Professor Erica Borgstrom

Professional biography

​I'm a Professor of Medical Anthropology at The Open University, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). My specialist area in research and teaching is death and dying, with a focus on palliative and end-of-life care. I use my anthropological skills to disrupt the normative concepts in end-of-life care by foregrounding people’s everyday experiences and the structural and discursive elements that shape how care is provided.  I have recently co-authored the book Critical Approaches to Death, Dying and Bereavement and am writing another on palliative and end-of-life care. I am available for media requests and have contributed to public discussions on end-of-life care, assisted dying, and grief.  

I am currently involved in several projects about palliative and end-of-life care and projects looking at changing aspects of death systems and bereavement support. This includes recently co-leading a project (To Know Dying) on identifying research areas in palliative and end-of-life care for the social sciences and humanities, being part of the DAPPLE project examining end-of-life care for people with learning disabilities, and a project on supporting bereaved neurodivergent children and young people. I regularly supervise and examine doctoral students in this field, as well as in medical anthropology and sociology more generally.

Within The Open University,  I am one of the university's Open Media Fellows, working closely with OpenLearn (the home of free learning from The Open University) and the Broadcast and Partnerships team, including working on OU-BBC co-productions and OU Connect content. Since Autumn 2020, I have led Open Thanatology - our research and education group focused on death-related topics; I currently co-chair the group with Joanne Jordan. From Autumn 2019 to the end of 2021, I was the Qualifications/Programme Lead for Health and Social Care at The Open University. 

Throughout my career, I’ve played an active role in supporting death studies as a field, both via Open Thanatology and beyond. I am currently one of three book series editors for Death and Culture (published by Bristol University Press). I was co-Editor-in-Chief (2020-2024) of Mortality, an international, interdisciplinary journal for death studies. I play an active role in the American Anthropological Association's Dying and Bereavement special interest group, which is part of the Society for Medical Anthropology. From 2013 until 2019, I was Membership Secretary, and from 2019-2024, I was a Council Member for the Association for the Study of Death and Society. I am a former co-convener of the British Sociological Association's Social Aspects of Death, Dying and Bereavement (DDB) study group.

I hold a PhD from the University of Cambridge (2014). My NIHR CLAHRC-funded doctoral research ethnographically examined English end-of-life care from policy, to practice, to everyday experiences, focusing on choice and advance care planning. Findings from my doctoral and subsequent research have been used in academic publications, policy consultations about end-of-life care, degree-level teaching materials, and open-access education.

Prior to joining The Open University in 2016, I was a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where I held the Mildred Blaxter postdoctoral fellowship from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness. I have also worked at the University of Cambridge within the Cambridge Palliative and End of Life Care Group. 

Research interests

My research sits broadly within medical anthropology and medical sociology, drawing primarily on ethnographic methods. Through these lenses, I address normative concepts within end-of-life care to understand the complexity of care delivery and experiences. To this end, I focus on policy, organisational approaches, and personal experiences of living with life-limiting conditions and end-of-life care. By focusing on normative concepts in end-of-life care, such as choice, I juxtapose these elements to examine how end-of-life care is changing and how these concepts shape the way death and dying are experienced. My research is part of an emerging body of work that attends to relationality and care. It contributes to a wider policy and practice shift in advance care planning and end-of-life care from standardised approaches to ones that acknowledge the relational aspects of care and future decision-making.

I am actively involved in several projects and impact work from previous research. In 2025, I’m leading a team to develop work on supporting bereaved neurodivergent children and young people (funded via a Research Grant Development Award from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness). Drawing on my ethnographic expertise, I am a co-investigator on the NIHR-funded DAPPLE project, which aims to make it easier for people with a learning disability to get good. In 2004-2025, I co-led a project funded by Marie Curie on identifying research areas in palliative and end-of-life care for the social sciences and humanities (To Know Dying), which provides recommendations for research funders and academics in this field. Over the past few years, I have also been working on projects to understand how people interpret and use palliative and end-of-life care policy, focusing on the Ambitions Framework for Palliative and End of Life Care (projects funded by NHS England and Marie Curie), and projects understanding palliative care services and values, working closely with clinical and practitioner collaborators. For example, I’ve been the co-investigator on an ESRC-funded project, Forms of Care, which sought to critically understand what not intervening looks like and how we can appreciate such ‘non-actions’ as care. Another project, working with Prof Richard Holti and clinical colleagues, is the InGap Study - describing how geriatric medicine and palliative care work together to provide care for older patients. Over the past few years, I have also led or co-led several knowledge transfer projects, working, for example, with End of Life Doula UK, Rainbow Trust, and St Oswald’s Hospice, as a consultant on research and evaluation; available reports from these projects can be found on my ORO profile. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was involved in a range of projects looking at loss and grief. For example, with Sharon Mallon, I co-edited a collection from OU students, staff and alumni. It is entitled Narratives of Covid: loss, dying, death and grief during COVID-19 and is available as a free eBook, free pdf download, or an inexpensive printed book. 

My interest in the links between epistemology, methodology, and personal experiences of conducting research in death studies has led me to edit several publications about research methodology, including a co-edited book , Researching Death, Dying and Bereavement and another book on Unpacking Sensitive Research. I also regularly mentor doctoral students and early-career researchers, and I may have the capacity to supervise more doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers at The Open University -  contact me if interested in our latest studentships or about future projects. 

Teaching interests

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and use my knowledge in teaching to inform the learning design and day-to-day execution of Open University modules in health and social care, and in our public education via OpenLearn and the OU-BBC partnerships. My teaching approach is underpinned by my commitment to fostering critical thinking and widening access to education and lifelong learning. I have published on student feedback, developing professionalism, students’ reflective practice, and learning in the fourth age.

As Qualifications Lead within my department, I had oversight over all the health and social modules we offer and the degree pathways available to our students. During this time, I was instrumental in ensuring students in secure environments could be supported to complete a full qualification in Health and Social Care.  Within our department, I have personally taught on Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 modules, Masters level nursing curriculum, and regularly contribute to doctoral training and supervision. I have experience in employability skills mapping across the curriculum, inclusive curriculum design, using external quality and professional standards frameworks to inform curriculum design, and mentoring new lecturers.

Drawing on my research expertise, I significantly contributed to the making of the Open University module K220 (Death, Dying and Bereavement), particularly the block on end-of-life care and learning guides on ethics. This module is distinctive in supportively engaging students in a wide range of issues about death and dying. Importantly, K220 is suitable for those who want an awareness of end-of-life care, as well as outlining the skills and knowledge for health and social care professionals about providing end-of-life care. My research has also been used to inform activities in several Level 3 modules around research methods. In my teaching, my primary concern is to foster critical thinking and reflection using social theory and empirical examples.

I have expertise in delivering online and distance education as well as face-to-face provision (1-1 to large lectures), and I have a PG Cert in technology-enhanced learning. Previously at other institutions, I have taught medical anthropology, medical sociology, and social research methods at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I have also been involved in the education of undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. I have acted as an external examiner for several universities, focusing on curriculum design, feedback to students, and quality assurance.

Impact and engagement

In my work, I am committed to using insights from the social sciences to inform our understanding of death and dying, with a primary focus on end-of-life care and bereavement. To do this, I have created outputs to reach and engage with different audiences, ranging from blog posts to animations and online interactives. I have also sat on the steering groups of other research and public engagement projects. I am available to consult and make media appearances related to death and dying and be a speaker at events. I have previously facilitated public-facing events about death and dying, including death cafes, seminar series, knowledge exchange events, and conferences, and have featured podcasts like The Death Studies Podcast.

As part of the OU-BBC partnership, I have been an academic consultant on several projects in addition to my role as Open Media Fellow. For example, in collaboration with BBC Ideas, I produced a short film about if everyone should have an 'end of life plan'. I featured on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health (Assisted Dying three-part series). I was the nominated academic consultant for several documentaries, including BBC One's Stacey Dooley: Inside the Undertakers and Better Off Dead?. The OU Connect content for the Stacey Dooley programme won a Learning on Screen Award in 2024. I also produced a guide to Reminiscence Therapy, including a printable download to enable conversations with people with dementia, to support the BBC’s 2025 Memories and Dementia focus.

Since joining The Open University, I have also produced several open-access media resources drawing on my research and expertise in the field. These include: video recordings of a death and dying seminar series, covering topics from dying trajectories to pet death; an animation about death rituals around the world; a short video about my research and language in end-of-life care and another about advance care planning; and a drama with related interactive about advance care planning using the example of a same-sex couple. These resources are available for others to use in their teaching, and several have been nominated and/or won awards for film or learning/teaching.

Via Open Thanatology and our OU research on death and dying, I have been involved in the production of events and assets to support practice and public understanding of these issues. For example, we have produced several episodes of Open Thanatology Talks to explore ‘good death’, ‘advance care planning’, and ‘decolonising bereavement’.  Based on the research I led about the Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care framework, we developed a grab-and-go guide (Small Steps, Big Vision) to support practitioners, managers and commissioners. This guide has been adapted by St Oswald’s Hospice for children and young people services, and customisable versions of the guides are available. Many of the resources we produce are available for reuse and adaptation.