Católica's new book brings together values and virtues to guide ethical research

In research, ‘there are no taboo subjects, but there are guiding values and virtues that researchers must cultivate,’ introduced Isabel Capeloa Gil, President of the Universidade Católica, at the presentation of UCP Editora's latest book: "Desafios da Ética na Investigação".

The collective book brings together 11 researchers from the most varied areas of knowledge, with the aim of presenting the guiding values and virtues of research that contributes to the common good and the improvement of the human condition.

‘Essential’ in the words of the President, the work, of an ethical and methodological nature, seeks to answer the questions of ‘how you should act’ and ‘how far you can go’, proposing basic principles of action and limits.

According to Mara de Sousa Freitas, President of the UCP's Ethics Commission for Health, coordinator of the work and researcher, it was born out of ‘the need to create a guide to guide the work of researchers’, with the aim of ‘providing concrete answers to researchers’ specific problems’.

Of the most important values for the researcher, she emphasised ‘in addition to integrity, having a greater sense of responsibility’, and for this reason she left ‘the wish that you can always find life scientists’, like Luis Archer, winner of the Tree of Life Award and ‘father of bioethics in Portugal’.

Ana Mineiro, Director of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Nursing at UCP and co-coordinator of the work, sees in this collection ‘the aim of genuinely creating a rich dialogue between all those involved’.

Believing that one should ‘look at research as an act of faith and hope’, Ana Mineiro considers this book ‘fascinating because it discusses the challenges of ethics in a spiral’.

Isabel Capeloa Gil, Mara de Sousa Freitas and Ana Mineiro closed the presentation with a thank you to Apifarma for supporting the funding that made this project possible.