The Euricon Project, Is obtaining informed consent for neonatal research an elaborate ritual? - A European Study was a three-year European Union BioMed-funded study which commenced in 1996. The project partnership comprised a multidisciplinary team of neonatologists, ethicists, lawyers and a sociologist specialising in European medical issues. This volume brings together the various findings of the Euricon study. In the first section of the book, the contributors provide an introduction to the study and outline the ethical issues that impinge on the process of informed consent for neonatal research. The practical problems, encountered by both neonatologists and parents in a specific multicentre, neonatal trial, are outlined. The second section offers an analysis of European Research Ethics Committees, and their role in the ethical review of medical research protocols. Section Three provides a comparative analysis of the law governing informed consent in neonatal research within Europe, and Section Four looks at the process of obtaining informed consent. The final section consists of the consensus statement on the conduct of the informed consent process of the Euricon research project. This statement is derived both from the empirical work and from reflection and discussion amongst the partnership at the three colloquia of the project. Finally, and importantly, issues which were widely discussed, but about which no consensus was reached, are outlined.