In May we launched a new ESRC funded project ‘Ethics and Expertise’ with research partners at the Universities of Bielefeld, Sheffield, Melbourne, Karlshochschule International University and Nuffield Council on Bioethics.
Project Summary
Governments are not currently following their own ethical advice during times of crisis, and we want to find out why, what this means for policy decision-making and ultimately, how this influences outcomes for citizens. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought these questions to the fore. National government strategies, public debate and public health outcomes have varied substantially. We will examine the specific role of ethics advice in processes of crisis management, navigating expert knowledge, building organisational networks and policy learning in shaping these international differences, using a case study method to compare UK, Germany and Australia. How can government ethics advice be organised in the future to improve institutional capacity and agility, strategic thinking, pluralistic forms of expertise, and responsiveness to diverse publics?
In October 2021, the UK’s independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics began to survey the ‘ecosystems’ of ethics advice in the UK, and leading ethicists in Germany have highlighted that key governmental lessons from the pandemic will only be learnt through considering new institutional arrangements. Australia developed an ethics framework to inform government decision-making relatively late during the pandemic. We will investigate the similarities and differences between the institutional organisation of ethics advice in these 3 cases, addressing a key gap in basic empirical and comparative research on government ethics advice beyond the context of the pandemic.
We will provide new analysis of the contested nature of ethical expertise internationally, and respond to calls from social scientists to develop a new research agenda to inform policy learning processes.
Our project investigates:
(1) how ethical advice for governments is organized across different national contexts
(2) how ethical dilemmas are navigated by experts and publics
(3) what is known about how and which ethics advice is used by governments in times of crisis
(4) what can be learned from this to support value-based judgments in policy decision-making
Approach
Our analysis of the cases is informed by methods from Science and Technology Studies and Political Sociology. Comparing organisational networks in the UK with those in Germany and Australia will allow us to explain the different policy processes and outcomes which stem from fragmented vs centralised, spontaneous vs organised, conservative vs experimental, principle-based vs deliberative, embedded vs independent ethics advice.
Methods
The project will produce a live archive of documentary material from bioethics advisory bodies, government advisory committee reports and parliamentary enquiries, and social media platforms. We will use discourse analysis methods to examine how ethics advisory organisations set the remit of ethics, at what moments and by what speed they respond to calls for advice, and how they interact with both science advice bodies, perceived public opinion and lobbying groups. The project will organise 3 national ethics workshops using the innovative historical method of witness seminars to generate historical testimony and narrative evidence on our research questions. Finally we will convene an international advisory and impact group for the duration of the project to develop key recommendations to support decision-making for policy makers.
See the findings from our initial research in Evidence and Policy here: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/evp/19/2/article-p236.xml
Project team
Principal Investigator:
Jessica Pykett, University of Birmingham (Human Geography)
Co-Investigators:
Holger Straßheim, University of Bielefeld (Political Sociology)
Sarah Ball, University of Melbourne (Public Administration)
Robert Lepenies, Karlshochschule International University (Political Economy)
Warren Pearce, Sheffield University (Sociology)
Danielle Hamm, Nuffield Council on Bioethics (Ethics)
Chair of Advisory and Impact Board:
David Archard, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast