Ethics and Working Life Skills

University of Oulu

Ethics and Working Life Skills is a 5 ECTS PhD course highlighting research and professional ethics, good research practices, and procedures for handling misconduct. The course is meat for doctoral students  in all doctoral programs and disciplines, especially in engineering, natural sciences, business schools as well as  company personnel, with a special focus on raw materials supply chains and services, and industry-academia collaboration. 

The content of the course is divided into the following topic areas: 

• Ethical problems characteristics in the fields of technology, economy, and natural sciences.  
• Ethical challenges and problem solving in research and collaboration with companies, researchers from other disciplines, and in international projects.  
• Ethical problems regarding the relations between scientific community and wider society.  
• The role of ethical codes in crisis related situations, e.g., implications caused by climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, declined access to critical raw material, big changes in industrial sectors.  
• Interaction between ethics and sustainability. 

Learning methods and expected outcomes:

• Hybrid learning combining on-campus activities and on-line sessions allowing the student to attend the course remotely.  
• Lectures, expert lectures, teamwork, and self-study.  
• Discussions between students and supervisors in academia and industry. 
• Intensive periods with case-studies’ analyses supervised by experts in the field (e.g., from industry and academia). 
• Knowledge related to remedies via discussions between students and supervisors in academia and industry. 

Students master the ethical codes of conduct in research and has expertise in analyzing and solving ethical problems related to multidisciplinary, intersectoral, and international collaboration and in different stages in professional and researcher careers, and in research with companies. 

*) If you are interested in the course but travelling is not possible for you, please contact Satu Pitkäaho. 

Contact information: University Lecturer Satu Pitkäaho; satu.pitkaaho@oulu.fi 

Registration: Project Researcher Reeta Tolonen; reeta.tolonen@oulu.fi

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