Dr Francois Hirsch is the Head of the Inserm Office for Ethics and the Assistant Director for Ethics and Regulation of the Institute for Health Technologies. He has a background in immunology, quality in research and ethics in medical sciences. After having participated in various committees for the French medical agency, Dr Hirsch is currently a member of one of the French registered ethics committees for clinical research (Comité de Protection des Personnes Ile‐de‐France VII) and member of the European network of European research ethics committees (EURECNET).

Dr Hirsch has also coordinated one EU FP6 research project NEBRA ‐ Networking for ethics on biomedical research in Africa, and, as National Expert at the European Commission, he participated in the setting of the ethical evaluation of FP7 projects. He contributes to EU policy development on ethics, working as an external expert for the European Commission and the EDCTP. Dr Hirsch has organised or taught in several training programmes on ethics and good clinical practice in Africa and mentored a number of doctoral students on ethical issues linked to the limited access to health care systems.