Research Committee

The IME Research Committee is tasked with enacting the IME’s mission to nurture and foster medical ethics research and related activities within the UK. We define medical ethics broadly to include all areas of biomedical ethics and aim to bring together people working in this area from all related disciplines, such as law, medicine, philosophy, social science, theology and the humanities.
The committee was formed in May 2013 when the IME Board of Trustees agreed that the IME should have a Research Committee, with a view to nurturing the medical ethics research community within the UK. The founding members of the committee were: Carwyn Rhys Hooper (Chair), Anna Smajdor, Zoe Fritz and Bryan Vernon.

The committee runs an annual funding scheme, the IME Annual Research in Medical Ethics competition, organises the research themes in the IME annual conference, convenes regular online seminars, and supports the IME’s Trustees in organising the Lewis Headley annual lecture.
One of our key aims is to support researchers working in medical ethics and the Committee has published the IME Ethics Guidelines for confirmation of appointment, promotion and recognition of UK medical ethics researchers. The Committee has close links with the Journal of Medical Ethics, with past (Tom Douglas and Mikey Dunn) and current (Lucy Frith and Zoe Fritz) Associate Editors being committee members.

The current Chair is Dr Lucy Frith, and deputy Chair Dr Merryn Ekberg. The committee is made up of research active academics from a range of disciplines. Please see below for the committee membership.

See the history and background to the Research Committee.

For more information about past and future conferences please click on the ‘Events’ page of this website. Further information about the ‘Journal of Medical Ethics’ and ‘Medical Humanities’ – the journals co-owned by the IME and the BMJ – is also available here.

Dr Merryn Ekberg is a senior lecturer in Bioethics, and Programme Lead for the BSc Health Sciences at the University of Northampton. After completing her doctorate on the ethical, legal and social issues arising from medical genetics, Dr Ekberg has worked on exploring the ethical dilemmas arising from genetic testing and stem cell research. She is currently working on a comprehensive ethical analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic policies and a revision of the theory and principles of research ethics. Her teaching responsibilities include module lead for Global Health, Public Health, Reproductive Health and Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Health. She is also Chair of the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology Research Ethics committee and Deputy Chair of the University Ethics Committee.

Lucy Frith is Reader in Bioethics, in the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, School of Law, University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the social and ethical aspects of healthcare practice, regulation and policy, with particular interests in empirical ethics and public involvement. She has carried out research on a range of issues in bioethics: the organisation and funding of healthcare provision; the use of evidence in practice and policy; and reproductive technologies. She has held visiting fellowships at the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Science and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge and visiting professorships at the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law the University of Hong Kong and Charles University, Prague. An overview of her research can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lucy-Frith 

Richard Huxtable is Professor of Medical Ethics and Law at the University of Bristol, where he directs the Centre for Ethics in Medicine, in the Medical School. Qualified in law, socio-legal studies and bioethics, his research primarily concerns end-of-life decision-making, surgical ethics, and clinical ethics. He has published widely in the field of medical ethics and law and his eight books include Healthcare Ethics, Law and Professionalism (Routledge, 2018) and Law, Ethics and Compromise at the Limits of Life: To Treat or Not to Treat? (Routledge, 2012). Richard’s research projects include a major Wellcome Trust collaborative project, Balancing Best Interests in Healthcare, Ethics and Law (BABEL). He has served on various ethics committees, including those of the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners, and he is Chair of the UK Clinical Ethics Network. Richard tweets at @ProfRHuxtable.