It is likely there has been no time in the history of our civilization when people weren’t be faced with specific troubling matters. We, i.e. our western society governed by the rule of law, come from a long line of difficulties of our ancestors. Dealing with complex issues is never a straight forward process that can be resolved in one night. On the contrary, the story of human progress is always a group effort, a joint collaboration of many motivated individuals and groups devoting their effort through time. Because of their legacy, we may enjoy today’s comfort of technological advancement, the privileges of public health care, the accessibility of the school system (accumulated knowledge), to name just the most obvious ones. Their responsible conduct in research and ingenious thinking is the reason our generation has made significant advances in our understanding of reality.

What about today’s challenges? On a global level, we have been facing alarming reports on climate change (WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate 2019) on a daily level, while “an estimated 821 million people in the world suffer from hunger in 2018”(United Nations – Global Issues, Food), and there are still parts of the world torn up by wars causing millions of civilians fleeing for their lives (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). While the Western world enjoys relative prosperity and peace, our own troubles have been catching up with us. We have been dealing with the negative effects of consumerism, which is, quite paradoxically, the driving force of our economies. Our ever-growing need for electricity (World Energy Outlook 2019) and never-ending growth of waste and how to manage it (United Nations – Environment Programme), are just the tip of the iceberg.

All of the before-mentioned events seem to be overshadowed by the most recent one however – the challenge of a global pandemic. The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is continuing to claim its death toll and has been causing interruptions in our daily routines. The global virus phenomenon has put the world economies on hold, and the consequences of a global recession are hard to predict.

Presenting so many challenges of modern times in such a short paragraph can feel discouraging to some. And it indeed may be, when we focus only on the negative aspects of human shortcomings and natural disasters.

On the other hand, human ingenuity of many brilliant minds working tirelessly, trying to resolve all the above mention issues, offers us a glimpse of hope. A hope we find solutions in time, a hope we can overcome troubling issues, a hope we may offer a decent prospect to our children. By creating and conducting projects with responsibility at their core, we advance the constructive potential of humankind.

Before addressing Tina Turner’s notorious question, we need to take a closer look into the phrase Responsible Conduct in Research (RCR).

Responsibility – i.e. the human ability to offer a response – is often misrepresented as a heavy and difficult concept to comprehend. Here, we would like to emphasize its hidden connotation: if a person is able to respond to a challenge or engage in communication with others, we consider this individual as a free and sovereign subject. Responsibility predisposes freedom, and freedom allows us the pursuit of noble and meaningful goals. I won’t object if you are imagining a shouting Mel Gibson as William Wallace in Braveheart at this point of the text: “They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!”

As we are free individuals, we conduct and organize our life according to our likings. We choose our own values among the inherited set of principles, and during the course of our lives, we form and abandon friendships and establish families. If we have enough resources, we can choose among many things. But we always engage in a specific way that conveys our value system. Thus, a person conducts a life fully by exploring his/her surroundings.

The quality of a person’s life depends on research, and while we may not be aware of it, we do it every day. We consult our beloved ones while buying new dresses, we analyze our neighbours gardening skills to know when to plant our own seeds, and we investigate the market prior to buying a new washing machine. We scrutinize the way our boss looks at us when we are late for a meeting, and we experiment with new recipes, when are we fed up with the constantly repeating menus. We conduct research on a daily bases.

Therefore, RCR, cannot and is not primarily a concept from academia. Rather it is intrinsically connected to the quality of our everyday life. Among many things embedded in our daily lives, we encounter basic principles, set of values our forefathers handed to us.

In the contemporary socio-political governance, we posses the document derived out of the biggest tragedies of the 20^th century. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents the reference for every legislative policy in the making. Our ancestors had even established The European Court of Human Rights as a transnational guardian of its articles. Our ancestors, who went through the bloodshed of the Second World War, had set this document so we may never forget the true responsibility untrusted in future generations.

A spirit of brotherhood is one of the key elements in recognizing the true value of other’s integrity, uniqueness, and nonetheless, work. Dignity, as a secular and ontological articulation of divine sparkle in a person, is the key element for recognizing in this document author’s loving intentions. And love, too often left in the realm of abstract, calls for manifestation.

If we take a moment and reflect on people we love, we will most assuredly find something about them that closely correlates with dignity. We treat such a person with great respect. Out of this respect, an acknowledgement for his/her existence, his/her presence, his/her integrity with his/her talents, and shortcomings alike, is derived. Once we love a person, we respect him/her in his/her totality. Towards the subject of our love, we will act responsibly.

To overcome the contemporary challenges, as big as they may be, we should strive to recognize and acknowledge the dignity of every human being. Respect for the other’s integrity, life and work is born out of this realization.

By adopting responsible conduct in research we acknowledge the hard work of others and we strive to make a contribution to the search of the meaning of our existence.

So, what’s love got to do with responsible conduct in research?

Basically, everything.