Workshop announcement/ Call for proposals: 'Stem cells in translation: the governance of clinical promise in regenerative medicine'
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Paris, CEVIPOF SciencesPo - 11th and 12th May, 2016
Organized by EUcelLex, FP7 project
The EucelLex project (https://www.eucellex.eu/) is thrilled to announce the workshop: «Stem cells in translation: the governance of clinical promise in regenerative medicine» to be held in Paris, on 11th and 12th May, 2016.
The objective of this workshop is to analyze governance issues at the translational frontier of stem cell science.
Scope of the workshop:
Over the last two decades, stem cell biology has grown into one of the most prominent and rapidly expanding areas of science. In the meantime, lightning progress in our scientific understanding of stem cell biology created a widespread expectation to harness its therapeutic potential.
Interestingly, the clinical promise of stem cells has taken shape in a complex landscape of – often conflicting – representations about their biological properties, their clinical translation, their legal status, their regulation, commercialization and provision to the public. In such a context, existing governance frameworks for the use of human bodily elements (such as organs and stored tissue) proved insufficient to contain the medical and commercial promise of stem cell-based regenerative medicine.
The workshop will provide a valuable opportunity for international scholars of different disciplinary backgrounds to connect and engage in fruitful discussions concerning both the specificities of stem cell translational policy and broader trends in the governance of clinical translation in biomedicine.
We therefore invite prospective participants to submit abstract that could foster discussion and shed much needed light on the evolution of governance in this field.
We welcome abstracts from graduate students, early career and senior scholars from both the natural and the social sciences – including political sociology, media studies, philosophy, bioethics, law and STS. The papers should set out to analyze and critically discuss how the clinical translation of stem cells into medical products effects scientific, regulatory, ethical and economic representations of regenerative medicine.
Moreover, we also invite abstracts that, albeit not directly related to stem cells, can nonetheless illuminate broader challenges at the translational frontier of today’s biomedicine. The latter set of abstracts will be included in a closing panel on future prospects for interdisciplinary research in this domain. To this purpose, thematic and/or comparative papers making sense of translational policy also beyond regenerative medicine will be considered.
This event represents the output of a three-year engagement of EUcelLex with the social representation of stem cells. The workshop will therefore also be an occasion to present the result of the work done in this domain by EUcelLex Work Package 6, under the direction of Alessandro Blasimme (Inserm) and Virginie Tournay (SciencePo), and with the collaboration of Adeline Néron (IFRIS).
The workshop will be held at the Centre de recherches politiques (CEVIPOF), SciencePo: 98, rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris (France).
§ Adeline Néron (IFRIS, Paris, France). EUcelLex, WP6 research assistant.
Proposal Submission Process:
All submissions and pre-submission inquires should be emailed to the workshop’s convenors (see below).
Papers related to the following topics are particularly welcome:
The regulation and the perception of risk; ethical issues in the governance of clinical translation; trade-offs between evidence and access to innovative products; legal challenges in the governance of stem cell innovation; models of clinical translation; legal and regulatory controversies at local, national and transnational scale; politicization of technological challenges and innovation imperatives; commercialization of science; relationships between materiality, standardization and policy objectives; demarcation between basic research, clinical trials and therapeutic attempts; setting translational priorities; shaping of stem cell markets through public and private investment; patients’ advocacy and public concerns; challenges in terms of public communication; history and new cultural issues.
Methodologies:
This interdisciplinary workshop is open to papers adopting different methodological approaches: qualitative analysis (e.g. ethnography, participant observation); quantitative analysis (e.g. bibliometric research, network analysis, survey of public opinion); theoretical approaches (e.g. policy analysis, philosophy of science, bioethics, STS).
Important Workshop Dates:
15th October, 2015: Deadline for abstract submission
15th November, 2015: Notification of abstract acceptance/rejection
10th February, 2016: Workshop pre-program
15th March, 2016: Deadline for submitting full papers
11th-12th May, 2016: Workshop
Content of the Submission:
Please submit your abstract to alessandro.blasimme@inserm.fr, virginie.tournay@sciencepo.fr. All submissions will be assessed by the international scientific board of EUcelLex (https://www.eucellex.eu/) and should include:
Title
Abstract (400 words maximum)
Name, affiliation, postal address, e-mail address and brief CV for each author
Identification of the primary contact person(s)
Cover letter specifying: overall topic of the proposal, why the topic is of particular relevance to the themes of the workshop, what are the objectives the proposal aims to achieve.
