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Richard Milne

Position/Status

Deputy Director, Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public

  • Principal Research Associate, Faculty of Education
  • Head of Research and Dialogue, Wellcome Connecting Science
  • Co-Lead, Ethics, Law and Society, Cambridge Public Health

E-mail Address

rjm231@cam.ac.uk

Social

Twitter: @rjmilne

Phone

+ 44 (0)1223

Qualifications

  • Ph.D (University College London)
  • MSc (University of Sussex)
  • BSc (University College London)

Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations

  • Ethics Advisory Board member, Our Future Health
  • Regulatory and Ethics Work Stream member, Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH)
  • Ethics Advisory Board member, European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN)
  • Member of European Association for Studies of Science and Technology (EASST), Society for Social Studies of Science, Global Alliance for Genomics and Health

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Profile

Richard is a sociologist of science, technology and medicine. Richard’s interests are in the interface between science and the public, particularly around how scientists and members of the public engage with controversial scientific topics and the possible futures created by new science and technology.

Richard has a long-held commitment to interdisciplinary research and collaboration, exploring how the social sciences can cast light on the complex interconnections of science and social life. This includes a focus on the relationship between science and the public in the context of emergent social and ethical challenges associated with scientific advance. He has explored in relation to biotechnology, ageing and dementia, and latterly genomics, data science and medical applications of artificial intelligence. His research, drawing on qualitative, ethnographic and quantitative approaches, has been published widely.

Academic Area/Links

  • Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public

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Research Topics

  • Science and society; public understanding of science; responsible research and innovation and upstream public engagement; social and ethical questions related to new science and technology

Current Research Project(s)

  • Qualitative studies of ethics education and engagement in science
  • Public attitudes towards ethical questions associated with science
  • Public trust and its relevance to the sharing of health related data
  • Stakeholder perspectives on the ethical challenges associated with the digital detection of cognitive decline

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Teaching

  • Postgraduate
    • I will be supervising PhD students in areas related to my research interests

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Principal and Recent Publications

1. Milne, R., Costa, A. and Brenman, N. (2022) “Digital phenotyping and the (data) shadow of Alzheimer’s disease” Big Data and Society https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211070748.

2. Milne, R., Sheehan M, Barnes B, Kapper J, Lea N, N’dow J, Singh G, Martín-Uranga A, Hughes N (2022) “A concentric circles view of health data relations facilitates understanding of sociotechnical challenges for learning health systems and the role of federated data networks” Frontiers in Big Data https://doi.org/10.3389/fdata.2022.945739

3. Milne, R. and Patch, C. (2022) “Ethical challenges associated with pathogen and host genetics in infectious disease” The New Bioethics https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211070748.

4. Milne, R., Sorbie, A. and Dixon-Woods, M. (2022) “What can data trusts for health research learn from participatory governance in biobanks?” Journal of Medical Ethics https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2020-107020.

5. Graham, M, Milne, R., Fitzsimmons, P. and Sheehan, M. (2022) ‘Trust and the Goldacre Review: Why Trusted Research Environments Are Not about Trust’. Journal of Medical Ethics,. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme-2022-108435.

6. Middleton, A., Milne, R., et al. (2020). “Global Public Perceptions of Genomic Data Sharing: What Shapes the Willingness to Donate DNA and Health Data?”. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 107 (4) 743-752 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2020.08.023

7. Milne, R. (2020). “The Rare and the Common: Scale and the Genetic Imaginary in Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Development.” New Genetics and Society 39 (1): 101–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14636778.2019.1637718.

8. Milne, R. et al., (2019) “Trust in Genomic Data Sharing among Members of the General Public in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia,” Human Genetics, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-019-02062-0.

9. Milne R., Diaz, A., Bunnik, E., Badger, S., Fauria, K. and Wells, K. (2018) “At, with and beyond risk: expectations of living with the possibility of future dementia” Sociology of Health and Illness

10. Milne, R. (2018) “From people with dementia to people with data: participation and labour in Alzheimer’s disease research” Biosocieties https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-017-0112-x