Donation Research Network

Research on donation naturally lends itself to interdisciplinarity. It is a social phenomenon with legal, ethical, economic, political and sociological aspects. However, despite the centrality of donation in a large and growing body of academic research, there is no national or international network of donation researchers. This leaves the subject siloed within particular disciplines.

Driven collaboratively, the Donation Network was founded in 2018 by three researchers from different disciplines: John Picton (Law, University of Liverpool), Rachael Wiseman (Philosophy, University of Liverpool) and Eddy Hogg (Social Policy, Kent University). The collaboration brings together complementary research interests, informal groups of contacts, and also collective experience of successfully bidding for research grants.

The goal of the Network is to elicit and share boundary-crossing ideas and perspectives on the nature of donation. Key starting questions, with policy, legal and philosophical dimensions are:

• What makes a good charity?
• Is Effective Altruism either effective or altruistic?
• Can we know, and does it matter, what a donor intends in making a gift?

For more information, or to become a Network member, please email John Picton or Rachael Wiseman.