December 15, 2023
Agathe Chirossel, « The liability of the researcher because of his research », HALSHS : archive ouverte en Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société, ID : 10670/1.83c458...
Although it has not yet been the subject of a comprehensive study, the responsibility of researchers for their research is an evolving and growing reality. Firstly, researchers are subject to negative liability. Their activity exposes them to a range of sanctions, both legal and ethical, should they fail to respect the principles imposed. Secondly, the researcher is also subject to a positive liability, according to which he must follow a rigorous method that ensures the quality of his scientific productions and must respond to a growing demand for expertise, which makes him an essential public player, guaranteeing the quality of scientific information disseminated by the media.This second liability must be built up using a variety of tools. The law of responsibility offers only the beginnings of the consecration of the researcher's responsibility, and crystallizes on his integrity. The addition of the concept of responsibility reinforces this legal apprehension. Its emanations are detected thanks to a common, positive definition of responsibility, and make it possible to envisage all the mechanisms conditioning the activity of researchers, from the weight of social demands to the more directly identifiable consequences of research funding sources.The concept of responsibility sheds light on all the concrete sources of researcher accountability, as well as the dynamics to which it responds. Ultimately, this conditioning of research aims to ensure the ethics and integrity of the researcher and, more broadly, to guarantee the quality of scientific production.