Chair in Bioethics

UVic-UCC and Fundació Víctor Grífols i Lucas signed an agreement in 2015 to create and develop the Chair in Bioethics.

The purpose of the Chair is to communicate knowledge on bioethics through teaching and research. It aims to encourage ethical and interdisciplinary reflection within the university in order to include ethics in lines of work and research in areas such as health sciences, social services, biotechnology, environmental science and biomedicine. The cross-disciplinary nature of bioethics compels us to think, within the educational and professional sphere, of ethics associated with scientific advancement and the social implications in terms of respect for life, dignity, diversity, responsibility and freedom.

Mission

The Chair in Bioethics Fundació Grífols was launched to create, communicate and transfer knowledge in different areas of bioethics and to examine pressing ethical questions arising in the life and health sciences.

It will establish links with other Chairs at UVic-UCC within similar lines of interest, such as the Chair in Palliative Care, the Chair in ICT and Health, the Chair in AIDS and Related Diseases or the Chair in Social Services.

It will highlight current ethical questions at both national and international level to arouse interest in this discipline. The Chair also aims to train a wide range of professionals to face the new challenges presented by bioethics.

The Chair will act as a collaborative platform between researchers and professionals of international acclaim, UVic-UCC and Fundació Grifols.

Objectives

The Chair aims to provide specific training in bioethics and provide professionals from different competence areas with guidelines for making decisions when facing ethical dilemmas and conflicts. Using basic concepts in bioethics, professionals will be able to identify a conflict, analyse it critically, develop their own well-grounded arguments and evaluate different points of view to reach the best solution by consensus. For this reason, training is aimed mainly, although not exclusively, at those in social sciences, health sciences and biomedical sciences who are interested in introducing this discipline into their work, study or research environment.

An additional aim of the Chair is to collaborate with different regional and international organisations to promote research projects and initiatives as well as active policies to enhance our knowledge of life ethics and create a Committee of Research Ethics at UVic-UCC.

Activities

The Chair includes teaching activities, applied research, innovation and knowledge transfer and scientific communication.