Author: Robert Dingwall

Robert Dingwall is an emeritus professor of sociology at Nottingham Trent University. He also serves as a consulting sociologist, providing research and advisory services particularly in relation to organizational strategy, public engagement and knowledge transfer. He is co-editor of the SAGE Handbook of Research Management.

Brexit: Well-Behaved Liberals Seldom Change History
International Debate
July 22, 2016

Brexit: Well-Behaved Liberals Seldom Change History

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Britain and Europe: Tragedy or Farce?
International Debate
June 29, 2016

Britain and Europe: Tragedy or Farce?

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Response to Nehring: What’s the Point of British Sociology?
Higher Education Reform
May 17, 2016

Response to Nehring: What’s the Point of British Sociology?

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Zika – What Are the Real Lessons from Ebola?
International Debate
February 1, 2016

Zika – What Are the Real Lessons from Ebola?

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Common Rule Revision – The Ethics Police Fight Back

Common Rule Revision – The Ethics Police Fight Back

Revisions to the U.S. government’s regulations on ethical treatment of human research subjects that would exempt some experiments from direct oversight by institutional review boards are facing pushback from paternalistic guardians, says our Robert Dingwall, who don’t seem to believe subjects are competent to make decisions on their own.

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Deregulating Social Science Research Ethics – Clipping the Wings of IRBs?

Deregulating Social Science Research Ethics – Clipping the Wings of IRBs?

The Federal Register is surely not everybody’s bedtime reading. It is where the US Government formally publishes certain official documents, including advance […]

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Suffragette – More than a Feminist Movie

Suffragette – More than a Feminist Movie

With most works of art looking at the past, the real focus is the present. The new movie ‘Suffragette,’ writes Robert Dingwall, invites us to think about the consequences of political systems that are supposedly democratic but systematically exclude many voices.

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Malaria Vaccine – Great Science But What’s the Point?

Malaria Vaccine – Great Science But What’s the Point?

Bully for the researchers who have developed a vaccine can build resistance against some instances of malaria, says Robert Dingwall. But before the WHO recommends for its adoption, he suggests a harder look at user-centered design and cost-benefit analysis may be in order.

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Ebola: WHO and the Consequences of Ignoring Social Science

Ebola: WHO and the Consequences of Ignoring Social Science

A new report from the World Health Organization on the response to the African Ebola outbreak backs up what our Robert Dingwall has been writing all along — by downplaying social science lives have been lost. The question now is whether a new WHO can improve.

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Close Encounters of the Dental Kind

Close Encounters of the Dental Kind

After an unplanned visit to an American dentist, Robert Dingwall reflects on the power and the role of the case study

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Antibiotic Resistance – Missing the Point?

Antibiotic Resistance – Missing the Point?

There is no point in improving the innovation pipeline for antibiotics, argues Robert Dingwall, if the drugs that come out at the end all fall into the same chaotic patterns of use as today.

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Campaigning for Social Science: Public Sociology and ‘Public Sociologists’

Campaigning for Social Science: Public Sociology and ‘Public Sociologists’

The arrival of a report calling for the British government to better support social science has raised questions about the role, responses and responsibilities of a ‘public sociology.’

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