A joint initiative of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE), NUS Medicine and the Patient Advocacy and Support Office (PASO), NUHS

Publications

Selected publications

A curated reading list on patient and public involvement in research: work that informs how the PACT Lab operates, by the Lab, its collaborators, and others. For publications arising from the Lab's own funded work, see PACT Lab outputs.

Names in bold are members of PACT Lab: its directors, steering committee, staff, collaborators, or advisors.

Foundations and justification

Why patients and the public should be involved in research, and on what grounds. Work on the ethics, justification, and governance of involvement and engagement.

  1. Smith, J. N., Barnhill, A., Savulescu, J., Liao, S. M., McCoy, M. S., & Blumenthal-Barby, J. (2025). 'Why do you ask?' Revisiting the purpose of eliciting the public's moral judgments about emerging technologies. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 16(3), 127–139.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/23294515.2025.2474911
  2. Singh, I., Viding, E., Spencer, L., Austin, C., Kokan, Z. R., & Stringaris, A. (2025). The need for a science of patient and public involvement and participation in child and adolescent mental health research. Nature Mental Health, 3(11), 1311–1317.
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-025-00497-1
  3. Frith, L. (2023). Democratic justifications for patient public involvement and engagement in health research: an exploration of the theoretical debates and practical challenges. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 48(4), 400–412. Open access
    https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad024

Methods

Methodological insights into PPIE. Includes Collective Reflective Equilibrium in Practice (CREP), a method the PACT Lab uses to move from public and patient input to justifiable policy and translation recommendations, and other empirical and experimental methods the Lab draws on and incorporates into training.

  1. Tsiakiri, L., Yeo, S., & Savulescu, J. (2026). Eliciting normative judgments for ethically and politically legitimate policy-making. Monash Bioethics Review.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-026-00291-4
  2. Savulescu, J. (2025). Collective reflective equilibrium, algorithmic bioethics and complex ethics. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 34(2), 204–219.
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180124000719
  3. Earp, B. D., Lewis, J., Dranseika, V., & Hannikainen, I. R. (2021). Experimental philosophical bioethics and normative inference. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 42, 91–111. Open access
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-021-09546-z
  4. Savulescu, J., Gyngell, C., & Kahane, G. (2021). Collective reflective equilibrium in practice (CREP) and controversial novel technologies. Bioethics, 35(7), 652–663. Open access
    https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12869
  5. Davies, R., Ives, J., & Dunn, M. (2015). A systematic review of empirical bioethics methodologies. BMC Medical Ethics, 16, 15. Open access
    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-015-0010-3

Studies and applications

Involvement and engagement in practice: surveys of public attitudes, qualitative and deliberative work with patients and the public, and co-design of research and services.

  1. Khan, M. A., Mikalonytė, E. S., Porsdam Mann, S., Liu, P., Chu, Y., Attie-Picker, M., Buyukbabani, M. B., Savulescu, J., Hannikainen, I. R., & Earp, B. D. (2026). Personalizing AI art boosts credit, not beauty. Technology in Society, 84, 103055.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2025.103055
  2. Toh, H. J., Smedinga, M., Feroz, F., Savulescu, J., & Schaefer, G. O. (2026). A survey of public attitudes toward secondary research governance oversight: evidence from Singapore's TRUST platform. International Journal of Population Data Science, 11(1), 3200. Open access
    https://doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v11i1.3200
  3. Bachmakova, M., Buyukbabani, M. B., Dranseika, V., Brown, R. C., Devolder, K., Ryan, N., … & Earp, B. D. (2025). Even with diet and exercise, Ozempic use reduces perceived effort and praiseworthiness of resulting weight loss. Social Science & Medicine, 118657.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118657

Complete PACT Lab outputs →