Human societies are not external to nature, but embedded within ecological systems on which they depend. Yet the scale, speed, and cumulative effects of human activity exert profound pressure on these systems, with consequences that are increasingly systemic, unequal, and in some cases potentially irreversible. Therefore, understanding how nature is valued and how this shapes governance becomes crucial.

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution — and the measures to mitigate and adapt to them — disproportionately affect certain social groups and regions. Those with the fewest resources, and those who have contributed least to these problems, are often most negatively affected.

Solar radiation modification is a set of potential geoengineering techniques that could create a net cooling effect on the climate and thus help with addressing the triple planetary crisis. Little is known about how large scale deployment of SRM would play out and the risks it would incur are major and hard to predict.

Recent years have seen a wave of far-right populism gaining momentum in many countries. The EGE analyses how this puts democracy at risk. It formulates a substantive understanding of democracy that does not limit it to elections, but makes real the values and rights it is based upon.

Protecting democracy in the digital age requires more than fighting election meddling, and more than a narrow focus on technolog

The European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) and the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics (Smer) met today, 24 May 2023, to discuss ethical issues related to disruptive and rapid digital developments, with a focus on ethical implications with particular regard to democracy, human rights and the future of health and healthcare.

Values play an important role in how we understand, make sense of, and tackle crises. In its Statement, the EGE points to the importance of solidarity being at the core of crisis management.

We stand with Ukraine in the face of Russia’s appalling and unacceptable military aggression.

This Statement provides important perspectives on the role of values in Europe and the global community and proposes a proactive involvement of ethics in governance. It throws light on the connections between ethics and fundamental rights, democracy and the rule of law, concluding with a recommendation for the EU to maximise opportunities for public participation in policy making.

The advent of new genome editing technologies such as CRISPR/CasX has opened new dimensions of what and how genetic interventions into our world are possible. The EGE addresses the profound ethical questions raised and revived by them, and analyses various domains of application, from human health to animal experimentation, from livestock breeding to crop variety and to gene drives.

Scientific evidence suggests that epidemics and pandemics will become more frequent with a growing, urbanised and mobile world population. Especially transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans is expected to become more likely, as climate change and human societies impact ecosystems.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a pathogen previously unknown to science and medicine. To date, there is still a dearth of information on the virus itself, the spread of the disease, and the causes of excess deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses grave challenges for societies in Europe and all around the world. Many lives have already been lost, and many more people fear for their own health and that of their loved ones. Moreover, the economic impact of the pandemic has cost people their jobs and livelihoods, and has started to impact people’s wellbeing and mental health. The effects of this public health emergency will impact an entire generation.

The EGE is aware that synthetic biology raises philosophical, anthropological, ethical, legal, social and scientific issues. It is equally aware that the convergence of multiple technologies in synthetic biology, each based on different scientific paradigms, increases the complexity of assessing the ethics of synthetic biology and its products. The EGE has, however, agreed that, apart from safety issues associated with synthetic biology, an ethical, legal, and political governance of synthetic biology is needed in the EU and worldwide to ensure that the interests of society are respected.

Transformations of work – and in particular, the role that new technologies play in this process – are often seen as one of the key challenges of our societies. Technologies affect where we work, how we work, how we are compensated and whether and how we are employed. Next to globalisation and demographic and environmental changes, the increasing use of advanced technologies – including robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and the automation of tasks previously done by humans – is typically portrayed as the main reason for the transformation of work.

Advances in AI, robotics and so-called ‘autonomous’ technologies have ushered in a range of increasingly urgent and complex moral questions.

The technology has changed very significantly over the last 40 years as we have learned to understand more of the processes by which genetic material is altered in microorganisms, plants and animals and it is now possible to precisely insert or delete sequences of DNA in situ. This forty year old global consensus on prohibiting human germline gene modification has come under significant pressure in 2015.

The EGE welcomes the importance of all European Commission actions to promote the highest standards of scientific integrity in all research that is funded through its own programmes.

Recent years have witnessed a wave of innovation in health technologies driven by new medical breakthroughs, novel scientific approaches and the rise of digital health technologies. Pioneering methods of drug development and disease diagnosis, the rise of 'big health data', and new means of providing networked care have led to predictions that European health systems are on the cusp of transformation. While much of the promise held in these technological innovations remains to be fully realised, the rise of new health technologies are accompanied by a profound set of shifts in the way individuals – whether as patients, citizens or consumers – engage with matters of health.

The digital revolution and subsequent advances in mobile, wireless and networked devices have significantly contributed to the development of security and surveillance technologies. New technologies offer the possibility of recording the everyday activities of billions of individuals across the globe.

The European Group of Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE) appreciates the objective of the Commission to harmonise and fast-track the clinical trial process with a view to bringing new medicines to the market. The EGE has, however, some concerns regarding the draft regulation.

Energy needs have increased enormously and, due to the rapid growth in populations, to industrialisation and urbanisation, they have changed the way we interact with our environment. The massive extension in our use of electronics in our daily lives increases the need for energy in a manner not foreseen in the 20th century!

Every day more than 250 million Europeans connect to the Internet, to work, learn, communicate, play and socialise. But the digital economy, which has grown rapidly around all those activities, poses new challenges to governments and regulators.

Food security, energy security, sustainability and globalisation have become core issues in the current political debate worldwide. This debate is enriched by other issues, including climate change, global trade, fluctuations in food and energy prices and the future need for additional energy sources, the revision of the EU common agricultural policy (CAP) and the link between the CAP and the EU economic strategy (the ‘Lisbon agenda’).

Considering the current level of suffering and health problems of surrogate dams and animal clones, the EGE has doubts as to whether cloning animals for food supply is ethically justified. Whether this applies also to progeny is open to further scientific research.

The EGE stressed that, as is the case in the European Union, there are divergent views within the group on the moral legitimacy of research on human embryos and hESCs, ranging from objection to research involving the destruction of human embryos (which makes the full respect of dignity of the human embryo impossible) to a position allowing hESC research under certain conditions or on a broader basis.

Nanomedicine offers the possibility of new diagnostic, treatment and preventive methods that may open up promising areas of medicine.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) pervade our lives. Thus far, this pervasive influence has mainly involved devices that we use for private purposes or at the work place such as personal computers, mobile phones, laptops and the like. Due to new developments these devices are becoming more and more part of our bodies, either because we wear them (wearable computing) or because they are implanted in our bodies.

In order to have cord blood cells available for transplantation a number of banks were created worldwide. These banks are run by either hospitals or non-profit organizations that collect the samples from donors and provide them when the cells are needed for transplantation. Recently, private firms have been offering to future parents the conservation of blood from the umbilical cord of newborn children for one’s own use or for the use of close relatives. Different types of cord blood banks can be distinguished: private or public, for-profit or non-profit.

In the European Group on Ethics’ opinion, genetic testing is defined as ‘the use of a scientific test to determine whether a person possesses particular variant forms of one or more genes in their genetic complement’.

In west European cultures, since the 19th century, clinical research has become an essential step to increase knowledge regarding human health in order to develop prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease and handicap. The existing codifications by national laws or international texts concern mainly clinical research carried out for the development of new drugs, but the principles and conditions defined in these texts can also be applied to medical research regarding all other kinds of treatments or prevention.

Stem cells are found in all vertebrate animals, including human beings. They play roles in the processes of normal development and regeneration or repair of damaged tissues. The reason for this is their properties of dividing to give cells either identical to themselves or differentiated into particular types of cells.

Stem cells are cells that can divide to produce either cells like themselves (self-renewal), or cells of one or several specific differentiated types. Stem cells are not yet fully differentiated and therefore can reconstitute one or several types of tissues.

Prior to the implementation of drug testing programs in the late 1960s, the use of performance enhancing substances by athletes appeared to be commonly accepted within the international sporting community. However, a gradual series of events in modern sport history led to countries eventually speaking out against the harm that drugs were causing the individual and sport.

Medical informatics dates back to the 1960s when computers were first introduced into hospitals to support administrative tasks. Many trials of a wide range of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools used in healthcare are currently taking place in Europe, some with the support of European Community funds.

The first baby to be conceived by LQ YLWUR fertilisation (IVF) outside the mother’s body was not born until 1978 in the UK, research on human gametes and embryos donated by infertile couples had been carried out for the previous 10 years. During this period there were no specific regulations concerning human embryo research.

Unlike organs, which cannot be conserved, tissues can easily be stored for long periods. Once removed or collected, tissues are subject to a series of operations which, particularly when they are intended for transplantation, comprise the following functions: processing, preserving and storage, registration (to collect the data which will enable in particular the source of the tissues to be traced), and distribution and delivery.