Team Leader
Dr. Itziar de Lecuona
Lecturer Department of Medicine,
Doctor of Law
Institute Presentation
The Bioethics and Law Observatory (OBD) is an interdisciplinary research centre of the University of Barcelona (UB). Established in 1995, it holds the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics since 20017, one of the nine UNESCO Chairs established in bioethics around the world and being the only one in Spain in this field. The OBD analyses the ethical, legal, and societal issues of biotechnology and biomedicine and associated technologies, anchoring its work in research, teaching, and knowledge transfer in internationally recognized human rights. The OBD ´s Opinion Group promotes social debate on bioethical issues by publishing a series of reports with a proven impact on national and local regulations as well as in scientific societies. The main goal is to promote a more informed society to foster informed decision-making processes in bioethics. The OBD is partly located at the School of Law (headquarters) and has other facilities in the School of Medicine at the University of Barcelona.
Within the DECISION project, the OBD y is in charge of the ethical, legal, and societal issues in research and innovation processes with human beings, their biological samples, and personal data-associated information, and informed-consent processes (WP6). We also address ethics in research and research integrity and responsible research and innovation. In addition, OBD is in charge of reviewing and monitoring ethics and data protection policies in light of the General Data Protection Regulation. The OBD provides assessment in bioethics and research with human beings.