ABSTRACT
The aims of the Euricon study were two-fold: to examine the validity of the obtaining of informed consent for neonatal research across Europe and to suggest practical improvements if necessary; and to examine the role of Research Ethics Committees (RECs), and their role in ethical review in Europe. Progress in medicine is heavily dependent upon research. Research tests whether a treatment is effective, or whether one treatment is better than another, or whether patients do better with one operation or another, and so on. Some may wonder how researchers can justify entering patients into such randomised controlled trials. Since the 1940s consent has been seen as central to any research on human beings, including medical research. In other words, research on human beings cannot, in general, take place unless the participants agree to that research. RECs have been set up in some form in many European countries during the last thirty years.
