Scholarships & funding

ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship - Lethal Prescriptions: Sodium Pentobarbital and Assisted Dying in Switzerland

Project details

This subproject examines the role of sodium pentobarbital (SP) in assisted dying practices in Switzerland, focusing on how this pharmaceutical is embedded within medico-legal, ethical, and institutional regimes that govern voluntary death.

Switzerland occupies a singular position in the global landscape of assisted dying, where right-to-die organisations operate within a complex legal framework that permits assisted suicide under specific conditions.Within this context, SP has become central to the enactment of a “good death,” functioning not merely as a technical means to end life, but as a pharmaceutical through which broader debates around dignity, autonomy, suffering, and legitimate death are negotiated. 

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Basel, Switzerland, this subproject investigates how SP circulates through the infrastructures of assisted dying, from medical prescription and pharmacy acquisition to its administration in assisted death procedures. The project combines participant observation, semi-structured interviews with staff members of assisted dying organisations, physicians, pharmacists, and individuals seeking assisted dying, alongside discourse and legal analysis of medico-legal documents, court cases, and regulatory frameworks surrounding SP in Switzerland. Particular attention will be paid to how assisted dying organisations navigate legal uncertainty, pharmaceutical regulation, and shifting public debates concerning the legitimacy of assisted death.

The project explores how SP becomes entangled in everyday practices of care, bureaucratic procedures, and institutional forms of authorization, tracing the social and political conditions under which access to assisted dying becomes possible. It asks how SP is sourced, prescribed, distributed, and administered; what ethical and legal responsibilities shape pharmacists’ and physicians’ involvement; and how eligibility for assisted dying is established and contested.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves

Secondary Supervisor: TBC

Information on the School/Research Group

MORTALMED (Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical) is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant) and led by Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves.

Situated at the intersection of Medical Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Political and Legal Anthropology, the project investigates the global circulation and local uses of sodium pentobarbital (SP), a pharmaceutical employed in assisted dying, state executions, and animal euthanasia.

By tracing SP across different legal, medical, and political contexts, particularly Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, the project examines how pharmaceuticals participate in the governance of life and death and contribute to the emergence of what the project conceptualises as “necro-socialities”: social worlds organised around death, dying, and pharmaceutical mediation.

The project adopts a primarily ethnographic and interdisciplinary approach, combining participant observation, interviews, archival ethnography, discourse and media analysis, and assemblage ethnography to follow SP across institutions, borders, and infrastructures.

MORTALMED consists of five interconnected subprojects. The project aims not only to contribute to academic debates on pharmaceuticals, governance, and death, but also to engage broader public audiences through a final public exhibition in Glasgow. The successful applicant will join an internationally oriented and collaborative research environment and contribute actively to the development of this ERC-funded project.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent) 
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic under investigation
• Applicants can study part-time or full-time
• Applicants should have familiarity with, or interes in, ethnographic research methods, including participant observation and interviews.
• Applicants should preferably have German language skills
• Applicants should be available to conduct ehtnographic fieldwork in Switzerland, potentially involving two periods of up to six months each
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status - International students are ineligible.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD. 

Number of Scholarships

1

Value

The scholarship is available as a full-time +4 (4 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

How to apply

Application process

Applicants must apply via the Scholarships Application Portal (please see Scholarships Application Portal - Applicant Guide for more information).The funding opportunity is under 'College of Social Sciences Postgraduate Research Funding > COSS-26-025') uploading the following documentation:

• ERC MORTALMED - Lethal Prescriptions Application form (in Word format)
• Academic transcripts (All relevant Undergraduate and Master’s level degree transcripts (and translations, if not originally in English) – provisional transcripts are sufficient if you are yet to complete your degree).
• Academic Prizes
• Contact details for two referees (where possible your referees should include an academic familiar with your work (within the last 5 years). Both referees can be academics but you may include a work referee, especially if you have been out of academia for more than 5 years). Please note, a CoSS PGR Funding Reference template will be sent to your referees for completion)*. Note that no member of this project's supervisory team can act as your referee. Please see CoSS PGR Funding Reference request guide for further guidance
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) (academic where applicable)

*Please note that when you enter your referees contact details on the Scholarships Application Portal and send the reference request, your referees are expected to provide their references by the closing date of the Scholarship (below). It is strongly recommended you complete this as soon as possible, as late or incomplete applications will not be considered.

Application Closing Date: 09 June 2026

References due no later than 16 June 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the project team. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be invited to apply for admission to the relevant PhD programme after they are selected for funding.

Contact Details

Questions on the Application Portal only: College of Social Sciences Graduate School

Questions on the Project: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves