRATES, MACE, etc., ViSNet testified the effect of introducing spherical harmonics in the RGC module.

As shown in Table  4 , ViSNet also achieved superior performance for chemical property predictions on QM9. It outperformed the compared algorithms for 9 of 12 chemical properties and achieved comparable results on the remaining properties. Elaborated evaluations on Molecule3D confirmed the high prediction accuracy of ViSNet as shown in Table  5 . ViSNet achieved 33.6% and 6.51% improvements than the second-best for random split and scaffold split, respectively. Furthermore, ViSNet exhibited good portability to other multimodality methods, e.g., Transformer-M 37 and outperformed other approaches on OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 (see Supplementary Fig.  S1) . ViSNet also achieved the winners of PCQM4Mv2 track in the OGB-LCS@NeurIPS2022 competition when testing on unseen molecules 38 ( https://ogb.stanford.edu/neurips2022/results/ ).

To evaluate the computational efficiency of our ViSNet, following 23 , we compare the time latency of ViSNet with prevailing models in Supplementary Fig.  S2 . The latency is defined as the time it takes to compute forces on a structure (i.e., the gradient calculation for a set of input coordinates through the whole deep neural network). As shown in Supplementary Fig.  S2 , ViSNet ( L  = 2) saved 42.8% time latency compared with MACE ( L  = 2). Notably, despite the use of CG-product, Allegro had a significant speed improvement compared to NequIP and BOTNet. However, ViSNet still saved 6.1%, 4.1%, and 61% time latency compared to Allegro with L  = 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

Efficient molecular dynamics simulations

To evaluate ViSNet as the potential for MD simulations, we incorporated ViSNet that trained only with 950 samples on MD17 into the ASE simulation framework 39 to perform MD simulations for all seven kinds of organic molecules. All simulations are run with a time step τ  = 0.5 fs under the Berendsen thermostat with the other settings the same as those of the MD17 dataset. As shown in Fig.  3 , we analyzed the interatomic distance distributions derived from both AIMD simulations with ViSNet as the potential and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at the DFT level for all seven molecules, respectively. As shown in Fig.  3 a, the interatomic distance distribution h ( r ) is defined as the ensemble average of atomic density at a radius r 9 . Figure  3 b–h illustrates the distributions derived from ViSNet are very close to those generated by DFT. We also compared the potential energy surfaces sampled by ViSNet and DFT for these molecules, respectively (Supplementary Fig.  S3 ). The consistent potential energy surfaces suggest that ViSNet can recover the conformational space from the simulation trajectories. Moreover, compared to DFT, numerous groundbreaking machine learning force fields (MLFFs), including sGDML 10 , ANI 40 , DPMD 41 , and PhysNet 42 have proven their exceptional speeds in MD simulations. Similar to such algorithms, ViSNet also exhibited significant computational cost reduction compared to DFT as shown in Supplementary Fig.  S4 and Table  S2 .

a An illustration about the atomic density at a radius r with the arbitrary atom as the center. The interatomic distance distribution is defined as the ensemble average of atomic density. b – h The interatomic distance distributions comparison between simulations by ViSNet and DFT for all seven organic molecules in MD17. The curve of ViSNet is shown using a solid blue line, while the dashed orange line is used for the DFT curve. The structures of the corresponding molecules are shown in the upper right corner. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

To further examine the molecular properties derived from simulations driven by ViSNet, we performed 500 ps MD simulations at a constant energy ensemble (NVE) for ethanol in the MD17 dataset with a time step of τ  = 0.5 fs and 200 ps Ac-Ala3-NHMe in the MD22 dataset with a time step of τ  = 1 fs. The simulations were driven by ViSNet, sGDML, and DFT, respectively. For ethanol, we analyzed its vibrational spectra and the probability distribution of dihedral angles. For Ac-Ala3-NHMe, we investigated its vibrational spectra and potential energy surface (PES) via the Ramachandran plot. To analyze the Ramachandran plot of different simulations, the free energy value was estimated using the potential of mean force (PMF). ϕ and ψ were set as two reaction coordinates ( x , y ). All three ϕ and ψ dihedrals in Ac-Ala3-NHMe were calculated and plotted. The relative free energy value was calculated and referred to with the minimum value. To generate the landscape, 40 bins were used in both the x and y directions. Supplementary Fig.  S5 a and b demonstrate that both ViSNet and sGDML generate similar vibrational spectra, with slight differences in peak intensities compared to DFT. The probability distribution of hydroxyl angles in ethanol (Supplementary Fig.  S5 c) reveals three minima: gauche ± ( M g ± ) and trans ( M t ). Furthermore, even though ViSNet showed better performance than sGDML for various conformations in the MD22 dataset, starting from the same structure of the alanine tetrapeptide, the performance difference may not have a notable impact on the sampling efficiency for such small molecules, and thus may also lead to similar dynamics on the Ramachandran plots as shown in the Supplementary Fig.  S5 d–f. These results demonstrate that with only a few training samples, ViSNet can act with the potential to perform high-fidelity molecular dynamics simulations with much less computational cost and higher accuracy.

Applications for real-world full-atom proteins

To examine the usefulness of ViSNet in real-world applications, we made evaluations on the 166-atom mini-protein Chignolin (Fig.  4 a). Based on a Chignolin dataset consisting of about 10,000 conformations that sampled by replica exchange MD 43 and calculated at DFT level by Gaussian 16 44 in our another study 45 , 46 , we split it as training, validation, and test sets by the ratio of 8:1:1. We trained ViSNet as well as other prevailing MLFFs including ET 19 , PaiNN 18 , GemNet-OC 47 , MACE 23 , NequIP 12 and Allegro 22 and compared them with molecular mechanics (MM) 48 . The DFT results were used as the ground truth. Figure  4 b shows the free energy landscape of Chignolin and is depicted by d D3−G7 (the distance between carbonyl oxygen on the D3 backbone and nitrogen on the G7 backbone) and d E5−T8 (the distance between carbonyl oxygen on the E5 backbone and nitrogen on T8 backbone). The concentrated energy basin on the left shows the folded state and the scattered energy basin on the right shows the unfolded state. We randomly selected six structures from different regions of the potential energy surface for visualization. Among them, four structures were predicted by the model with smaller errors than the MAE while the other two with larger errors. Interestingly, all models consistently performed poorly on the structures with high potential energies (low probability of sampling) and performed well on the other structures. This implies that the sampling of conformations with high potential energies could be enhanced to ensure the generalization ability of the models.

a The visualization of Chignolin structure. The backbone is colored grey while the side chains of each residue in Chignolin are highlighted with a ball and stick. b The energy landscape of Chignolin sampled by REMD. The x -axis of the landscape is the distance between carbonyl oxygen on the D3 backbone and nitrogen on the G7 backbone, while the y -axis is the distance between carbonyl oxygen on the E5 backbone and nitrogen on the T8 backbone. Six structures were then selected for visualization. Each structure is shown as a cartoon and residues are depicted in sticks. The histograms show the absolute error between the energy difference predicted by MLFFs including ViSNet, ET, PaiNN, GemNet-OC, NequIP, Allegro, and MACE or calculated by MM, and the ground truth calculated by DFT on the corresponding structure. c The average root mean square deviation (RMSD) of the Chignolin trajectories simulated by ViSNet was calculated from 10 different trajectories. The shaded areas indicate the standard deviation range. d The MAE of each component of atomic forces during the simulations driven by ViSNet. The ground truth energies and forces were calculated using Gaussian 16. The shaded areas indicate the standard deviation range. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Supplementary Fig.  S6 shows the correlations between the energies predicted by MLFFs or MM and the ground truth values calculated by DFT for all conformations in the test set. ViSNet achieved a lower MAE and a higher R 2 score. From the violin plot of the absolute errors shown in Supplementary Fig.  S7 , ViSNet, PaiNN and ET exhibited smaller errors than other MLFFs while MM got a much wider range of prediction errors. Similar results can be seen in the force correlations in each component shown in Supplementary Fig.  S8 . Detailed settings about DFT and MM calculations are shown in Supplementary Materials. Furthermore, we also made a comprehensive comparison by taking model performance, training time consumption, and model size into consideration. ViSNet and other state-of-the-art algorithms such as PaiNN, ET, GemNet-OC, MACE, NequIP, and Allegro were analyzed on the Chignolin dataset and shown in Fig.  5 . Although ViSNet is marginally slower than ET and PaiNN, it introduces more geometric information, significantly enhancing its performance. When compared to GemNet, which also incorporates dihedral angles, ViSNet’s computational cost is significantly more affordable. Similarly, ViSNet proves to be computationally efficient when compared to models employing the CG-product method, such as MACE, Allegro, and NequIP.

PaiNN and ET are faster and smaller as ViSNet further incorporates dihedral calculation. ViSNet outperforms GemNet-OC due to its Runtime Geometry Calculation, reducing the explicit extraction of dihedral complexity from \({{{{{{{\mathcal{O}}}}}}}}({{{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}}}^{3})\) to \({{{{{{{\mathcal{O}}}}}}}}({{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}})\) . Additionally, ViSNet is also faster and smaller than MACE, Allegro, and NequIP for streamlining the CG-product. ViSNet achieves the best performance for its elaborate design, i.e., runtime geometric calculation and vector–scalar interactive message passing. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

In addition, we performed MD simulations for Chignolin driven by ViSNet. 10 conformations were randomly selected as initial structures, and 100 ps simulations were run for each. As shown in Fig.  4 c, the RMSD for 10 simulation trajectories is shown against the simulation time. In Fig.  4 d, we displayed the MAE values of each component of the atomic forces between ViSNet and those calculated by Gaussian 16 44 at the DFT level. The simulation trajectory driven by ViSNet exhibited a small force difference for each component to quantum mechanics, which implies that ViSNet has no bias towards any force component, and thus consolidates the accuracy and potential usefulness for real-world applications.

Interpretability of ViSNet on molecular structures

Prior works have shown the effectiveness of incorporating geometric features, such as angles 16 , 20 . The primary method of geometry extraction utilized by ViSNet is the distinct inner product in its runtime geometry calculation. To this end, we illustrate a reasonable model interpretability of ViSNet by mapping the angle representations derived from the inner product of direction units in the model to the atoms in the molecular structure. We aim to bridge the gap between geometric representation in ViSNet and molecular structures. We visualized the embeddings after the inner product of direction units \(\langle {\overrightarrow{v}}_{i},{\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\rangle\) extracted from 50 aspirin samples on the validation set. The high-dimensional embeddings were reduced to 2-dimensional space using T-SNE 49 and then clustered using DBSCAN 50 without the prior of number of clusters.

Supplementary Fig.  S9 exhibits the clustering results of nodes’ embeddings after the inner product of their corresponding direction units. We further map the clustered nodes to the atoms of aspirin chemical structure. Interestingly, the embeddings for these nodes could be distinctly gathered into several clusters shown in different colors. For example, although carbon atom C 11 and carbon atom C 12 possess different positions and connect with different atoms, their inner product \(\langle {\overrightarrow{v}}_{i},{\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\rangle\) are clustered into the same class for holding similar substructures ({ C 11 − O 2 O 3 C 6 } and { C 12 − O 1 O 4 C 13 }). To summarize, ViSNet can discriminate different molecular substructures in the embedding space.

Ablation study

To further explore where the performance gains of ViSNet come from, we conducted a comprehensive ablation study. Specifically, we excluded the runtime angle calculation (w/o A), runtime dihedral calculation (w/o D), and both of them (w/o A&D) in ViSNet, in order to evaluate the usefulness of each part. ViSNet-improper denotes the additional improper angles and ViSNet l =1 uses the first-order spherical harmonics.

We designed some model variants with different message-passing mechanisms based on ViS-MP for scalar and vector interaction. ViSNet-N directly aggregates the dihedral information to intersecting nodes, and ViSNet-T leverages another form of dihedral calculation. The details of these model variants are elaborated in Supplementary. The results of the ablation study are shown in Supplementary Table  S3 and Supplementary Fig.  S10 . Based on the results, we can see that both kinds of directional geometric information are useful and the dihedral information contributes a little bit more to the final performance. The significant performance drop from ViSNet-N and ViSNet-T further validates the effectiveness of the ViS-MP mechanism. ViSNet-improper achieves similar performance to ViSNet for small molecules, but the contribution of improper angles is more obvious for large molecules (see Table  3 ). Furthermore, ViSNet using higher-order spherical harmonics achieves better performance.

We propose ViSNet, a geometric deep learning potential for molecular dynamics simulation. The group representation theory-based methods and the directional information-based methods are two mainstream classes of geometric deep learning potentials to enforce SE(3) equivariance 20 . ViSNet takes advantage of both sides in designing the RGC strategy and ViS-MP mechanism. On the one hand, the RGC strategy explicitly extracts and exploits the directional geometric information with computationally lightweight operations, making the model training and inference fast. On the other hand, ViS-MP employs a series of effective and efficient vector-scalar interactive operations, leading to the full use of geometric information. Furthermore, according to the many-body expansion theory 51 , 52 , 53 , the potential energy of the whole system equals the potential of each single atom plus the energy corrections from two-bodies to many-bodies. Most of the previous studies model the truncated energy correction terms hierarchically with k -hop information via stacking k message passing blocks. Different from these approaches, ViSNet encodes the angle, dihedral torsion, and improper information in a single block, which empowers the model to have a much more powerful representation ability. In addition, ViSNet’s universality or completeness is not validated by the geometric Weisfeiler–Leman (GWL) test 54 due to the inner product operation, which is computationally efficient but fails to distinguish certain atom reflection structures with the same angular information. To pass counterexamples or the GWL test, incorporating the CG-product with higher-order spherical harmonics is necessary in future studies.

Besides predicting energy, force, and chemical properties with high accuracy, performing molecular dynamics simulations with ab initio accuracy at the cost of the empirical force field is a grand challenge. ViSNet proves its usefulness in real-world ab initio molecular dynamics simulations with less computational costs and the ability of scaling to large molecules such as proteins. Extending ViSNet to support larger and more complex molecular systems will be our future research direction.

Equivariance

In the context of machine learning for atomic systems, equivariance is a pervasive concept. Specifically, the atomic vectors such as dipoles or forces must rotate in a manner consistent with the conformation coordinates. In molecular dynamics, such equivariance can be ensured by computing gradients based on a predicted conservative scalar energy. Formally, a function \({{{{{{{\mathcal{F}}}}}}}}:{{{{{{{\mathcal{X}}}}}}}}\to {{{{{{{\mathcal{Y}}}}}}}}\) is equivariant should guarantee:

where \({\rho }_{{{{{{{{\mathcal{X}}}}}}}}}(g)\) and \({\rho }_{{{{{{{{\mathcal{X}}}}}}}}}(g)\) are group representations in input and output spaces. The integration of equivariance into model parameterization has been shown to be effective, as seen in the implementation of shift-equivariance in CNNs, which is critical for enhancing the generalization capacity.

Proofs of the rotational invariance of RGC

Assume that the molecule rotates in 3D space, i.e.,

where, R   ∈   S O (3) is an arbitrary rotation matrix that satisfies:

The angular information after rotation is calculated as follows:

As shown in Eq. ( 18 ), the angle information does not change after rotation. The dihedral angular and improper information is also rotationally invariant since:

As Eq. ( 18 ) proved, the inner product has rotational invariance. Then, Eq. ( 19 ) can be further simplified as

The dihedral or improper angular information after rotation is calculated as:

As a result, Eqs. ( 18 ) and ( 21 ) have proved the rotational invariance of our proposed runtime geometry calculation (RGC).

We also provide proof of the equivariance of our ViS-MP in Supplementary Methods.

Detailed operations and modules in ViSNet

ViSNet predicts the molecular properties (e.g., energy \(\hat{E}\) , forces \(\overrightarrow{F}\in {{\mathbb{R}}}^{N\times 3}\) , dipole moment μ ) from the current states of atoms, including the atomic positions \(X\in {{\mathbb{R}}}^{N\times 3}\) and atomic numbers \(Z\in {{\mathbb{N}}}^{N}\) . The architecture of the proposed ViSNet is shown in Fig.  1 . The overall design of ViSNet follows the vector–scalar interactive message passing as illustrated from Eqs. ( 8 )–( 11 ). First, an embedding block encodes the atom numbers and edge distances into the embedding space. Then, a series of ViSNet blocks update the node-wise scalar and vector representations based on their interactions. A residual connection is placed between two ViSNet blocks. Finally, stacked corresponding gated equivariant blocks proposed by 18 are attached to the output block for specific molecular property prediction.

The embedding block

ViSNet expands the direct node and edge embedding with their neighbors. It first embeds atomic chemical symbol z i , and calculates the edge representation whose distances within the cutoff through radial basis functions (RBF). Then the initial embedding of the atom i , its 1-hop neighbors j and the directly connected edge e i j within cutoff are fused together as the initial node embedding \({h}_{i}^{0}\) and edge embedding \({f}_{ij}^{0}\) . In summary, the embedding block is given by:

\({{{{{{{\mathcal{N}}}}}}}}(i)\) denotes the set of 1-hop neighboring nodes of node i , and j is one of its neighbors. The embedding process is elaborated in Supplementary. The initial vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}\) is set to \(\overrightarrow{0}\) . The vector embeddings \(\overrightarrow{v}\) are projected into the embedding space by following 18 ; \(\overrightarrow{v}\in {{\mathbb{R}}}^{N\times 3\times F}\) and F is the size of hidden dimension. The advantage of such projection is to assign a unique high-dimensional representation for each embedding to discriminate from each other. Further discussions on its effectiveness and interpretability are given in the Results section.

The Scalar2Vec module

In the Scalar2Vec module, the vector embedding \(\overrightarrow{v}\) is updated by both the scalar messages derived from node and edge scalar embeddings (Eq. ( 8 )) and the vector messages with inherent geometric information (Eq. ( 9 )). The message of each atom is calculated through an Edge-Fusion Graph Attention module, which fuses the node and edge embeddings and computes the attention scores. The fusion of the node and edge embeddings could be the concatenation operation, Hadamard product, or adding a learnable bias 55 . We leverage the Hadamard product and the vanilla multi-head attention mechanism borrowed from Transformer 56 for edge-node fusion.

Following 19 , we pass the fused representations through a nonlinear activation function as shown in Eq. ( 23 ). The value ( V ) in the attention mechanism is also fused by edge features before being multiplied by attention scores weighted by a cosine cutoff as shown in Eq. ( 24 ),

where l   ∈  {0, 1, 2,  ⋯   ,  L } is the index of the block, σ denotes the activation function (SiLU in this paper), W is the learnable weight matrix,  ⊙  represents the Hadamard product, ϕ (  ⋅  ) denotes the cosine cutoff and Dense(  ⋅  ) refers to one learnable weight matrix with an activation function. For brevity, we omit the learnable bias for linear transformation on scalar embedding in equations, and there is no bias for vector embedding to ensure the equivariance.

Then, the computed \({m}_{ij}^{l}\) is used to produce the geometric messages \({\overrightarrow{m}}_{ij}^{l}\) for vectors:

And the vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}^{l}\) is updated by:

The Vec2Scalar module

In the Vec2Scalar module, the node embedding \({h}_{i}^{l}\) and edge embedding \({f}_{ij}^{l}\) are updated by the geometric information extracted by the RGC strategy, i.e., angles (Eq. ( 10 )) and dihedrals (Eq. ( 11 )), respectively. The residual node embedding \({{\Delta }}{h}_{i}^{l+1}\) , is calculated by a Hadamard product between the runtime angle information and the aggregated scalar messages with a gated residual connection:

To compute the residual edge embedding \({{\Delta }}{f}_{ij}^{l+1}\) , we perform the Hadamard product of the runtime dihedral information with the transformed edge embedding:

After the residual hidden representations are calculated, we add them to the original input of block l and feed them to the next block.

A comprehensive version that includes improper angles is depicted in Supplementary Methods.

The output block

Following PaiNN 18 , we update the scalar embedding and vector embedding of nodes with multiple gated equivariant blocks:

where [  ⋅  ,  ⋅  ] is the tensor concatenation operation. The final scalar embedding \({h}_{i}^{L}\in {{\mathbb{R}}}^{N\times 1}\) and vector embedding \({\overrightarrow{v}}_{i}^{L}\in {{\mathbb{R}}}^{N\times 3\times 1}\) are used to predict various molecular properties.

On QM9, the molecular dipole is calculated as follows:

where \({\overrightarrow{r}}_{c}\) denotes the center of mass. Similarly, for the prediction of electronic spatial extent 〈 R 2 〉, we use the following equation:

For the remaining 10 properties y , we simply aggregate the final scalar embedding of nodes as follows:

For models trained on the molecular dynamics datasets including MD17, revised MD17, and Chignolin, the total potential energy is obtained as the sum of the final scalar embedding of the nodes. As an energy-conserving potential, the forces are then calculated using the negative gradients of the predicted total potential energy with respect to the atomic coordinates:

Statistics and reproducibility

For the QM9 dataset, we randomly split it into 110,000 samples as the train set, 10,000 samples as the validation set, and the rest as the test set by following the previous studies 18 , 19 . For the Molecule3D and OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 datasets, the splitting has been provided in their paper 32 , 33 .

To evaluate the effectiveness of ViSNet in simulation data, ViSNet was trained on MD17 and rMD17 with a limited data setting, which consists of only 950 uniformly sampled conformations for model training and 50 conformations for validation for each molecule. For the MD22 dataset, we use the same number of molecules as in ref. 30 for training and validation, and the rest as the test set.

Furthermore, the whole Chignolin dataset was randomly split into 80%, 10%, and 10% as the training, validation, and test datasets. Six representative conformations were picked from the test set for illustration.

Experimental settings

For the QM9 dataset, we adopted a batch size of 32 and a learning rate of 1e−4 for all the properties. For the Molecule3D dataset, we adopted a larger batch size of 512 and a learning rate of 2e−4. For the OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 dataset, we trained our model in a mixed 2D/3D mode with a batch size of 256 and a learning rate of 2e−4. The mean squared error (MSE) loss was used for model training. For the molecular dynamic dataset including MD17, rMD17, MD22, and Chignolin, we leveraged a combined MSE loss for energy and force prediction. The weight of energy loss was set to 0.05. The weight of force loss was set to 0.95. The batch size was chosen from 2, 4, 8 due to the GPU memory and the learning rate was chosen from 1e−4 to 4e−4 for different molecules. The cutoff was set to 5 for small molecules in QM9, MD17, rMD17, and Molecule3D, and changed to 4 for Chignolin in order to reduce the number of edges in the molecular graphs. For the MD22 dataset, the cutoff of relatively small molecules was set to 5, that of bigger molecules was set to 4. Cutoff was not used in the OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 dataset. We used the learning rate decay if the validation loss stopped decreasing. The patience was set to 5 epochs for Molecule3D, 15 epochs for QM9, and 30 epochs for MD17, rMD17, MD22, and Chignolin. The learning rate decay factor was set to 0.8 for these models. Training is stopped if a maximum number of epochs is reached, or the validation loss does not improve for a maximum number of early stopping patience. The ViSNet model trained on the molecular dynamic datasets and Molecule3D had 9 hidden layers and the embedding dimension was set to 256. We used a larger model for the QM9 dataset, i.e., the embedding dimension changed to 512. For the OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 dataset, we use the 12-layer and 768-dimension Transformer-M 37 as the backbone. More details about the hyperparameters of ViSNet can be found in Supplementary Table  S4 . Experiments were conducted on NVIDIA 32G-V100 GPUs.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

All relevant data supporting the key findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Information files. MD17 dataset [ http://www.quantum-machine.org/gdml/data/npz ], MD22 dataset [ http://www.quantum-machine.org/gdml/data/npz ], rMD17 dataset [ https://archive.materialscloud.org/record/file?filename=rmd17.tar.bz2&record_id=466 ], QM9 dataset [ https://deepchemdata.s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/datasets/molnet_publish/qm9.zip ], Molecule3D dataset [ https://github.com/divelab/MoleculeX/tree/molx/Molecule3D ], OGB-LSC PCQM4Mv2 dataset [ https://ogb.stanford.edu/docs/lsc/pcqm4mv2 ] and Chignolin dataset [ https://github.com/microsoft/AI2BMD/tree/ViSNet/chignolin_data ].  Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Most experiments were run with Python with version 3.9.15, Pytorch with version 1.11.0, Pytorch Geometric with version 2.1.0, and Pytorch Lightning with version 1.8.0. The code used to reproduce our results is available at https://github.com/microsoft/AI2BMD/tree/ViSNet 57 . Matplotlib and Seaborn were used for plotting figures.

Chow, E., Klepeis, J., Rendleman, C., Dror, R. & Shaw, D. 9.6 new technologies for molecular dynamics simulations. In Comprehensive Biophysics (ed Egelman, E.H.) 86–104 (Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2012).

Singh, S. & Singh, V. K. Molecular dynamics simulation: methods and application. In Frontiers in Protein Structure, Function, and Dynamics (eds Singh, D. B. & Tripathi, T.) 213–238 (Springer, 2020).

Lu, S. et al. Activation pathway of a g protein-coupled receptor uncovers conformational intermediates as targets for allosteric drug design. Nat. Commun. 12 , 1–15 (2021).

Article   ADS   Google Scholar  

Li, Y. et al. Exploring the regulatory function of the n-terminal domain of sars-cov-2 spike protein through molecular dynamics simulation. Adv. Theory Simul. 4 , 2100152 (2021).

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Kohn, W. & Sham, L. J. Self-consistent equations including exchange and correlation effects. Phys. Rev. 140 , A1133 (1965).

Article   ADS   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Marx, D. & Hutter, J. Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics: Basic Theory and Advanced Methods (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Christensen, A. S., Bratholm, L. A., Faber, F. A. & Anatole von Lilienfeld, O. Fchl revisited: faster and more accurate quantum machine learning. J. Chem. Phys. 152 , 044107 (2020).

Article   ADS   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Bartók, A. P., Payne, M. C., Kondor, R. & Csányi, G. Gaussian approximation potentials: the accuracy of quantum mechanics, without the electrons. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 , 136403 (2010).

Article   ADS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Chmiela, S. et al. Machine learning of accurate energy-conserving molecular force fields. Sci. Adv. 3 , e1603015 (2017).

Article   ADS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Chmiela, S., Sauceda, H. E., Müller, K.-R. & Tkatchenko, A. Towards exact molecular dynamics simulations with machine-learned force fields. Nat. Commun. 9 , 1–10 (2018).

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Chmiela, S. et al. Accurate global machine learning force fields for molecules with hundreds of atoms. Sci. Adv. 9 , eadf0873 (2023).

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Batzner, S. et al. E (3)-equivariant graph neural networks for data-efficient and accurate interatomic potentials. Nat. Commun. 13 , 1–11 (2022).

Article   Google Scholar  

Brandstetter, J., Hesselink, R., van der Pol, E., Bekkers, E. & Welling, M. Geometric and physical quantities improve e (3) equivariant message passing. In International Conference on Learning Representations (OpenReview.net, 2022).

Hutchinson, M. J. et al. Lietransformer: equivariant self-attention for lie groups. In International Conference on Machine Learning , (eds Meila, M. & Zhang, T.) 4533–4543 (PMLR, 2021).

Fuchs, F., Worrall, D., Fischer, V. & Welling, M. Se (3)-transformers: 3d roto-translation equivariant attention networks. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 33 , 1970–1981 (2020).

Google Scholar  

Gasteiger, J., Groß, J. & Günnemann, S. Directional message passing for molecular graphs. In International Conference on Learning Representations (OpenReview.net, 2019).

Gasteiger, J. et al. Fast and uncertainty-aware directional message passing for non-equilibrium molecules. arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.14115 (2020).

Schütt, K., Unke, O. & Gastegger, M. Equivariant message passing for the prediction of tensorial properties and molecular spectra. In International Conference on Machine Learning (eds Meila, M. & Zhang, T.) 9377–9388 (PMLR, 2021).

Thölke, P. & De Fabritiis, G. Torchmd-net: equivariant transformers for neural network based molecular potentials. In The International Conference on Learning Representations (OpenReview.net, 2022).

Gasteiger, J., Becker, F. & Günnemann, S. Gemnet: universal directional graph neural networks for molecules. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 34 , 6790–6802 (2021).

Unke, O. T. et al. Spookynet: learning force fields with electronic degrees of freedom and nonlocal effects. Nat. Commun. 12 , 1–14 (2021).

Musaelian, A. et al. Learning local equivariant representations for large-scale atomistic dynamics. Nat. Commun. 14 , 579 (2023).

Batatia, I. et al. MACE: Higher order equivariant message passing neural networks for fast and accurate force fields. Adv. Neural. Inf. Process. Syst. 35 , 11423–11436 (2022).

Han, J., Rong, Y., Xu, T. & Huang, W. Geometrically equivariant graph neural networks: a survey. arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.07230 (2022).

Perwass, C., Edelsbrunner, H., Kobbelt, L. & Polthier, K. Geometric Algebra With Applications in Engineering Vol. 4 (Springer, 2009).

Zitnick, L. et al. Spherical channels for modeling atomic interactions. Adv. Neural. Inf. Process. Syst. 35 , 8054–8067 (2022).

Liao, Y.-L. & Smidt, T. Equiformer: Equivariant Graph Attention Transformer for 3D Atomistic Graphs. The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations. (2022).

Schütt, K. T., Arbabzadah, F., Chmiela, S., Müller, K. R. & Tkatchenko, A. Quantum-chemical insights from deep tensor neural networks. Nat. Commun. 8 , 1–8 (2017).

Christensen, A. S. & Von Lilienfeld, O. A. On the role of gradients for machine learning of molecular energies and forces. Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 1 , 045018 (2020).

Chmiela, S. et al. Accurate global machine learning force fields for molecules with hundreds of atoms. Sci Adv. 9 , eadf0873 (2023).

Ramakrishnan, R., Dral, P. O., Rupp, M. & Von Lilienfeld, O. A. Quantum chemistry structures and properties of 134 kilo molecules. Sci. Data 1 , 1–7 (2014).

Xu, Z. et al. Molecule3d: a benchmark for predicting 3d geometries from molecular graphs. arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.01717 (2021).

Hu, W. et al. OGB-LSC: a large-scale challenge for machine learning on graphs. In Proc. of the 35 th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems Datasets and Benchmarks Track (Round 2) (eds Vanschoren, J. & Yeung, S.) (Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation, Inc., 2021).

Wang, L., Liu, Y., Lin, Y., Liu, H. & Ji, S. Comenet: towards complete and efficient message passing for 3d molecular graphs. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 35 , 650–664 (2022).

Qiao, Z. et al. Informing geometric deep learning with electronic interactions to accelerate quantum chemistry. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119 , e2205221119 (2022).

Frank, T., Unke, O. T. & Muller, K. R. So3krates: equivariant attention for interactions on arbitrary length-scales in molecular systems. In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (eds Koyejo, S. et al.) (Curran Associates, Inc., 2022).

Luo, S. et al. One transformer can understand both 2d & 3d molecular data. arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.01765 (2022).

Wang, Y. et al. An ensemble of visnet, transformer-m, and pretraining models for molecular property prediction in ogb large-scale challenge@ neurips 2022. arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.12791 (2022).

Larsen, A. H. et al. The atomic simulation environment—a python library for working with atoms. J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29 , 273002 (2017).

Smith, J. S., Isayev, O. & Roitberg, A. E. Ani-1: an extensible neural network potential with DFT accuracy at force field computational cost. Chem. Sci. 8 , 3192–3203 (2017).

Zhang, L., Han, J., Wang, H., Car, R. & Weinan, E. Deep potential molecular dynamics: a scalable model with the accuracy of quantum mechanics. Phys. Rev. Lett. 120 , 143001 (2018).

Unke, O. T. & Meuwly, M. Physnet: a neural network for predicting energies, forces, dipole moments, and partial charges. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 15 , 3678–3693 (2019).

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Qi, R., Wei, G., Ma, B. & Nussinov, R. Replica exchange molecular dynamics: a practical application protocol with solutions to common problems and a peptide aggregation and self-assembly example. In Peptide Self-assembly (eds Nilsson, B. L. & Doran, T. M.) 101–119 (Springer, 2018).

Frisch, M. J. et al. Gaussian 16 Revision C.01 (Gaussian Inc. Wallingford, CT, 2016).

Wang, T., He, X., Li, M., Shao, B. & Liu, T.-Y. AIMD-Chig: exploring the conformational space of a 166-atom protein chignolin with ab initio molecular dynamics. Sci. Data 10 , 549 (2023).

Wang, Z. et al. Improving machine learning force fields for molecular dynamics simulations with fine-grained force metrics. J. Chem. Phys. 159 , 035101 (2023).

Gasteiger, J. et al. GemNet-OC: Developing Graph Neural Networks for Large and Diverse Molecular Simulation Datasets. Transactions on Machine Learning Research (2022).

Case, D. A. et al. Amber 2021 (University of California, San Francisco, 2021).

Van der Maaten, L. & Hinton, G. Visualizing data using t-sne. J. Mach. Learn. Res. 9 , 2579–2605 (2008).

Ester, M., Kriegel, H.-P., Sander, J., Xu, X. et al. A density-based algorithm for discovering clusters in large spatial databases with noise. In kdd (eds Simoudis, E., Han, J. & Fayyad, U.) Vol. 96, 226–231 (AAAI Press, 1996).

Nesbet, R. Atomic Bethe–Goldstone equations. III. correlation energies of ground states of Be, B, C, N, O, F, and Ne. Phys. Rev. 175 , 2 (1968).

Article   ADS   CAS   Google Scholar  

Hankins, D., Moskowitz, J. & Stillinger, F. Water molecule interactions. J. Chem. Phys. 53 , 4544–4554 (1970).

Gordon, M. S., Fedorov, D. G., Pruitt, S. R. & Slipchenko, L. V. Fragmentation methods: a route to accurate calculations on large systems. Chem. Rev. 112 , 632–672 (2012).

Joshi, C. K., Bodnar, C., Mathis, S. V., Cohen, T. & Lio, P. On the expressive power of geometric graph neural networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.09308 (2023).

Ying, C. et al. Do transformers really perform badly for graph representation? Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 34 , (2021).

Vaswani, A. et al. Attention is all you need. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 30 , (2017).

Wang, T. Enhancing geometric representations for molecules with equivariant vector–scalar interactive message passing. AI2BMD https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10069040 (2023).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to S. Chmiela, H.E. Sauceda, K.R. Müller, and A. Tkatchenko, for their invaluable assistance in performing the simulations and analyzing the vibrational spectra. Their extensive expertise and knowledge greatly contributed to the completion of the supplementary experiments, making our manuscript more solid.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Yusong Wang, Tong Wang, Shaoning Li.

Authors and Affiliations

Microsoft Research AI4Science, 100080, Beijing, China

Yusong Wang, Tong Wang, Shaoning Li, Xinheng He, Mingyu Li, Zun Wang, Bin Shao & Tie-Yan Liu

National Key Laboratory of Human–Machine Hybrid Augmented Intelligence, National Engineering Research Center for Visual Information and Applications, and Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 710049, Xi’an, China

Yusong Wang & Nanning Zheng

The CAS Key Laboratory of Receptor Research and State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 201203, Shanghai, China

University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049, Beijing, China

Medicinal Chemistry and Bioinformatics Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200025, China

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

T.W. led, conceived, and designed the study. T.W. is the lead contact. Y.W., S.L., X.H., and M.L. conducted the work when they were visiting Microsoft Research. S.L., Y.W., and T.W. carried out algorithm design. Y.W., S.L., X.H., and T.W. carried out experiments, evaluations, analysis, and visualization. Y.W. and S.L. wrote the original manuscript. T.W., X.H., M.L., Z.W., and B.S. revised the manuscript. N.Z. and T.-Y.L. contributed to the writing. All authors reviewed the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tong Wang or Bin Shao .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

T.W., B.S., and T.-Y.L. have been filing a patent on ViSNet model. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information.

Nature Communications thanks Zhirong Liu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary material, peer review file, reporting summary, source data, source data, rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Wang, Y., Wang, T., Li, S. et al. Enhancing geometric representations for molecules with equivariant vector-scalar interactive message passing. Nat Commun 15 , 313 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43720-2

Download citation

Received : 04 May 2023

Accepted : 16 November 2023

Published : 05 January 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43720-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

This article is cited by

Equivariant neural network force fields for magnetic materials.

• Zilong Yuan

Quantum Frontiers (2024)

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines . If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.