GDPR book now open access: “GDPR and Biobanking: Individual Rights, Public Interest and Research Regulation across Europe”

Springer Book “GDPR and Biobanking: Individual Rights, Public Interest and Research Regulation across Europe” is now available open access!

“European Biobank Weeks are much more than social gatherings. They are supposed to bring together biobankers and researchers from all over the world with one clear goal: to promote biobanking research. However, it appears that at times, EBWs can also lead to the generation of great books, great legal books even!

More specifically, during a session break of 2018 Global Biobank Week (GBW) in Stockholm, BBMRI ELSI colleagues entered in on one of those “endless” ELSI discussions on data exchange. By then, the GDPR being still a “new animal”, had raised our concern, on how national legislators across EU Member States would react to the GDPR derogations and how these different approaches would affect biobanking research. It was during this discussion, where the concept for the  book under the title “GDPR and Biobanking: Individual Rights, Public Interest and Research Regulation across Europe” was born.

Three of the ELSI experts namely  Dr. Santa Slokenberga, Prof. Jane Reichel and Dr. Olga Tzortzatou, undertook the task of co-editors. Authors were invited by them, to contribute  largely from within the BBMRI legal experts pool. Everyone reacted enthusiastically devoting time and energy in order to deliver a state-of-the-art work.

At the end of this long journey, BBMRI-ERIC repurposed the – in pandemic times – unused travel funds for paying the open access fees , in order for this work to be freely accessible to theresearch community. It is the hope of all actors involved, that this book will meet the expectations of its readers, stimulating even more fruitful and thought provoking discussions in the field of biobanking research!

After that long journey, the e-book is now online and hardcopies can also be ordered here!