On the 10^th of September the University of Sussex held a ‘creative round table’ as part of the ASAUK 2014 conference, in order to facilitate a symposium of academic thought on the West Africa Ebola crisis.

Collating the opinion of a diverse panel of researchers the discussion covered a wide range of subjects associated with the outbreak of infectious diseases.  The event questioned many key assumptions and narratives that have been made by the international press, reiterated the need for effective communication between social science, policy makers and institutions and identified the portentous role that social media increasingly plays for the people most in need of understanding what an epidemic means to them.

‘Ebola is real, many social scientists have a tendency to ignore it and we will ignore it at our peril’ emphasised Professor James Fairhead, panel chair and lecturer at the University of Sussex.

A full event summary including presentation recordings is available here.