Beyond Compliance – Digital Ethics in Research

The ERCIM Working Group on digital ethics organises a yearly event: the Forum Beyond Compliance on research ethics in the digital age, usually co-located with the ERCIM Fall Meeting.

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Save the Date: ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance on Digital Ethics in Research

The 5th edition of the ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance on Research Ethics in the Digital Age will take place on 29–30 October 2026 in Porto, Portugal.

Beyond establishing ethical norms to comply with, this forum explores digital ethics challenges in the practical settings of academia. It provides an inclusive space for interaction with international experts and welcomes anyone concerned with digital ethics in their research activities.

This Year's Themes

The forum will feature five themes, examining how we conduct research on or with:

  • Young publics
  • AI companions
  • Explainable AI (XAI) limitations
  • AI in healthcare
  • Digital ethics assessment procedures

Venue and Related Events

Participation is free of charge. The forum will be hosted by INESC TEC in Porto, Portugal.

The event will be co-located with the ERCIM Fall Meeting, an AIOLIA training workshop on 28 October, and the ECSS Conference of Informatics Europe.

Attendance

The forum can only be attended in person; no online participation or live streaming will be available. However, recordings of most talks and event summaries will be published online after the event.

About the Organisers

The event is organised by the ERCIM Working Group on Digital Ethics, which is currently recruiting new members and curators.

We look forward to welcoming you to Porto!

Emma Beauxis-Aussalet and Laurynas Adomaitis
On behalf of the Organising Committee

  • Anaelle Martin (CCNEN, France)
  • Christos Alexakos (ISI/ATHENA RC, Greece)
  • Emma Beauxis-Aussalet (VU, Netherlands)
  • Gabriel David (INESC TEC, Portugal)
  • Alexei Grinbaum (CEA, France)
  • Claude Kirchner (CCNEN and Inria, France)
  • Guenter Koch (AARIT, Austria, and Humboldt Cosmos Multiversity, Spain)
  • Laurynas Adomaitis (RISE, Sweden)
  • Miriam Santos (INESC TEC, Portugal)
  • Sylvain Petitjean (Inria, France)
  • Vasco Dias (INESC TEC, Portugal)

ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance 2024

14-15 October 2024 – HUN-REN SZTAKI, Budapest, Hungary and online

View edition 2024

ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance 2023

18-20 October 2023 – Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, Porto and online

View edition 2023

ERCIM Forum Beyond Compliance 2022

17-18 October 2022 – Institut Imagine, Paris and online

View edition 2022

EOSC and Gaia-X

ERCIM actively engages in key European initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and Gaia-X, fostering collaboration, knowledge exchange, and strategic alignment among its members. Through its dedicated Working Group, ERCIM provides a trusted space to share experiences, coordinate activities, and explore opportunities to strengthen Europe’s open, federated, and sovereign digital ecosystems.

What is EOSC?

The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is a major initiative launched by the European Commission. Its goal is to create a federated, open, and trusted of research infrastructures where both researchers and innovators across Europe can seamlessly publish, discover, and reuse data, tools, and services.

EOSC is designed to:

  • Accelerate the transition to Open Science in Europe.
  • Improve access to machine-actionable data and other research outputs, including e.g. software and publications.
  • Foster interoperability and the (re)use of data across disciplines and research communities.

In short, EOSC aims to make European research more collaborative, transparent, and impactful. Learn more on the European Commission’s official EOSC page .

What is Gaia-X?

Gaia-X is a European initiative designed to build a secure, transparent, and trustworthy environment for data sharing, while ensuring that businesses, individuals, and governments retain full sovereignty over their data. By connecting cloud service providers and users in a federated system, Gaia-X aims to strengthen Europe’s digital independence and drive the European data economy.

Gaia-X is built to:

  • Enable trusted, decentralized digital ecosystems.
  • Establish a de facto standard for federated and trusted data infrastructures, through clear specifications, rules, policies, and a robust verification framework.
  • Empower users with secure, transparent, and sovereign control over their data via decentralized cloud infrastructures.

Learn more on the official Gaia-X website .

ERCIM Working Group

ERCIM has established a Working Group (WG) to coordinate and share information among its members on activities related to EOSC and Gaia-X. The group’s purpose is to raise awareness, identify synergies, and support informed collaboration within the ERCIM community.

Its long-term goal is to provide a trusted space where members can:

  • Exchange experiences, including lessons learned and best practices (e.g. in providing services).
  • Share plans to avoid pitfalls.
  • Align strategies in the best interest of ERCIM members.

The Working Group first met at the ERCIM Spring Meetings in 2022 and continues to meet regularly at the spring and fall meetings to discuss updates and new developments. It began by conducting a SWOT analysis and discussing the outcomes. Today, its focus has shifted – driven in part by ERCIM members preparing to become EOSC Nodes – towards exploring practical questions such as:

  • What are the plans and steps required to establish an EOSC Node?
  • Which technical measures and set-ups are needed?
  • What is the time plan for implementation?
  • How will the roles defined in the EOSC Federation Handbook (Coordinator, Operation Manager, Technical Officer, Security Officer, Scientific Officer, Legal/Privacy Officer) be filled, and what tasks will they involve?
  • What resources (both human and financial) are required?

Cooperations and Partnerships

ERCIM places strong emphasis on fostering collaboration with organisations and researchers worldwide. Ongoing partnerships include:

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W3C

ERCIM hosts the European Partner of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the unique international standardization body which sets the Web standards and protocols since 1994.

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Informatics Europe logo

Informatics Europe

ERCIM and Informatics Europe have established contacts with the goal to increase cooperation on activities that are relevant to both organisations.

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Working Groups

ERCIM Working Groups build and maintain networks of researchers in specific scientific fields. They support workshops, joint project proposals, and internal mobility within ERCIM.

How to participate: Scientists interested in participation should contact the ERCIM representative of their institute.

Current Working Groups

Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems (AIIS)

Co-ordinator: Giuseppe Manco (ICAR-CNR)

Working Groups being established

Related documents

Former and inactive Working Groups

Show the archive list

Archive (selection)

  • Applications of Numerical Mathematics in Science
  • BioMedical Informatics (2001–2008)
  • Blockchain Technology
  • Computational and Methodological Statistics
  • Computer Graphics (1993–1997)
  • Constraints (closed 2015)
  • Control and System Theory (1995–2005)
  • Database Research Group (1991–1999)
  • Data and Information Spaces (DIS) (2008–2011)
  • Digital Libraries (DELOS 1996–1999)
  • Digital Patient (2008–2011)
  • E-learning (2000–2005)
  • E-Mobility (2006–2013)
  • Electronic Commerce (1997–2004)
  • Environmental Modelling (1995–2016)
  • Fluid Mechanics (1998–1999)
  • Grids, P2P and Services (closed 2014)
  • Health and Information Technology (1999–2002)
  • IM2IM (2003–2014)
  • Many-Valued Logics (ManyVal)
  • Media Technology and Edutainment (closed 2015)
  • Models and Logics for Quantitative Analysis (2009–2013)
  • Open Data
  • Parallel Processing Network (1994–1998)
  • Rapid Integration of Software Engineering Techniques (RISE) (2004–2008)
  • Semantic Web (2005)
  • Sensor Web (closed 2016)
  • Software Engineering for Resilient Systems (closed 2017)
  • Social Network Analysis (2009–2011)
  • Programming Language Technologies (1998–2000)
  • Soft Computing (2000–2007)
  • Software Evolution (closed 2017)
  • Smart Environments and Systems for Ambient Intelligence (SESAMI) (2006–2008)
  • User Interfaces for All (1995–2006)
  • W4G World Wide Web (1994–1995)

For general information on Working Groups and how to set up a new group, please contact ERCIM.

Projects

ERCIM participates in European research projects as coordinator or partner, and provides support for proposal preparation and project coordination.

European Project Support

ERCIM provides support for the preparation of Horizon Europe ICT research proposals and for the administrative and financial coordination of European research projects.

Our long-standing expertise has contributed to the successful funding of innovative ICT research proposals across multiple European Framework Programmes. ERCIM is open to cooperation with research institutions and industry.

In order for the ERCIM Office to commit to the preparation of a project, the proposal must involve at least one ERCIM member institute.

Current projects

  1. Science

Subcategories

Projects

Behond Compliance

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