The German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE) is a national documentation and information centre for the entire field of ethics in the biomedical sciences in Germany.

The DRZE is a Central Research Institute of the University of Bonn. Upon the discontinuation of the BMBF’s funding of the project ‘Ethics in the Life Sciences’, the DRZE applied to be part of the ‘Akademienprogramm’. The project was admitted into the research programme of the German Scientific Academies on 1 January 2004, as a research project of the Project of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.

It has the task:

• to scientifically elaborate the normative foundations of qualified judgement formation and to make them available in various formats;
• to prepare and make available information from a wide variety of fields on the current bioethical discussion in science, society and politics;
• to promote scientific networking and thus advance the German, European and international discourse.