MISFIRES and Market Innovation: STS Research for Participatory and Inclusive Healthcare

MISFIRES is a new interdisciplinary research program at the intersection of STS and critical market studies, based at University College Dublin. It aims to guide new academic and policy thinking by establishing how: 1) concerned actors voice and mobilise around the notion that healthcare market has ‘failed’ them; 2) concerned actors seek to negotiate and address healthcare market failures; 3) this process may lead to ‘better’ healthcare markets (as defined by the actors). The project also explores participatory and collaborative strategies in the five cases it researches by helping to open these markets up to the concerns of those who are let down by them. Individual case studies include issues around the assetization of pharmaceutical patents (Hepatitis C), evolving activist strategies around access to medicines (HIV/AIDS), digital activism and user innovation (Type 1 Diabetes), and the use of participatory tools as a response to non-engagement by publics (private and public genomics initiatives).