Progetto TRI-TECH - “TRust in Technology: How to Assess and Improve RoboT-User Interaction in Elderly Care Integrating EtHical, Technical and Social VariablesTRI-TECH”

The TRI-TECH project focuses on the development and integration of Personal Care Robots (PCRs) at the roboid stage in the healthcare and personal assistance for the elderly. It outlines a comprehensive approach to understanding, designing, and deploying roboids in a manner that is both ethically sound and user-tailored, thus ensuring the technologies developed are not only socially responsible but also accepted and coveted by users. The project offers new insight into the challenges posed by an aging population and the scarcity of caregivers, and it reflects our shared commitment to ethically enhancing the quality of life and care for the elderly through technology.
The realization of this project is made possible by the “TRust in Technology: How to Assess and Improve RoboT-User Interaction in Elderly Care Integrating EtHical, Technical and Social Variables” project, funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) (CUP B83C22004800006).

Progetto ETACQUA - A socio-ethical analysis and proposed interventions concerning individual water consumption habits for domestic purposes 

The ETACQUA project aims to analyze individual water consumption habits for domestic use from an ethical and social perspective, and to develop targeted policy proposals that promote more sustainable and conscious behaviors. 
This two-year research project gathers the Interdisciplinary Research Center in "Sustainability and Climate Change" by the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies (Research Area in "Ethics and Global Challenges") together with CARIPLO Foundation and CAP Holding.

The first year of research is devoted to the development of the first aim of CAP Group‘s Sustainability Plan 2033, namely "Consume less, consume better," while the second year aims at addressing the second aim of the Sustainability Plan 2033, "Easy as drinking a glass of water" The overall research activity aims to investigate the cultural, ethical and methodological aspects related to the management of a resource – water – that is non-infinite and, in perspective, scarcely available. The Project seeks synergy in terms of research and sharing results with all stakeholders involved to improve the social consumption of water.

Resilient Cities – Resilient Territories: Principles of Water Ethics in the Climate Change Era

The project addresses the ethical, social, and educational aspects of managing water as a fundamental and scarce resource. It focuses on "water ethics" within environmental and climate ethics and employs an intergenerational justice approach to develop innovative models for redistributing climate-change-related costs and burdens. Key methodologies include comparative policy analysis and intersectional approaches, applied to specific case studies in collaboration with institutional actors and international organizations. An "action-research" approach will be used, emphasizing the comparative analysis of case studies at national and European levels, particularly in adapting to climate change and managing water resources. The research aims to ensure the reproducibility and replicability of policies, with the ultimate goal of guaranteeing equal access to water for future generations.

RESTART - woRk 5.0: Fundamental ValuES for the transition Towards a humAn-centRic IndusTry

Starting from a now widespread awareness of the socio-economic transformative potential of emerging technologies, the objective of the research is to use an innovative interdisciplinary research method to evaluate how socio-technical systems that implement Artificial Intelligence can contribute to the creation of new social and economic opportunities in the work sector, keeping the human role at the centre. The project will focus on how industries can play a significant role in the transition to a more sustainable, resilient and human-centred future by implementing new, meaningful forms of human work, as required by the European vision of Industry 5.0. This investigation will use the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) method, which systematically incorporates the social and moral values involved in the process, identifying direct and indirect stakeholders, potential value tensions and the implementation of value hierarchies that allow the translation of values and norms in ethical standards of design and implementation. In this project, the high-level ethical standards applied to artificial intelligence are those listed by the High-Level Expert Group on AI (AI HLEG) and serve as a fundamental reference for the adoption and implementation of the ethics-by-design framework, which is already part of the European strategy for technological development and use.

Managing Scarce Resources: Ethical, Social and Educational Profiles

 
The research aims at addressing the ethical, social, and educational profiles of the so called “scarce resources” and their appropriate management. The fundamental focus will be devoted to the management of water. Accordingly, a specific attention will be dedicated to the public, agricultural and industrial usages of water, and the correlative priority settings. The comparative analysis, which could refer to the management of other fundamental scarce resources – such as (among others) land, forests, air, river basins and oceans, biodiversity – will be also welcomed. The expected research will benefit from the analysis of concrete case studies.

Further relevant fields of research include the impact of climate change and the ethics of sustainability on wide and urban areas, the transition to agri-food and industrial sustainability, finally, the possibility of innovating contexts of living togetherness in urban and non-urban areas. The intergenerational justice approach will constitute the leading methodological focus for addressing innovative ethical models for the redistribution of costs and burdens deriving from the climate change in specific areas of the World, Europe, and, more specifically, in Italy. Comparative policy analysis will be also the key factors for addressing specific case studies, in cooperation with (all levels) institutional actors and international organizations operating on the same crucial sectors.

The project is expected to contribute to contemporary ethical and theoretical-political debates related to sustainability, environmental ethics, theories of justice (including intergenerational) and global political theories, through a critical discussion of issues such as allocation of responsibilities, potential redistribution of benefits/disadvantages, mitigation of discrimination and inequalities resulting from climate change and over- and mis-uses of scarce resources, at local, national and supranational level.