This project is a sub-project of the “Genome Austria Tissue Bank” GEN-AU project of the Department of Pathology, University of Graz. The plan of this part of our research project is to proactively contribute to the social, ethical, scientific-technological, and political-regulatory embedding of GATiB, and to help the understanding of the ethical, socio-economic, scientific-technological and political implications of biobank development on the local and the national level, and in the transnational field.

The goal of this Coordination Action is to set up a sustainable network within and between China and Europe that can map the rationales for and practices of ethical governance of such advanced biological and biomedical research in China, provide a platform for the development of comparative research on ethical governance in China and the EU, advance social scientific understanding of key bioethical issues, challenges and approaches generated in contemporary biomedical research through dialogue between researchers and practitioners in China and the EC, and inform policy and practice in the ethics of biomedical research in China and the EU with particular relevance for scientific collaboration. The network will bring together key professionals, researchers, practitioners and academics working in this area in China with those working on these areas in Europe to map current thinking, research, and practices; and to develop the concepts and mechanisms necessary to characterise and evaluate policies and practices for the ethical governance of biological and biomedical research, and to provide a platform for the development of further research collaboration.

This research project aims to investigate the ethical, legal and social issues of three types of biobanks: classical banking, population banking and forensic DNA databases. The first objective of the research project is to study the issue of privacy and confidentiality. In the context of modern biobanking a duty of confidentiality and a right to privacy has mainly been seen as basic features of ethical biobanking and the required confidentiality has rarely been problematised. There is, however, reason to believe that an unquestioned transfer of the traditional concept of confidentiality to the three types of biobaking described may be problematic, and that the concept needs to be re-analysed in these new contexts. The second objective is to investigate the existing regulatory framework of biobanks across the EU and to focus on the collection and analysis of legislation and regulation regarding the establishment, management and functioning of classical, population and forensic biobanks. The analysis of existing legislation will also provide some suggestions for “best rules”. The third objective is to investigate the ethical and policy issues related to forensic databases. Until now ethical and legal research has been mainly focused population-based genetic databases. Moreover in a post 9/11 era forensic genetic databases (crime, terrorism) generate many questions that have had no attention until now on a European level. The fourth objective is to investigate governance aspects of biobanks. The objective is to study the social, ethical, scientific-technological, and political-regulatory embedding of biobanks, to help the understanding of the ethical, socio-economic, scientific-technological and political implications of biobank development on the local and the national level, and in the transnational field and thereby to contribute to a better understanding of biobank governance. The results obtained within the different objectives described above will be of great use for the development of policy oriented recommendations concerning the organisation and management of small scale biobanks, population databanks and forensic DNA databases

IConnectEU is funded under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission in the Thematic Priority “Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society” (CIT6-028416) and runs from March 2006 until August 2008. PAGANINI, a STREP Project coordinated by Herbert Gottweis, is a partner of I Connect EU.

IConnectEU aims at increasing the visibility and impact of collaborative research in Europe by improving the dissemination of and the accessibility to research outcomes from projects with similar topics and audience. Due to their complexity, research topics of global relevance cannot be dealt with by individual projects.

More than often these research topics are split up across Framework Programmes, Priorities and individual research projects – all with different scope, aims and methodology, but complementary. This makes it difficult for researchers, political stakeholders and the interested public to learn about such projects and to get an overview of what has already been achieved concerning the research topic as a whole

For such individual research projects, IConnectEU aims at developing a joint platform for disseminating their outcomes at one place and in a standardized way. This will allow users of such information more easily to get an overview of actors, activities and outcomes related to a research topic and to see how the project’s research and outcomes are related to each others. As a proof of concept, IConnectEU builds a Pilot Internet Portal on research outcomes from eight projects dealing with different aspects of EU Governance.

Defined as animal rationale, or rationabile as Kant puts it, the human being is considered as the animal, which is not yet what it is, but has to become what it is. Up to now this process was limited to the ratio, whereas the natural side remained untouched. The human being was manipulable, but never producible; and this because the human nature remained untouchable. But with the upraising of biotechnology, also this last constant term is no more something fixed.

Focussing on selected key areas of the 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technology, PAGANINI investigates the ways in which participatory practices contribute to problem solving in a number of highly contentious fields of EU governance. We look at a particular dynamic cluster of policy areas concerned with what we call the "politics of life".

Focussing on selected key areas of the 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technology, PAGANINI investigates the ways in which participatory practices contribute to problem solving in a number of highly contentious fields of EU governance. We look at a particular dynamic cluster of policy areas concerned with what we call the "politics of life".

The proposed research project focuses on the rise of biobank initiatives in a comparative perspective, the study of transformations in health policy and the governance in biomedicine, and the emergence of new social conflicts related to the new developments in the field of biobanks.