15/09/2025 | The Bremen Criteria serve as a guide for collaboration between ZMT and its partners. They were established in 1991 and revised in 2015 and, most recently, in 2025. Drawing on our experience with co-design and our international partnerships over the last ten years, we have made changes to the Bremen Criteria in their most recent revision, taking contemporary standards into account, in order to place greater emphasis on local relevance, local leadership roles and societal impact in particular.
The Bremen Criteria now establish normative values as a foundation that promote scientific excellence, ethics and a shared sense of responsibility – including with regard to best practices, such as benefit-sharing, the protection of rights and well-being, informed consent and risk assessments. Furthermore, they refer to important and already widely adopted guidelines such as the FAIR and CARE principles.
Our ongoing aim is to emphasise the relevance and implementation of the Bremen Criteria in the research process of all ZMT’s international projects, not only by presenting the document to all new staff members when they sign their employment contracts, but also by emphasising the need to implement the Bremen Criteria on an ongoing basis and to regularly and critically review compliance with them.
Download: Bremen Criteria 2025
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Download Bremer Kriterien 2025