IHT Launch
Tuesday 8th May 2001
BMA House, British Medical Association, London
Launch and an opportunity to network begins.
On a bright and sunny May morning, over one hundred people drawn from academia, government, media, industry and charitable organisations, gathered together for the UK launch of the Innovative Health Technologies Programme.They assembled in the rather grand headquarters of the British Medical Association, BMA House, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, architect of Liverpool cathedral. This may explain why some delegates thought the event so inspiring, though the nearest we got to stained glass windows was Powerpoint slides.
Professor Andrew Webster welcomes Oliver Wells, EPSRC
The meeting started with lunch and a display of posters describing each of the twenty Phase I projects.
Baroness Mary Warnock, House of Lords, looks through the new Programme Pack
Following lunch and initial introductions, the delegates moved upstairs to the lecture room. Andrew Webster, Programme Director, welcomed the audience and delivered an introduction to the Programme, its key themes, objectives and future plans for dissemination.Copies of his presentation can be found here - ppt
Professor Webster gives and introduction to the Programme
Chief Executives Dr Gordon Marshall, of the ESRC and Professor Sir George Radda, from the MRC, emphasised the important and timely nature of the Programme within both of their respective Research Councils' remit.
Professor Webster, Dr Gordon Marshall, ESRC, Baronedd Warnock (Chair), Professort
Sir George Radda, MRC
We were then delighted to have our plenary address given by Professor Bryan Turner, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He discussed the multiplication and intensification of risk in contemporary society and the consequent rise in new forms of (globalised) regulation. He was keen to stress the notion of 'cultural and social' risks and the way in which new technologies, especially those found in medicine, generate both voluntary and involuntary risks (those we choose and those to which we are subject, with the latter on the increase). Risks tend to produce a chain reaction of regulation and deregulation, with the traditional institutions of regulation associated with the governance of technologies ineffective: the uncertainty and complexity of knowledge meant that more regulation was likely but just as likely to fail to address the concerns of those using and medical technology today. He argued that the risks of medical technologies should be understood and made more socially manageable through determining how they are more or less likely to increase or decrease a wider social 'vulnerability' that is not merely defined in clinical terms.
The audience enjoys the presentations
The meeting then moved to a series of papers by some of the project researchers designed to give a flavour of the Programme.
Professor Gillian Lewando-Hundt, from the University of Warwick, started off with the Social Implications of Prenatal Genetic Screening.
The Programme is funding a number of research studies in this area of pregnancy and childbirth. A common theme is screening and most of them are looking at understandings of risk. Gillian's project on The One Stop Clinic for First Trimester Screening during Pregnancy is an example of scientific and technological innovation which has altered the pattern of service provision, the skill mix and women's experiences of pregnancy. This study looks at the experiences women and health professionals of screening in pregnancy in the first and second trimester. Click here to see the presentation - ppt.
A lively debate follows
Dr Flis Henwood, University of Brighton, described Health Risks and Benefits: the Role of the Internet.
This project is one of a group of projects in the IHT programme that examines
the ways in which Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are
shaping and are shaped by new developments in healthcare. The project considers
the role of the Internet as an innovative health technology with the potential
to change the ways in which the health risks and benefits of specific pharmaceutical
interventions are presented and interpreted. The presentation explored the
theoretical and methodological challenges of the project and discussed its
implications for policy and practice.
Click here to see the presentation - ppt.
Finally Professor Brian Salter, University of East Anglia, covered the Governance of Human Genetics: the Media and Public Trust.
As the possible applications of the advances in human genetics knowledge become manifest, so the governance of the field faces new political challenges around the issue of public trust. Chief among them is the management of the tension between the protection of the public interest and support for the biotechnology industry. In response to these challenges a new discourse of governance is emerging with greater emphasis on openness and plurality in the formation and implementation of human genetics policy. As a key player in this emergent politics of governance the media is intimately involved with its implications for public trust. Click here to see the presentation - ppt.
To round up the day a Panel of Professor Webster, David Concar, (Deputy Editor New Scientist), Baroness Warnock and Professor Turner led a final discussion. David Concar gave his response to the various presentations and the issues they raised, making a variety of points for the audience to consider. He stressed in particular the deepening anxieties to be found in the lay public, yet this combined with soaring expectations about IHTs. He suggested that we are good at cost-benefit analyses of new technologies, but poor at carrying out social analyses of these, a point which Sir George Radda of the MRC had also made earlier in the day.
After the delegates departed, the Programme researchers attended a presentation on 'Qualidata' by Gill Backhouse. As the ESRC places an obligation on all award holders to offer their data for archiving at the end of the project the ESRC Qualitative Data Archival Resource Centre (Qualidata) was set up to facilitate and document the archiving of qualitative data arising from research, whilst also drawing the research communities' attention to its existence and potential. Further information and help can be found on the Qualidata web site at http://www.essex.ac.uk/qualidata.
Afternoon tea and discussions with project researchers and the media ends
the day.