From 22–24 September 2025, the ENRIO Congress in Ljubljana, Slovenia, brought together around 270 participants to discuss power dynamics in research and institutional responsibility to foster an open, safe and inclusive research environment as a foundation for Research Integrity (RI) in everyday practice.
At the congress, Janina Bau and Lorenzo Molina, EU Projects Officers and Research Analysts at EARMA, delivered a presentation on behalf of the RE4Green project, entitled “Safeguarding Trust: Ensuring Research Integrity in Climate Change Research and Innovation.”
The speakers began by highlighting the urgency of global environmental and climate challenges, emphasising that existing research ethics and integrity (RE&RI) guidelines are not yet fully equipped to support the Green Transition. They noted that research and innovation addressing environmental issues often involves complex ethical considerations, yet current RE&RI processes rarely account explicitly for environmental ethics.
Against this backdrop, RE4Green’s ambition is to develop a comprehensive framework for research ethics and integrity that directly supports the transition to a sustainable economy and society. To achieve this, the project employs Social Labs as its methodology, fostering collaborative experimentation and co-creation.
The presentation also introduced a set of policy recommendations for embedding environmental and climate ethics into research practice. These include: integrating environmental and climate ethics into institutional RE&RI policies, guidelines and frameworks; embedding them into research strategies and agenda-setting; incorporating justice-oriented approaches; strengthening professional training for both researchers and ethics committees; embedding environmental ethics in education and curriculum development; and operationalising the precautionary principle within institutional governance structures (for more details on these recommendations, see the 1st Policy Brief of RE4GREEN).
Bau and Molina further emphasised the importance of safeguarding public trust by ensuring scientific integrity in climate change research and innovation. They outlined complementary recommendations, such as mandating open access to data, methods and models in publicly funded projects; establishing independent oversight mechanisms; aligning EU and national frameworks; encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration; expanding training opportunities; and promoting an “ethics by design” approach (these recommendations are drawn from the 2nd Policy Brief, developed by EARMA, which will be published soon).
Through these contributions, RE4Green seeks to position research as a central actor in promoting ethics and integrity while supporting society’s transition towards sustainability.
