Globethics.net’s vision is to “contribute to the global ethical debate by ensuring a fair and equal access to knowledge and information on ethics”. A mid-term strategy (2007-2010) to move towards this vision has been formulated, and the first two years have been translated into a project proposal for SDC. As spelled out in more detail in chapter 4 below, Globethics.net is organizationally not consolidated enough yet to produce a reliable 2-year planning document as SDC would normally expect from a partner organization. The legal structure of the organization is likely to change in the coming two years. This change is linked to new partnerships currently under development. Those new partnerships are hoped to improve the funding base, but they are likely also to influence the way the organization is working and its program: both budget and staffing as proposed in the proposal to SDC are less than half of what is foreseen in the mid-term plan. The most realistic way to describe the current situation is probably that Globethics.net knows what it wants to achieve in the mid-term, but currently is not able to spell out how much of this will be achieved during the coming two years.
3 mid-term goals are defined to move towards the organization’s vision:
Globethics.net develops, maintains and supports its membership (rationale: As a network, Globethics.net’s primary goal – and responsibility – is to take care of, and cater for, its participants. Globethics.net can only become a significant organization if its base community is strengthened and stabilized over space and time, and as an international, intercultural, and interreligious network dealing with issues of global ethics, it can only benefit from a widened, more diversified participation).
Globethics.net becomes a leader in interreligious partnerships on ethics (rationale: Discussion about global ethics cannot avoid facing the apparent clashes between coexisting religious worldviews. Globethics.net wants to address the obvious and/or latent miscomprehension emerging between different religious communities in our ever-more globalize world, and contribute to come to terms with the differences. We think Globethics.net can thus contribute in an original and meaningful way to the global debate about ethics).
- Globethics.net offers a platform for decentralized research partnerships on ethics (rationale: Globethics.net’s philosophy is to offer a participants-centered platform for research, so as to allow the network to become semi-autonomous and take initiative. Besides interreligious research partnerships, Globethics.net will keep supporting research on ethical values seen from different contexts in a decentralized process where participants are free to initiate the work groups of their choice).
The full planning matrix for the second phase of the Globethics.net/SDC partnership is reproduced in annex 2. The main impact hypothesis elements are:
- An attractive portal offering valuable services to customers will increase Globethics.net’s reach (higher number of visitors/participants) and thereby access/voice for ethicists from the south and east. The new “Global Digital Library on Ethics” is the main instrument used to attract more customers.
- Active facilitation and steering is planned as main instrument to render the on-line working groups more active and productive, and thereby to produce more southern and eastern scientific contributions into the global debate on ethics.
- Structured 2-year research and preparation cycles will be used in the future to prepare for a limited number of scientifically high-quality and politically high-relevant conferences and later publications.
- Strategic partnerships with other networks of ethicists are foreseen to add inputs, momentum and reach to Globethics.net’s initiatives.
