Can restraint be considered an ethic of progress? How can it be applied to research and innovation in the service of health and the ecological transition?

These questions were addressed at the 4th meeting of the institutional ethics committees, organised by the CCNE (Comité consultatif national d'éthique), which took place on Friday 14 June in the magnificent Duclaux amphitheater at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

Patrick du Jardin, as Chairman of the Ethics in Common Committee, gave a talk on the implication of restraint in science and participatory research.

Key messages:

1. Restraint is an ethic of moderation, not only in the use of resources, but also in the aspirations of our life on Earth, which clearly take into account the limits of its habitability.
2. Restraint is voluntary self-limitation in the demand for energy and other resources. Restraint is not deprivation: it seeks to satisfy needs fairly and judiciously, i.e., with economy of means.
3. Restraint is a subject of research in its own right, in the definition of objectives and the means of achieving them, including through innovative technologies.
4. Participatory science and research seeks to gain knowledge that is situated, shared, appropriable and ‘actionable’. Co-constructed with civil society players, these forms of knowledge can contribute to an effective restraint policy that is acceptable to the society.

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