Research Retreat for PhD students and Early Career Researchers
07^th – 11^th of November 2022

Health technologies have grown immensely in the health sector over the last decades. Digital technologies promise improvements on different levels of health care. Patients, for example, can use digital technologies such as apps to strengthen their health literacy. Physicians can draw on applications with artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies to support them in making diagnoses. Electronic patient records are intended to make healthcare more efficient. Especially for older adults, there are numerous digital applications from which they could benefit. These include, for example, digital technologies for communication, assistive technologies regarding care or rehabilitation, or exoskeletons. The ethical, legal, and social issues of digitalization in health care have already received much scientific attention. However, there are fewer efforts to systematically bring together the ethical discourses on digitalization and the use of technology in older age.

The research retreat will bring together the ethical debates on digitalization, health and ageing. The research retreat invites early career researchers from different disciplines to work on questions regarding the ethical, legal, and social aspects in the context of digitalization, health, and ageing. The aim of the retreat is an international and comparative perspective with a focus on Germany and the Netherlands. The Netherlands is considered a pioneer regarding the application of digital technologies in the health sector and is, therefore, particularly qualified as a comparison country.

Organisation
Prof. Dr. phil. Hans-Jörg Ehni; Regina Müller, MA; Elisabeth Langmann, MA (Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine, University Tübingen, Germany)

We are looking for:

• PhD students and early career researchers with interests on questions regarding the ethical, legal, and social aspects in the context of digitalization, health, and ageing
• working in (one or more of) the following fields: life sciences, medicine, ethics, social sciences, law, gerontology, informatics/computer sciences
• willing to prepare a paper, to present and discuss it with participants and experts
• open to try out new formats for scientific collaboration (forum theatre workshop)
• interested in an international perspective
• looking forward to spending a week discussing ethical, social, and legal aspects in the context of digitalization, health, and ageing

Application procedure
Send an abstract (max. 500 words) for a paper you would like to present at the retreat together with a short curriculum vitae to hans-joerg.ehni@uni-tuebingen.de and regina.mueller@uni-tuebingen.de until 1^th of April 2022. After consultation by a team of experts, up to 14 participants will receive invitations until 1^st of May 2022. Invited participants are asked to submit the manuscripts of their papers until 1^th of October 2022. The manuscripts will be distributed to all participants in advance for preparation of the research retreat, which will take place from the 07^th – 11^th of November 2022.

Additional information

• Language: English
• Location: Guest house of Tübingen University, Lessingweg 3, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
• Costs: Travel expenses will be refunded; the organizers will pay for accommodation/catering

Contact for questions or further information: regina.mueller@uni-tuebingen.de, hans-joerg.ehni@uni-tuebingen.de