European Congress of Research Ethics Committees

Welcome Letter from the organizers

We are delighted to announce and to invite you to the EUREC‐ANCEI (European Network of Research Ethics Committees – Asociación Nacional de Comités de Ética de la Investigación) Conference, to be held during May 17-19, 2017 at Barcelona, Spain.

During this last year a lot of very important events in the realm of Bioethics did occur.  In particular it is worth to mention the implementation of the new EU Regulation 536/2014 on clinical trials on medicinal products for human use in EU Member States, WMA introduced also its “Declaration of Taipei on Ethical Considerations regarding Health Databases and Biobanks“, and also the Council of Europe initiated its Recommendation CM/Rec (2016)6 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on research on biological materials of human origin. All these issues came about in a political environment where the idea of the European Union seems to be shaken and where Research Ethics Committees were marginalized by the European legislature rather than given the necessary attention to their important contribution of ensuring the protection of human subjects in clinical trials.

In light of these circumstances, the theme of the conference will be, “The future of Research Ethics Committees in Europe: Creating the way to innovation”.

Our aim is to look for analyzing the current circumstances showing the main traits of the aforementioned issues, and to get a consensus that can consolidate the future of the ethics of research on humans and can open new ways of thinking for a cooperative research in Europe.  With these targets in mind, we request you to join the conference, participate and share your thoughts, opinions and expertise during the lectures, round tables and communications.