More than 140 participants at the SATORI Final Conference

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brussels, 21 September 2017

More than 140 participants at the SATORI Final Conference

More than 140 participants and high-level EU officials at the SATORI project conference in Brussels discussed the future trends in ethics of R&I

The SATORI Final Conference called “Ethics Assessment of Research and Innovation: Looking to the Future” was one of the largest and most important conferences on ethics assessment of R&I in recent years. It was held from September 18-19, 2017 at the MCE Centre in Brussels, Belgium. More than 140 participants coming from 30 countries attended the event.

This was the closing event of the FP7 EU project SATORI that gathered key stakeholder groups to discuss the future trends of research ethics in EU and beyond. It featured leading ethicists, researchers, and innovators, and representatives from policy, industry, civil society, and academia.

Many high-level officials from European Commission and European Parliament attended the event. Among notable speakers and guests of the SATORI conference were: Isidoros Karatzas, Head of the Ethics and Research Integrity Sector, European Commission, Jim Dratwa, Head of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technology (EGE), Dafna Feinholtz Chair of Section for Bioethics at UNESCO, Lieve Van Woensel, Head of the Scientific Foresight Service within the European Parliamentary Research Service, Julian Kinderlerer, past President of EGE and Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town, and many others.

During the conference, participants discussed: EU and national policies in ethics of R&I; why ethics presents a challenge for science; ethical assessment in industry and at the universities; as well as current ethical problems and issues in R&I in social sciences, engineering, medicine and information sciences. During panel sessions, speakers discussed ways to support the activities of research ethics committees, but also about policies to strengthen ethical R&I practices in the European Union and beyond.

In his opening lecture, coordinator of the project, Professor Philip Brey, from the University of Twente, the Netherlands, presented the main findings and recommendation of the SATORI Consortium. SATORI partners presented some of the project results as well, especially the SATORI-based first international pre-standard in ethics assessment of R&I.

The conference was organised by the SATORI project (http://satoriproject.eu/), a large, four-year project funded by the European Commission with the goal of developing unified frameworks, approaches, tools and best practices for the ethical assessment of research and innovation (R&I) in all scientific fields in the European Union and beyond.