Brussels, 04/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - The second meeting of the World Congress for Freedom of Scientific Research on “From the body to the body politic” will take place in Brussels from Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 March. The Congress, organised by the Luca Coscioni Association, will be attended by Nobel Prize winners, ministers and representatives of the European institutions and academia.
Participants will debate various issues from political use made of science to the relationship between science and religion, from bioethics to reproductive medicine, always seeking to link matters of scientific and political currency with the requirements of the ill and handicapped. Emma Bonino, Vice-President of the Italian Senate, former minister and former European commissioner, and Marco Cappato, Secretary General of the Luca Coscioni Association, will open the proceedings. European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potoènik, former European commissioner in the same area Philippe Busquin, leader of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament Graham Watson, deputy leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament Robert Goebbels, Belgian Health Minister Laurette Onkelinx, her Spanish counterpart Bernat Soria and 2007 winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine Martin Evans will be among those speaking over the course of the three days.
The main organiser of the event, the Luca Coscioni Association was founded in 2002 by Luca Coscioni, its radical leader who died in February 2006 at the age of 36, after suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, says a press release from the Association. In political elections in 2001, 50 Nobel Prize winners supported his candidacy for the Italian parliament as head of the Emma Bonino list, which supported his efforts for stem cell research. The aims of the Association are the promotion of freedom of scientific research and cure; the promotion of projects and technologies for “independent living”; and support for the civil and political rights of the ill and those with disabilities.
The first meeting of the World Congress for Freedom of Scientific Research was held in Rome in February 2006. It ended with the adoption of a declaration which says that freedom of scientific research is “required by democracy, is a basic civil and political right and is one of the main guarantors of human health and welfare”, the Association says in its press release. For further information, go to http://www.freedomofresearch.org (G.B./transl.rt)