Project description
Shedding light on the complex web of ova commerce in Europe
Ova, also known as oocytes, are the female reproductive cells or eggs. Demand for donor ova is soaring. Spain and Ukraine are emerging as prominent suppliers in Europe’s flourishing ova donation industry. However, the banking and cross-border transport of ova have sparked debates. While the sale is prohibited, varying interpretations of legislation have led to the emergence of market dynamics around ova exchange. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the CryOVAlue project addresses a critical gap in our understanding of the economic value of ova under diverse regulatory regimes. It takes a political-economic perspective. Focusing on Spain and Ukraine, it evaluates how political and economic factors influence ova valuation and the well-being of donors.
Objective
With the growing international demand for donor ova, Spain and Ukraine have developed into leading suppliers of donor ova for the burgeoning ova donation industry in Europe. The banking of ova and their transnational shipping is the subject of fierce political and ethical debate among policymakers and medical professionals in Europe. While selling human ova is illegal, countries interpret the relevant legislation differently and find regulatory loopholes, which results in an emergence of market relations around the exchange of ova. This growing transnational ova market makes Europe a key nodal point for understanding the process of valuation of human reproductive materials. However, a comprehensive research project on the economic value of ova under different regulatory regimes is currently lacking. CryOVAlue addresses the field’s knowledge gap by asking how the model of ova banking in Spain and Ukraine influences the valuation of ova produced for market exchange. While most of the literature on ARTs focuses on the cultural understanding of reproductive technologies, their restrictions, and experiences resulting from them, CryOVAlue develops a political economic approach. By conducting comparative analysis of the ova banking in Spain and Ukraine, CryOVAlue explores how the value of ova is affected by the countries political and economic position in Europe, and how it shapes the well-being of ova donors. Moreover, CryOVAlue investigates how the Spanish and Ukrainian ova banking industries are impacted by the war, and how they generate value within rapidly shifting regulatory regimes, markets, and state borders. This project is based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, employing participatory observations in the ova banks and interviews with medical professionals, coordinators, couriers, and ova providers, in Spain and Ukraine.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spain
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