Professional indemnity insurance as a regulatory and compensation mechanism for professions John Morgan, Pamela Hanrahan

This project seeks to determine to what extent, how and in what circumstances professional indemnity insurance can operate as an effective adjunct to regulation of a profession. Also, to what extent it can effectively provide compensation for loss or damage suffered by consumers. While our hypothesis is that the best information is available from the law and accountancy professions, it is also likely that examples of failure and success can be seen in other professions. 

The Exam as Panacea: Examinations, Training and Competence in the Professions Charles Sampford and Hugh Breakey

This research will investigate the nature of professions through the training and competence requirements they must meet. It contrasts the emphasis on exams (perhaps as a marker to the public of quality) with life-long learning (a recent term to describe what has been at the core of a profession). It looks at the place, timing and location of various forms of learning and the way in which they interact with each other. One element of professional life-long learning relates to the nature of the profession, the place of ethics within it and the way that ethics is learnt/internalized and built into the practice of a professional – indeed, into the professions’ understanding of what it is to be a professional.

Prof Sampford and Dr Breakey will also also contribute to the ethical dimensions of other research projects within the grant.