German reference center for ethics in the life sciences
The German Reference Center for Ethics in the Biosciences (DRZE) is a national documentation and information center on ethics in the biosciences and medicine . It was founded in 1999.
organization
The reference center for ethics in the biosciences was established between 1999 and 2003 with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research . In 2004 it went into regular operation. It is an office of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts and cooperates with the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . The center is based in Bonn.
Ludger Honnefelder headed the DRZE until 2007, and Dieter Sturma has been director since then . The management has been in charge of Dirk Lanzerath since 2002. The director is advised by a scientific board of trustees from the fields of ethics, medicine, information technology and library science, which includes Armin Cremers , Peter Propping , Ludwig Siep , Renate Vogt and the chairwoman of the German Ethics Council Christiane Woopen . There is also an international scientific advisory board appointed by the Rectorate of the University of Bonn.
goals and tasks
The DRZE was founded with the aim of networking the international debate on bioethical issues in science and society. In addition to an extensive library and various publications, ranging from brief information that can be accessed online to printed dossiers and conference proceedings, relevant lectures and events are advertised, made publicly available and also carried out by the company's own institute, such as the Ethics Forum series. In addition, the DRZE is involved in numerous international projects on bioethical issues.
Science service
Based on the holdings of the Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE) in Bonn, the DRZE maintains an extensive reference library open to all interested parties. In addition, there are over 500,000 records in the international literature database, which were created in cooperation with the Information and Documentation Center for Ethics in Medicine, the International Center for Ethics in Science, the Bioethics Research Library at Georgetown University and the Center de documentation en éthique and for the research can be accessed using a trilingual thesaurus.