Bioethics and Science Communication
Homepage: www.bioethik-diskurs.de
General Focus
Bioethics
- we analyze ethical, scientific, and social aspects of new health technologies.
- Areas of conflict concerning future developments of technologies are grasped out in order to compare scientific expectations and adept scientific progress to ongoing social change.
- Priority areas of engagement are the stem cells and the gene technologies.
Science Communication
Our research focuses on prerequisites and practical challenges for communicating scientific challenges and results to the public in a fair procedure and without pre-empting results.
In particular we are focusing on:
- Evaluation of scientific uncertainties in Health Technology Assessment
- Risk perception and risk communication
- Lay-expert relationships
- Deliberative approaches to discuss new health technologies
- Options for decision making
Methodological Approach
Stakeholder Involvement
Communication within expert community as well as between experts and lay public takes centre stage. In particular, this refers to
- Discussions of controversial issues
- Clarifying consensus and dissent
- Assessing different approaches to solutions
Participation
Active participation to different actors including experts, stakeholders and lay people in the process of health technology assessment is crucial to our research. By developing and evaluating discursive approaches we aim at contributing to new forms of governance and deliberative democracy.
Interdisciplinarity
Our expertise includes life sciences, social sciences and philosophy. Besides the public, the results are communicated to both natural and scientific audiences.