The 2nd Annual Postgraduate Bioethics Conference: 'Why bioethics? Our research in context'. (360G-Wellcome-082344_Z_07_Z)

The 2nd Annual Postgraduate Bioethics Conference: 'Why Bioethics? Our research in context' This meeting follows last year's inaugural postgraduate bioethics conference, 'Bioethics: Past, Present and Future', held at the University of Birmingham and funded by the Wellcome Trust. This meeting will bring together participants who will inevitably have strengths in quite different disciplines, and will thus provide the opportunity for people to mutually inform each other of their areas of expertise. The meeting has been carefully structured so that the focus is on interaction and discussion between all participants, both during the conference itself, and in the social events outside of it. Keynote speakers will open and close the conference, giving presentations focused on the meeting's key theme, and providing time for discussion. The content of the conference will be broad, and structured according to the interests of those participating. Presentation sessions will be tailored to these interests, with each session being preceded by a plenary paper designed to stimulate discussion about the ways that the foundations and implications of bioethical research might be thought about. We consider this broad scope to be a significant strength of the conference. By situating personal projects within a wide-range of different areas of interest, and the methodological and theoretical assumptions that underpin such areas, an interdisciplinary overview of a rapidly developing field will help to widen the narrow focus of doctoral and masters research projects. Equally, this approach will provide young researchers with a breadth of thinking that is vital for a successful academic career in this field. Building on last year's initiative, we plan again to run an essay competition designed to raise awareness of bioethics in schools. If bioethics is to gain a footing as a discipline in its own right, raising awareness of the issues it incorporates at this level of the educational system is essential.