Kia ora colleagues,

 

Ethics are adaptive because they must evolve to meet legislative as well as societal changes across time. As a Society, it is important the SMM board, ethics committee and wider membership acknowledge this by reviewing both Terms of Reference and policies accordingly. Do our current Terms of Reference capture the breadth of ethical issues faced by the Society today? Do our research initiatives conform to a set of ethical principles that have been agreed by its membership? Do we provide clear guidance to authors, reviewers and editors alike, regarding submissions to journal, conference and workshops hosted by or endorsed by the Society? And is the Society fostering appropriate awareness of ethical issues such as indigenous research, data sovereignty, research techniques, parachute science and offshoring? In a contemporary world that has experienced marked societal and legislative change affecting marine mammal science in recent decades, it is time to explore ethical considerations within and across adjacent fields to ensure the SMM remains forward facing.

 

This workshop aims to engage membership input to propose improvements to our current ethical procedures – get involved and have your views heard. Specifically, we seek to establish a set of overarching ethical principles for the society and to propose a framework for our ethical procedures. The benefits of such a framework would include harmonization of ethical review processes between the society and its journal, the initiation of processes that oblige authors to make ethical declarations as a matter of course, including for conference abstracts, the provision of clear guidance on the interpretation of complex international legislation concerning marine mammals and clarifying what ethics means to our Society moving forward.

 

Virtual attendance possible – Sat 9 November.  Register here https://www.smmconference.org/workshops/#1718132271312-4d7c7a23-e1ca. If you have any questions, please Contact to Karen Stockin k.a.stockin@massey.ac.nz

SMM2022 workshops are half day, full day, or two day events that are proposed and organised by individual researchers. Pre-conference workshops will be held on Saturday, December 11th and Sunday, December 12th, 2021, during the weekend just prior to the conference.

On behalf of of the Workshop Organizing Committee

 

Karen Stockin, Vassili Papastavrou, Conor Ryan, Michael Moore, Rebecca Boys

 

Karen A Stockin, PhD

Professor – Marine Biology

Rutherford Discovery Fellow – Royal Society Te Aparangi

 

Cetacean Ecology Research Group | School of Natural Sciences | Massey University

+64 (0)21 423997   *  k.a.stockin@massey.ac.nz   :  http://www.cetaceanecology.org

 

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