The project employed a multi-method research design, comprising

• desk-based research on the state of the art of the legal, socio-political and socio-economic specificities of biomedicine in different European countries to facilitate later comparative work,
• focus group discussions in different national contexts, in order to grasp different public approaches and attitudes towards modern biomedicine,
• in depth ethnographic interviews (in Sweden, Germany and Cyprus) to gain deeper insights into people’s every day practices of coming to terms with biomedicine.
  

In order to meet CoB’s major empirical aim - to explore the interrelation between socio-cultural conditions and public perceptions of medical research and practice - methods of qualitative social science research (focus groups and ethnographic interviews) were chosen. Such a qualitative approach allowed us to explore the fine-grained meanings and argumentation structures related to citizens’ positions towards modern biomedicine in the respective countries.


 Quantitative studies such as the Eurobarometer have partially revealed  quite strong differences across the European Union in attitudes towards science and technology in general, and towards biomedicine in particular. However, the ability of such approaches to explain the reasons for these differences and their relation to the respective cultural context is limited. Such surveys may chart people’s opinion on issues and activities such as “biomedicine”, but are unable to deliver for example a more fine-grained understanding of the different meaning people may attach to this notion.


 Hence, qualitative insights into the cultural construction of meanings of and attitudes towards biomedicine are of key importance for a more subtle understanding of the multi-layered challenges modern biomedicine poses in the context of the European Union. And such an understanding is an inevitable prerequisite for any effort of common European policy making on these issues – be it the development of European bioethical guidelines or of new modes of governing biomedicine.