Society Awards: Research summaries
July 2006
Open call
Dr Robert Doubleday
University of Cambridge
Social Laboratories: engaging with public dimensions of nanobiotechnology
£164 724
This project aims to contribute to improving the quality of public engagement with science by developing more empirically grounded and theoretically sophisticated analysis of the ways wider public issues arise in science policy and laboratory practice.In particular, it will focus on how research trajectories are established, and will also explore how public issues, such as concepts of 'health', 'the body' and 'society' are shaped in the day to day work of academic science.
Theme: Developing and establishing methods of public engagement with biomedical science
Professor Sarah Franklin and Dr Kevin Burchell
London School of Economics
ScoPE - Scientists on Public Engagement: from communication to deliberation
£228 526
The objective of ScoPE is to provide policy advice concerning the opportunities and barriers that are encountered by biomedical scientists with respect to the development and establishment of increasingly deliberative and inclusive approaches to policy-making and public engagement with respect to biomedical science. To achieve this, the research objective is to collect data on understandings of, experiences of and responses to notions and practices of deliberative public engagement by interviewing scientists working in the biomedical sciences and observing deliberative processes.
Further information on the project
July 2007
Open Call
Dr Monica Bonaccorso
University of Cambridge
With the 'public' in mind: ethnographic investigations of medical science and the media in Kenya
£190 700
'With the Public in Mind' investigates the role that the transnational and national media (science journalism) play in Kenya in informing and engaging indigenous communities on science and related health issues, particularly with reference to HIV/AIDS and malaria clinical trials, and large research programmes. It explores how the media are perceived and used by scientists disseminating research findings on HIV/AIDS and malaria. Similarly, how various media are perceived and used by health development NGOs to engage indigenous communities. The project explores whether the 'non-linearity' of the relationship between communication models and public engagement (as emerged from research in the UK and elsewhere) applies to the African context too.
Theme: How attitudes are formed and changed in relation to biomedical science
Dr Courtney Davis
University of Sussex
Mapping the influence of patient groups' attitudes towards the scientific regulation of and access to new anticancer drugs in the US, the UK and the EU
£161 469
Through an in-depth, international comparative study of 13 cancer patient organizations in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) this research seeks to develop a social scientific understanding of the influences on patient organizations' attitudes towards the scientific regulation of new cancer therapies and their response to various proposals to speed patient access to treatment through the acceleration (or by-passing) of specific stages of drug testing and/or regulatory review.The study would seek to understand how attitudes towards, and modes of engagement with this aspect of biomedical science have formed and changed over time.
Theme: How attitudes are formed and changed in relation to biomedical science
Dr Rachel Iredale
University of Glamorgan
Genetic literacy and family history: a study of young people in the South Wales valleys
£129 030
This study explores the influences on young people's attitudes to genetics, how these attitudes are formed, how they are located in particular communities and how they change over time. It is a qualitative study with fifteen young people aged 16-18, based at the Science Shop in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.Each year for three years participants will be interviewed individually and will also take part in a focus group.The purpose of the focus group will be to map out a genetics activity, broadly outlined from the outset, but the exact nature of which will be determined by the young people themselves.These activities will be carried out on a one-to-one basis with the assistance of the project team and collaborators and include constructing family trees, compiling genetic diaries, and producing photo/film biographies using mixed media.
Theme: How attitudes are formed and changed in relation to biomedical science
Dr Julie Barnett
University of Surrey
Attitudes to biomedical science: social trust, affect and deliberation
£30 000
This programme of research will explore the ways in which the impacts of social trust, affect, deliberative engagement and risk perception are different for different applications of biomedical science.It will consider people's acceptance of biomedical science applications as well as their willingness to participate in biomedical research. The literature increasingly suggests that despite trust and engagement being routinely cited as vital in gaining public acceptance and cooperation around risk related issues, if this is to be effectively achieved, a much more fine grained analysis of the way that these processes interact is needed.