AI Magazine Issue 1 2018

Acquisition International - Issue 1 2018 5 The acceleration of knowledge and the emergence of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), has provoked new ethical questions and requires universities to approach research ethics differently, says Professor Sylvie Pommier, Director of Doctoral Research at Université Paris-Saclay. As a response, the university officially created the Université Paris-Saclay Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity Council (POLETHIS) last month. “International, world-class universities have a responsibility to train and advise researchers on projects that have an impact on people,” says Pommier. “In some areas, especially in technology, there have been advancements that impact society differently and we must adapt our advice to protect scientific integrity.” The council will focus on four key areas. These include a forum for exchanging views, sharing experiences and giving advice on what to do to preserve scientific integrity, as well as training in research ethics for every PhD student and supervisor. Under this initiative, the Université Paris-Saclay Ethics Assessment Committee will be available to give advisory ethics opinions on research protocols involving human subjects to any researchers at the university. The council will also carry out its own research into ethics. It will be chaired by Emmanuel Hirsch, medical ethics professor at Université Paris-Sud, a founding member of Université Paris- Saclay. After beginning this process in January, the council has been specifically tailored to the needs of the university’s research fields, it aims to address the challenges within its laboratories in the most efficient way. Artificial Intelligence Causes New Challenges For Research Ethics At Universities NEWS / From Around The World Perkbox, UK’s fastest growing employee benefits platform, predicts people analytics and mental wellbeing will gain favour this 2018, as the workplace becomes ever more important to employers. The shrinking talent pool will lead to recruitment wars and we’ll finally hear the end of millennials being talked about as a new and mysterious force in the workplace. A large number of them will take the reins in organisations, and with tech natives in positions of power, we’ll see a greater adoption of creative solutions to old workplace problems. In the not so distant past, it wasn’t uncommon for larger organisations to be unaware of the exact number of people who worked for them. Today, in stark contrast, many are able to comfortably track data on skills (and their shortages), personal performance, personal performance, personalities and even happiness and culture. As people data becomes increasingly accessible to HR professionals, it will become a critical resource to eliminate the subjectivity in business-centric people decisions. The challenge: just because something can be measured doesn’t mean it can give you the answer to things. 2018 will see businesses take a more sophisticated approach in turning this information into meaningful metrics. Data will help us improve our organisation’s agility, capability, innovation and, ultimately, bottom line revenue. As the population ages and jobs become increasingly specialised, we’ll also see the competition for talent fiercen in 2018. Some 60% of HR and recruitment professionals anticipate that in the next three years we’ll experience increased difficulty in recruiting senior and skilled employees as a direct result of Brexit. Employers will want to invest more in their people and promote more inclusive and fulfilling experiences. Office perks, rewards and recognition platforms, unlimited holidays – and much more – will become invaluable differentiation tools for businesses demonstrating they care about their employees more than their competitors do. Additionally, the market has seen an increased focus on mental wellbeing in 2017, with numerous reports released on the subject – perhaps most notably the Government’s Thriving at Work report. We are likely to see more employers take action on this topic and fundamentally re-imagining the role that work plays in our lives. In 2018 initiatives such as developing greater mental health awareness in workplaces and encouraging a healthier work-life balance will become a number one priority. Chieu Cao, CMO and Co-Founder of Perkbox, commented on the findings and how these will affect workplaces across the UK. “As millennials rise in the workplace, the stigma of becoming a flaky job-hopper has become a thing of the past. This has come at a time when skills and good ideas are at an all-time premium posing difficulty to businesses which also have to fill specialist roles from a shrinking talent pool. The fear of Brexit’s impact in the UK also adds to this challenge. “Fortunately, 2017 has been a year where we’ve started scrutinising just about every HR practice we have in place, with many on their way of being reinvented completely. 2018 will be an exciting year where we see organisations – particularly larger ones – lean on these new resources to strive for differentiation and overcome some of the biggest problems of talent retention of this day and age.”