Global Biopolitics Research Centre

About the centre

The Global Biopolitics Research Centre is an international, interdisciplinary centre comprised of academics conducting research projects and consultancy work in global biopolitics. We aim to uncover and specify the many far-reaching social and political issues generated by the rapid development of the life sciences and new health technologies in the global bioeconomy. 

Funding agencies for projects include ESRC, Wellcome Trust and private foundations

Our research is theory driven and policy relevant, offering stakeholders from government, industry and civil society academically informed policy insights. We publish widely in both academic and professional journals to reach the full range of potential beneficiaries of our research and to maximise stakeholder impacts.

Recent publications

• Zhang, J. Y. and Datta Burton, S (2022) The Elephant and the Dragon in Contemporary Life Sciences: A Call for Decolonising Global Governance. Manchester University Press.
• Dekker, E., & Kuchař, P. (Eds.). (2021). Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108692915
• Hunter BM and JD Shaffer (2021) Human capital, risk and the World Bank’s reintermediation in global development. Third World Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1953980
• Camporesi, S. & M. Hämäläinen (2021) The construction of categories in sport: Unfair Advantages, Equality of Opportunity and Strict Attainability. European Journal of Sports Sciences 1-13, available OPEN ACCESS here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17461391.2021.1943714
• Angeli, F., Camporesi, S., & Dal Fabbro, G. (2021). The COVID-19 wicked problem in public health ethics: conflicting evidence, or incommensurable values?. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1), 1-8, available OPEN ACCESS here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00839-1
• Bheekhun, Z., Lee, G., & Camporesi, S. (2021). Challenges of an ‘infodemic’: Separating fact from fiction in a pandemic. International emergency nursing, 57, 101029. available OPEN ACCESS here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755599X21000677?via%3Dihub
• Datta Burton, S., Kieslich, K., Paul, K., Samuels, G. Prainsack, B. (2021). Rethinking Value Construction in Biomedicine and Healthcare. Biosocieties 1-24.
• Datta Burton, S., Mahfoud, T., Aicardi, C.C.R., Rose, N. (2021). Clinical translation of computational brain models: understanding the salience of trust in clinician-researcher relationships. Garvey, C.S. (eds). Artificial Intelligence and its Discontents. Special Issue. Stanford University. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 46 (1-2)d
• Zhang, J. Y. (2021) Will health diplomacy of the South balance global inequality? Georgetown Journal of International Affairs,22(2), 287-294.
• Zhang, J. Y. (2021) (Bio)Politics of Existence and Social Change: Insights from the Good Food Movement. Sociological Review, 69(3) 647–663.
• Zhang, J. Y. (2021) To keep nationalism in check, nurture science solidarity. Nature, 591, 9.
• Li, Jun; Liangjie Ye, Yimin Zhou, Joy Y. Zhang and Zhou Chen (2021) To procrastinate or not to procrastinate: A retrospective study of the optimal timing of containing the global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Public Health. 9, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.613980
• Zhang, J. Y. and Barr, M. (2021) Harmoniously Denied: COVID-19 and the Latent Effects of Censorship. Surveillance and Society, 19(3), 389-402.
• BICUDO, E.; BRASS, I.; CARMICHAEL, P.; FARID, S. (2021) The UK’s emerging regulatory framework for point-of-care manufacture: insights from a workshop on advanced therapies. Cell & Gene Therapy Insights, 7(9): 1005-1015.
• BICUDO, E.; FAULKNER, A.; LI, P. (2021). Sociotechnical alignment in biomedicine: the 3D bioprinting market beyond technology convergence. Technology in Society, 66, 1-12.
• BICUDO, E.; FAULKNER, A.; LI, P. (2021). Patents and the experimental space: social, legal and geographical dimensions of 3D bioprinting. International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, 35(1): 2-23.
• Salter B (2021). Markets, cultures and the politics of value: the case of assisted reproductive technology. Science Technology and Human Values. Online First. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243921991929
• Hunter BM (2020) Going for brokerage: strategies and strains in commercial healthcare facilitation. Globalization and Health 16, 49.
• Hunter BM, Bisht R & SF Murray (2020) Neoliberalisation enacted through development aid: the case of health vouchers in India. Critical Public Health.
• Marathe, S., Hunter, B., Chakravarthi, I., Shukla, A., & Murray, S. F. (2020). The impacts of corporatisation of healthcare on medical practice and professionals in Maharashtra, India. BMJ Global Health , 5(2), 1-9.
• Camporesi, S. & Hämäläinen (2020) A local criterion of fairness in sport – comparing the property advantages of Caster Semenya and Eero Mäntyranta with implications for the construction of categories in sport. Bioethics. doi:10.1111/bioe.12827 .
• Camporesi, S. (2020) It didn’t have to be this way. Reflections on the ethical justification of the running ban in Northern Italy in response to the 2020 covid-19 outbreak. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry. OPEN ACCESS here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11673-020-10056-1
• Camporesi, S., & Mori, M. (2020) Ethicists, doctors and triage decisions: who should decide, and on what basis? Published Online First: 10 July 2020. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2020-106499 OPEN ACCESS here: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2020/07/10/medethics-2020-106499
• Camporesi, S., Cavaliere, G. (2020) Can bioethics be an honest way of making a living? A reflection on normativity, governance and expertise Journal of Medical Ethics doi: 10.1136/medethics-2019-105954
• BICUDO, E.; FAULKNER, A.; LI, P. (2020). Digital readiness in 3D bioprinting: software, governance and hospitals’ proto-clinical interfaces. Regenerative Medicine, 16, 237-252.
• BICUDO, E.; FAULKNER, A.; LI, P. (2020). Software, risks, and liabilities: ongoing and emergent issues in 3D bioprinting. Journal of Risk Research, 1-16.
• BICUDO, E. (2019). Neuroimaging, software, and communication: the social code of source code. London, Palgrave Macmillan.
• MORRISON, M.; MOURBY, M.; BARTLETT, A.; BICUDO, E. (2019). Reshaping the landscape of science and medicine. Impact 2019(1): 63-65.
• Hunter, B., & Murray, S. F. (2019). Deconstructing the financialization of healthcare. DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, 50(5), 1263-1287.
• Global Health Research Integrity (2019). Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research. BMJ Global Health , 4(3).
• Camporesi, S. (2019). When does an advantage become unfair? Empirical and normative concerns in Semenya's case Journal of Medical Ethics 45 700-704.
• Camporesi, S., & Cavaliere, G. (2019). We cannot all be ethicists. Nature, 575(7784), 596.
• Bicudo, E (2019). Neuroimaging, software, and communication: the social code of source code. London, Palgrave Macmillan.
• Saniei, M. & Kargar, M. (2019). Modern Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Bioethics in Islamic Context. Theology and Science, (in press).
• Parry, B. (2019). Patents and the challenge of ‘open source’ in an emergent biological commons or … the strange case of Betty Crocker and the mouse. BioSocieties.
• Saniei, M. (2018). Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science in Iran: How do Stem Cell Scientists and Policy-Makers Perceive Human Embryos in the Research Context?Journal of Advances in Medical Ethics, 4(1): 22-33. DOI: 10.12715/ame.2018.4.4.
• Saniei, M. & Baharvand, H. (2018). Human Embryonic Stem Cell Science in Muslim Context: “Ethics of Human Dignity” and “Ethics of Healing”. Journal of Advances in Medical Ethics, 4(1): 7-21. DOI: 10.12715/ame.2018.4.3.
• Salter, B. & Salter, C. (2018). The politics of aging: health consumers, markets and hegemonic challenge. Sociology of Health and Illness. 40(6):1069-1086. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.12743
• Datta, S. (2018). An endogenous explanation of growth: direct-to-consumer stem cell therapies in PR China, India and the USA.  Regenerative Medicine 13(5), 559-579.
• Datta, S. (2018). Emerging dynamics of evidence and trust in online user-to-user engagement: the case of 'unproven' stem cell therapies. Critical Public Health 28(3), 352-362. Download free here
• Bicudo, E. (2018). ‘Big data’ or ‘big knowledge’ ? Brazilian genomics and the process of academic marketization. BioSocieties 13(1): 1-20.
• Zhang, J. (2018). How to be modern? The social negotiation of ‘good food’ in contemporary China. Sociology, 52:150-165. Download here.
• Dekker, E., & Kuchař, P. (2017). Emergent Orders of Worth: Must we agree on more than a price? 4(1), 12.
• Kuchař, P. (2016). Entrepreneurship and institutional change: The case of surrogate motherhood. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 26(2), 349–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-015-0433-5

 

Visiting fellows

Vincenzo Pavone - Permanent Research Fellow

With a background in political science and a master in politics and government, Vincenzo Pavone is a Doctor in Social and Political Science from the European University Institute (EUI) with a thesis on the impact of scientific humanism on the creation, developments and programmes of UNESCO.

• Tel. 0034916022351
• E-mail: vincenzo.pavone@csic.es

Pierre Delvenne

Pierre Delvenne holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences of the University of Liège. He is currently Research Associate of the Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), Lecturer at the University of Liège (Department of Political Science), and Associate Director of SPIRAL Research Centre.

• E-mail: pierre.delvenne@ulg.ac.be OR pierre.delvenne@gmail.com

Edison Bicudo, Sussex University

With Bachelor Degree in Social Sciences (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Master's Degree in Geography (University of Sao Paulo) and PhD in International Politics (King's College London, UK), Edison has developed studies on the relation between biomedical technologies and the configuration of space and society. His studies have focused on themes such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, neurosciences, and bionformatics.

• E-mail: E.C.Bicudo@sussex.ac.uk

Yinhua Zhou, Sun Yat-sen University, China

Dr Yinhua Zhou is a research associate professor in the Center for Humanities of Clinical Medicine at the Seventh Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University in China. His research interests include medical sociology, science and technology studies, and development studies.

Joy Zhang, University of Kent

Dr Joy Zhang’s expertise is on the transnational governance of scientific uncertainty, with a focus on the Sino-European context. Her work on the life sciences and climate science contributes to cosmopolitan social theories, by empirically examining how actors in non-Western societies capitalise on the concept of global risk and how this gives rise to new modes of social intervention.

• E-mail: y.zhang-203@kent.ac.uk 

Ben Hunter, University of Sussex

Dr Ben Hunter is Lecturer in International Development at the University of Sussex. He is a co-investigator with Professor Susan Fairley Murray and Professor Brian Salter on an ESRC-funded project on the transnational provisioning of healthcare services in China, India and the UK. Ben is interested in how new markets form in relation to health and healthcare, and how these market relations are structured, navigated and understood.

• E-mail: benjamin.hunter@sussex.ac.uk