University of York and Kasetsart University Join Forces to Advance Responsible Biotechnology
A new UK-Thai research collaboration led by the University of York and Kasetsart University is developing tools to assess societal readiness for biotechnology. During a recent visit to York, researchers co-developed responsible research and innovation frameworks, explored stakeholder engagement strategies and laid the groundwork for future training and fieldwork.
Researchers from Kasetsart University (KU) visited the University of York last week as part of the British Council ISPF funded project “Fostering better engagement in biotechnology research in Thailand: building capacity to understand societal readiness”. Overall, the project aims to have a more socially-responsible, informed and ethical approach to research and innovation, with a specific focus on gene editing of food crops.
The Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Professor Andy Dougill joined the meeting to sign an MoU to underpin further collaborative research activities between the University of York and KU, including those led by Leonardo Gomez, Seth Davis, Katherine Denby and others.
Professor Andy Dougill signs a Memorandum of Understanding between University of York and Kasetsart University
As the research team comprises an environmental social scientist, plant biologists, geneticists, an ecologist and agricultural scientists, short, interactive presentations from team members from both countries provided a solid foundation to the different disciplinary ideas and concepts to be explored through the project.
Following a presentation from Professor Steven Johnson (School of Physics, Engineering and Technology) on some of the approaches to research co-development used in the University of York’s Sparks project: Equitable Technology co-development, University of York, workshop activities focused on identifying the key stakeholders to be engaged in the research and developing the sampling approach.
Members of the British Council 'Building Societal Readiness' team work on identifying key stakeholders
The research team spent the rest of the week co-developing the details of the societal readiness assessment approach, sharing information about the ethical requirements in the two Universities, and planning the training and capacity building activities for when the University of York team visits Thailand later this year.
Members of the team working together on the project
Overall, the in-person meeting provided an excellent opportunity to develop a shared understanding of what we mean by ‘societal readiness’ as well as a common language across disciplines. Translation of some of our co-developed data collection tools into the Thai language proved challenging, and required in-depth discussions over the meaning of terms that could not be easily transposed from English.
The next steps involve piloting our data collection tools by the Thai team on their return to KU, while the York team members will be preparing their training materials for their visit to Bangkok in a few months’ time.