CHANGER Cafés is a series of regularly scheduled, 30-minute to one hour, informational webinars designed to provide valuable insights on a variety of topics around the Research Ethics of new technologies and new research practices. These sessions serve as both educational briefings and training opportunities, offering participants a concise yet comprehensive learning experience. Each webinar is recorded and will be made available on the website, ensuring information sharing for all.

CHANGER Cafés #2: Ethics of digital images in research

• Date and time: 29/4/2025, 14:00 – 15:00 CET
• Agenda: 40-45 minutes of presentation, 15-20 minutes discussion
• Where: Zoom platform, Registration is needed: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/EL3PWtruTHqQDxPnBk_PZA
• Topic description: Inappropriate manipulation of digital images presents a significant threat to research integrity. Image manipulation, a form of scientific misconduct, has been present for a long time, with studies showing an increasing trend in this practice.
• Why participate: By the end of this session, you will gain practical skills for evaluating scientific images.

The consequences are particularly severe in Biomedicine, where manipulated images result in wasted research funding and ineffective therapies. In this webinar, you will learn about the different types of image manipulation and how to recognise them, as well as explore tools for automated detection. We will also discuss common manipulation techniques, and real-world examples of scientific misconduct involving altered biomedical images. Additionally, we will introduce AI-driven detection methods, that can identify subtle irregularities that may go unnoticed by the human eye. 

Antonija Mijatović, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher, University of Split specialising in research integrity and the application of big data analysis methods. With a background in biophysics, she previously worked as a software developer for four years. Her work also involves the use of Artificial Intelligence, particularly in the field of Biomedicine.

CHANGER Cafés #1: Deceiving research participants: Untangling the research ethics guidance on a tangled issue

Watch the webinar here

• Date and time: 27/3/2025, 14:00 – 15:00 CET
• Agenda: 40-45 minutes of presentation, 15-20 minutes discussion
• Where: Zoom platform
• Target audience: those involved or otherwise interested in the conduct and review of studies in which research participants are deceived.

Kamiel Verbeke, PhD student at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, KU Leuven, will discuss the ethics of deceiving research participants. This research method recurs across research fields and disciplines, taking many shapes and forms such as sending fake patients to unwitting physicians or having participants interact with a seemingly autonomous social robot which is actually controlled by a lab experimenter. The use of deception in research has been accompanied by the development of abundant accompanying ethics and methods guidance since several decades, which, unfortunately seems increasingly difficult to navigate and appears to remain somewhat disconnected from research practice. In this talk, Kamiel Verbeke will explore how deceiving research participants unfolds in practice, how this relates to ethical concerns and safeguards, and which role ethics and methods guidance can play during research ethics committee review of deceptive studies.