Conference Report: BRIDGES: BKY 2023 Kyoto Conference

I am grateful to the Institute of Medical Ethics for supporting my participation at the BRIDGES: BKY 2023 Conference. The conference, part of the Wellcome Trust-funded BRIDGES: BKY project, was hosted by Japan’s Kyoto University and featured presenters and keynote speakers from the US, the UK, Japan, and South Korea. It aimed to promote the international exchange of ideas and facilitate the networking of graduate students and researchers who might not otherwise, or at least as easily, interact.

Compared to many other international conferences I have attended, the BKY conference was a relatively intimate affair taking place over a day and a half. The first day consisted of two parallel sessions featuring presentations from the graduate students and ECRs (myself included), interspersed with breaks and opportunities for presenters to engage with one another. The following half-day was dedicated to the keynote lectures and featured Yutaka Hishiyama (Tokushima University, Japan), Ivo Kwon (Ewha Womans University, South Korea), Megumu Yokono (Waseda University, Japan), and Jon Ives (University of Bristol, United Kingdom). In addition to the main body of the conference, there was a two-day International Clinical Ethics workshop preceding it, which I could not attend.

The conference had, in principle, four themes: (i) theories and approaches in bioethics, (ii) ageing and end-of-life care, (iii) reproduction and genomics, and (iv) clinical ethics support. These themes, however, did not come across in the scheduling of the presentations, with some end-of-life talks being in the same session as reproduction and genomics. Given the conference’s modest size (which is not bad), this might have been done out of necessity. Nevertheless, despite this seeming lack of session focus, I enjoyed the presentations and think the mix of research topics encouraged dialogue between researchers working on varying issues.

My presentation concerned the uncertain ontological status of individuals after they undergo cryopreservation – in short, trying to understand whether they are alive or dead. While I received some interesting questions, which are always valuable and informative, the thing I gained most from the conference was the opportunity to network. Now, this is something that comes with every conference, but given that I am based within the US, the BRIDGES: BKY conference offered an unparalleled chance to engage with researchers – both graduate students, early career researchers, and established academics – who I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise. As the conference drew together bioethical researchers from across Japan and South Korea, I had the chance to engage with them within a single venue within a relatively short time. This proved very fruitful as I gained the contact details of several researchers with whom I share research interests. It also, strangely given that much of my career has been spent in the UK, enabled me to connect with UK-based researchers I had been up until the point yet to meet.

Regarding the presentations, I found Yuki Takaki’s work on the possibility of moral therapy fascinating, and while I am not sold on the idea itself, his work did lead me down some rabbit holes regarding moral bioenhancement and its application within prison systems, which I had not considered and am now keen to explore. Kanako Takae and Dani O’Connor’s work exploring what insights in the assisted dying debate, specifically concerning those unable to provide consent, can be gleaned from veterinary medicine was, while potentially controversial, fascinating. Additionally, Yutaka Hishiyama’s keynote on the role of bioethics, specifically in the Japanese context, was incredibly insightful. His presentation highlighted those areas of academic and policy concern that transcend national borders but did so in a way that also highlighted the specific issues and challenges unique to Japan.

Finally, I had never been to Japan before, so engaging with new researchers and exploring the cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka with fellow academics and solo was incredibly valuable.