Big Data, Big Implications:

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedicine

12 July - 16 July 2021
ONLINE, hosted by the University of Barcelona
with 2 months of virtual collaboration on a flexible schedule 

The call for applications is now CLOSED

THEME SUMMARY AND PROGRAMME

Amid hope and hype, artificial intelligence (AI) is widely regarded as one of the most promising and disruptive technologies for future healthcare. Big Data has been dubbed the oil of the 21st century, for the unprecedented opportunities it offers for building powerful AI solutions in a wide range of domains, especially in biomedicine. However, as new data science and AI technologies are being developed and pilot tested, concerns have arisen regarding their ethical, societal and legal implications. These includes key issues such as clinical safety, transparency, security, accountability, and fairness.  This summer school will offer a unique set of talks, lectures and activities, that will enable the participants to familiarise themselves with the whole value chain of ethical, social and legal considerations in the field of biomedical AI.

WHY THE DATAETHICS SUMMER SCHOOL

This 5-day course offers a unique opportunity to listen to the lectures from leading and established cross-disciplinary experts in Big Data, AI, ethics and biomedicine. Through the matrix of lectures, interactive sessions and small group assignments, we create a flexible environment to allow for students’ acquisition of knowledge framed around a dilemma story, which further allows for students’ application of newly-gained knowledge in true-to-life scenarios. The course also offers plenty of opportunities to network with fellow students and thematic experts from nine leading European medical institutions, as well as external speakers from academia and industry.

Join us to debate on the significance of coupling ethical with scientific considerations of the curation and handling of Biomedical Big Data in learning structures and learn about the latest trends in data science, AI and bioinformatics.

The program of the course is available HERE.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Through your participation in this course, you will learn about the fundamentals of biomedical AI, data management and ethical implications. The topics that will be covered include fundamentals of machine learning, ethics requirement analysis, data privacy and security, trustworthiness in AI, and risk assessment. Through the group exercises and use cases, the you will gain the basis to analyse, categorise and address key ethical considerations of AI and big data in biomedicine.  Participation in the course will foster your transversal skills and equip you with knowledge on how to use big data in your study, research or internships and how to further incorporate biomedical data and analysis in your reports. Through the opportunity to debate on true-to-life scenario dilemmas, you will develop understanding on how to apply Biomedical Big Data in the context of ethical implications and how to demonstrate your understanding through augmenting your ethical decisions.

EXPERTS PANEL

The expertise of the speakers covers a broad spectrum of research and application interests from bioethics, health policy and social studies of medicine, to cutting-edge genomics, analysis of large heterogeneous high-throughput data-sets and AI solutions for biomedicine. The full list of speakers will be available shortly and includes experts like Karim Lekadir, University of Barcelona, ES; Davide Zaccagnini, Linkeus, IT; Lorina Buhr and Silke Schicktanz, UMG Göttingen, DE;  Maciej Bobowicz, Medical University of Gdanks, PL; Melanie Goisauf, University of Vienna, AU; Petia Radeva, University of Barcelona, ES, just to name a few.

On the last day of the course, an additional team of experts from academia and industry will join in to offer their feedback and share their expertise.

VIRTUAL COLLABORATION

The school will be further augmented by students’ participating in a virtual collaborative exercise focusing around an identified dilemma story, on a flexible schedule that can be organised around students’ other committments. This activity, taking place in the two consecutive months after the Summer School, will be enhanced by a learning methodology to construct knowledge and develop soft skills based on value education. The involvement and co-work of students and teachers in the project will allow equal dialogue. This virtual activity will end with the publication of a collaborative multi-authored report.

AWARD

Students participating in the DATAETHICS Summer School will be awarded a certificate of participation. Furthermore, students will receive the DATAETHICS Open Badge for recognition of their qualifications, gained through the practical exercise of applying the training and DATAETHICS knowledge in virtual collaboration.

This innovative certification method –  DATAETHICS Open Badge – will allow the participants digitally showcase the skills and competences they have gained during the Summer School and virtual colaboration exercise.

The ultimate achievement recognised through this badge will be the report produced by students upon the completion of the practical exercise.

PARTICIPANTS PROFILE

The course welcomes BSc, MSc and PhD students from the fields of medicine, biomedicine and life sciences from the DATAETHICS Partner Universities. Proficiency in written and spoken English is required.

To ensure active participation and exchange with teaching staff and fellow participants, as well as transnational character of the course, a maximum of 36 participants will be admitted to this course, with balanced representations of participants per DATAETHICS partner institutions. In addition, in case of equal quality of applications, the following groups will be given priority in the selection process:

• Students with disabilities
• Participants to the DATAETHICS virtual exercise, who did not participate in the DATAETHICS Pilot School

APPLICATION

Required documents: Electronic Application Form, CV and Motivation Letter (200-300 words explaining the predicted impact of the participation on the Candidate’s academic/professional career).

Candidates should complete the Application Form and together with the annexed documents, submit the application following the guidelines indicated in the online form.

Deadline for Applications: The call is now CLOSED

All applicants will be notified on the selection results by 1st July 2021