Bio-Commons Workshop

7 — 8 Jun 2014

Vartiosaari, Helsinki, Finland

The Commons consist of any common resource that is available to all, narrowing basically to two: physical resources or man-made. A plenitude of licensing modes has been developed in the past and were especially successful in the digital world, although there exists no similar licensing model for the life sciences. The aim of the Bio-Commons workshop, held on the island of Vartiosaari, was to initiate discussion and identify the requirements and conditions for an open and collaborative approach towards Life Sciences, such as ethical, societal and economic needs and challenges, at the intersection of law and scientific theory and practice. As an outcome a white paper was presented to the German Bundestag and consecutively to the European Union. A follow up workshop was held during the Bio-Fiction festival in Vienna from 23rd to 25th of October to work out the Bio-Strike case study.

Part of Camp Pixelache 2014