Country Report Spain

Abstract

1. Research in Medicine and in the Biological Sciences has gradually improved well-being and indeed the life expectancy of mankind. This is why nobody today disputes the importance of research in the field of the biomedical sciences, since progress in the latter depends largely on the results obtained through research. For this reason, biomedical research -leaving aside for the moment other considerations which I shall address further on- is viewed as first and foremost an asset of mankind in that it enables us to understand better the mechanisms of disease and illness, their causes and the means to prevent, combat or alleviate them. Research also helps fulfill one of the most burning desires of human nature: the quest for new knowledge. All this has received recognition in law. International and, more explicitly, national legal instruments recognise and protect freedom of scientific enquiry as a right, in many cases a fundamental one, and the authorities pledge themselves to the promotion of research.