BEB Biolaw and Bioethics

The First-level Short Specialisation Degree in Biolaw and Bioethics (BeB) encompasses all those fields that focus on bioethical topics with a major social impact, and which require multidisciplinary competences, such as clinical experimentation and practice, animal and environmental bioethics, personal healthcare data protection, risk management and communication. It focuses also on the so-called biolaw, an area of legal disciplines that tackles issues concerning the protection of human life and the legal implications resulting from life sciences and the technological evolution behind their development. 

Students will acquire: 

• Legal-specialised and interdisciplinary knowledge that can be applied to biolaw, ethical, and bioethical consultancy contexts;
• Knowledge of the current bioethics topics, by developing the ability to place themselves in those contexts in a conscious and critical way;
• Ability to identify a legal issue and represent its specific standpoint on biolegal, ethical and bioethical matters
• Ability to convey biolegal topics in all their problematic aspects, to coordinate it with the other relevant issues, such as managing collective thought, and to help mediate controversial matters.

The First-level Short Specialisation Degree in Biolaw and Bioethics (BeB) is addressed to:

• All healthcare, pharmaceutical, research and scientific publishing operators, interested in dwelling on bioethical topics with a legal focus;
• Legal experts interested in specializing in biolaw and bioethics. 

Compared to standard legal degrees, this First-level Short Specialisation Degree offers a multidisciplinary and specialized formation, which is absent from common college curricula.

Career opportunities may include:

• bioethics committee;
• ethics committee from private and public R&D structures and institutions;
• medical or pharmaceutical research companies and institutions;
• ethics committee of editors interested in assessing the ethical sustainability of scientific and educational publications;
• legal attorneys specialized in biolaw;
• law or social studies professors, informed on the impact science and technology have on individual and social life.

The First-level Short Specialisation Degree in Biolaw and Bioethics (BeB) delves on the following specific topics: 

Theory of biolaw sources

Reconstruction of the main acts and international conventions, with a European and national focus. Among the topics covered, regulatory enunciations between formant, lato sensu, legal and case law, with evidence on the importance of ethical and deontological interpretations and practices.

Human biolaw and bioethics

History and philosophical-conceptual module behind Bioethics and the concept of Biolaw. This module focuses on the topics of the current national and international debate, and on the different ethical positions at stake, assessing them from a legal-philosophical and non-ideological context.

Animal and environmental biolaw and bioethics

Legal, juridical and ethical patterns concerning animal health and welfare and environmental protection, by analysing the regulatory ascent of paradigms that corroborate the planetary interconnection between human health and well-being, animals, plants and environment, from a scientific standpoint.

Ethical and legal aspects of personal data protection in biotechnological research applied to humans

Data protection legal notions, with a focus on scientific and technological research applied to humans, protection of biometric and genetic data, and relation with the conceptual evolution and legal actualization of the fundamental principle of human dignity.

Clinical practice bioethics and biolaw

The ethical issues that may affect single cases are recognized and analysed, with the aim of improving the quality of clinical practice decision-making and care processes. A customized approach, to enhance the patient’s independence and minimize criticalities.

Ethical, legal and methodological aspects of clinical trials

This module wishes to improve the quality of decision-making processes in the clinical trial field, providing the right competences to:

• Recognize and analyse the ethical and legal issues that may arise from the analysis of clinical research protocols;
• Identify the types, regulations, peculiarity and procedures;
• Understand the role of Ethical Committees in approving research protocols and the methods adopted by the same.

Risk management in the healthcare sector

This module provides expert skills to identify potentially critical events and related risk factors, by analysing management and planning methods, promoting a culture of patient safety, and developing organizational safety.

Communication and decisions in bioethics and biolaw

An effective, well-thought out communication promotes a constructive dialogue, an ethical analysis, and a collaborative decision-making process. Through communication strategies, practice and simulations, students will reach a respectful and informed ethical decision, by optimizing the debate around critical dilemmas.

The general ranking of merit for the academic year 2024/25 will be published on the Italian page of this First-level Short Specialisation Degree according to the timing provided in the Call.