AUTHOR: Richard Huxtable

• Are you an early career researcher in bioethics, based in the UK, Japan, or Korea?
• Are you keen to meet with, and learn from, other researchers working in bioethics internationally?

If your answer to either of these questions is “yes”, then we hope that BRIDGES:BKY might have something to offer you.

BRIDGES:BKY is a collaboration between academic colleagues based in Bristol (UK), Kyoto (Japan), and Yonsei (Korea), which is aimed at benefitting postgraduate and early career researchers who work in the field of bioethics. The full title of the current phase of the collaboration is “Bioethics Research: Interdisciplinary Group of Early Career Researchers (Bristol-Kyoto-Yonsei)”.

The BRIDGES collaboration began back in 2014 and has since developed with the kind support of the Universities of Bristol, Yonsei and Kyoto, and the Korean Global Research Network. We are also grateful to the Wellcome Trust, which is funding the current phase of the collaboration.

Bioethics is a broad field, which explores the ethical issues arising in healthcare and the biosciences. Our work on BRIDGES:BKY seeks to address some of the – various – bioethical challenges which arise in all three countries – and globally. We are particularly interested in challenges related to:

• Ageing and end-of-life care;
• Clinical ethics support;
• Reproduction and genomics; and
• Theories and approaches in bioethics.

Of course, there are many challenges and questions arising in these areas. The world’s population is living longer, which raises questions about how best to care for such people. Whatever the age of the patient, clinicians also encounter difficult ethical questions in their work, and will sometimes experience “moral distress” – so what sources of ethics support can and should they draw upon? Genetics, genomics, and reproductive technologies equally raise a host of ethical questions. And then there are questions about we might best think about, and do, good bioethics, and good bioethics research specifically.

These are the sorts of issues we’re exploring in our work, both individually and together. Our aim is to share learning and expertise, particularly with and amongst those who are embarking on their careers in bioethics – for example, those who are undertaking postgraduate study or those who are beginning to undertake research, teaching, engagement activities, and other forms of service in bioethics.

There are various ways we are trying to connect and support early career researchers in bioethics. Over 2022 and 2023, each of the partner Universities is hosting a conference and a workshop, welcoming participants both locally and internationally. We have already hosted events in Bristol, in person and online, which you can read about elsewhere on this website. All the events engage with our key challenge areas (above) and provide lots of opportunities for early career researchers to meet, share, and discuss their work. We are keen to ensure that our events and other activities are welcoming, supportive, inclusive, and accessible – for example, there will usually be options to join us online and we will also translate key messages into English, Korean, and Japanese.

You can read more about BRIDGES:BKY and its contributors on this website. Happy reading – and we look forward to welcoming you to a future event.