Reviewing the 14-day rule: Public dialogue Oversight Group Terms of Reference

Background

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) and UKRI Sciencewise are funding a UK-wide public dialogue to explore public views, priorities, and underlying values towards potential options to the 14-day rule for human embryo research.

This dialogue is situated within a wider major project to explore the current and future ethical, scientific, and policy considerations related to the 14-day rule for human embryo culture, with the aim of informing UK legislative reform.

The dialogue process is being designed and delivered by Ipsos UK along with its partners National Voices and The Liminal Space.

A foundational public dialogue run by the Human Developmental Biology Initiative (HDBI) and UKRI Sciencewise to understand public views on the 14-day time limit indicated that:

• there is some support for an extension or change to the rule if it is informed by society’s expectations about respect for the embryo and is robustly regulated; and
• people believe greater transparency is necessary to raise public awareness prior to any national conversations on potential changes.

Our public dialogue aims to build on the previous dialogue to engage a diverse and inclusive group of publics to:

• deliberate options to the 14-day rule for human embryo research
• understand public views of and priorities with respect to the associated ethical implications relating to options for maintaining, amending, or removing the 14-day rule
• provide a rich and nuanced understanding of the reasons why people hold those views and have those priorities

The dialogue aims to inform government policy and contribute to wider public debates on the 14-day rule by providing well-rounded public perspectives on the rule and relevant ethical considerations.

Oversight Group role and purpose

The role of the group is to oversee the dialogue process and materials, and to help ensure that:

• the dialogue material is comprehensive; balanced; accessible to the lay audience; and relevant to policy makers
• the engagement process is far reaching and accessible to diverse audiences

In addition, Oversight Group members will be expected to:

• bring diverse views and perspectives to the framing of the dialogue
• bring expertise and intelligence from their own organisations and disciplines to help shape the dialogue
• disseminate and promote findings through their own networks
• help select appropriate experts to inform the dialogue process materials and to contribute scientific and other expertise in the dialogue sessions, where necessary
• contribute to the selection of source materials and development of creative stimulus materials and design elements for the dialogue

It is expected that the Oversight Group will comment on the following:

• background and stimulus materials
• dialogue and communications strategy
• dialogue questions, language, and framing
• sampling and recruitment
• design and content of dialogue events and activities
• outputs from the dialogue (reports, videos, etc)

Responsibilities

The role of the Oversight Group is advisory. It is the responsibility of those managing the public dialogue (comprised of staff members of NCOB, Sciencewise and Ipsos) to make final decisions on the dialogue process, materials, report, and dissemination.

Secretariat

Secretariat support for the group will be provided by NCOB’s Public Engagement Manager (Molly Gray), who will work with public dialogue partners to ensure papers and minutes are prepared.

The NCOB will be responsible for storing – and where relevant, publishing – documents and information related to the work of the Oversight Group. These will include membership, register of interests and minutes.

Membership

The members of the Oversight Group will be offered an honorarium of £160 for attending each meeting. Reasonable expenses will be paid for travel, meetings and or events (e.g. observation of the dialogue workshops and speaking at events about the project).

Time commitment

Oversight Group activities will take place for around a year from September 2025 to approximately July 2026. For each meeting, pre-reading will be provided (likely to require approximately 2 hours). These materials will be discussed during the upcoming meeting. Oversight Group members will receive these materials seven or more days before the meeting.

It is expected that there will be four or five formal meetings of the Oversight Group during the project lifetime, some held in-person and some via video conferencing.

Meetings are expected to be held in:

• August 2025
• September 2025
• November/December 2025
• January 2026
• May 2026