The recognition of Biomedical Engineering within the International Council for Science

Jean-Pierre Morucci, Professor of Bioengineering, IUPESM President and IFMBE past President

Forty years separate the emergence of Biomedical Engineering in a meeting in Paris at UNESCO in 1959 until its recognition together with Medical Physics in 1999 by the International Council for Science. The main problems of definition and of identity of Biomedical Engineering as a scientific discipline are discussed and the different steps which have favoured this recognition are outlined Biomedical Engineering involves forming this experience into a coherent engineering approach which addresses a specific medical problem. A considerable amount of work has been done in biomedical engineering without the development of a rigorous definition on which it is founded. The experience of bioengineers has never or too rarely been.