After an enjoyable summer where members have taken well-earned breaks to rest and replenish, we at the CRR are excited to be coming back for another stimulating year.
To kick off this academic year, we hosted an event looking at male in/fertility and male contraceptives at the British Science Festival, hosted for the first time at De Montfort University. In the same week, CRR members attended the British Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology (Medsoc) annual conference, with members both convening the event and presenting work on egg donation and Turner syndrome.
Following a busy September, we look forward to October when our first visiting researcher of the year, Dr Riikka Homanen from Tampere University, will be joining us for three months. Riikka’s work explores social relations, such as kin, class, gender, sexuality and race/ethnicity, in (assisted) reproduction, and the marketization of reproduction and reproductive healthcare in particular. We are thrilled to host Riikka in the UK and look forward to hearing more about her work. Find out more about our visiting researcher programme and opportunities to come and connect with us here.
Our seminar series, which showcases work from both early career and established researchers and provides a forum for lively discussion and debate, will continue throughout 2022-23. To receive regular updates about this and other events from the CRR, sign up to our mailing list. We will also be continuing our programme of reading groups, to engage with developments in both reproduction studies and methodological literature; and writing groups, to provide peer support for both researchers writing for publication and for our PhD students. Alongside these activities to develop our research community, we will be progressing exciting bids we have in development, and pushing forward with our current and new research projects which you can read about here. In particular we are excited that this year will see the launch of our new three-year, ESRC-funded study into the emergence of expanded carrier screening for preconception use amongst the general population and the wider implications of reproductive genomic medicine – read more about the study background, aims and methodology here.
In recent months, our members have published a number of papers and chapters including book chapters on navigating fertility in the context of endometriosis and men’s involvement in family planning, papers on pregnancy experiences of amputee women and on physical activity in pregnancy, as well as papers resulting from the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit including on adverse pregnancy outcomes for Black and South Asian women. As well as papers presented at Medsoc (see above) members have also recently presented papers on multi-parenthood at the ESHRE Annual Meeting; and on the use of expanded carrier screening, on Russian transnational surrogacy, and on intrafamilial egg donation and Turner Syndrome at the international conference ‘Reproductive Futures: Emergent Injustices, Hopes and Paradoxes’ at Tampere University. We look forward to continuing to disseminate our work and research findings in varied and innovative ways and to contributing to debate and discussion both within and beyond academia in the coming year.
Summer 2022 also saw three of our members graduating with PhDs – huge congratulations to Kriss Fearon (whose graduation was delayed due to the pandemic), Sasha Loyal and Caroline Law. Also in summer 2022 we bid a (temporary) farewell to Sasha Loyal, Paris Connolly and Christina Weis who have all gone on maternity leave. In September 2022 we welcome Jess Turner back from a year of maternity leave. We also look forward to welcoming our new PhD student Sophia McCully and our new student frontrunner Leo Sawyers who will be working to support our activities, both of whom are joining us from October.
We look forward to connecting with colleagues and friends in the coming academic year: do get in touch or come and visit us..
Centre For Reproduction Research Blog 