VIRT-EU Service Package

Our research results demonstrate how ethical questions can and should be addressed in the development of technology. Our project outputs offer a foundation for future action by creating deeply researched and well-considered tool prototypes for self-assessment and for convening conversations about ethics. Our service package presents interactive tools and other resources including an ethics primer, a review of relevant regulations, workshops and educational resources, and an innovative impact assessment questionnaire.

Our tools are intended to offer practical and innovative approaches to thinking about different ethical frameworks and how to make them useful. Rather than providing yet-another-checklist, the VIRT-EU tools offer a way for technology developers to gain the necessary language, structure and authority to convene and engage in conversations about ethics.

The future of Horizon Europe depends on thinking beyond the current ethical debates that tend to boil down to yet-another-trolley-problem exercise. The VIRT-EU project offers a novel practical ethical framework that challenges technology developers to productively engage the uncertainties that the technologies they create can and will produce. Our tools recognize that power negotiations and value conflicts are inherent in technology development. Such recognition is key not only for technology development but also for policy decisions that will shape Europe’s future.

The Service Package is hosted by the Open Rights Group on behalf of the consortium and will be available for at least three years after the end of the project, offering all project outcomes freely. The site was conceptualized by Barbara Nino Carreras designed by Denise Burt and Bugge Lützhøft.