The Future of Human Reproduction team exhibited at this year’s ESRC Festival of Social Science at Lancaster University’s Health Innovation Campus on Thursday 26th October. We delivered a series of activities that explored how technological developments might change the way in which future children are created and born.

The theme for this year’s festival was lifelong wellbeing and we focused on ectogenesis – the gestation of a fetus outside of the human body in an artificial womb environment. Through an exhibition, talk and book group we considered the ways in which scientific progress might change reproductive futures.

The Museum of Human Reproduction
Visitors to The Museum of Human Reproduction were able to view, and interact with, speculative design artefacts created by The Future of Human Reproduction team. Speculative design is the practice of creating imaginary artefacts to explore ‘what if?’ questions about the future.

The exhibits in The Museum of Human Reproduction presented a range of different scenarios that raised important questions about how ectogenesis might change future reproductive possibilities.

Public Talk: Ectogenesis
From babies in bottles in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to the fetus fields in The Matrix, the idea of ectogenesis is not new. But how close is science fiction to scientific reality?

This short talk offered a brief overview of the history of ectogenesis, an update on the current scientific progress in this area and explored some of the key issues that need to be addressed before this technology becomes a scientific reality.

Book Club: Dreams Before the Start of Time
In what ways can literature help us to understand the issues raised by developments in future reproductive technologies? We explored this question, and others, at our book club event.

Focusing on a short chapter, featuring ectogenesis, from Anne Charnock’s award-winning novel, Dreams Before the Start of Time, the book club began with a reading of the chapter followed by a discussion of the issues that it raised.

About the ESRC Festival of Social Science
The ESRC Festival of Social Science is an annual celebration of research and knowledge about humans and society. There are over 200 events across the UK, delivered by 42 universities. Visit the website here to find out more.