Heather Widdows and Caroline Mullen worked together as the lead investigators of the Property Regulation in European Science, Ethics and Law (PropEur) project, an EC funded project that ran for three years and finished in 2007. This volume is not an outcome of that project, but it was the experience of working on the project that provided the inspiration for it. In particular, the dearth of critical theorising which spoke to practice became abundantly clear, as did the need for comprehensive thinking which crossed disciplines and governance jurisdictions and interrogated the foundational assumptions of such governance. It is hoped that this volume, which was conceived as a concept volume with all its chapters commissioned, goes some way to addressing this gap. While it may not definitively answer ‘Who should decide?’, it does challenge existing practices and suggest alternatives.

We would like to acknowledge the Philosophy Department at the University of Birmingham for welcoming the PropEur project, and particularly to thank Helen Harris, Donna Dickenson, Dita Wickins-Drazilova and Louise Jelf, for their work on the project. The editors would also like to thank Phil Champion and Matthew Hilton.