Abstract

In this chapter, we sum up ethical reasons for (and available tools to) comprehensively disseminate research results. This chapter is structured as follows. First, we introduce the normative aspects related to comprehensive dissemination of research results, revealing the ethical principles that guide biomedical research practice (§1). In order to do so, we describe our working definitions for ‘research results’ and ‘dissemination’ in the context of this chapter. Whilst the focus of this chapter is on clinical research results, we extend our discussion to other biomedical research results where possible (e.g., preclinical research with non-human animals). We then review the status quo data on results dissemination (§2), and go into contemporary challenges (e.g., completeness and timeliness) associated with results dissemination. The chapter closes with an outlook and a brief survey of existing approaches to foster comprehensive dissemination of research results (§4).