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Recognising the importance of a wide range of ethical, behavioural and professional issues affecting astronomy, the Council of the EAS has formed a Working Group on Ethics. This Working Group has produced a report which Council has discussed and now wishes to put forward for consultation by the EAS membership.
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Members of the EAS Working Group on Ethics are Sara Lucatello (chair, INAF, Italy), Joao Alves (Univ Vienna, Austria), Bililign Dullo (UCM, Spain), Jo Jarvis (Open University, UK), Claudia Lagos (UWA, Australia), Johan Knapen (IAC, Spain), Francesca Primas (ESO), Rodolfo Smiljanic (CAMK, Poland), Darach Watson (DARK center, Denmark).
The draft of the report is available as a PDF document on the EAS website. It consists of two parts. Part I is an "Ethics Statement", which aim to describe the minimal ethical standards expected by the EAS in the broad areas of conduct towards others, how to conduct research, publication and authorship, peer review, and how to deal with conflicts of interest. The planning is that, after the consultation stage, this statement is formally adopted by Council in its January 2018 meeting as an EAS policy document. Part II contains guidelines for good practice, on topics as varied as conduct towards others, organisation of and conduct at conferences and meetings, fair recruiting and employment, widening access to our profession, and ethics in publishing.
Council now invites the EAS membership to read the report and send any comments and suggestions to the Working Group, through the dedicated email address eas.ethics.wg @ gmail.com by 31 October 2017. Comments can be submitted by individuals, groups, or collectives such as national societies. The Working Group will consider all comments and use them to produce the final version of the report, to be adopted by Council in January.
Council regards the matter of Ethics as very important, and hopes that the EAS members will take note of the ethical standards as outlined in the document and the guidelines for good practice given, and that they will assist the Working Group in finalising the report.