Blog4th December 2025
We are living through one of the most fast-paced and disruptive technological periods in history. Deregulatory sentiment is gaining momentum; geopolitical tensions are rising and there is a notable increase in individualism worldwide.
Breakthroughs in areas such as AI, biotechnology, and quantum offer transformative potential to tackle some of society’s greatest challenges, but governance is not keeping up. This lack of robust safeguards results in uncertainty for scientists, and risks exacerbating inequalities and causing an erosion of public trust.
Ethical analysis and advice have never been more important, but our current ways of working are struggling – we need to adapt if we are to maintain our influence and impact.
The international bioethics community is facing some big questions. How should we operate to ensure we can effectively target our bioethical analysis at policy decisions? And how do we best transcend regional and national boundaries so we can meaningfully unite to capitalise on shared opportunities and confront our shared challenges?
Last month, I had the opportunity to explore these questions alongside colleagues from Europe, South America and Africa, as part of a plenary session at the European National Ethics Committee Forum in Copenhagen.
It was clear that the session tapped into a shared desire amongst ethics councils to find ways to support joint working and allow us to identify and address emerging bioethical issues collaboratively. The discussions that followed also highlighted an appetite to find more effective means through which to share insights, build partnerships, and encourage co-production on specific topics.
A example of a topic that emerged was time limits on embryo research, particularly the 14-day rule, which we are currently reviewing through a large-scale deliberative project. This is an area of research that countries are having to grapple with globally, and one that requires robust ethical guidance – it was therefore acknowledged that collaboration and international knowledge exchange would be beneficial. Recognising this has led us to engage internationally to better understand the different values, drivers and governance systems that relate to embryo research, and in turn, we aim to produce findings that will be useful and relevant to both UK policy makers and wider international audiences.
The conversations I had with colleagues were both insightful and encouraging, as they have helped to signpost where the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) could support the international community to better identify future issues such as the 14-day rule to collaborate on.
One of the ways we are responding to the changing global landscape is by enhancing our ability to anticipate. Last year, we published our horizon scan in a timeframed format for the first time. By assessing each of our scan topics for their political context, funding allocations, regulatory support and public sentiment, we can estimate how quickly an ethical implication could occur. And because we know policymakers usually need to focus on the short-term, this timeframing analysis is helping us to better appreciate which topics are likely to be on their minds already, and which might need to be highlighted. It also means we can decide if we use our research capacity to respond to the policy agenda, or whether we seek to set it.
Given what I heard in Copenhagen, I think others in our international community could find timeframing insights useful – this is why I am excited our partnership with the International Society for Stem Cell Research will help us to better understand if and how we can timeframe beyond the UK.
This is doubly important when you consider that bioethics is global by its nature. It requires a sustained and earnest effort to understand and – where appropriate – incorporate the multitude of viewpoints and perspectives into the advice and recommendations we settle on. Indeed, it is only by being cognisant of global drivers, systems and values that we can effectively embed ethics into policy at a national level.
At the NCOB, we continually strive to participate in meaningful and strategically beneficial knowledge exchange with our international colleagues. It is through sharing ideas that we can best understand each other’s priorities, and this is what helps us to identify and enter into partnerships to work together on the analysis of specific topics.
To support this, we recently commissioned a piece of mapping work and have been engaging with international counterparts – through a series of structured interviews, conversations and an international roundtable – to identify and better understand the bioethics networks that are actively trying to influence policy. We wanted to highlight shared opportunities and challenges, and we now plan to use insights to help support broader conversations and connections between bioethics networks going forward.
If we are to navigate our changing world successfully and maintain the influence and impact of bioethics, we are going to need to work with one another. The NCOB stands ready to participate in this effort, keen to find more proactive ways to anticipate shared priorities and tackle today’s challenges together.