Here are the five successful applicants for our small grants:
Private Health Screening Awareness
£1,000 has been granted to a group headed up by Dr Margaret McCartney, a Glasgow GP and author of The Patient Paradox. Dr McCartney has been vocal in raising concerns about the pitfalls of private health screening in the UK, having discussed the issue in her FT column, the BMJ, Vogue and Radio 4’s Inside Health. For example, Dr McCartney explained why private health screening worries her and and other GPs in this blog for the Guardian.
Last year, Dr McCartney and her colleagues created the website http://www.privatehealthscreen.org/ in order to improve public awareness about private health screening tests and raise the quality of debate in the media. The grant will be used to support an on-going campaigning to improve knowledge of the issues involved with private health screening.
Margaret said on hearing of the award “I am delighted that the Good Thinking Society are able to support us to try and get better information to people who are being sent fliers advertising tests which are not supported by the evidence – and which do harm.”
Safek Savir
Safek Savir (Reasonable Doubt) is a skeptical podcast broadcast in Hebrew. They have been podcasting for two years, outputting more than 120 shows. Last year they produced a trial video-cast, which garnered over 20,000 views and generated a large amount of discussion in the comments.
Safek Savir will be using the grant of £1,000 to support their video production in order to start producing a monthly, high quality video-cast that will hopefully reach a wider audience than those already engaged with their podcast.
Yaron Assa from Safekk Savir commented “With Good Thinking’s support we will be able to extend our reach with richer and more accessible skeptical content. We look forward to repaying this honour by further promoting the passion for science, skepticism and rational discussion in new and exciting audiences.”
Edinburgh Skeptics on The Fringe
Edinburgh Skeptics in the Pub have been running a successful programme of events during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This grant of £1,000 will help support a range of potential ideas, from hosting events in larger venues to greater cross-promotion of science/rationalist events at The Fringe.
Camp Quest
Camp Quest UK provides a community where young people can be challenged and have fun with workshops in science and philosophy and a range of outdoor activities.
We are providing a grant of £1,000 to help with training for the mentors and expanding the reach of the event.
Adam Smith, in association with the Rationalist Association
This grant of £1,000 will provide seed funding for a new venture; the Rationalists’ Parliament. The aim is to experiment as to how the British Parliament could take a more rational approach to debating policy.
In addition to generating evidence-based research on current issues, commissioning opinion pieces from researchers and holding public debates, it is hoped that the Rationalist’s Parliament will show what skepticism in policy making may look like.
