The Research Excellence Framework in times of a shrinking higher education sector
UK Higher Education is “shrinking” with 87 universities currently thought to have active redundancy and/or restructuring schemes in place. The Research Excellence Framework (REF) project proceeds regardless. The previous REF (REF2021) is estimated to have cost £471 million and is...
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Proposals to regulate NHS Managers: a consultation
“Ultimately a regulation is a signal of design failure . . .” William McDonough The default response by government and commentators to scandals, inquiries, and other problems within the NHS is almost universally to demand more or tougher “regulation,” and...
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Drug consumption facilities: they’ve been around since 1986 and now Scotland has one – but do they work?
It has taken more than ten years of wrangling, but the UK’s first legal drug-consumption facility has finally opened in Glasgow. These facilities offer a safe, clean place for people to use illicit drugs, usually by injection, in the presence...
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Reclaiming Dignity in Food Support: Addressing the Hidden Cost of Hunger
“I felt very worried going in. I thought, do I need to give false details in case they actually report me and say, ‘This woman can’t afford pasta, can you take her son away.’ I was terrified.” “It’s not easy...
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Catherine Will
Many of you may have heard the sad news that Catherine Will, Professor of the Sociology of Science and Technology at the University of Sussex, died on Monday, August 12, 2024. Catherine was a dedicated member of the medical sociology...
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Anxiety and Art: Uncertain Bodies
There was a moment, last weekend, when I stood in the National Gallery in London, and began to wonder if my research was haunting me. Perhaps this is a sense all researchers get at one point or another; that their...
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African women and girls will die from unsafe abortions thanks to Trump win
Trump has emboldened anti-rights groups globally. African women will suffer as a result The Trump presidency already looks set to have a catastrophic effect on sexual reproductive health and rights on the African continent. I work as a reproductive and...
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Helsinki Declaration: Healthy Volunteers and Risk
Across the globe, thousands of interventional clinical trials take place every year and many healthy participants are recruited to participate in such trials. Participation in these interventional clinical trials is not without ethical concerns, and many who take part are...
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Adolescents struggle with their mental health: blame austerity, not parents
(or To help understand adolescents’ mental health, look (also) at the benefit system) In the run-up to the 2010 UK general election, David Cameron declared that “what matters most to a child’s life chances is not the wealth of their...
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Lived experience and social welfare policy
In the UK, there is a clear policy imperative to facilitate greater participation in contemporary public policy making in part to address a purported democratic deficit, both locally and nationally. This is most evident in the context of health policy,...
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Microbes, Science and Society
We face a post-antibiotic future. To manage infectious disease, we will need new ways of thinking about living with microbes – ones that draw on knowledge across biological research, clinical care and lay health practices. The antibiotic age has been...
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Minimum alcohol pricing: what we found in Wales after five years