María Casado, director of the Bioethics and Law Observatory of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), located in the Barcelona Science Park, has been honored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the concession of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the UB. The creation of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the UB means international recognition both of María Casado and of the activity she is developing at the Bioethics and Law Observatory, and which carries out a line of research and transference of pluridisciplinary knowledge on the ethical, social, and juridical implications of biotechnology and biomedicine.

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The aim of the UNESCO Chairs is to strengthen interuniversity cooperation via the exchange of knowledges among universities and the promotion of an academic solidarity throughout the world. According to the agreement signed between UNESCO and the UB, the Bioethics Chair at the University has as it’s objective to contribute—in the area of universal reflection on Human Rights—in a worldwide, plural and pluridisciplinary debate on the principles and fields of study of bioethics, to promote an integrated system of research, training, and diffusion activities in the field of bioethics, as well as to foment collaboration among high-level researchers and professors of recognized prestige, universities and institutions of higher learning in Europe, North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions of the world. Another of the objectives of this Chair is to favor the transference of the acquired experience of the Bioethics and Law Observatory in the areas of research, teaching, and diffusion to developing countries, with the concomitant sharing of methodologies and training actions.

UNESCO awards the denomination “UNESCO Chair” to teaching and research units that are established in a university or other institution of higher learning, or in a scientific center that stands out for academic excellence and share its aims, entrusting these institutions with the mission of organizing teaching and diffusion activities in a concrete field of knowledge that is considered prioritary. Until now, there had been only six UNESCO Chairs in Bioethics in the world. With the Chair of the UB, therefore, one more is added, which increases the comparatively high number of UNESCO Chairs in Catalonia.

Maria Casado, is a doctor of Law from the Universidad Complutense (Madrid), a titular professor of Philosophy and Law of the UB, coordinator of the Consolidated Research Group “Bioethics, law and society” of the Generalitat of Catalonia and director of the Masters in Bioethics and Law of this same university. She also coordinates the Thematic Network of Bioethics and Human Rights of the European Union, and the Network in Bioethics Teaching (AECI). At present Casado is a consulting member of the Consultative Committee of Bioethics of Catalonia, of the Assessment Committee of the CIRIT, of the Bioethics Commission of the UB, of the commission of experts of the National DNA Bank, of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Bioethics, of the Ethics Committee of the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Barcelona, and of the European Association of Global Bioethics. In 2006, she received the Narcís Monturiol Medal for scientific and technological merit that is awarded by the Generalitat of Catalonia for her contribution in bioethics research from a pluridisciplinary and lay perspective.