AUTHOR: Dani O’Connor

Building on its various publications in this area (for example, here and here), the Bristol partners on BRIDGES:BKY recently hosted a series of webinar workshops, which introduced early career researchers to approaches to “empirical bioethics” research. Empirical bioethics research essentially seeks to combine ethical analysis with empirical inquiry, and bring the two together to provide ethical recommendations.

The webinar series ran from the 23^rd September to the 7^th October and covered six different areas of the field. These webinars were designed to serve as a platform for researchers to learn about different approaches, discuss their individual projects with others, and receive constructive feedback.

The opening session, “What & Why”, served as an introduction to the series, namely discussing what empirical bioethics is and why we research it. After the foundations had been established, the second seminar built upon this knowledge and focussed on “How to Design Empirical Bioethics Research”. The remaining four seminars expanded upon this, focusing respectively on “Epistemology and Empirical Bioethics”, “Literature Reviews in Bioethics”, “Data Gathering and Analysis in Empirical Bioethics”, and, finally, “Writing and Reporting Empirical Bioethics”. The webinars aimed to provide an overview of the approaches and taster of the key issues that researchers might encounter when embarking upon work within the (expansive) field of bioethics.

Each of the webinars followed a three-part structure. The first part consisted of a lecture format where the lead speaker explained the main content of the topic. The speakers consisted of Professor Jon Ives, Professor Richard Huxtable, and Dr Giles Birchley, all from the Centre for Ethics in Medicine, in Bristol. The second part of the seminar took the form of breakout groups, with each group discussing a series of questions arising from the opening presentation. The final part of the webinar featured a return to the main room where each group relayed the main aspects of their discussion to the others and answered any questions or queries from the various participants.

We were delighted that each webinar had on average 40 international participants, from the UK and Europe, Asia and beyond. Additionally, we were thrilled that these training webinars were very well received, as reflected in the feedback reports from the participants. The series was described as “filling a real gap in the training” and there were many calls for future events of a similar kind. The lecturers were praised for their knowledge and expertise, being described as “really informative” and offering “a really useful refresher”. The breakout rooms were also enjoyed by all and were said to be a “good mix of people from different backgrounds and with different levels of experience”.

One of the desired outcomes of the series was for people to feel connected with one another and to help identify a research community of like-minded people. For some, it was the first time they were able to meet so many people who were working in the same field as them, while others particularly appreciated “the emphasis on building a community across academics sharing an interest in empirical bioethics”. We were also pleased to hear that the series helped to “keep the imposter syndrome at bay”.

All in all, the webinar series was a resounding success, and we are hoping to hold more events in the near future to continue to help nourish the growing community of empirical bioethics researchers.