UK : PhD Studentship Ethical Implications of ICT in Personal Health Monitoring, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR)

De Montfort University - Faculty of Technology

A full funded sponsored PhD studentship is available for in the following research area:

Ethical Implications of ICT in Personal Health Monitoring

Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility (CCSR)

CCSR undertakes research, consultancy and advice to individuals, communities, organisations and governments at local, national and international levels on the actual and potential impacts of computing and related technologies on society and its citizens. CCSR is a mature research group with its well-established Information Society Doctoral Programme (ISDP) with currently 25 research students and 23 research graduates.

CCSR holds two European FP7 grants; Ethical Issues of Emerging ICT Applications (ETICA) led by Professor B Stahl (CCSR Reader) and Personalised Health Monitoring: interdisciplinary research to analyse the relationship between ethics, law and psychosocial as well as medical sciences (PHM-Ethics) led by Professor S Rogerson (Director of CCSR).

ETICA identifies the potential ethical issues surrounding emerging ICT within a 10-15 year future window, whilst PHM-Ethics is situated at the development phase of new ICT applications to assess their ethical, legal and psychosocial consequences. There is a valued added opportunity for research, funded through this student bursary, to be undertaken between the ETICA and PHM-Ethics projects. The research will draw upon the forecasts from ETICA and the taxonomy instruments of PHM-Ethics to investigate the ethical implications and social impact of continuing to use advancing ICT in individual health monitoring scenarios.

This research will be done at a national rather than European level with empirical investigations being undertaken both at General Practices and Hospital Trusts. The outcome will be an empirically grounded ethical analysis of the impact of ICT on personal health monitoring within the UK. It will provide valuable input into future health policy and act as a platform for future grant application in the area of health informatics.

The supervisory team will comprise Dr N Ben Fairweather, Senior Research Fellow, who has undertaken published research on electronic patient records, Dr M Shaw, CCSR Research Associate who is a medical Consultant in public health and Dr N K McBride, Reader who has undertaken published research in NHS information systems. This research is multidisciplinary, focuses on one of the university’s overall research themes and has the potential to involve the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences either on this project or on spin-off future grant proposals.

Informal enquires to: www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk

Professor Simon Rogerson, 0116 2551 551 Ext: 7475. Email: srog@dmu.ac.uk

Application information:

The studentship is available for three years full-time study and provides a bursary of £13,290 p.a.. Candidates should hold a good first degree (First Class, Upper-second Class or equivalent) in a relevant subject area. Applications are welcome from citizens from the EU and those with overseas status.

Applicants are requested to send an email to techfacultyoffice@dmu.ac.uk for a copy of the application form. Applicants will need to provide full contact details including email addresses, and two supporting references. The completed application form should be returned to:

Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, the Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, marking the envelope clearly ‘CCSR PhD Studentship’ OR (preferably) returned by email to techfacultyoffice@dmu.ac.uk .

Closing date: noon on Friday 11th December 2009.

Interviews will be held Tuesday 15th December 2009.