Jan 2026: Our first peer-reviewed publication from the Digital Donor Conception study is now available (open access) on Human Fertility. It explores the different ways in which digital technologies shape possibilities for donors and recipient families to know one another. We discuss four different ways of getting to know, and making oneself known and how donors and recipients sometimes combined these different mode of knowing in sometimes surprising ways. 

April 2026: This month Leah presented a draft of a paper which she is writing with Lexie at the British Sociological Association's Annual Conference in Manchester. The paper explores how donors and recipients work attempt to managing the meaning of reproductive processes in the context of legal precarity and uncertainty (as is often the case in IDC).

April 2026: Presenting at the Donor Conception Network's spring conference, Leah drew on findings from the Digital Donor Conception study, as well a previous work, to discuss parents' perspectives on getting to know donor relatives. She shared data from this study and the ConnecteDNA study (on which she worked previously) to discuss both the challenge and opportunities involved and how parents navigated these with their donor conceived children.

Read our December 2025 research update for news on project progress, a very brief overview of findings and details of presentations, publications and outputs in the last year.

August 2025: This week Leah submitted evidence from the project to the NHS Evidence Review of LGBT+ Health which was commissioned by the Department for Health and Social Care. You can download and read the full submission by clicking the expand button on the image to the left. Details of the review and evidence submission process are available here: NHS England » LGBT+ health 

We hope that evidence from the Digital Donor Conception study, and a consideration of the evidence on informal donor conception more broadly, will help to address LGBT+ reproductive health inequalities, which intersect with other forms of inequalities (e.g. relating to economics, ethnicity and disability). The overarching message of our submission is that supporting LGBT+ reproductive health will require both removing barriers to clinical donor conception for all groups and improving support and (legal) recognition for those who choose informal routes. Our evidence submission supports the recommendations of the Fertility Justice Campaign.

Have a read of our latest research update for news about the project transfer to Manchester Metropolitan University, recent conference presentations and our progress with interviews and analysis.

October 2024

Lexie and Leah had the honour of hosting two international visitors to The University of Sheffield this month. Dr Rosemond Hiadzi, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Ghana and Dr Giselle Newton, Research Fellow in the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies, University of Queensland both presented their work at the Assisting Reproduction workshop, jointly funded by iHuman and the Reproductive Technologies Network. Dr Hiadzi's talk was titled 'Knowledge and attitudes towards egg and sperm donation in Ghana.' Dr Newton's addressed 'How digital technologies and platforms ‘assist’ in reproduction.' 

Their talks were followed by mini roundtable discussions centred on three themes:  Being Reproduced: social and genetic inheritance; Assisting reproduction in a globalised context; Assisting reproductive (in)justice and resistance.

June 2024

In this blog post, PI, Leah Gilman argues that the 'just say no' approach evident in many 'official' responses to informal donor conception is inadequate. Instead we must listen to the experiences of parents, donors, donor conceived people and their families who choose or who are impacted by this route to donor conception. This is necessary in order to improve support and recognition for all families formed via donor conception

Moving beyond a 'just say no' approach to informal donor conception (progress.org.uk) 

Leah was delighted to be invited to speak about our ongoing research at the Annual Conference of the British Infertility Counselling Association in May 2024. Her talk was titled 'Informal Donor Conception: Moving Beyond a “Just Say No” Approach.' It was a huge privilege to also learn from the other speakers about trans parenthood, being donor conceived, solo parenthood, social egg freezing, men's psychosexual healthcare, and much more!

May 2024

We are pleased to say that we will now be offering a £20 voucher to all participants in phase 2 of our research.

This decision has been approved by the The University of Sheffield's Research Ethics Committee and was taken after extensive discussion within the research team and with advisory board member Jenny Okona-Mensah (Fertility Network UK). 

We hope that this will signal our recognition and gratitude for participant's contributions to our research. We know that sometimes participants travel or take time out of work/leisure/family time to take part and we want to recognise this. It is important that participants know that this does not impact their rights to opt-out of or withdraw from any aspect of the research.

We will be sending all previous participants a voucher too over the coming months.

Read our March 2024 blog post which shares our intention to move public discussions of informal donor conception beyond the 'just say no' approach often evident to date:

The Digital Donor Conception Study: Kickstarting a ‘Grown Up’ Conversation about Informal Donor Conception – Sociological Studies Research (socstudiesresearch.com)