Gert Helgesson

Gert Helgesson

Professor
Telephone: +46852483767
Visiting address: Widerströmska huset, Tomtebodavägen 18A, 17165 Solna
Postal address: C7 Lärande, Informatik, Management och Etik, C7 Etik Helgesson, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • I am professor in medical ethics at the Department of learning, informatics, management and ethics (LIME), Karolinska Institutet.

    I studied practical philosophy (ethics) at Uppsala University and defended my thesis on value assumptions in microeconomics in 2002. Since 2002 I have worked with medical ethics, first in Uppsala and then at Karolinska Institutet, in particular with ethical matters relating to medical research, but also clinical medical ethics. I became associate professor (docent) at KI 2008 and full professor 2015.

    My research group is interested in interdisciplinary collaboration, so do not hesitate to contact me or my colleagues if you want to explore common interests.

Research

  • My research is dedicated to medical ethics, which includes both empirical and philosophical work on ethical matters in medicine. I do research in both main fields of medical ethics, i.e., clinical medical ethics (healthcare ethics) and medical research ethics. As a medical ethicist, I have a quite broad general competence in doing applied ethics, that is applying the ethics toolbox to a variety of areas. This means I can be open to collaboration with researchers from many different fields. In collaboration, we can identify and analyze ethical aspects of clinical and research ethical issues at hand.

    Presently, I participate in a project on the best interest of the child, focusing on decisions concerning children in social care. This is a collaboration between researchers in medical ethics, law, and social work. I also work on authorship issues in citizen science, (non-standard applications of) plagiarism, patient-centred care and shared decision-making, rational suicides, and ethical issues on live tissue training.

Teaching

  • I have teaching experience in ethics, medical ethics, research ethics, and philosophy of science. I presently mainly teach research ethics, to master students, doctoral students, and doctoral supervisors. But I also participate in physicians' specialist training, with days exploring clinical ethical issues.

Selected publications

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2024 - 31 December 2026
    The overall purpose of this project is to critically explore decision making in social care with a focus on the principle of the “best interest of the child” in matters related to restricting children’s and legal guardians’ right to socialization in compulsory care. We will take an interdisciplinary approach in examining the ethical and legal foundations of the principle of the best interest of the child, exploring how it is understood and applied by social workers in this decision-making context. On these grounds and in collaboration with social workers as research partners, we will develop recommendations and tools to support decision-making.The specific aims of this project are to:Identify and assess the legal and ethical principles and values that underpin the notion of the best interest of the child.Identify how social workers in Sweden understand and apply the notion of the best interest of the child in the context of making decisions about restricting children’s contact with their parents.Formulate the most reasonable ethical and legal requirements for making decisions guided by the best interest of the child in social care.Develop the first stages of an intervention that in may inform and support decisions in social care.By using methods of legal science, analytic philosophy, qualitative and quantitative empirical methodology and social interventions, the results will be relevant to scholars in different fields as well as to social workers and other stakeholders.
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 December 2014 - 30 November 2018

Employments

  • Professor, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, 2015-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2008
  • Phd in ethics, Practical philosophy (ethics), Values, Norms & Ideology in Mainstream Economics, Uppsala University, 2002

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