Please find below my welcome speech at last-weeks mini-symposium on “Legal dimensions of Big Data in the Health and Life Sciences – From Intellectual Property Rights and Global Pandemics to Privacy and Ethics at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). The event was organized by our Global Genes –Local Concerns project, with support from the UCPH Excellence Programme for Interdisciplinary Research. The symposium, which was inspired by the wonderful recent PFC & Berkman Center Big Data conference, featured enlightening speeches by former PFC fellows Nicholson Price on sufficient incentives for the development of personalized medicine and Jeff Skopek on privacy issues. In addition we were lucky enough to have Peter Yu speaking on “Big Data, Intellectual Property and Global Pandemics” and Michael J. Madison on Big Data and Commons”. The presentations and recordings of the session will soon be made available on our Center’s webpage. Thanks everybody for your dedication, inspiration, great presentations and an exciting panel discussion.