Cross-posted from: https://www.tas.ac.uk/a-co-design-framework-for-empowering-future-care-workforces/ Just before 8pm on the last Thursday of March 2020, millions of us in the UK picked up a pot and a wooden spoon. We headed for our front doors, our balconies and our windows. And when our clocks struck the hour we started banging. The covid clap for carers kept going … Read More
Op-ed in the BMJ
Authors: Ruchi Sharma, Cian O’Donovan Project: UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator Originally published: https://ukpandemicethics.org/blog/a-levels-2021-understanding-grade-inflation-and-fairness For the second year running students’ A-levels have been graded by their own teachers. Covid-19 has caused disruption throughout the academic year, leading to cancelled exams and forcing changes to how A-levels have been assessed. After last year’s algorithm controversy, the regulator Ofqual … Read More
Authors: Cian O’Donovan, Melanie Smallman, James Wilson Project: UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator Originally published: https://ukpandemicethics.org/living-and-dying-with-covid-when-every-life-counts-equally-how-should-we-count-deaths/ Summary: Counts of covid-19 deaths will continue to influence government responses for some time to come Infrastructures for counting deaths must be adapted to fit evolving circumstances As we adapt to living with covid-19 data that report how people die … Read More
This article originally appeared in Alchemy. Science for the Real World. The magazine of UCL’s Department of Science and Technology Studies. June 2020. They promised me robots. What I wasn’t expecting was a foyer that was something between luxury spa and elderly day centre. I was in Stoke Gifford, ExtraCare’s still-under-construction retirement complex outside Bristol, … Read More
Published in the Irish Times, June 13th, 2020, in response to “Once you start pulling down statues, where do you stop?”, Opinion & Analysis, June 12th. Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter’s article on history’s complexities is well made. Yet it neglects the current controversy’s chief concern – that statues in our streets are political statements in … Read More
Title: Human capabilities for innovation in UK makerspaces Authors: Cian O’Donovan and Adrian Smith Précis: Makerspaces can be a source of human capabilities that benefit people and society. But these capabilities will only lead to flourishing communities if they are accompanied by structural changes to our economies, cities and environment. Full blog at STEPS Centre.
Letter to the editor, Irish Times. Sir, – You highlight the threat to jobs in Irish towns in your coverage of the UCC report on automation technologies (News, February 22nd). Whether this anxiety is justified or overstated, as later news reports suggested, the authors present automation as an inevitable force of nature. It is not. … Read More
Authors: Cian O’Donovan and Adrian Smith Original article at STEPS centre: https://steps-centre.org/general/power-to-the-people-making-politics-at-the-science-museum/ The maker movement in the UK, and globally, has grown rapidly over recent years. Hundreds of maker spaces, equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, design software, as well as old-fashioned hand tools, have popped up in cities, towns and on university campuses, potentially … Read More