Creative Methods to Engage the Public on Ethical Frontiers

What was the challenge?

The 14-Day Rule, the legal limit governing how long live human embryos can be researched in the UK, has held for over 40 years. But given the development possibilities that science now offers, should this change? And if so, what to?

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics and Sciencewise wanted a deliberative dialogue to understand the views of people across the UK. They needed a way to successfully bring complex ethical questions to life in ways that could enable meaningful engagement and robust deliberation.

This included a series of deliberative workshops in all four nations of the UK followed by a Citizens’ Summit of 100 people. Designing engagement that could work meaningfully for all of them, regardless of their starting point, was central to the brief.

What did we do?

As the creative partner to the Citizens Summit producers Ipsos, we conceived an engagement approach that could build the right conditions for deliberation on this emotive and ethically fraught topic.

Dialogues can default to information-heavy formats. We proposed something different: The Encounters, a suite of immersive experiences that placed citizens inside three alternative futures for embryo research regulation.

Participants experienced a series of worlds where futures came to life. Immersive audio voiced by actors took them to everyday places where conversations were 'overheard': colleagues in a lab weighing a job abroad where research can go further; a couple at home disagreeing over what to do with their stored embryos; a father and daughter navigating faith and public policy at the kitchen table.

Participants listened in and explored objects in the environments as if dropping into real life. Grounding speculative futures in relatable dilemmas and relationships made the possible implications tangible and the debate that followed far richer.

What was the impact?

The Encounters showed what becomes possible when creative methods are treated as a strategic tool in dialogue processes.

The resulting discussions showed that the experience produced the quality of conversation that complex science and democratic deliberation require. They enabled nuanced, considered debate, with participants able to hold competing values simultaneously, acknowledge uncertainty and engage with positions different from their own.

Futures scenarios formed a golden thread which facilitated reflection and deliberation throughout the summit and into community workshops across the UK, on questions relating to the the pace of scientific progress versus ethical considerations; the limits of fixed rules versus the risks of case-by-case discretion; the gap between research breakthroughs and NHS access; and whose values count in public policy.

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COLLABORATORS

Photography: Neil Tierney
Dramaturgy: Tom Ryalls