Professor Richard Ashcroft, who teaches on both the Masters and LLM in Medical Law and Ethics, was successful in obtaining a £750k Wellcome Trust Strategic Award in Biomedical Ethics, along with Professor Adam Oliver (LSE) and Professor Theresa Marteau (KCL), to support an interdisciplinary research project on the use of personal incentives to promote public health. The award will establish a London-based Centre, which will be based across three colleges of the University of London: KCL, QMUL & LSE. The programme will run for 5 years from this Autumn, and for Queen Mary's School of Law, it will support 1 fully funded PhD studentship and one 2 year postdoctoral fellowship, as well as an exciting programme of seminars and international conferences.
Observers of the proposal commented:
"The proposal is both timely and important, given the increasing willingness of governments in the UK and across the world to experiment with financial incentives in public health. The proposal is outstanding in bringing together world-class researchers in three key disciplines (psychology, philosophy and economics) required to progress research in this area, with an impressive network of support from internationally respected scholars and key UK policy makers".