New ESRC funded Research Seminar Series on advance decision making launched

Samantha Halliday has been awarded funding by the ESRC for a series of research and policy seminars to facilitate the founding of an interdisciplinary European research network.

The network will investigate the legal, social and medical attitudes toward precedent autonomy within Europe and to develop a European strategy to enhance advance decision-making in all its forms.

Her co-investigators are Professor Gillian Hundt, Professor of Social Science in Health, University of Warwick and Professor in Clinical Psychology, Universtität Rostock, University of Hull.

The series seeks to promote and support high quality research and to encourage a more critical and constructive assessment of the law relating to advance decision-making within Europe, interlinking legal discourse with policy and practice discourses on aspects of mental health and mental incapacity law, promoting a multiperspective dialogue and analysis.

The first seminar took place on 24th March 2015 with papers presented by Professor Jean McHale (Professor of Health Care Law University of Birmingham, UK); Professor Willie Molloy (Geriatrician at St Finbarr’s and Professor in Clinical Gerontology University of Cork, Ireland); Professor Celia Kitzinger (Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of York, UK) and Dr Dianne Gove (Director for Projects, Alzheimer Europe).  The seminar was attended by leading researchers, practitioners, regulators, PhD students and third sector workers from across Europe and an extremely interesting dialogue developed about the context, the promise and the pitfalls of advance decision-making. 

The next seminar will focus upon legal and professional responses to advance decision-making and will take place during September 2015.