Bioethics and Engagement

Our work involves sustained collaborations with underserved and often marginalised populations, including migrants, hill tribe communities, and young people. By understanding local, social, economic and cultural contexts, MORU ensures that its research remains responsive and relevant to the needs of communities.

We conduct empirical ethics work such as around informed consent in research, malaria human challenge studies abd sharing of individual-level health data for secondary use. We have a large research programme on Just Transitions for mitigation of antimicrobial resistance. MORU BE team is one of the partners of the Southeast Asia Bioethics Network and the Global Health Bioethics Network, both of which aims at promoting bioethics research in Southeast Asia.

A cornerstone of MORU’s engagement approach is our growing programme of community advisory boards (CABs). CABs are set up long-term and play a crucial role in ensuring that local communities have a direct voice in research. Their members, drawn from the communities they serve and from all walks of life, advise our researchers at every stage of their work.

CABs provide essential community perspectives, for example on compensation for research participants, or how accessible our study information materials are for their intended audiences. Currently, MORU runs a network of seven CABs across Southeast Asia and Pakistan, including the Tak Province Community Ethics Advisory Board (established in 2009), the Chiang Rai Hill Tribe Advisory Group (established in 2023), and the ‘Youth Advisory Group on Health and Research Engagement’ in northern Cambodia. In 2024, MORU launched the ‘CAB-NET’ network to connect these groups through exchanges across borders, and provide support and training for CAB facilitators.

Many of our engagement activities fall under the umbrella of what is known as ‘patient and public involvement (‘PPI’) activities. We involve communities, stakeholders and partners throughout all stages of the research cycle to help shape research priorities and study protocols, improve the informed consent process in clinical trials, or co-create interventions and solutions.

In addition, we deliver health education and engagement activities in response to the needs of communities, for example on malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines, or maternal and child health. During the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shoklo-Malaria-Research Unit (SMRU) engagement team ran over 90 information sessions for more than 10,000 migrants across five Thai–Myanmar border districts to tackle vaccine misinformation. In Chiang Rai, MORU conducts scrub typhus education sessions for healthcare volunteers and villagers. Our engagement work also contributes to policy development, such as through the ‘AMR Dialogues Thailand’ community conversations, which informed the country’s National Action Plan on antimicrobial resistance (2023–2027).

Our engagement activities span creative, participatory methods such as drama and movie performances, exhibitions, and cartoon competitions. By involving communities in the development of scripts and materials, we share ownership over content and presentation, and spark the interest of families, friends and other community members. Communicating our work through movie screenings, theatre performances or art exhibitions makes complex research topics more accessible and engaging.

Village Drama Against Malaria used local theatre, involving local children in the performances, to engage Cambodian communities. Touring 55 villages, the project reached over 43,000 people, and in 2019 won the University of Oxford’s ‘Vice Chancellor’s Choice Award for Public Engagement with Research’. The ‘Under the Mask’ film project told the story of tuberculosis patients on the Thai–Myanmar border through a community-led production. Run during ‘World Antibiotic Awareness Week, the ‘Thailand antimicrobial resistance (AMR) Cartoon Contest’ attracted 387 submissions from young artists across Thailand, illustrating issues around AMR in anime art styles.

We support our staff and students through training and bespoke capacity-building activities, and our public engagement bursary scheme. Our training programme includes engagement techniques, stakeholder mapping, monitoring and evaluation, and using art and illustration for science communication. PhD students can practice their communication skills in the ‘Three Minute Thesis (3MT)’ competition, run in collaboration with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU). Our ‘Pint of Science’ events encourage researchers to talk about their work at informal public venues in Thailand and Laos.

Through its ‘Community and Public Engagement Bursary Scheme’, we support researchers at all career stages to lead engagement projects. For example, the Antibiotic Footprint Calculator, funded through a bursary and a partnership with Greenpeace and ‘World Animal Protection’, allows users from to estimate their individual ‘antibiotic footprint’ and compare it to other countries. The ‘School Mental Health’ project in Chiang Rai involved students and their teachers and parents, communities, local authorities and mental health experts, to improve the detection and treatment of mental illness in school children.