ACADEMIC CV

EDUCATION AND ACADEMIC EXAMS

1958 studies at Lund University, Sweden
1961 fil. kand., Lund University, Sweden
1964 fil. lic., Lund University, Sweden
1969 Dr of Philosophy, Lund University, Sweden
1970 Professor of philosophy and theory of science (“vetenskapsteori”), Umeå University
1975 Professor of practical philosophy (ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy), Lund University, faculty of humanities
1991 Professor of Medical ethics at the Medical Research Council, Stockholm
1993 Professor of Medical ethics at Lund University, faculty of medicine

RESEARCH ABROAD

1966-67, Visiting fellow, Princeton University and the University of Michigan, USA
1973, Visiting fellow at Temple University, Philadelphia, USA
1974-75, Visiting Leverhulme European Scholar, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
1990, spent part of a term in London, as guest of the British Academy (exchange programme with Royal Academy of Letters in Stockholm)

INTERNATIONAL TASKS

President, European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, EGE, Brussels, 2002-2010. Chairman of the Advisory Board, DRZE (German Reference Center for Ethics in the Life Sciences), Bonn, Germany. Past member of the of the standing committee for humanities of the European Science Foundation, Strasbourg. Past member of the (CDBI, Committé des directeurs de bioéthique, Strasbourg), and of the working party drafting the text of the Council of Europe Convention of human rights and biomedicine. Between 1988 and 1995, president of the Association Internationale d’esthétique. External examiner in bioethics at University College, Dublin during two years. External examinal in bioethics at the National University of Ireland, Dublin 2012. Elected chair of the Standing Committee for Science and Ethics of the Federation of European Academies, ALLEA, 2012, later renamed as the Permanent working group for science and ethics.

NATIONAL TASKS

Chairman of the ethics committee of the Swedish Research Council, Stockholm since August 2001. Member of the Swedish National Council for Medical Ethics since its start in 1986-2018. Past member and chairman of the Nordic Committée on Bioethics. Member of parliamentary and governmental commissions in Sweden on e.g. criteria of death, transplantations, organ donation, priorities and resource allocation, xenotransplantations and genetic integrity. Member, working party for research ethics, Medical Research Council, Stockholm. Past member of the ethics committee of the National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm.

PUBLICATIONS

Hermerén has published in three main areas: aesthetics and philosophy of art, theory and philosophy of research and applied ethics. His scholarly publications include eight books as single author, five books written together with others, and ten anthologies, in most cases edited together with others, as well as papers in international and national journals. Some of his papers have been translated into Estonian, German, French, Polish and Hebrew. He has also been co-rapporteur on several reports by the EGE (the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, Brussels). Hermerén’s scholarly publications are listed at the end of this document. His publications in ethics focus on research ethics, ethics of stem cell research, the goals of medicine and priority setting in health care. In addition to these scholarly publications, he has also published some text-books in logic (Övningar i logik I-II, Lund: Studentlitteratur 1968; part II with Bengt Hansson), collaborated in Etik. En Introduktion (published by Statens Medicinsk-etiska råd), as well as published some overviews of semantics (Vandringar med böcker, 1965; 14, 3: 1-4) and writings on art and artists; for the latter, see below. Between 2002 and 2010 he published several Editorials in the EGE Newsletter Ethically Speaking. For recent publications, see separate page in this website.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Co-ordinator of a BioMed project, funded by the European Commission, Brussels, “Europriorities. Research Allocation in Health Care”, a comparative study of five countries. Partner, “Eurostem”, EU-funded project, co-ordinated by John Harris, Manchester. Work-package leader and PI of the EU-funded project EuroStemCell, co-ordinated by Austin Smith, Edinburgh/Cambridge and Anders Björklund, Lund. Work-package leader and member of Board of Directors of the EU funded project ESTOOLS, co-ordinated by Peter Andrews, Sheffield, as well as in another EU-funded project which started in 2008 (NeuroStemCell), co-ordinated by Elena Cattaneo, Milan, and Anders Björklund, Lund. Member of the Ethics Advisory Panel of the EU-funded MODHEP project. Currently involved in several ongoing EU-funded projects, including RETHRIM, Repair-HD, NECTAR and BOOSTB4.

Earlier member/partner of several EU-projects, “Philosophical Pluralism in European Decisions regarding Bio-Ethics” and “Ethical Function in Hospital Ethics Committees” (organised by Guy Lebeer and Madeleine Moulin, Brussels), as well as in two other EU-funded projects, “Property Regulation in European Science, Ethics and Law” (Birmingham) and “The Development of European Standards on Confidentiality and Privacy in Healthcare Among Vulnerable Patient Regulations” (Belfast). Hermerén has also received research grants from a number of Swedish research agencies like the Medical Research Council, the Vårdal Foundation and Forskningsrådsnämnden.

UNIVERSITY AND REFEREE TASKS

Hermerén has served on appointment committees at: the University of Oslo (chair in medical ethics, chair in aesthetics), University of Gothenburg (chair in practical philosophy) and e.g. in the universities of Uppsala (chair, practical philosophy) and Umeå (chair, philosophy of science in 1975) as well as on committees for the appointment of university lecturers at several universities.
Hermerén has served as faculty opponent and/or member of the examination committee at doctoral dissertations at the universities in Copenhagen, Trondheim (Norway), Stockholm and Lund.
He has reviewed applications for research grants not only in Sweden but also abroad, for the European Commission (many times) and for universities in other countries, e.g. the university of Oslo and the KU Leuven (several times).
Hermerén has served as referee for several scholarly journals, including Theoretical Medicine, Technology Assessment, Journal of Palliative Care, Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik, and Socialmedicinsk tidskrift.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Hermerén has contributed to the Swedish National Encyclopedia with numerous articles; he was also expert in charge of articles on philosophy, aesthetics, ethics in that encyclopedia. Moreover, he has contributed to encyclopedias abroad, including Handbuch Bioethik, ed Sturma/Heinrichs, 2015; Nouvelle encyclopédiede bioéthique, ed. Gilbert Hottois / Jean-Noël Missa, 2001; first published as Les Mots de la bioéthique, ed. Gilbert Hottois and Marie-Hélène Parizeau, 1995; International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences / editors-in-chief: Neil J. Smelser, Paul B. Baltes, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001; Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal, and Policy Issues in Biotechnology, ed. Thomas Murray and Maxwell J. Mehlman, New York: John Wiley, 2000; and to the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, New York 2014.

LECTURES ABROAD

Hermerén has given lectures in Bonn, Brussels, Freiburg, Istanbul, Leuven, Madrid, Moscow, Munich, Paris, Prague, Strasbourg, Vilnius;  earlier in Italy (Como, Venice), Poland (Lublin, Warsaw, Gdansk) and in Irland (Dublin, Dundalk), and he has taken part in scientific and scholarly conferences and given lectures in USA (San Francisco 2000) as well as in China, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Finland, and Norway; earlier also in e.g. former Yugoslavia, USA (several times) and Canada. He was invited by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics to give the public lecture 2008 in the premises of Royal Society, London.

During the autumn of 2019: Hermerén lectured, for instance, in Portugal (University of Minho), in Reykjavik, Island (key note at a conference on priority setting and the mission of health care), in Budapest (at World Science Forum) as well as in Stockholm (Ethics conference arranged by the National Council on Medical Ethics, Smer). He also participated in a meeting of an EASAC – European Academies Science Advisory Council – working group on a draft report on regenerative medicine in Brussels.

TV AND RADIO

Hermerén has also appeared in many radio and TV programs over the years in several countries. For more than a decade he was a member of a group of professors from Lund university, answering questions in the TV series “Fråga Lund”. He has also appeared in TV programs in, for instance, Finland, France, Germany, Belgium, and former Jugoslavia.

ACADEMIES

Member of Academia Europea, London; Royal Academy of Letters and Antiquities (Vitterhetsakademien), Stockholm, Royal Society of Letters (Kungl Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet), Lund, Societas Skytteanae, Umeå; Vetenskapssocieteten, Lund.

ART AND ARTISTS

Göran Hermerén has published books, booklets and catalogue texts for exhibitions about individual artists and groups of artists, including Georg Suttners konstsyn och konstpedagogik; Sune Rudnert, Naturlyriker och surrealist; Tor Hörlin (Waldemarsudde); Bengtsforsgruppen (Dals Långed); Gerlesborgsskolan (translated into English and French); painters in Torekov (Skånska Akademien);1984 – dröm eller mardröm. Om arbetet i konsten (Moderna tider, Malmö Museum); Georg Suttner (Eskilstuna, Gerlesborg); Tomas Nordbäck (Helsingborg); Carl Magnus (Stockholm); Arne Isaksson (Kristinehamn); Konkretister (Hishult); as well as on the Wallenberg Monument by Ulla and Gustav Kraitz (New York). He has also produced, along with others, booklets on his own paintings and graphical works.

AWARDS

The Lagerbring medal (Sweden); Svenska Läkaresällskapets medalj för främjande av medicinsk etik i Sverige; Ordre du merit (France); Statens medicinsk-etiska råds etikpris 2015. Kungamedaljen 2021: ”Hans Majestät Konungen har behagat förläna Eder Sin medalj i 8:e storleken i Serafimerordens band för betydande insatser inom det moralfilosofiska forskningsområdet. Detta kommer att officiellt tillkännages den 6 juni 2021.”