News7th November 2024
Since 2019, the NCOB has published an annual HS, utilising insights gathered through multidisciplinary events, expert engagement and the monitoring of research literature and news to highlight where developments in biomedicine and health may raise ethical implications.
We know this annual HS output is valued by the bioethics and policymaker community, but a frequent piece of feedback was that it would be more useful if it could provide a way to prioritise or compare the topics identified. This ask, combined with insights the NCOB HS and Foresight team have gathered through our ‘ethical lens’ project has resulted in a ‘timeframed’ evolution of our HS this year.
The NCOB 2024 HS has been informed by 50 workshops, conferences, roundtables and 1:1 conversations, extensive desktop analysis of research literature, policy papers and news sources, and a survey of 55 organisations and 69 individual specialists. Taken together, this work has identified 51 topics to spotlight.
The NCOB HS and Foresight team have assessed each of these topics for their political context, regulatory concern, opportunities of funding and level of public interest, and then used this insight to assign a timeframe. For example, a topic that scores high across all parameters has been placed into the ‘short’ timeframe, meaning we believe there are signs to suggest it could raise ethical implications in the UK in less than five years.
I am looking forward to seeing what people think of this new way to visualise and present our horizon scan insights. We haven’t prioritised the topics as it would be wrong to suggest those in the short term are more important than those in the long, but I think we have provided a useful way to compare them.
Timeframing is a very difficult thing to do, and it is incredibly subjective. I know some people will instantly disagree with where we have placed the topics, and I am ok with that because I want this to be an iterative process. Our scans and the methods we use to produce them will continue to evolve, and next year I hope we will be able to expand into providing some international insights.
Dr Jay Stone, Associate Director of External Relations and Foresight at the NCOB
This new style of NCOB HS is a demonstration of how we are meeting our ambition ‘to enhance our capability to anticipate scientific developments and health trends that pose fundamental ethical questions to society’. We hope it will provide a useful resource for our community while also sparking conversations on how we can continue to improve our methods.
We are excited to hear feedback on this new way for us to present our Horizon Scan insights. It forms part of our increased focus on evolving the methods we are utilising as part of our Making Ethics Matter strategy.
Sue Tansey, Consultant Pharmaceutical Physician and Chair of the NCOB HS Advisory Group
You can view the full NCOB Horizon Scan 2024 here.
A supplementary methods and evidence pack, which provides source references and details the timeframe methods can be downloaded here.
And a 2024 Horizon Scan blog by Sophia McCully, HS and Foresight Manager and Melissa Haynes Agoro, HS Coordinator can be found here.