Research

Grants

The Bioethics Centre holds or has held a number of major research grants:

• The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology research grant is concerned with evaluating the commensurability and compatibility of Maori perceptions of the emerging technologies with Pakeha views.
• The Marsden Fund award facilitates study of ‘Japanese Doctors’ Human Experimentation in Wartime China: Ethical Challenges and Socio-cultural Dimensions.
• The Centre is a partner in the Law Foundation research project on the Ethics and Law concerning the clinical applications of the Human Genome Project. 
• A University of Otago Research Grant for the research on ‘Medical Ethics in China: Major Traditions and Contemporary Issues’.
• A University of Otago Research Grant for research on ‘Population Control and Eugenics in China: The Ideology and Ethics of Social Engineering’.
• A Dunedin School of Medicine Faculty Trust research award on ‘Philosophy, psychiatry and the Unconscious’.
• The Marsden Fund grant for the research project “Predicaments of Social Engineering: Ideologies and Ethics of China’s Birth Control Programme”

Research Projects & Consultancy Work

The Centre has carried out research projects and consultancy work for a number of organisations, including:

• The Marsden Fund
• Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FoRST)
• Department of Justice
• The Crown Law Office
• The Medical Council of New Zealand
• The New Zealand Medical Association
• The Ministry of Health
• The Health Funding Authority
• The Health Research Council
• The Cancer Society
• PHARMAC
• Australasian College of Sport Physicians (ACSP)
• as well as for a wide variety of professional and community organisations.

Topic areas have included:

• Clarification and evaluation of Maori beliefs about genetic biotechnologies
• Quality of Life in Patients with Advanced Cancer
• Ethical Issues Underlying the Definition of Core Health Services
• Ethics and Biotechnology
• Persistent Vegetative State and the Withdrawal of Foods and Fluids
• Protecting the Rights of the Vulnerable
• Ethical Issues in Budget Holding
• Policies for Rationing High Cost Medicine
• Euthanasia
• Code of Ethics for the Australasian College of Sports Physicians (ACSM)
• The National Waiting Times Project
• The history and development of bioethics in New Zealand
• The Value in Education Project: Ethics and Genetics.

All the staff of the Centre also publish in their own areas of special research interest.

Research Undertaken by Graduates

Examples of Research Undertaken by Postgraduate Students.