Professor Sarah Edwards and Professor Phyllis Illari discuss their contributions the STS’s impact in philosophy of science and medicine. They were lead contributors to two top-rated “impact cases” in UCL’s 2021 entry to the REF assessment, the UK’s research excellence framework. That’s a national review of university research productivity. Sarah’s project involves policy-making about emerging diseases. Phyllis’s project involves policy-making when evidence in conflicting and incomplete. Simply put, “impact” is a measure of how much a influence an academic university research project has had on non-academic communities, such as business, media, schools, and medicine.

Summary of Professor Edwards’s project

Edwards’ research informed the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Ethics Guidance and a Training Manual for clini ...