Mrs Virginie Pirard

Virginie Pirard, born in Brussels (Belgium, 1975), is a jurist and philosopher, specialized in Ethics, Bioethics and Research Ethics.

After a grant as Research Fellow (FNRS) in moral philosophy which gave her the opportunity to work on care ethics and vulnerabilities (Centre for Political Theory, Free University of Brussels), she served several years as counsellor and expert on Bioethics and Health related societal issues (including equity and gender mainstreaming) at the Cabinet of Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health in Belgium. Since 2012, she’s working at Institut Pasteur (Paris, France), where she heads the Ethics Unit and developed a comprehensive experience on ethics issues such as participants and vulnerable population advocacy, benefit sharing, risk/benefit assessment, genomic data sharing, ethics and outbreak. As Chair of an Institutional Review Board during 6 years (2012 -2018), she has a strong experience and commitment creating and fostering a culture of integrity, transparency and independence among the Boards’ Members, as well as she is highly attentive and well-informed on ethical issues related to the funding, implementation and monitoring of research projects. She also regularly provides training and lectures in Ethics to Health professionals, researchers and young students.

She is a Member of the Belgium’s Advisory Committee on bioethics since 2009. She is currently the Coordinator of the Grant AFREENET (2018-2021), a 3-year EDCTP funded project aiming to support and reinforce the activities of three National Ethics Committees (NECs) located in West Africa : in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Benin.