The European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics (EACME) is, since its creation in 1985 essentially a research and communication network. "European" is used in the broadest sense of its geographic scope, from the Atlantic ocean to the Ural Mountains of Eastern Europe. It aims at promoting critical public concern with regard to the ethical issues of development in the biomedical sciences within the diverse ethnic communities that constitute the European continent

Beginnings

Prof Dr.Paul Schotsmans ,President of EACME and Director of the KU Leuven Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law, describes EACME as first and foremost an open network for collaboration, education, contact and research amongst biomedical ethicists in Europe. It was founded in 1985 and its first President was a forensic physician who was involved in human rights violations in South Africa, Mme Lerie Lyon. In the following year, the KU Leuven joined EAMCE via the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law.

Prof Schotsmans:" The network was there first and then the EU Commission began to take notice and financed a research centre. EACME was the first bioethics network in Europe and this provided the landscape for EU funding for bioethics." EACME resisted the temptation to become an organization based on 'personalities', because the founding fathers of bioethics, such as Francesco Abel, Eduard Bone and Richard Nicholson, were convinced that the longevity of an association for biomedical research depended ultimately not on persons but on institutional goals."

EACME Link to the EU

While EACME is not a political body, it does have influence, especially in the sphere of the 'morality of research'. According to Prof Schotsmans, if there is a call from the EU then there can be a response from the research centres to that stimulus. EACME is a structural network that makes an impact and has connections with the EU commission through its research projects.