Our research has been supported by: The Economic and Social Research Council, Rockefeller Foundation, Brocher Foundation, University of York and the Wellcome Trust (through seminar funding and through the Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders at the University of York). We are also grateful for on-going support from Cardiff University and ESRC IAA awards.
Funded projects
- Funded PhD Studentship (Deadline for application soon): “The Role of Journalists in Reporting End of Life Decisions: Questions of Ethics, Law and Democratic Citizenship” Further Details here
- Creating online training for healthcare professionals, supported by ESRC IAA initiation funding. See www.cdoctraining.org.uk
- Creating a new online resource for families or severely brain injured patients (ESRC and HERG/DIPEx charity). This project translated our research into an accessible form designed to provide support to families and training for health care professionals. – see healthtalk.org.
- “Tackling Disabling Practices: co-production and change” (Funded by the ESRC) Celia Kitzinger is a Co-Investigator on this research project, which is led by Dr Val Williams from the University of Bristol. The purpose of this research is to understand and tackle the practice related barriers faced by disabled people in the UK, in services that fail to adapt to their needs.
- Advance Decisions (ESRC). This symposia series is developing interdisciplinary and cross-national dialogue to inform implementation strategies for Advance Decisions. An ‘Advance Decision’ allows people to record their own views about being kept alive in, for example, a vegetative or minimally conscious state. It creates a legally binding statement if one wishes to refuse life-prolonging treatments in such situations – visit the project page for more information about the symposia and impact.
- ‘Overcoming the Barriers: Including People with Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities in Research’ (ESRC) This PhD scholarship is co-supervised by Celia Kitzinger.
- ‘Dying with Reduced Agency: People, Places, Principles and Policies’ (GW4) This is a collaboration (P.I Jenny Kitzinger) across Cardiff, Bath, Bristol and Exeter. The project brings together diverse expertise (e.g. in extreme old age and dementia as well as brain injury) to examine potential for understanding and improving end-of-life care. A major conference and public engagement event will be held in Autumn 2015.
- ‘Improving allied health professional communication and practice: using research findings about family experiences of vegetative & minimally conscious states to create change’ (ESRC Acceleration award).Julie Latchem and Jenny Kitzinger, along with colleagues in Health Sciences, Gail Boniface and PCUTL, Clare Kell, were awarded ESRC acceleration funds to further develop CDoC training and support resources for allied health professionals.
- A Wellcome Trust symposium award allowed us to bring together academics and practitioners in September 2011 to discuss “Developing an inter-disciplinary medical humanities research agenda around disorders of consciousness” and supported Dr Samuels in her collaborative research with us on “fMRI, the search for consciousness and media and family responses” (Biomedical Strategic Award 086034).
- Part-funding for our on-going research was also provided by Research Priming Funds from the Wellcome Trust [ref: 097829/Z/11/A] through the Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders (C2D2) at the University of York – leading to a series of inter-disciplinary publications on, for example, the sociology of diagnosis, definitions of death, and legal consciousness.
- The Brocher Foundation awarded residential fellowships to Professors Celia Kitzinger and Jenny Kitzinger to explore questions of ‘coma’, personhood and the definition of death.
- The Rockefeller Foundation awarded residential fellowships to Professors Jenny and Celia Kitzinger to focus on writing about ethics, modern medicine and medical decision-making.
