Topic: 'Stepping beyond the academy - the educator's duty?'
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy is among the world’s leading academics in the areas of the law and ethics of health. He is also among the world’s most engaging public intellectuals and most effective change agents in the area of public policy.
Since 2009 he has been chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in the United Kingdom, a statutory body established to manage the expenses of Members of Parliament and to set their salary levels. The authority was established in the wake of the parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, and Sir Ian’s work in this position has materially contributed to enhanced standards of probity in this field.
He is Emeritus Professor of Health Law, Ethics & Policy at University College London, a former Dean of the Law School at King’s College London (1986-96), and founder of the Centre for Medical Law & Ethics (1978). He chaired the public inquiry into children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (1998-2001), chaired the Healthcare Commission (2003-09), and chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (1998-2002).
He is a member of the board of the UK Research Integrity Office, chair of The King’s Fund Inquiry into the quality of general practice in England, and is an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He is the author of seminal texts in medical/health law and ethics, was the BBC’s Reith Lecturer in 1980 (delivered on the topic ‘Unmasking Medicine’), and has commented and hosted regularly on television and in other media.
Sir Ian was knighted in 2002 for his services to medical law and bioethics.