#EBW26 Live: Ethics Café 

This article is 447 words and a 3-minute read. 

The first session of Friday’s EBW scientific programme was the Ethics Café, chaired by Assoc. Prof. Anto Čartolovni, PhD, Head of the ELSI Department at BBMRI-ERIC, and Valentina Colcelli, PhD, Senior Researcher at the Italian National Research Council (CNR). 

The Ethics Café is a recurring session at Europe Biobank Week, bringing together stakeholders in an informal setting to reflect on the role of ethics in biomedical innovation. 

This year’s session brought together expert perspectives on AI-driven health data use and the governance of the European Health Data Space (EHDS). Through short inputs followed by facilitated audience discussion, participants were invited to reflect on practical challenges, stakeholder engagement and responsible data stewardship in everyday biobank operations. 

An interactive segment led by Prof. Ricard Martínez Martínez focused on the topic: “Health data, EHDS and AI: What could possibly go wrong?” 

The discussion addressed how the European Health Data Space and the rapid uptake of Artificial Intelligence are transforming how health data from biobanks are accessed and governed across Europe. For biobank professionals, these developments are not abstract but directly impact data access procedures, secondary use decisions, collaborations and stakeholder relationships. 

Participants explored how AI is reshaping the ethical landscape of health data reuse, raising questions around transparency and societal expectations. The session also highlighted the new responsibilities emerging under EHDS for biobanks as both data holders and facilitators. 

Reflecting on what emerged from the session, Valentina Colcelli, PhD shared:  

“We need strong governance of the data inside hospitals, universities and the centres in which we manage data, because we cannot expect that this function could be delegated just to the data protection officer. 

We must push for security and invest money in security for managing data, because this is another huge point. Without enough money, it is not possible to face this fact. Because, as Ricard said in the last part of the session, the point is to create trust and confidence in what researchers do among the audience, the population and the citizens.”  

Assoc. Prof. Čartolovni said:  

“Professor Martínez Martínez’s input was really interesting because he presented all the challenges that biobanks and researchers might face, in particular focusing on new emerging technologies like AI.” 

Commenting on the new streams provided by the Commission to address these challenges, he added:
 

“The real question is whether this will be resolved with the Commission’s digital simplification strategy or not and how we can help and assist researchers as ELSI experts: how to steer the research, how to facilitate the research and how to promote innovation within the competitiveness fund strategy that the Commission has.” 

The Ethics Café was followed by the continuation of the EBW scientific programme.