How does the Council select topics to examine?
The Council holds an annual 'Forward Look' meeting to identify and consider new topics that may need examination. The Council also consults a wide range of external sources, including government, institutes and societies, industry, non-governmental bodies and researchers engaged in biological and biomedical research. The Council discusses these recommendations, before selecting topics for its future work programme. For a topic to be selected, it must fit the following conditions:
- be novel: be linked to substantial new developments in medicine or biology;
- raise ethical questions and concerns of some complexity;
- be timely: the Council aims to be proactive in its selection of new topics;
- produce a Report or Discussion Paper that would be likely to have an important impact on policy or practice;
- be within the Council’s terms of reference.
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Typically, once the Council has selected a potential topic for consideration, it sets up a Workshop which aims to identify and discuss relevant issues and decide whether an issue merits further examination. If so, the Council will establish a Working Party to examine and report on the ethical, social, legal, and practical issues.
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Last Updated Fri, 5 May 2006