What is International Chair in Bioethics?

International Chair in Bioethics is an international network for bioethics that promotes the research and teaching of bioethics. One of its objectives is to make bioethics familiar to researchers, health care professionals, policymakers and general public.  As of 2017, the network consists of 130 units in 64 countries. Additionally, each continent has its own unit. The Finnish unit was established in the beginning of 2014 and the European unit in 2015. The Finnish unit works in close collaboration with the European unit.

The network was established in 2001 by agreement of UNESCO and the University of Haifa, concerning the establishment of a UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the International Center of Health, Law and Ethics, University of Haifa. In 2021, the network was renamed as International Chair in Bioethics.

About us

The interest of the Finnish unit of International Chair in Bioethics is bioethics, broadly construed. This means that not only health care ethics but also research ethics, environmental ethics, food ethics and other ethical topics that relate to human health and well-being are included in the scope of bioethics. Bioethics is a multidisciplinary discipline that can be approached from several different perspectives.

The national objective of the Finnish unit of International Chair in Bioethics is to participate in bioethically important public discussions in the society and to promote the acknowledgement and inclusion of bioethical perspectives in those discussions. In this way, the unit also promotes Finnish bioethical research and researchers in the academic community, as well as in the Finnish society in general. The unit’s main form of action is the organisation of solution-oriented seminars and other events. There are also plans to publish material that is suitable for teaching. The Finnish unit of International Chair in Bioethics does not focus on research-oriented networking, although sustaining networking and further collaboration, particularly on a European level, are considered to serve the agenda above.