News and blogs

Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley, Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, summarises what she reflected on in her keynote speech at the 2025 NIHR Innovation Observatory Horizon Scanning, Foresight and Futures conference.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has announced it is working with the International Society for Stem Cell Research to explore how a timeframe matrix, which prioritises ethical implications, can be applied to an international horizon scan.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has appointed four experts in horizon scanning, foresight and futures to join its horizon scanning advisory group.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) is collaborating with the University of Edinburgh and others to co-create future governance frameworks for synthetic biology in plants – a rapidly advancing area of engineering biology with the potential to transform agriculture, sustainability, and food security.

In 2023, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) began working in partnership with international experts on a project to explore how ethical advice is sought and utilised during times of crisis. Today, we welcome Dr Marija Antanavičiūtė on a 12-month secondment to lead on the development of a rapid ethical assessment tool.

Read about what the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) Horizon Scanning (HS) and Foresight team have been up to as part of our ethical lens project.

Read about how we are developing horizon scanning tools to help decision-makers embed ethics within policy development.

We believe there is an unmet need for a policy-tailored, ethically aware approach to horizon scanning and foresight.

We have published our new five-year strategy ‘Making ethics matter’.