A new report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) combines detailed insights from England’s first Citizens’ Jury on assisted dying and two nationally representative surveys of 2,000 people to provide a timely and comprehensive analysis of public views on the topic. These insights will be valuable to policy makers at a critical time in the national conversation on this topic.

On Thursday 30th January Spectrum 10K published the findings report of the Spectrum 10K Consultation designed, delivered and reported on by Hopkins Van Mil and Leneh Buckle in 2023. As Spectrum 10K publishes this findings report it has also announced that it is closing the Spectrum 10K study.

We are looking for our next Research Manager - is this you? Our ideal Research Manager is flexible, confident, and shares our values. You’ll want to have an excellent rapport with our close-knit team and with our clients, stakeholders and research participants, and be a supportive, approachable and motivating line manager.  You’ll have at least three year’s experience delivering social (qualitative) research projects, ideally for public sector clients.

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) is publishing the briefing prepared by Hopkins Van Mil to help inform current UK Parliamentary debate on The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-25, which receives its second reading on 29 November 2024. This is produced as a result of the deliberations by the Citizens’ Jury exploring public views on assisted dying which ran from April to June 2024.

From April to June 2024 a Citizens’ Jury of 30 people from across England spent eight weeks deliberating on whether there should be a change in the law on assisted dying in England. Today the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which commissioned the project, has published an interim report, presenting the Jury findings in their own words.

On November 20th 2023, 15 NIHR IBD BioResource participants, 6 gastroenterologists and 3 genetics researchers joined members of the Wellcome Connecting Science Engagement and Society team at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridgeshire. The purpose of the workshop was to inform a helpful and reassuring process for how the NIHR IBD BioResource shares genetic feedback related to additional findings with the study participants who have opted in to receive it, and to provide learnings for the wider field of genomic research into common, complex conditions

In this film public dialogue participants and researchers from the Human Developmental Biology Initiative discuss what it is like to take part in an important deliberation on this significant area of research.

This foundational public dialogue was commissioned by the Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI) and UKRI Sciencewise who have blogged about the process here. It provides an initial step to inform wider public involvement on the topic of early human embryo research and the 14-day rule, in the UK and internationally. The findings provide direction to future public engagement and research by highlighting where there are hopes, concerns and topics that need more exploration.

An update from the Spectrum 10K research team.

Residents in the West Midlands and the South of England came together to explore what helps and hinders walking, cycling and wheeling in their local area.

Earlier this year the team at Hopkins Van Mil worked with Sustrans to run a series of workshops exploring people’s views on everyday walking, cycling and wheeling in the areas they live.

Sustrans commissioned the work to understand, in more depth, the aspects of people’s lives and neighbourhoods that promote different kinds of active travel, and those which get in the way.

The findings of a foundational UK public dialogue are published today, Wednesday 25th October 2023, as part of the Wellcome-funded Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI). The HDBI is an ambitious scientific endeavour to advance our understanding of human development. The dialogue project was co-funded by UKRI Sciencewise programme and conducted by Hopkins Van Mil.

Find out more about the People’s Panel on AI - a deliberative process during the Global AI Summit.

We are pleased to announce that HVM has recently started work on a new dialogue event to explore feedback of genetic information with NIHR BioResource and Wellcome Connecting Science.

Citizens are telling us what they really want in #TheFoodConversation. They want a fairer, more sustainable food system. And they expect government to take the hard decisions needed to tackle the health, climate and nature crises. Find out more about the FFCC’s public dialogue which HVM was privileged to design and facilitate here.

In early 2023, Hopkins Van Mil was commissioned by Genomics England to run a public deliberation with 103 members of the public to consider the scope of discovery research with newborns’ genomic data that will be held in the National Genomic Research Library (NGRL).

In 2021, the Spectrum 10K study launched, to understand the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to autism and to autistic people’s health. Many autistic people and their families expressed their support of the study, but some were concerned. They felt that the study’s aims and objectives were unclear, and were worried that the results of the study could be used to harm the autistic community through the development of a prenatal test for autism that could lead to prevention of autistic people (eugenics).

This update is to keep people informed of progress on the Spectrum 10K consultation. Thank you to the 100s of autistic people who took part in the consultation which is now closed.

Are you curious about the world around you? Are you excited by collaborative, supportive and creative research? Join the HVM team as a Researcher

Today the Co-Leads of the Spectrum 10K Consultation Hopkins Van Mil (HVM), Leneh Buckle and Spectrum 10K launch the Spectrum 10K consultation.

Hopkins Van Mil was commissioned by the Royal Society to design and report on a public dialogue about trust in data systems in emergency and non-emergency situations. Find out what dialogue participants shared as important on communications, governance, privacy and creating learning systems for the public good.