Aligning Legal and Biological Temporalities in the (Anticipatory) Governance of Infectious Disease in the UK

Project offered for Ker Memotial PhD Studentship in Infectious Diseases

**Candidates interested in applying for this PhD project must email Professor Pickersgill BEFORE 30 June to discuss interests/suitability.**

Rationale

Time functions ambiguously in law and governance. It is both a motivator for action (e.g., ‘time is running out to act’) and a matter of legal focus (e.g., mandated quarantine periods). Time is clearly also relevant to the course and spread of infection, both at individual (e.g., incubation periods) and population (e.g., R0) levels. Finding ways to align legal frameworks with biological realities is a vital, yet often under-appreciated and under-studied, element of infection control.

Background

This interdisciplinary project will interrelate scholarship on the temporal dimensions of law (Beynon-Jones and Grabham, 2019), the politics and techniques of public health law (Tumelty et al, 2022), and the interplay between legal and scientific processes (Cloatre and Pickersgill, 2020). It will demonstrate the benefits that critical scrutiny of the socio-legal aspects of infectious disease control can have to better manage and prepare for epidemics (Pickersgill et al, 2022).

Objectives

1. Using case studies of measles (2013), mpox (2022 onwards), and bird flu (2023 onwards), determine (a) what formal encouragements were/are made available to UK publics in relation to (length of) quarantine; (b) what assumptions about the individual and population level implications of quarantine length underpin encouragements, and (c) how closely these relate to dominant understandings and understandings within biomedicine and public health (particularly in relation to incubation period and R0).

2. Illustrate (a) what governmental techniques were/are employed to support quarantining (e.g., hard law, NHS guidance, etc.) and (b) whether different techniques codified time in different ways (e.g., in relation to a set number of days, or ‘until the rash goes away’, etc.).

3. Clarify the role of expert input from biomedical and public health scientists into (a) the specific encouragements made in relation to quarantining for the three case studies, and (b) the formation and deployment of different governmental techniques (e.g., standing committees, ad hoc inputs, evidence reviews etc.).

4. Formulate best practice recommendations for how to swiftly yet flexibly integrate expertise from the biomedical and public health sciences within law and wider governance, in ways that (a) accord with legal realties and constraints, (b) generate actionable encouragements for publics, and (c) can be anticipated to have meaningful individual and population level effects on infection control and management.   

Methodology

Desk-based documentary analysis of policy and legal texts, public messages (including through the use of the UK Government Web Archive, Way Back Machine, and similar tools for digital historiography), and key public health evidence summaries/reviews; ~30 qualitative key informant interviews with scientific and policy actors; ~3 co-production workshops with legal, biomedical, and public health experts.

Training and Skills

The appointed candidate will be based within the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society (CBSS), within the Usher Institute, Edinburgh Medical School. They will be fully integrated into CBSS, where they will able to afford benefit from weekly seminars and a positive research culture - as well as the wider support and activities located across the interdisciplinary and public health-focussed Usher Institute. Students will be able to access training through the Medical School and elsewhere in, for instance, qualitative research. 

The student will also be integrated into the Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences, and the Law (MI). For instance, the student would also have the opportunity to join the MI PhD Researchers Group. They would also be invited to attend and participate in the Institute’s programme of events, as well as the Law School’s PhD training programme more generally. As appropriate, teaching and research assistance opportunities would also be available for the student.

Benefiting from the various professional development opportunities afforded by CBSS and MI as centres of excellence (including financial and personnel support for public engagement), the student will also augment existing links between PGRs in CBSS and MI.

Professor Martyn Pickersgill’s profile

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