The PRO-RES Project: PROmoting integrity in the use of RESearch results

Dingwall Enterprises Ltd. will be participating in a €2.8 million project linking 13 leading European scientific institutions to build an ethics/integrity framework for all non-medical research ————————————————————— Effective policymaking, built upon sound research, produces outcomes that benefit society, communities, groups and individuals. If research is flawed by lacking integrity and by being conducted unethically it… Read More »

Should universities be parents?

UK student mobilization in 1968-69 was often around domestic issues rather than revolution and opposition to the Vietnam War. It focussed on the concept of in loco parentis, that university authorities had legal duties, and associated powers, to act as parents in relation to students…The treatment of students as children had been increasingly problematic since… Read More »

Globalization and Local Cultures

A new link on the video page to a Press TV programme looking at the challenges to local traditions from global society. My contributions question whether traditions deserve to survive unless they work for everyone in the community that has adopted them.

Resolving Disputes

It is a great honour to be part of the new edition of The Negotiator’s Desk Reference edited by the indefatigable Chris Honeyman and Andrea Schneider. This has just been published by the DRI Press of Mitchell Hamline School of Law at St Paul, Minnesota in two volumes. I have a half share in two… Read More »

“A Great Leap in the Dark”: Thomas Hobbes

Nottingham has been designated a UNESCO City of Literature, mainly in respect of its 19th and 20th century associations with writers like Byron and Lawrence. This blog explores an earlier association with the world-famous political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes is just as worthy of recognition by the City of Literature. His life spanned the transition… Read More »

Interrogating Ethnography – and Coming Up with the Wrong Answers?

Sociological research reports rarely attract high levels of public controversy. Alice Goffman’s 2014 book, On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City is an exception… The book has been widely acclaimed for its account of the survival strategies of young black men facing aggressive policing and other forms of institutional racism. It has, however,… Read More »

Presumed Consent for Organ Donation – Key 1995 Review available again

The regulation of organ donation is substantially devolved within the UK. The Welsh government has legislated to introduce a policy of presumed consent, which allows doctors to assume that a suitable patient would agree to the removal of their organs, unless they have previously recorded an objection. The Scottish government is planning to introduce a… Read More »

Alternative Medicine

A new link on the video page to a commentary for Press TV about what counts as alternative medicine, who uses it, what the regulatory challenges might be and how it fits into the global picture of health care.

Remembering Peter M Hall

The death has been announced of Peter M Hall, who was one of the leading scholars in the interactional study of organizations. This has been a major tradition in symbolic interactionism, although less fashionable in recent years. Peter did much to sustain that interest. He was a generous supporter of colleagues, junior scholars and students… Read More »

Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants – Trent Institute Report available again.

In the mid-1990s, various colleagues and I were commissioned by the UK Department of Health to produce comprehensive narrative reviews of the literature on nurse practitioners and on physician assistants to inform policy discussions. These reviews were published in a single report, ‘The Mid-Level Practitioner‘ by the Trent Institute for Health Services Research (Discussion Paper… Read More »