He has been named in the 1st Congress of Ethics of the Social Services, entitled ‘La necesidad del trabajo colaborativo de los comités de ética’, held in Valencia on 24 and 25 November, organised by REDECOES. The state network REDECOES has been created this year and its aim is to share experiences and results, coordinate joint activities to promote ethics in social services.

Begoña Román, president of the Social Services Ethics Committee of Catalunya and professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Barcelona, has been named vice-president of REDECOES.

The technical secretariat of the network will be in charge of Ana Calvo, secretary of the Social Services Ethics Committee of the Valencian Community, legal advisor in the First Vice-Presidency and Ministry of Social Services, Equality and Housing of the Valencian Government.

Juan Carlos Siurana, who is also the president of the Social Services Ethics Committee, will take the role of coordinating this new network.

REDECOES is a state network of the Social Services and Ethics Committee of Spain and it is formed by those committees holding the highest  territorial representation in each community or autonomous city. Its aim is to share experiences and results, coordinate joint activities to promote ethics in social services.

The committees that are currently part of the REDECOES are the Ethics Committee in Social Care of Aragón, the Ethics Committee of Castilla y León, the Social Services Ethics Committee of Catalunya, the Social Services Ethics Committee of the Valencian Community, the Social and Health Coordinating Commission of Ethics Committees of Euskadi and the Ethics Committee in Social Intervention As Mariñas, from Galicia.

Professor, Juan Carlos Siurana, who is also the president of the Bioethics Committee of Spain, deems of vital importance that ethics committees work together to share reports and experiences and to face challenges.  ‘Not only social services ethics committees should work together at a local, departmental, autonomic and state level, but also, the collaboration between ethics and bioethics committees can be really fruitful. Some stapes have been already taken in that direction’ he has manifested.

Juan Carlos Siurana currently coordinates the doctoral programme in Ethics and Democracy and research projects in applied ethics in the Universitat de València. He is director of the Bioethics Research Group at the UV, coordinator of the Ibero-American Network of Bioethics Research Groups and of international congresses in this subject, as well as researcher of the ÉTNOR Foundation (For Business and Organisations Ethics). He is the author of more than one hundred publications, among these, numerous books about ethics.