-
The Future of Bioethics Publishing: Ethical Risks and Infrastructural Power @ WCB2026
Interested in Bioethics Commons? Register your interest and co-dream it with us (~3 min): https://survey.borant.eu/s/bioethics-commons-wcb Academic publishing is not a neutral vehicle for bioethical knowledge: it embeds implicit and explicit value assumptions that shape who can publish, how credit is assigned, and which voices become authoritative. Recent developments (multiple failures of OA transformative agreements, peer review…
-
Democracy and Health. Mapping the Field & Developing Design Principles for Democratizing Healthcare Governance @ WCB 2026
Abstract Democratic ideals are invoked frequently in debates on health and healthcare governance, yet the meaning and practical implications of “democracy” in this context often remain underspecified. This workshop builds on an ongoing scoping review that maps how the relationship between democracy and health is conceptualized across the bioethics, public health, and health policy literature.…
-
The making of digital ghosts: designing ethical AI afterlives
The rapid proliferation of AI-mediated digital afterlife technologies, from chatbots trained on personal data to voice clones and posthumous avatars, has generated a substantial body of ethical literature identifying the moral risks of posthumous simulation. Yet this growing consensus has not been matched by frameworks capable of translating ethical principles into operational design constraints. This…
-
Analyzing freedom: Understanding swiss COVID-19 narratives through NLP analysis
Background Beyond the public health challenges it posed, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of public discourses, particularly regarding moral key terms such as freedom. Understanding how these terms, including freedom, are used across different forms of public communication is critical for promoting an informed dialogue during crises and reducing societal polarization. Objective This study…
-
Moral contentions in the COVID-19 discourses: a qualitative content analysis of Moral Key Terms in Swiss public discourses
Moral Key Terms (MKTs) have been used in public discourses to challenge or support efforts to manage COVID-19. We developed four themes that illustrate this through a theory-driven qualitative content analysis of a dataset consisting of newspaper articles, social media posts, and responses from the online platform PubliCo. MKTs were used to contend how democratic…
-
The phenomenon of ‘value extraction’ in Open Access
Background Open Access (OA) agreements were introduced to remove financial barriers to scientific dissemination and promote equity in knowledge access. As Article Processing Charges (APCs) have shifted from individual researchers to institutions, access to OA publishing has become an institutional asset, unevenly distributed across institutions, countries, and career stages. Purpose This article introduces and defines…
-
Analyzing Misinformation and Disinformation: Understanding Swiss COVID-19 Narratives Through Natural Language Processing Analysis
Abstract Background:The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges posed by the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation, exacerbating societal polarization and institutional distrust. Understanding how misinformation and disinformation is understood and framed in public discourse is essential to developing strategies for building societal resilience and promoting informed decision-making during crises. Objective:This study explores the use…
-
Financial Burden in Adults With Chronic Illness in Switzerland: A Secondary Analysis of Qualitative Interviews Using Natural Language Processing and Topic Modeling
Abstract Background:Chronic illness may cause a financial burden that affects patients, their caregivers, and families. While international research, mostly from the United States, has largely focused on cancer-related financial hardship, less is known about whether financial distress due to other chronic illnesses exists, specifically in countries that have universal health insurance coverage, such as Switzerland.…
-
The ethical risks of open-access agreements being used for authorship leverage
Transformative agreements — contracts between institutions and publishers that help to fund open-access (OA) systems — are widely presented as tools to advance equity in scientific publishing. But they can introduce an integrity risk: access to publishing could be used as academic leverage. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00776-6
-
Why ethics in social listening and infodemic management matters for public health
In a time where mis/disinformation continues to shape public discourse and influence policy decisions, the need for effective and ethical infodemic management has never been more pressing. In this context, and against the backdrop of recent health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the mpox epidemic, along with a rapidly evolving information ecosystem shaped…
