SHARE Profile: Federica Lucivero

What is your role in the SHARE project?

I co-lead this project with Dr Gabby Samuel. I also lead WP2 which aims to develop normative concepts and guidance for equitable environmentally sustainable research. Besides doing research, I supervise early career researchers on the project, take responsibility for project management issues, and experiment with ways of co-leading the  project with international collaborators in a participatory way that recognises the intricacies of intellectual and structural colonial practices. It’s hard work, but also fun! 

What brought you to SHARE? 

I studied philosophy of science and epistemology in Italy and philosophy and ethics of technology (with strong Science and Technology Studies influences) in the Netherlands. I also trained in qualitative methods for the social sciences at King’s College London. I have always been interested in exploring the role that digital technologies have in changing our standards and what we value in health care and health research practices . At some point, I noticed that we were too focused on some ethical aspects of data/digital health (e.g. privacy, safety, doctor-patient relationship, medicalisation) but forgetting about how their material presence also impacted the environment. This brought me to study this topic in different projects exploring practices of digital sustainability, co-designing guidelines and bringing together actors at the intersection of digital/AI technologies, health and the environment. This work brought me to the SHARE project.  

What do you bring to the SHARE project?  

My angle is that we need to understand moral, epistemic and societal practices to be able to develop normative guidance and tell stakeholders what they should do. So, I want to use our rich qualitative data as a source of knowledge and inspiration to explore how we understand, and should govern, research practices that are environmentally sustainable, fair and reflexive. I also like to think about “tools for environmental research” as “technologies”: I want to bring insights from philosophy of technology in our understanding of these tools and their role in research.  

What excites you about this project? 

Everything! I am very excited about how we can bring rigorous and rich qualitative data from so many different geographical regions into a conversation about what sustainable health research should be. I am thrilled to work with so many interesting scholars, learn from their diverse disciplinary perspectives and their situated cultures, and experiment with different ways of conducting collaborative research in modern academia. And I can’t wait to see how our co-design approach will bring health researchers from different disciplines and cultures into meaningful dialogue to co-create practical resources!

The link to your preferred profile (institutional or other) 

Federica Lucivero — Ethox Centre