Adam Burgess is a senior lecturer at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He previously lectured at the Universities of Reading, Bath, Brunel and Westminster. He is an interdisciplinary expert in the study of social and political risk. His first major study was of how health concerns developed around mobile phones, published as Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution (Cambridge University Press 2003) and has gone on to study numerous other risk concerns and their policy reactions, including those around alcohol and drugs. These studies have been published in over 30 academic articles and presented at over 50 international conferences. He is principal academic advisor to the last government’s Risk Regulation Advisory Council and jointly runs the risk and uncertainty section of the International Sociological Association. He is co-editor of Sociology Compass and on the editorial boards of Health, Risk and Society, and The European Journal of Risk and Regulation. A.Burgess@kent.ac.uk

“Some Reflections on Conflict of Interest”