The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (www.unicatt.it), founded in 1921 includes five campuses (Milano, Brescia, Piacenza-Cremona, Roma and Campobasso) which cover 14 faculties, 52 three-year major tracks, 42 graduate level degrees, 1 four-years degree, over 100 master tracks, 53 specializations and 5 Postgraduate Schools.

The extensive research program closely collaborates with 16 internal colleges, 62 departments and 93 research centres. Their common goal is the understanding and study of those topics that have proved vital to the well-being of each human being: the new frontiers of economics, bioethics, environmental recuperation, developments in the judicial fields, family dynamics, major mass phenomena, the evolution of political systems, new horizons in medicine, the technological applications of physics and mathematics, and the most recent discoveries in environmental research.

The School of Medicine, established in Rome in 1961, covers all modern medical disciplines as well as some of the most considered medical scholars in the world. In addition to the courses of Medicine & Surgery, Nursing sciences, Physiotherapy, Public health, bioethics biomedical science and a variety of other clinical subjects, there is a School of Health Management and Economy.

UCSC’s Ethical Committee, founded in 1988, is a resident body that operates in total independence also on behalf of third parties seeking assessments or advice. Within this framework, ethical issues are analysed, discussed and assessed by means of inter and multi-disciplinary methodology. Its “core-business” is centered on problematic and innovative issues linked to scientific research, clinical practice and citizen/patient rapport with healthcare. Its components come from different areas where knowledge and experience are concerned. They are called principally to evaluate compliance of experimentation protocols with recognized ethical standards and to verify safety and integrity of patients/volunteers participating in studies.

The Ethical Committee, collegially, provides mandatory ethical assessments for clinical studies in full independence and in compliance with national law and European regulations, thus facilitating choices in difficult phases of the decisional process. The multidisciplinary approach contributes to the conciliation of disarticulated and complex aspects of scientific and medical issues with an eye on the anthropological unity of human beings. The Committee offers also training in Ethical evaluation and monitoring and related issues and activities.

Within EU Project EDEN (FP7) and UCSC is providing ethical monitoring and supervision through the evaluation of different tools and demos the ethical review of selected deliverables. Most of these EDEN activities are handled through an Ethical Helpdesk. These same tasks will be taken on by UCSC in EU Project Reaching Out (H2020). In terms of management of research activities, the University has 3 main and Research Support Structures, one in each of the three main campuses (Milan, Rome and Piacenza) which also are responsible for technology transfer issues, including procedure, provision and implementation of the Intellectual Property Rights and Patent applications.

The School of Medicine in the last 5 years has participated in 52 health related European and International projects: 6 have been successfully coordinated by UCSC.

Website: http://www.ucsc.it/