Applied research

Our researchers frequently undertake commissioned research. We also offer a variety of consultancy services for businesses and professional bodies.

Real Integrity Research

This was a major research project to investigate how to define integrity and how to incorporate it into organisations. It was commissioned by the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), in response to the banking crisis and MP expense scandals. Integrity is a much-desired feature of organisations and of the individuals they employ. But few people have a clear idea of what integrity means or how it should be understood separately from ethical behaviour more generally. We conducted an online survey with nearly 1,500 respondents, interviews with 94 employees in organisations of a wide range of sizes and types, and an investigation into the philosophical literature. From this, we elicited a set of practical insights and drew conclusions regarding the steps which organisations can take to promote or encourage integrity.

A full version of the report and a shorter ‘briefing’ can be found below:

• Real Integrity full report
• Real Integrity briefing
• The Real Integrity Report was submitted to the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press

Professionalism in Banking

In 2016, the Banking Standards Board (BSB) commissioned research on Professionalism in Banking, exploring the role of professional bodies and professional qualifications in the UK banking sector. The research was based on online surveys and one-to-one interviews with banks, building societies, professional bodies and other stakeholders. The report identified the role that banks and professional bodies could play in enhancing professionalism and promoting ethical behaviour in the sector. It identified five specific key challenges that need to be addressed for professionalism in banking to achieve its potential. The report received excellent feedback upon its launch, e.g. from Dame Colette Bowe, Chairman of the Banking Standards Board and Michael Cole-Fontayn, Executive Vice President and Chairman (EMEA), BNY Mellon.

[The Professionalism in Banking] report makes clear what needs to be done to strengthen professionalism in the sector. It will take collaboration and determination from all sides to tackle these challenges but the new accountability regimes present a unique opportunity for the industry and professional bodies to raise the bar on behaviour and improve outcomes for customers. We urge them to seize it.

Download the full report.

Engineering ethics and professionalism

For over 10 years we've been working in partnership with engineers, both at the University and nationally, to support the teaching of engineering ethics within the higher education programmes of study, and as part of CPD within the workplace.

All degree programmes in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Leeds now include a coherent thread of engineering ethics and professionalism running through them.

In partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering, we are working to promote the role and value of engineering ethics within the profession and education.

Find out more about Engineering ethics and professionalism on the project site.

National Inquiry into Ethical Decision Making in the NHS

Working with Leeds University’s Centre for Innovation in Health Management (CIHM), the IDEA Centre produced a National Inquiry into Ethical Decision Making in the NHS, which highlights the need for more resources to support ethical decision-making at a senior management level.

Based on semi-structured one-to-one interviews with NHS managers, the major output from this research is a checklist for ethical decision-making.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)

In 2008 we carried out an ethical review of HEFCE, focusing on its published values, mission statement and code of conduct, and assessing its ability to meet its particular ethical challenges. By interviewing HEFCE’s employees, we uncovered a picture of what life is like ‘on the ground’ for employees at different levels, assessed the extent to which employees had a shared understanding of the values and principles underlying their work, and how well-equipped they were to deal with ethical concerns.

"As Head of Internal Audit at HEFCE, I am acutely conscious that our ethical culture makes a significant contribution to both our reputation and the quality of our internal control environment. The existence of a positive ethical culture is also implicitly expected of us by our many stakeholders. Commissioning the Leeds IDEA team to assess this culture has proved invaluable. A professional, open, trusting, co-operative and flexible relationship was readily established between us, resulting in mutually beneficial outcomes. The work of the Leeds team was thorough. In particular, it made the significant connection between our role, both strategically and operationally, and theoretical ethical principles. The Board and Audit Committee have both been interested to see the results. The final report, which leave the Council with much to think about, has been well received by the Council overall." - Ian Gross, Head of Internal Audit, HEFCE.

Explore our projects for more details about our past and present research activity.

IDEA research centres

The IDEA Centre's academic research centres around eight broad themes, which each represent a variety of different interests. We also engage in inter-disciplinary research with other subject areas across the University:

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data
Ethics and Climate Change
Ethics, Culture and Decision-Making
Healthcare Ethics
History of Ethics
Leadership Ethics, Persuasion and Public Reason
Moral Psychology
Professional Ethics

Continuing Professional Development

We help organisations develop ethics training materials to help trainees understand the relevant values. We specialise in situations where ethical behaviour requires a certain amount of judgment. We'll work for professional associations, or companies with codes of ethics, who realise that their codes can't be applied mechanistically: people need to apply judgment to determine whether a particular situation is ethically sensitive and how to handle it. We help such clients develop training materials to get people applying the relevant principles sensitively and intelligently. 

For example, to develop discussion cases we'll work up dilemma situations where different principles come into conflict. We'll help trainees work out how to trade off those conflicting principles against each other. As a result, trainees get better at recognising ethically difficult situations and working out what to do.  Trainees are then better able to recognise situations that might get them into trouble ethically and better able to deal with those situations.

Institute & Faculty of Actuaries

We have been delivering a Professionalism and Ethics course for the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries for around ten years. We have trained around 9000 student actuaries in that time. We were originally contracted to complete two related pieces of work with respect to the Actuarial Profession’s Professional Skills Course for its members – firstly to develop it from a two-day to a one-day course, incorporating our experience in teaching professionalism and professional ethics; secondly to convert the one-day course into an online format.

We now co-facilitate the online course alongside members of the profession. The course helps actuaries to understand their code of ethics and what it implies for their work. The course covers: 

1. Introduction to Professionalism. What is a profession? What is ethics? How is ethics relevant to actuaries?
2. The Actuaries' Code - Refresh knowledge of the Actuaries' Code and reflect on what it implies for certain situations. 
3. Generic Case Studies - Students work on their own to answer questions about each case, and then work in groups to discuss one case per group. 
4. Actuary in the Dock. Students watch a video involving a fictional actuary who finds himself facing a disciplinary panel, accused of professional misconduct. They then discuss the case with their group. 
5. Q and A Discussion. Students posts questions about issues raised in the course, and facilitators answer. This often gets lively discussions, and a good flag for issues of concern that have not been adequately addressed.

Chartered Banker Institute

We developed a Professionalism & Ethics module for the Chartered Banker Diploma in 2018. The module consisted of six units: 

1. Banking and Professionalism
2. Ethical Theories and Ethical Reasoning
3. Regulation and Legislation
4. Business Ethics
5. Leadership, Governance, Culture and Conduct
6. The Future of Banking: Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability. 

The units involve pre-reading, followed by discussion, followed by written work. The units are engaging and interactive, with frequent reflective exercises and sense checks.

Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng)

Ethics is central to engineering practice. For example, engineers must ensure their work is safe, minimising risks to people and the environment. We were asked by the RAEng to work with them to develop materials that would make their Statement of Ethical Principles a living reality in the lives of engineers throughout the profession.  From that initial piece of work, our involvement has deepened, and we have been at the forefront of work to transform the ethical culture of the Engineering professions, alongside the professional bodies. For over 10 years we've been working in partnership with engineers, both at the University and nationally, to support the teaching of engineering ethics both within universities and as part of CPD within the workplace.

For example, we published Engineering Ethics in Practice, designed for engineers to reason through practical ethical examples and to explore how ethics relates to their own working lives. It comprises case studies drawn from real engineers' experience, bringing to life the Royal Academy's Statement of Ethical Principles.

The IDEA CETL team has produced an extremely useful set of case studies which illustrate the pertinence to engineering of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Engineering Council's Statement of Ethical Principles. These cases show that the principles can help in guiding the choices and decisions of practicing engineers, and are useful exercises for the engineer to work through to test their ethical reasoning and their application of the principles. Professional engineers at all stages of their career have found them thought provoking and important, especially in the education and training of young engineers.

Institution of Engineering and Technology

We deliver in-house, face-to-face ethics training on behalf of the IET, to help embed the code of ethics and help engineers understand its implications in various scenarios. Our training is specifically focused on the IET code of ethics and uses examples and discursive techniques to bring the principles in these codes to life.

We have also produced three online courses for the IET Academy: a general introduction to ethics for engineers, which is available in a 20-hour and a shorter 5-hour version, and a course on computing ethics.

Applied and Professional Ethics MA

The IDEA Centre also offers an MA in Applied and Professional Ethics. This allows our students to explore the ethical issues raised by different professional contexts, and discover how ethical principles can be applied to help us navigate our increasingly complex working environments.

This online distance learning course allows you to examine current issues, debates, and theories around the application of ethics in professional settings.

Using a blend of theory and real-life case studies, you’ll gain a critical understanding of issues such as trust, integrity, privacy, consent and professional responsibility.

Ethics code development

We help organisations develop their codes of ethics and statements of values. We offer a unique combination of skills for this. As philosophers by training, we'll state the values clearly and unambiguously. But we also make such statements relevant by grounding them in the practical realities of a working environment. We'll usually start by talking to the people at the coalface. We'll find out what ethical issues they face and develop codes of ethics that help them address those issues.

Archives and Records Association

In 2018, we worked with the Archives and Records Association to develop a new code of ethics. To inform the work, we consulted with ARA’s members and some other key stakeholders. We then worked closely with the ARA team to draft a new code of ethics. Our final draft was then put to the membership and accepted. Members were very positive about the new code. Comments included "excellent", "achievably aspirational", "big improvement", "reads very well", and "I like the nuances around ethical acquisition, processing, maintenance and provision of access"

St Vincent and the Grenadines code of ethics

In 2016, we developed a new Code of Ethics for the entire public sector of St Vincent and the Grenadines, an island state in the Caribbean.  This project, which was funded by the Commonwealth Secretariat, involved carrying out extensive semi-structured one-to-one interviews and focus groups with various groups of public sector workers – civil servants, medical workers, teachers, police and prison officers, etc. – as well as key stakeholders in their work, including leading politicians, trades unions, church groups and the general public. We produced a code and a set of recommendations for its effective embedding in the culture of the public service. The code is applicable to a broad range of work contexts and is responsive to the particular ethical challenges facing the country and its public sector.

National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL)

The National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) asked us to develop an ethical audit process for its projects. Based on the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Statement of Ethical Principles, this process grades elements of a project against a set of ethical audit standards, the aim being to work with project managers to flag ethical issues and to improve the way ethical decisions are made. This innovative project has led to an ethical audit model which can be adapted to a wide range of clients and sectors.

"Through collaboration with IDEA we have produced a practical tool to assure our activities against the Royal Academy of Engineering's statement of ethical principles. This will allow the NNL to make visible its commitment to ethical practice alongside more established mechanisms to illustrate safety and quality excellence." - Richard Taylor, Chief Executive, National Nuclear Laboratory 

The Higher Education Academy (HEA)

We were engaged by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) to identify a list of values, reflecting not only the organisation’s needs, given its aims, its history, structure and culture, but also the actual values held by its employees. Based on interviews with a sample of HEA employees, we were able to provide a list of key values, and to provide advice on how these values might be used to create a co-operative and dynamic culture in the organisation.

“Throughout the project [the IDEA CETL consultant] has been extremely useful both in terms of helping us develop the project and identifying appropriate methodologies, and in interpreting the results in a meaningful and practical manner.

“The project was brought in on time and to budget along with a clear set of recommendations for moving it forward. We would happily work with them again on future projects.” - Heather Jackson, Assistant Director, Finance and Corporate Services, HEA.