The Ethox Centre is a multidisciplinary academic centre for ethics and communication skills in medical research and health care practice, located within the Department of Public Health and Primary Health Care at the University of Oxford. It was established in 1998, since when it has become one of the leading bioethics centres in Europe. The Centre promotes high ethical standards in medical research and in healthcare practice through multidisciplinary research, education, and ethics support for health professionals and scientists. Key strengths of the Centre are that in all its activities it is: patient-centred, rooted in the real worlds of medical research and clinical practice, views good communication as fundamental to good ethics, and seeks to take a global perspective. The Ethox Centre team includes: anthropologists, lawyers, philosophers, psychiatrists, sociologists, and clinicians. 

The Ethox Centre’s research is structured around four important areas in contemporary medical research and practice:

• Genetics;
• Mental Health and Neuroscience;
• Clinical Ethics; and
• Global Health and Epidemiology.

This provides the Centre with a clear focus for its research activities, fundraising and development.

Some of the key achievements of the Centre are:

• The establishment and development of the UK Clinical Ethics Network. The first national network of clinical ethics committees in the world, which provides support and training to clinical ethics committees and organisations seeking to establish such committees, across the UK.
• Leading the ethics programme of a major, 18-country genomic epidemiology network (MalariaGEN) carrying out research into the genetic aspects of serious malaria in childhood in developing countries. This is funded jointly by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Wellcome Trust.
• The development of an innovative model of ethics and communication skills education for medical students.
• Innovative empirical ethics research in psychiatry on the carer’s perspective of Alzheimer’s Disease and on decision-making in Anorexia Nervosa.
• Research on the ethical implications of epidemiology involving the use of medical records without patients’ consent. This research is funded by the Medical Research Council.

The Ethox Centre currently has a staff of 17 researchers and administrators and enjoys a regular flow of international researchers of a very high calibre through its international research links. The Centre’s Director is Professor Michael Parker.