'A Positive Difference: Minoritised Communities in British Healthcare and Innovation'

Join us in Manchester or online for our second Pickstone Lecture, given by Professor Roberta Bivins from the University of Warwick. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in the foyer of the Samuel Alexander Building.

The Pickstone Lectures commemorate Professor John Pickstone, founding director of the University of Manchester's Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). They explore how John's work continues to play a major role in shaping our understanding of science, technology and medicine, both in the past and today.

Professor Roberta Bivins, 'A Positive Difference: Minoritised Communities in British Healthcare and Innovation'

29 October 2026, 5pm BST

Samuel Alexander Building (Building No 67 on the interactive campus map)

Abstract

There is a persistent narrative in UK biomedical and health services research that represents minoritised communities – particularly those which are racialised, but also those minoritised by gender, physical or mental capacity, or economic position – as ‘hard to reach’, mistrustful, costly or unreliable collaborators. In parallel, Britain’s news media has often framed racialised minorities as ‘hesitant’ or actively resistant to adopting medical innovations due to their (assumed) cultural differences from an imagined highly compliant majority community.

In contrast, historical research has uncovered a variety of cases in which the formation of ‘unimagined communities’ comprising medical researchers and ethnic minorities presents a very different picture of agency and active cooperation. In this talk I will explore examples of such research in multicultural Manchester, from S.W. Stanbury's research on 'Asian rickets' in the 1970s to Steve Tomlinson and Kamila Hawthorne's pioneering innovations in the provision of diabetes care in the 1990s. What can clinical and health services research learn from reaching the 'hardly reached'? And how can history help to power this approach?

Roberta Bivins is Professor of History at the University of Warwick. She has a BA from Columbia University, a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and worked at CHSTM from 1997 to 2001. She has published widely on the history of health and migration, the history of alternative medicine and acupuncture, and the cultural history of the National Health Service. Her most recent book is Contagious Communities: Medicine, Migration and the NHS in Postwar Britain, and she also worked with John Pickstone to edit the volume Medicine, Madness and Social History: Essays in Honour of Roy Porter

The event will take place in the north wing of the Samuel Alexander Building, the University of Manchester's neoclassically designed Grade II listed building which faces Alan Gilbert Square. Please download the campus map to help you locate the venue.

There will be a live screening option for those unable to attend in person. The event is free, but you will need to pre-register to attend in person or online. Both options are available at the 'get tickets' link.

Description supplied by the event organiser.