Welcome to the 25th International Nursing Ethics Conference

Call for Abstracts is closed

The 2025 Nursing Ethics Conference engages participants to reflect the value of nursing ethics research, scholarship and multidisciplinary collaborative research on ethically safe care, services and societies from an international, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspective.

The 2025 conference will reflect on philosophical, empirical and methodological developments in ethics as applied to care and services in all levels. The conference will bring together international, interprofessional and interdisciplinary scholarship, research, leadership, policy and educational innovations to develop sustainable care, care systems and global health. The programme will provide insights into the wide range of approaches, and we hope all will find their topic of interest to send an abstract and join the conference.

We invite Abstracts for our Nursing Ethics 2025 conference hosted by the Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Finland.

Conference themes include – but are not limited to

• Theoretical, philosophical and cross-cultural reflections in nursing care
• Methodological advances in nursing ethics research
• Patients’ rights guiding sustainable care and services
• Ethics in shaping the future professionals
• From local to global ethics – Confronting with societal values in nursing
• Balancing the caring of human and planetary health
• Ethics in the new era of technology and artificial intelligence in nursing care

The Human Rights and Nursing Awards will be presented at the conference on 28^th August 2025.

Practitioners, researchers, educators, managers and students in the field of health and social care from around the world are invited to attend and participate in this conference to engage in discussion regarding responses to ethical challenges locally and globally and to receive innovations.

On behalf of the scientific and organisational committees

Further information, email: nursingethicsconference2025@utu.fi

Abstracts are invited for oral presentations, ePosters and symposia to address the conference theme and other ethical issues in care by 28^th February 2025

• All abstracts must be submitted via the abstract submission system: https://link.webropol.com/s/nursingethics2025-abstractsubmission
• All abstract submissions and presentations must be written in English.
• The abstracts should be no longer than 2500 characters (with spaces) and reflect the content of the presentation. Do not include pictures, diagrams or references.
• The deadline for abstract submission is 28^th February 2025
• Scientific committee members will review and select submitted abstracts. Selection will be based on originality, relevance to conference theme and evidence of scholarly practice.
• The primary author (must also be the contact author) will receive an email within one month of the submission deadline confirming the acceptance or non-acceptance of the abstract. (31^st March 2025)
• All accepted abstracts will be published in the digital abstract book.
• In order for an abstract to be presented, the presenting author must register and pay the registration fee by 30^th April 2025

If you have any further queries, please send an email to: nursingethicsconference2025@utu.fi

Abstract Structure

• First name (primary author and presenter)
• Last name
• Email
• Degrees and other credentials
• Affiliation
• Title
• Address (street, city, country, postal code)
• Title of Abstract
• All authors (including all authors with their degrees and affiliations)
• Body of Abstract (include background, aim/objectives, methods, results/findings, conclusions)
• Conference themes (select)
• Type of presentation
• Use maximum 2500 characters (with spaces)

Data Protection Statement

Program will be updated. See preliminary conference program below:
Preliminary Conference Program 2025

Keynote Speakers

Teppo Kröger

Teppo Kröger is Professor of Social and Public Policy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and Director of the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care (CoE AgeCare). He has been involved in many international research projects and networks on care research, covering care for older people, childcare and support for disabled people. His studies have focused, for example, on the integration of formal and informal care, the conditions of care work and the reconciliation of caring and paid employment. He has developed new conceptual perspectives, including the concepts of welfare municipality, weak universalism, dedomestication, demographic panic, care capital and care poverty. Teppo Kröger is the recipient of the 2024 Nordic Prize in Gerontology (the Sohlberg Prize). He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences and seminars, and a sought-after expert by policy-makers and the media.

Elizabeth Peter

Elizabeth Peter, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor at the Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and a member of the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is an associate editor of Nursing Ethics, the previous Chair of the Bioethics Expert Panel for the American Academy of Nursing, and the Chair of Public Health Ontario’s Ethics Review Board. Her interdisciplinary academic background in nursing, philosophy, and bioethics has framed her scholarship over the past 30 years. Theoretically, she locates her work in feminist health care ethics which aligns her scholarly pursuits both substantively and methodologically.

Michael Dunn

Michael Dunn is an Associate Professor and the Co-Director of Education at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE) in the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He works across bioethics, health law, socio-legal studies and health/social care services research.

Michael’s current research interests focus mainly on ethical aspects of community-based, integrated and long-term care practice, policy and law – in Singapore, the UK and internationally. For the past 20 years, he has also been critically analysing the ethical and legal dimensions of decision-making within adult caregiving relationships.

In his research, Michael pursues an interdisciplinary approach that integrates philosophical, legal and qualitative social scientific analysis. Adopting this approach has motivated scholarly contributions that have shaped the developing methodological field of empirical bioethics, and that have scrutinised the nature and purpose of bioethical inquiry more generally. He has written more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, authored or edited 6 books, and obtained over S$6m in competitive research grants.

Prof. Dr. Bernadette Dierckx de Casterlé

Bernadette Dierckx de Casterlé (RN, PhD) is full Professor of Nursing at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care (Academic Centre for Nursing and Midwifery), KU Leuven.

Empirical research in ethics is the common thread of her academic career. Working closely with ethicists and clinicians from various care fields, she has developed an innovative research program in care ethics, focusing on vulnerable populations. This program stands out for its strong alignment of clinical, ethical and empirical perspectives as well as its integration of quantitative, qualitative and theoretical-philosophical research methods.

One of her research tracks focuses on ‘lived experience’ research, providing deeper insights in quality of care and quality of life from the perspective of patients and other relevant stakeholders. Most studies center on vulnerable populations, such as older adults, persons with dementia, the chronically ill, and palliative patients). Methodologically, these studies highlight the value of qualitative research in integrating the patient perspective into research, care and policy.

Much of her research relates to the care for older persons, with a particular emphasis on its ethical aspects. Her projects explore topics such as the use of restraints in care, dementia care, the use of robots in elderly care or tiredness of life in older adults.

With years of experiences in qualitative empirical research, she has developed extended expertise in the qualitative research. Most of her peer-reviewed publications focus on qualitative research, qualitative meta-synthesis or methodological aspects of the qualitative research paradigm.

One of her key achievements in qualitative research is the development of the QUAGOL (Qualitative Analysis Guide Of Leuven), an empirical and theory-based method for analyzing large volumes of qualitative data. QUAGOL offers researchers a systematic approach to generating strong qualitative evidence from complex data and is increasingly used internationally across various settings, designs, and disciplines (Dierckx de Casterlé et al., International Journal of Nursing studies, 2012, doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.09.012). More recently, her research group published new recommendations for addressing the challenges of analyzing complex narrative qualitative data, particularly in less optimal research contexts (Dierckx de Casterlé et al., 2020, doi: 10.1177/1049732320966981).

Recent peer reviewed publications (related to Care ethics and Qualitative Research)

• Vandervelde S., Dierckx de Casterlé, B., Vlaeyen, E., Flamaing, J., Valy, S., Belaen, G., Milisen K (2025). Context makes a difference: a qualitative study exploring how to implement a multifactorial falls prevention intervention in the community. BMC Pubic Health, 25(1). doi:1186/s12889-025-21561-6
• Cavolo, A., Vears, D.F., Naulaers, G., Dierckx de Casterlé, B., Gillam, L. & Gastmans, C. (2024). Doctor-Parent Disagreement for Preterm Infants Born in the Grey Zone: Do Ethical Frameworks Help? Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 12p. doi: 1007/s11673-024-10354-y
• Zhong, Y., Cavolo, A., Labarque, V., Dierckx de Casterlé, B. &  Gastmans, C; (2024). Chinese and Belgian pediatricians’ perspectives toward pediatric palliative care: an online survey. BMC Palliative Care, 23:106. doi: 1186/s12904-024-01436-0
• Morley, G., Dierckx de Casterlé, B., Kynoch, K., Ramis, M. -A., Suhonen, R., Ventura, C., & Arries-Kleyenstuber, E. (2023). Ethical challenges faced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review protocol.. JBI Evidence Synthesis. doi:11124/JBIES-22-00247
• Grootven, B., Irusta, L. A., Christiaens, W., Mistiaen, P., De Meester, C., Cornelis,  Cornelis, Justien ; Dierckx de Casterlé, Van Bernadette ; Van Durme, Thérèse, van Achterberg, T. (2023). Experiences with the implementation of remote monitoring in patients with COVID-19: A qualitative study with patients and healthcare professionals. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 55(1), 67-78. doi:1111/jnu.12814

Plenary Speakers

Anne Scott

Anne Scott is Professor Emerita University of Galway. Commencing January 2025 Anne is Chair of the Independent Pandemic Evaluation Panel, tasked with evaluating the response of the Irish government and related services to the COVID-19 pandemic. She is an RGN and holds a BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Trinity College, Dublin, an MSc from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Glasgow. Anne has worked as a clinician and academic in Ireland, Scotland, Kenya and England. Over her career she has held a variety of leadership roles in universities in Irish and UK university sectors.

Anne’s research interests include the philosophy and ethics of health care, judgement and decision-making in clinical practice, and health services research – focusing on the health work force. She was the Irish lead on the EU funded RN4Cast Nursing Workforce Research Programme and the RANCARE Cost Action project. She has contributed to the development of the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill-mix in the Irish Health Service Executive – Medical, Surgical and A&E.

Susanne Uusitalo

Susanne Uusitalo Docent in applied philosophy and applied ethics, PhD, MA, is currently Senior Researcher in Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Hybrid Intelligence research programme at the University of Oulu, Finland and a university teacher of research ethics (for doctoral researchers) at the University of Turku, Finland. Uusitalo’s background in practical philosophy provides her with a solid and rich theoretical knowledge in ethics. She has carried out research in various fields of applied ethics, e.g., neuroethics, ethics of health technology assessments and ethical aspects of computational psychiatry. She has been the Head of the Unit Finland in the global International Chair in Bioethics network since 2018.

She has been a member in the National Medical Research Ethics Committee that evaluates medical devices in clinical trials since 2018 and a member of the ethical committee that reviews health care related non invasive research at the University of Turku since 2019. She is also a Research Integrity Advisor trained by the National Ethics Advisory Board of Research Integrity, currently at the University of Oulu but previously at the University of Turku. At the other end, she facilitates ethical aspects in health technology assessments in the Council for Choice in Public Health Care in Finland, which issues legally binding recommendations for the publicly funded health care in Finland. She is also a member of the National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics ETENE (Finland) and acts as Independent Ethical Advisor or a member of the external ethical board for several ERC-funded programmes and projects.

On a more international policy level, the Steering Committee of Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO), Council of Europe commissioned a report on ethical aspects of medical innovations, especially with unmet clinical needs from her and Ilona Autti-Rämö in 2022. In January 2024 she was selected by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture as one of the expert representatives of Finland to join as a commentator and observer in the preparation of UNESCO’s recommendations for neurotechnology.

Helena Siipi

Helena Siipi works as a University Lecturer at the University of Turku, Finland. She is also a researcher and work package leader at the multidisciplinary Climate Nudge STN project. Her background is in philosophy. She earned her doctoral degree at 2005. She has since then done research in philosophical applied ethics and environmental philosophy. She is also interested in research ethics.

Helena Leino-Kilpi

Helena Leino-Kilpi is a professor (emerita), University of Turku, Faculty of Medicine, and Researcher in Turku University Hospital, Finland.

She is internationally well-known expert in nursing and health sciences. Her research is in the fields of health care and nursing ethics, quality of clinical nursing and nursing education. In ethics, she has expertise in patients’ rights, as well as in ethical competence and moral courage of nurses. She has co-ordinated several international research programs, developed instruments, supervised more than 70 new PhDs in nursing science, and published around 600 international publications, mostly with international collaborators. In European Academy of Nursing Science, she has taught research ethics/integrity for many years. She is a Member of Academia Europea, board member of the Baltic Sea Region Doctoral Network, and active in Nordic collaboration.

Leino-Kilpi has several academic duties. She has been the Head of the Department for 20 years, a member of advisory boards of universities, made research evaluations in different countries, and for different funding organizations, and is a member of editorial boards. She is Honorary Doctor in the University of Klaipeda (Lithuania), Fellow of European Academy of Nursing Science, American Academy of Nursing, and the Royal College of Nursing (UK).

Dr. Leino-Kilpi received her nursing degree in the Turku Health Care Institute, Master in Educational Sciences in the University of Turku, Licentiate in University of Tampere and PhD in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Turku (nursing science), Finland. She made a post-doctoral period in New York University (USA) and University of Edinburgh, UK.

Ilona Autti-Rämö

Adjunct professor Ilona Autti-Rämö is a pediatric neurologist with subspeciality in rehabilitation. She worked at the University Hospital of Helsinki until early 2000 when evidence-based decision making took a major role in her academic life. From the late 1990’s she has had extensive training in health technology assessment. She has worked as on editor for evidence based clinical guidelines (Duodecim), and as a senior medical officer at the Finnish Office for Health Technology assessment (FinOHTA). At FInOHTA her major tasks were evaluation of various screening programmes and developing the methods to evaluate research on rehabilitation methods. She was then appointed as research professor at the social Insurance Institute (SII) and during the following 7 years she was in charge of developing multiprofessional and multidimensional research on rehabilitation. Her next position was the chief medical officer for the Social Insurance Institute. She was then appointed as the general secretary for the Council of Choices at Health Care (COHERE) at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health. She retired spring 2022 but is still working as medical expert the COHERE conducting ethical analyses together with Susanne Uusitalo.

Her interest in identifying and clarifying ethical perspectives in health decision making has led her to work with experts in ethics within Europe (EutnetHTA) and globally (InaHTA) since early 2000. In late 2010 she was the vice chair for the national board on research ethics (TUKIJA). She has been a member of the national advisory board on ethical issues (ETENE)  years 2019-2023 and still continues as an active vice member.  During the last years she has actively included ethical perspectives in the recommendations given by the COHERE.  Her goal is to clarify the meaning of values and consequences in decision making at all levels in health care. She has recently published a book on ethics in decision making within health care (Etiikka terveydenhuollon päätöksenteossa).

 Registration link.

Prices are seen via the registration link.

The ‘early-bird‘ registrations must be made no later than on 30 April after which date late fee apply.

Prices

Please see more information from the Registration link above.

The registration fees are free of VAT, except for the conference dinner tickets (VAT 25.5%).

Methods of payment

1) Credit card payment
On the registration form, choose the credit card payment and fill in the payment card details. Payment service provider Paytrail Plc*

2) Online bank payment (for Finnish/Nordic banks only)
On the registration form, choose your bank, and you will be forwarded to the payment service. Payment service provider Paytrail Plc*

3) PDF invoice (payment with bank transfer).
An invoicing fee of 15 EUR will be added. The PDF invoice will be sent to your e-mail address after you have submitted your registration. In case you are not paying the invoice yourself, please forward it to the right person.

4) E-invoice (for Finnish organisations only).
An invoicing fee of 15 EUR will be added. The e-invoice will be sent directly to the e-invoicing address provided.

Invoices: Please make sure to give the correct invoicing address. An extra invoicing charge of 10 EUR will be added if a new invoice is processed (revised PDF or e-invoice due to a wrong address, or otherwise modified).

The registration fees are invoiced by Certia Oy, Aboa Events (VAT FI23274223) on behalf of the local organiser University of Turku, (VAT FI02458963).

Paytrail Plc (VAT FI21228397) acts as a collecting payment service provider in cooperation with Finnish banks and credit institutions. Paytrail Plc is authorized payment institution. Paytrail Plc appears as the payee on the bank statement or card invoice and forwards the payment to the event organizer. In case of reclamations, please contact the event organiser.

All payments must be made in euros (EUR).

Cancellation policy & insurance

Cancellation of registration must be made in writing (email) to aboaevents@certia.fi before 28 July 2025. No fees will be refunded after this date.  A processing fee of EUR 50 will be deducted from all refunds.

In the event that the meeting is cancelled by the Meeting Organisers, or cannot take place for any reason outside the control of the Meeting Organisers, the registration fee shall be refunded in full. The liability of the Meeting Organiser shall be limited to that refund.

Please note that the meeting participants are not covered by any insurance (travel, medical, accident or liability) taken by the Meeting Organisers. The Meeting Organisers cannot accept liability for any loss or damage suffered by any participant or accompanying person or another person during travel to and from the meeting or during the meeting. Participants are advised to consider purchasing their own travel insurance and to extend their personal policy to cover personal possessions.

Change of participant

At any time after registration, in case you will be unable to attend for any reason, you will have the opportunity to send a colleague in your place at no additional cost. In such case, please contact Aboa Events at aboaevents@certia.fi as soon as possible.

Hotel Room Allocation for Conference

We are pleased to announce that a specific number of rooms have been reserved for the upcoming conference. Participants are encouraged to book their accommodations promptly. Please quote the allotment code BNURSING2025 when making a reservation. Please see the allotment information (pdf file opens).

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Accommodation options

Here are some examples of accommodation options in Turku. Additional options, including hotels, hostels, and apartments, can be found on online travel platforms such as Booking.com.

Hotels

We have

Original Sokos Hotel Kupittaa

• Located just a few minutes’ walk from the Department of Nursing Science.
• Trains from Helsinki to Turku currently stop at Kupittaa station, as the main train station is under renovation.
• While convenient for the conference venue, the hotel is slightly outside the city center, which is less than 2 km away. If you prefer a central location, you might want to consider other options.

Centro Hotel Turku

• Centrally located, within a 1.7 km walk to the conference venue.

Scandic Hamburger Börs

• Located in the heart of the city center, approximately a 1.8 km walk to the conference venue.

Radisson Blu Marina Palace Hotel

• Located along the Aura River in the city center, about 2.3 km from the conference venue.

Original Sokos Hotel Wiklund

• Centrally located next to Scandic Hamburger Börs, within a 1.8 km walk to the conference venue.

Hotel Kakola

• Located in the city center, closer to the harbor, and a 3.5 km walk to the conference venue.
• The hotel is housed in a former prison with a fascinating history. The area also features excellent dining options, such as Kakolan Ruusu and Kakola Brewery, as well as a charming spa. Even if you don’t stay here, we recommend visiting the area.

Holiday Club Caribia

Located near the university campus, just a 1.1 km walk to the conference venue and 2 km from the city center.

Hostels and B&Bs

Bed & Breakfast Tuure

• Centrally located, about 2.1 km from the conference venue.
• Offers affordable rates compared to hotels, starting at €49/night for a single room and €65/night for a double room, both including breakfast.

Boat Hostel S/S Bore

• A unique hostel on a museum ship near Turku Castle, approximately 4.2 km from the conference venue.
• The walking route to the venue offers beautiful views along the Aura River.
• Prices start at €40/night, including breakfast, making it an affordable and distinctive option.