BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2022-2023

Dr Sara Abdaless

Co-Applicant: Professor Michael Rigby Dr Stephen Williams

SRG2223\231124

Working together in Civil Society: a study of collaboration between Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

London South Bank University

Value Awarded: £9,907.00

Abstract: The importance of Civil Society’s (CS) for a strong democracy has been emphasized by previous studies, but there has been concern about its decline. Two important elements of CS are the third sector and trade unions. The former faces challenges around governance and relationship with the government, and the latter a declining membership.

Never has the need for collaboration been greater. Research documenting existing collaboration and ways of developing it further can play an important role in displaying to key elements of Civil Society the mutual benefits of working together.

Little is known about existing collaboration and its perception by key actors. This study aims to: Examine the nature of current collaboration between the two elements of civil society; Identify the preconditions for successful collaboration; Explore the potential for the further development of collaboration and develop guidelines for effective collaboration.

Dr Shaimaa Abdelkarim

SRG2223\230590

Mapping the everyday: Egyptian feminist practices and counter hegemonic human rights

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £4,180.00

Abstract: Following the 2011 Egyptian uprising, the Egyptian Civil Code was revised to include regulations on the operations of NGOs and civil society organisations. The revisions monitor the practices of human rights actors and their source of funding and have catalysed international legal debates on their oppressive nature. These have caused significant societal controversy on the role of human rights actors in a formerly colonised setting that operates on an inherent fear of foreign intervention. This research project examines how feminist human rights practices respond to the new regulations and how they contribute to the everyday practices of human rights on an international and national level. The project interviews prominent Egyptian feminists in order to map the function of international human rights law in a nonliberal society and contextualise the impact of their everyday practices in shaping human rights agendas.

Dr Roshan Adhikari

SRG2223\230690

Tackling Irrigation based poverty in South Asia

Nottingham Trent University

Value Awarded: £8,292.25

Abstract: Globally, over a billion people live in water-scarce areas - half reside in South Asia. Access to irrigation is critical in supporting food security for resource-poor households who depend on agriculture for their main source of livelihood. Yet, the ability to effectively design and target agricultural water management interventions is limited by a lack of knowledge on factors driving agricultural water insecurity and links between irrigation access and improved household welfare outcomes. This project addresses these important knowledge gaps by developing a novel framework that explores linkages between determinants of water use and water insecurity as they contribute to poverty. Research will focus on case studies from Southern Nepal, where millions face significant barriers to water access resulting in lower crop yields and high poverty rates. Results will deliver knowledge and tools to inform short- and long-term intensification of irrigated agriculture with significant impact on water security and rural poverty.

Dr Daniel Aguirre

SRG2223\230675

Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence for Business in Myanmar: Developing the Role of Local Stakeholders in Conflict Zones

Roehampton University

Value Awarded: £9,930.00

Abstract: The role and presence of business in conflict affected areas like Myanmar has come under intense scrutiny. Where States are unwilling or unable to protect human rights, the worst business related human rights violations occur. Emerging standards put forward that in high risk areas, heightened due diligence is required, with an expanded range of stakeholders consulted on the conflict as well as human rights impacts. While there is guidance for States and business on how to do so, there is little from the perspective of stakeholders. This research asks, how can legal practitioners with local stakeholders ensure that their rights are asserted through this process? This project builds on the applicant's expertise and networks to convene expert roundtable consultations identifying stakeholder best practice and challenges faced. These will underpin outcomes of an original academic article and a practitioner's handbook that can be adapted to a regional and international context.

Dr Khaldoon Albitar

Co-Applicant: Dr Ali Meftah Gerged

SRG2223\231686

Institutional Mechanisms and Climate Change Risk Disclosures: Evidence From Energy Sector Worldwide

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £5,986.00

Abstract: The energy sector has a great responsibility to achieve sustainable development as this sector is one of the highest contributors to GHG emissions, with about 75-80% of the global GHG emissions. Therefore, this study will introduce a measurement for climate change risk disclosure for energy companies based on a worldwide sample. This study will

also explore the effect of country-level characteristics, including (regulatory framework, country-level governance, logistic performance index (LPI), and culture) on the level of climate change risk disclosure of energy companies worldwide. This project is a necessary first step towards a high-quality climate change reporting and articulating best practice guidelines for addressing climate change in energy sector. Findings from this study will enable stakeholders to have a better understanding of climate change risk disclosure practices. This study will be of interest to policymakers in considering the relevance of current reporting standards in communicating climate change risk disclosure.

Mr Ali Ali

SRG2223\230791

Destination Cyprus: migration and selective sanctuary on Europe's periphery

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £9,986.00

Abstract: Migration and asylum remain important issues in the EU and neighbouring Turkey, especially since 2015’s ‘European refugee-crisis’. While research has emerged about related issues in Turkey, Greece, and Italy, little research exists about Cyprus as a destination country. This is perhaps because of its size. However, it remains an interesting ‘frontline’ state worthy of study. There is ample scholarship about displacement resulting from the 1974 Turkish invasion, but little on Cyprus’ immigration and asylum politics at national and local levels. Importantly, studies of migration that only consider host state perspectives produce very limited understandings. Therefore, not only will Cypriot government officials be interviewed, but so will migrants and refugees from Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. The aim is to understand the politics and histories shaping not only official policies, but the decisions of those who emigrate to Cyprus.

Dr Jennifer Allan

SRG2223\230233

Equity in Global Climate Activism: Discourses and Participation

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £9,999.00

Abstract: Non-governmental organisations are key actors in global climate governance. They scrutinise efforts, push for climate ambition, and diffuse new ideas and norms. Yet, we have little systematic understanding of which NGOs participate. Scholarship to date has focused on their influence while noting inequities between the Global North and South. It has also been shown that smaller NGOs continue to attend, despite the considerable resources participation requires. This research project will address this gap by improving our understanding of NGO participation, both its breadth and depth, and the implications for equity among actors and global climate governance. It will achieve these aims by developing a novel database of NGO participation in UN climate conferences and conducting a discourse analysis of the most active NGOs. Together, these activities will help uncover patterns of participation, which organisations are included and marginalised, and, accordingly, which ideas dominate the discursive space.

Dr Sarah Allen

Co-Applicant: Dr Nikki Carthy

SRG2223\230071

An exploration of barriers and pathways to academic success and psychological well-being among trauma-exposed university students

Northumbria University

Value Awarded: £9,835.99

Abstract: Over 30% of young people in the UK have experienced a traumatic event before reaching 18, an age at which many enter higher education. Previous trauma can increase mental health problems in students and severely impact academic performance. Trauma-informed approaches are designed to foster improvements in academic outcomes, social welfare and the psychological well-being of students. However, research in the area lacks consideration of the student voice which is vital in the development of evidence-based guidance for universities to implement these approaches. The proposed study will explore the challenges students face at university within the context of their past trauma. We aim to conduct qualitative interviews with students over a 6-month period to develop a theoretical model, based on students lived experience, of how higher education can become more trauma-informed. The findings aim to inform policy and practice to advocate for trauma-informed strategies to be embedded into the university curriculum.

Dr Marie Allitt

SRG2223\230470

Fatigue in Modernist Imaginations

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £8,650.00

Abstract: Combining a literary-critical lens with disability studies and medical humanities, this project examines how modern bodies and texts are weighed down by exhaustion and fatigue. ‘Energy limitation,’ a recent concept that clarifies the impact of many chronic illnesses and a useful contemporary theory of fatigue, elucidates modernist accounts of illness. In contrast to discussions of war and trauma in this period, which have so far shaped the discourse around pain and fatigue by focusing on psychic distress and inarticulacy, my project gives greater attention to physical experiences of fatigue and the contemporaneous imperatives for productivity and efficiency. This project improves visibility and understanding of chronic illnesses by identifying the language and meanings around fatigue in the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on the public and private writings of Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence, May Sinclair, Rebecca West, Michael Arlen, Ford Madox Ford, and Winifred Holtby.

Dr Rikke Amundsen

SRG2223\230389

An exploration of male-to-female sexting behaviours and the digital mediation of intimacy, consent, risk, and trust

King's College London

Value Awarded: £5,837.00

Abstract: In line with the increasing digital mediation of our intimate lives, the creating, sending, and receiving of private sexual images and texts – also known as ‘sexting’ – has become a common means to perform intimacy. At the same time, sexting-related practices have generated new forms of abuse, like the typically male act of sending unsolicited genital images to women. Focusing on sexting in the context of male-female relations, this research project takes as its starting point the role of consent in sexting’s potential for both intimacy and harm. Exploring this topic from the perspective of adult men in England, the research

will be grounded in semi-structured interviews, seeking to unpack men’s understandings of intimacy and consent as they sext with women. In doing so, the research will also examine perceptions of risk and trust, and the role that such perceptions might play in shaping adult men’s heterosexual sexting practices.

Professor Sundari Anitha

SRG2223\231376

Violence and abuse in romantic relationships: Understanding the experiences of women and girls in India

University of Lincoln

Value Awarded: £9,998.00

Abstract: The recent surge of research, feminist activism and policy attention to the issue of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in India has scarcely addressed domestic violence and abuse (DVA) within romantic relationships, in a context where such relationships are becoming more commonplace yet attract gendered risks and penalties for women. This timely and original research will address this gap by producing new evidence on women’s and girls’ experiences of DVA within romantic relationships by drawing upon life/relationship history interviews with 25-30 young women, focus groups with 48-64 young women and participant observation of 4 student/community activist groups in Delhi and Bhopal. Findings will primarily benefit (potential) victims/survivors of violence and abuse in romantic relationships, educational institutions, community organisations and activist groups seeking to address issues of SGBV. This study will draw upon and contribute to conceptual debates on gender and violence/DVA; childhood and youth studies; and sociology of relationships.

Dr Jessica Armitage

Co-Applicant: Professor Stephan Collishaw Professor Joseph Murray

SRG2223\230673

Addressing the global challenge of child mental health – a cross-country comparison of temporal change in child emotional and conduct problems in the UK and Brazil

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £6,583.00

Abstract: Child mental health problems are of great concern in low- and middle-income countries (LAMIC), where risk factors are prevalent and evidence-based interventions are sparse. Little is known about how mental health has changed over time for youth living in LAMIC, yet evidence from higher-income settings has revealed substantial increases over the last three decades. This proposal will capitalise on four longitudinal cohorts across Brazil and the UK with comparable measures to test prevalence changes in child emotional and conduct problems over a ten-year period, and whether these are more pronounced in a rapidly changing middle-income setting (Brazil) relative to a higher-income setting (UK). We will explore whether prevalence changes are greater for females, and children from deprived families. This will provide the essential groundwork for a larger grant that tests explanations for population-level changes in mental health, as well as cross-cohort differences in outcomes for children with mental health problems.

Dr Wee Chan Au

Co-Applicant: Ms Sabrina Nourin

SRG2223\230018

Women Entrepreneurs for Climate Resilience: Challenging Norms and Gaining Support

Newcastle University

Value Awarded: £9,771.00

Abstract: Entrepreneurship and active fighting climate change may be a fraught process for women in rural Bangladesh, particularly when they face strong patriarchal norms, institutional voids, resource constraints and limited support. This study aims to understand 1) how women agricultural entrepreneurs obtain different types of support over time from their families and communities and 2) how support-seeking contributes to identity processes and well-being. These research questions will be addressed through a longitudinal inductive study that combines interviews (involves 30 women agricultural entrepreneurs and ten other stakeholders within their communities), observation, and archival data. This multi-source investigation will contribute to knowledge on a poorly understood and largely untapped research area, namely the emerging stream of research on community and entrepreneurship, by specifically investigating communities of place, identity, and practice as distinct and how support is sought and obtained (or not). It will be relevant to women entrepreneurs, support organizations, and policymakers.

Dr Grace Augustine

Co-Applicant: Dr Jan Stephen Lodge Dr Mislav Radic

SRG2223\230700

The Horizon IT Scandal: How individuals and groups fight accusations based on disputed technological faults at work

University of Bath

Value Awarded: £9,037.60

Abstract: What happens when people’s words are pitted against technologies? The Post Office Horizon IT Scandal offers a window into this question, as hundreds of sub-postmasters were accused of false accounting and theft based on what we now know to be faults in an IT system. However, it took over a decade for the tide of public opinion to turn in favour of these individuals. In the enclosed, we are applying for funding to collect and analyse interviews with key informants, media articles, and public inquiry documents, in order to understand the process by which these accusations were able to persist for so long but were also eventually overturned. Our work aims to undercover the organisational and societal processes by which individuals, who are often employees or arms-length contractors, can fight these types of accusations. With workers increasingly guided and “assisted” by technology, this question is timely and of utmost importance.

Professor Kristin Bakke

Co-Applicant: Dr Kit Rickard

SRG2223\231259

Contentious rituals and intergroup relations: Parading in Northern Ireland

University College London (UCL)

Value Awarded: £9,960.25

Abstract: Every year over 150 parades in Northern Ireland have the potential to raise community tensions. This Project aims to understand how these contentious rituals shape intergroup relations. We argue that while parades cultivate social memory that fosters

ingroup favouritism, they are detrimental to intergroup relations through a provocation mechanism. We propose a mixed-methods research design. First, we will conduct fieldwork during the Twelfth of July celebrations, including participant observation of sensitive parades and interviews with residents who live along their routes. Second, we will geo-code sensitive parades that occurred during the summer of 2022 and combine this data with an original survey to statistically test the causal effect of parades on intergroup mixing. The Project will have important implications beyond Northern Ireland. Indeed, the mechanisms are likely to apply to groups—be they ethnic, political, or state-like—that engage in ritual commemorations that celebrate past glories over present outgroups.

Dr Christopher Barrie

SRG2223\230865

Measuring Human Attention with Clone Social Media Environments

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,999.36

Abstract: The measurement of online human attention–how users of information technologies consume information online–is beset by many methodological challenges. Conventionally, in order to measure attention to a particular piece of information, we use engagement statistics provided by the client. These might be "likes," "retweets" or similar. However, whether these public engagement statistics accurately measure human attention to–and consumption of–online information is an open question. As one example, it could be that, although we tend to like and share things we agree with online, we pay more attention to content we disagree with. This proposal outlines a pilot project designed to measure the consumption of online information using a series of clone social media environments paired with add-ons that measure how a user actually interacts with information on the screen. Among other things, experimental interventions will test whether, when exposed to disagreeable content, we spend more or less time reading it.

Dr Adrian Barton

Co-Applicant: Dr Gregory Borne

SRG2223\230227

Exploring rural living as a barrier to accessing substance use services

Bournemouth University

Value Awarded: £3,398.30

Abstract: 'Levelling up' may be viewed as political rhetoric, but it resonated with the general public, the media and some of the politcal classes. However, levelling up is generally taken to mean addressing disparity between regions of the United Kingdom and not between and across geo-political spaces, such as that between the urban and rural. We argue this is a mistake as inequality manifests itself in the urban/rural divide thus needing immediate attention.This project proposes to examine the lived experience of front-line workers and their clients, living and working in rural areas to see if an urban-centric policy framework 'works' in a rural setting and what, if any, adjustments clients and workers need to make in order to maximise provision. It will conduct a series of qualitative interviews with workers and clients from substance use agencies as well as providing a full scope of existing 'rural proofed' (DEFRA 2020) policy advice.

Dr Jonathan Bashi Rudahindwa

SRG2223\230717

Public Authority and the Governance of Informal Cross-Border Trade in Eastern DRC

London School of Economics and Political Science

Value Awarded: £9,339.43

Abstract: This research seeks to highlight the importance of designing good trade policies that take into account informal trade flows, which may allow these trade flows to be brought under the umbrella of regional trade policies. Building on pre-existing research, the project will use the case study of small cross-border traders in Eastern DRC to explore border dynamics in informal cross-border trade, including exogenous and endogenous forces and multiple layers of public authority influencing this trade. Focusing on the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Simplified Trade Regime (STR) – a regional trade policy designed to help small cross-border traders benefit from the preferential tariffs applicable between the COMESA Member States – the proposed research will examine the need for good institutional design of regional trade policies that are better adjusted to the particular circumstances of their targeted beneficiaries, and thus, have a broader coverage of trade agreements.

Dr Mongoljin Batsaikhan

Co-Applicant: Dr Shagata Mukherjee

SRG2223\231388

Household Bargaining Differences in Matrilineal and Patrilineal Societies

Middlesex University

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: While development aid programs like microfinance and cash transfer aim to empower women, the effect is often mixed. However, the previous studies have looked at traditional patrilineal societies only, and the existing low bargaining power of women in these societies might be the reason why these programs are ineffective. In this project, we study household bargaining in two neighbouring societies in India- the Khasi and Karbi tribes. They co-exist in close geographic proximity with similar socio-economic characteristics; yet differ in inheritance norms: Khasi is matrilineal while Karbi is patrilineal. We hypothesise this difference generates gender differences in bargaining, thus different efficiency levels. We measure the bargaining power and efficiency by an incentivised experiment and assess how income observability affects efficiency. This study will build a foundation for a larger field experiment where microfinance is distributed for these tribes and contribute to the literature on household bargaining and gender in development.

Dr Samuel Beatson

SRG2223\231663

Valuation & Securitisation of Natural Capital Assets - UK and Singapore

University of Nottingham

Value Awarded: £8,576.13

Abstract: Natural capital (environmental) assets require finance for protection from damage and depletion. Environmental and economic research has begun demonstrating the potential value of such assets’ service capabilities (e.g. Koh et al, 2021), and value drivers, like size, location, and ecosystem service functions, e.g. carbon storage. This research will develop valuation methods for natural capital assets which can aid securitisation—investment in the assets by businesses. It will focus on two vastly differing biomes, with concomitant variation in landscape features, sharing however, commonalities in strong economic development and policy ambition to tackle climate change, in addition to challenges in engaging the market, namely, the UK and Singapore. More specifically, an in-depth review of multi-disciplinary literature including valuation approaches, a series of cross-discipline interviews and the development of an economic valuation tool will help policymakers, researchers and practitioners aiming to stimulate a vibrant ESCG-linked securities market to better understand how to value NCAs.

Dr Anna Beck

Co-Applicant: Dr Denise Mifsud

SRG2223\230482

Teacher engagement in the National Discussion: an exploration of consultation as a form of democratic policymaking in Scotland

University of Glasgow

Value Awarded: £9,998.00

Abstract: This original and timely project provides a critical examination of a landmark moment in Scottish education: the National Discussion (ND), with a specific focus on teacher participation. While consultation can offer a structure through which teachers can share their views, it does not guarantee that their voices will be heard or that they will have influence. We scrutinise this assumption by taking a qualitative approach to explore teachers’ experiences of participation and stakeholders’ views of the process. Methods include policy discourse analysis, social media analysis, focus groups with teachers and interviews conducted with headteachers and policymakers. We use Lundy’s (2007) model of participation and Priestley, Biesta and Robinson’s (2013) ecological model of teacher agency to develop a holistic understanding of participation. The overarching objective of this project is to identify factors that enable and restrict teacher agency in national education reform, an issue that remains largely undocumented in the literature.

Dr Daniel Bedford

Co-Applicant: Dr Philip Bremner Mr Karl Mason

SRG2223\230373

Vulnerable Adults and the Inherent Jurisdiction: Exploring Safeguarding Practice

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £9,726.00

Abstract: Local authorities can seek to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court to safeguard a category of ‘vulnerable adults’ who do not lack capacity for the purposes of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. However, findings from Safeguarding Adult Reviews suggest that local authorities have not always effectively used the inherent jurisdiction to protect vulnerable adults. The purpose of this small-scale, exploratory pilot study is to explore how the inherent jurisdiction is understood in adult safeguarding practice and the extent to which decision-making on whether to seek authorisation from the High Court for protective measures is supported by case law, policies, procedures, and guidance. This will enable the development of a larger project identifying potential improvements in the legal literacy of safeguarding practitioners, and in the decision-making frameworks within which they operate, to promote better protection of vulnerable adults who fall within the scope of the inherent jurisdiction.

Dr Christos Begkos

Co-Applicant: Dr Katerina Antonopoulou

SRG2223\231302

Cross-platform commensuration practices

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: In today’s digital world, consumers have access to a plethora of digital platforms, each offering their own set of rankings, ratings and reviews. Such judgement devices influence what we buy, where we eat, how we travel, how we are entertained, how we consume. Yet, their construction varies between platforms and their legitimacy may be questioned, thus complicating cross-platform comparisons, and potentially leading to information overload, analysis paralysis and escalating indecision. First, this proposed research aims to identify the commensuration practices that platform users engage upon to compare, simplify and make sense of disparate and potentially conflicting judgement devices across multiple platforms. Second, it aims to identify platform users’ evaluative practices that aim to assess the credibility and legitimacy of judgement devices and platforms. In doing so, this proposed research plans to frame how platform users consolidate knowledge across multiple platforms, and how legitimacy is perceived and constructed in digital settings.

Dr Macarena Beltran

Co-Applicant: Professor Benny Tjahjono

SRG2223\231665

An agent-based modelling simulation on nudging recycling behaviour for novel materials: A case study for bioplastics.

Coventry University

Value Awarded: £8,450.00

Abstract: This project examines in what ways a nudge recycling campaign influences the disposal behaviour of bioplastics in higher education (HE). Bioplastics represent an example of a product, which despite its environmental benefits, ends up in landfills and incinerators due to a lack of waste disposal options for consumers. A "green" nudge campaign was launched by UNEP in 2020 for HE institutions, a sector with 208.6 million students worldwide (average of 2.67t CO2e per student). Behavioural interventions, however, are not always straightforward and typically focus on conventional plastics.

This research will test and estimate the potential of a nudging recycling intervention on bioplastic disposal in an enclosed setting (educational/workplace) by coupling social experiments with an agent-based model. Coventry University will be used as an "open laboratory" to conduct the study, allowing qualitative data to be collected (observational and interview data). These data are critical for simulating and calibrating recycling behaviour scenarios.

Dr Nicola Bermingham

Co-Applicant: Dr Renée DePalma

SRG2223\230751

Monolingual Schools in Multilingual Societies: rethinking language and education in Cape Verde

University of Liverpool

Value Awarded: £9,390.00

Abstract: The aim of the project is to bring into focus the challenges and opportunities in ensuring access to inclusive and equitable education in multilingual, post-colonial contexts. The language policies of many African post-colonies are rooted in monolingualism, and local languages (and therefore forms of knowledge) are often excluded from formal education. This has implications for access to and participation in education, and raises broader questions about social mobility and social justice. This project takes Cape Verde as a useful nexus to examine these issues. It draws on scholarship and methods from Sociolinguistics to develop a holistic understanding of how the education system operates as a site for the reproduction and contestation of inequality. Language cuts across social and economic concerns, yet it rarely features at the forefront of sustainable development debates. This project offers a new perspective by placing language centre-stage and adding a much-needed humanities approach to development discourse.

Dr Kalyan Bhandari

SRG2223\231235

Covenanting heritage tourism in Scotland

University of the West of Scotland

Value Awarded: £7,757.00

Abstract: Scholars have argued that tourism resources in Scotland are largely the product of history. However, despite being one of the prominent historical resources in the southwest of Scotland, Covenanting memorials do not appear in the tourism imagery of Scotland. This is interesting as there has been an increased interest in the sites of deaths, atrocities and disasters as tourism attractions in the last two decades. This study attempts to examine the dialogues that explain the invisibility of Covenanting memorials of the southwest region in Scottish tourism. It applies qualitative methodology and data will be collected through open ended questions, interviews, field observations, a workshop with tourism stakeholders and regional policy makers (N=75). The study will help enrich the conceptual understanding of the relation between death, atrocities, religion and tourism and explore the possibility of developing Covenanting memorials as heritage tourism attractions in Scotland.

Dr Jayeeta Bhattacharya

Co-Applicant: Professor Emmanuel Guerre

SRG2223\230631

Partially functional quantile regression models: specification testing, efficient estimation, and practical implementation

University of Southampton

Value Awarded: £9,707.42

Abstract: Quantile regression (QR) allows investigating the varying effects of explanatory variables on the response variable according to the latter’s quantile level, unlike conventional mean-based methods that assume the average effect to govern at all quantiles. Regression models in practice usually display ‘partially functional effects’: a mix of some covariates exerting a constant effect across quantiles, and some exerting a quantile-varying effect. While mean-based methods cannot recover the quantile variations, presenting an incomplete picture of covariate effects, traditional QR ignores any commonality information across quantiles, estimating the model at each quantile separately even in absence of quantile variations, thus causing efficiency loss. This project aims to develop advanced techniques for partially functional QR models, comprising significant contributions at the frontier of econometrics research: detecting the presence of dual constant and quantile-varying effects in QR models; efficient model-estimation based on utilising any commonality information; and creating readily available software-codes for practical implementation.

Dr Sophie Bishop

Co-Applicant: Dr Catalina Goanta

SRG2223\230458

Advertorial Regulation and Influencer Cultures

University of Leeds

Value Awarded: £8,708.00

Abstract: Many professional content creators (influencers) do not appropriately label sponsored content as marketing communications. Due to the scope and heterogeneity of the influencer market, large-scale research within this area is impractical and challenging. Our project seeks to redress these limitations using in-depth qualitative methods to gain a holistic understanding of the challenges that are experienced by influencers in their working lives. Our proposed project seeks to understand the ways in which influencers understand advertising law, and the barriers they experience in complying with this regulation. We propose two creative research workshops to facilitate knowledge exchange between academics, influencers and key stakeholders within marketing industries. As an interdisciplinary research partnership from Sociology/ Media Studies and Law, we believe this is an area of significant importance, with lack of transparency related to commercial messaging on social media platforms holding implications for Internet entrepreneurs, consumer protection, and democratic communication more broadly.

Dr Elizabeth Braithwaite

Co-Applicant: Professor Rebecca Pearson

SRG2223\230067

The mounting pressure of the 'breast is best' message: Impact of breastfeeding difficulties on mental health in new mothers

Manchester Metropolitan University

Value Awarded: £9,899.50

Abstract: Two critical societal challenges are high rates of postnatal depression and low rates of exclusive breastfeeding, both of which have adverse impacts on child development and long-term economic costs. Public health messaging, awareness and support for both breastfeeding and mental health has substantially changed over the past decade. Expectations to breastfeed are at their highest, amid rising mental health problems in women, exacerbated further by the pandemic. Women who are depressed are less likely to breastfeed, however there is limited understanding of the reverse association: i.e., whether breastfeeding difficulties can impact maternal mental health. This research proposal directly addresses this evidence gap, combining large survey data with interviews to further knowledge of the relationship between breastfeeding difficulties and mental health. Understanding the psychological impact of breastfeeding difficulties is a critical first step toward identifying intervention/prevention targets to both support breastfeeding and maternal mental health in a changing context.

Dr Kaz Brandt

Co-Applicant: Dr Marco Sandrini

SRG2223\230767

Exploring the contribution of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on memory familiarity enhancement using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)

University of Roehampton

Value Awarded: £9,990.24

Abstract: A wealth of research supports the differential brain correlates associated with recollection and familiarity memory and shown how they are differentially affected by dementia and ageing. The current focus is exploring how these processes might be enhanced in such populations to improve cognitive health. The use of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has recently demonstrated success in enhancing recollective processes, yet whether tDCS can be used to enhance familiarity processes is unexplored. The aim of the proposed research is to address this knowledge gap by exploring whether tDCS can enhance familiarity when used over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in healthy older adults. This research will therefore make a first step in establishing a causal role of the left DLPFC in familiarity and explore whether tDCS might be a useful tool in enhancing this type of memory in dementia patients.

Dr Louise Brangan

Co-Applicant: Dr Colette Barry

SRG2223\230206

Penal Transformation in Ireland 1970-2010: The Prison Officers’ Perspective

University of Strathclyde

Value Awarded: £9,720.16

Abstract: Recent decades have seen studies of change in penal systems come to the forefront of scholarship on punishment. Much of this research has presented broad, top-down analyses, with histories of penal change rarely focused on life inside the prison, and hardly ever understood from the perspective of prison officers, who not only hold the power to punish, but who also translate penal policy into everyday reality within prison walls. To address these deficits in knowledge, we will explore the changing nature of punishment in Ireland from the perspective of prison officers who worked during 1970-2010, a period which is widely considered to be a critical time of penal transformation. We will use archival and oral history methods to uncover prison officers’ experiences and perceptions across 1970-2010, enabling us to trace Ireland’s penal transformation during 1970-2010 from the inside, informed by the views of those who embodied penal power within prisons.

Professor Chris Brewster

Co-Applicant: Professor Jean-Luc Cerdin

SRG2223\231670

Highly Skilled Migrants: Testing the Theory of Motivation to Integrate

University of Reading

Value Awarded: £8,725.00

Abstract: The integration of qualified migrants is important for the migrants themselves, for their organisations and their societies. We aim to operationalize the variables in a model we developed (Cerdin, Abdeljalil-Diné & Brewster, C. 2014) and to go beyond subjective integration (life satisfaction, job satisfaction and career success), incorporating objective integration and performance outcomes. We will develop a quantitative study, with double source data (the immigrants and their managers) – and, if possible, with a longitudinal

design. This research is also going to study immigrants beyond France, including the UK, North America (Canada and the USA) and probably Spain.

We will hire a commercial survey company, Qualtrics, to conduct the study. They will guarantee to get sufficient results from specified populations of respondents. We will write up the results thereafter.

Dr Peter Brooke

SRG2223\231109

Radio Revolution in Southern Africa, 1940-1990

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £8,584.00

Abstract: ‘Radio Revolution in Southern Africa, 1940-1990’ is the first regional study of the history of radio in southern Africa. It uses innovative methodological approaches to make a major contribution to the scholarship on the global history of mass media. The project argues that the arrival of radio had a transformative and distinctive impact on politics, society and culture thanks to the region’s unique history of violent and prolonged decolonisation. My research analyses the transformation of radio from an elite luxury to a mass medium, beginning in the 1940s and culminating in the 1980s. It has three central themes: first, that radio culture was unusually transnational in the region; second, that the experience of listening was deeply gendered; and third that radio culture was profoundly shaped by the process of decolonization. I will use oral history interviews, sound recordings and written archives located in the region.

Sam Buchan-Watts

Co-Applicant: Dr Lucy Mercer

SRG2223\230584

Poetry and Indiscipline

Newcastle University

Value Awarded: £9,410.45

Abstract: A collaborative interdisciplinary project that explores how contemporary poetry and poetic practices intersect with critical theory and visual cultures. Centred around the concept of ‘indiscipline’, this project asks: how does contemporary poetics both draw on and challenge other disciplines formally and conceptually? What kinds of critical thinking and contributions are offered by these practices? What are the relations between critical poetics, the publishing industry and institutional structures? What methodological approaches to poetic forms of indiscipline might best reflect their own tacit refusal of established frameworks? The project’s case studies will be the work of eight understudied contemporary anglophone poets who have influential interdisciplinary practices and draw extensively from other fields: Bhanu Kapil, Denise Riley, Fanny Howe, Renee Gladman, Andrea Brady, M. NourbeSe Philip, Nathaniel Mackey and Rachel Zolf. This project approaches its subjects using diverse methodologies: through interviews in a podcast series, a collaborative journal article and workshops in 2023-24.

Professor Mustafa Caglayan

Co-Applicant: Professor Firat Demir

SRG2223\230252

Dead Souls: A cross country investigation of fatal and non-fatal work-related accidents

Heriot-Watt University

Value Awarded: £9,411.88

Abstract: According to the ILO, every year over 350,000 women and men die at work due to fatal accidents while an additional 2 million lives are lost due to fatal work-related diseases. The human cost of this adversity is high and difficult to measure as it affects employers, employees, and their families. However, despite its universal aspect, research on work-related accidents is limited. Different from the literature, this study will examine firstly the role of international institutions, mainly focusing on the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and secondly the impact of macroeconomic, political, sociological factors (the state of the economy, export structure, labour force (male, female, migrant), political turnover, human capital index, income distribution, and religiosity) on work-related fatal and non-fatal accidents by using an annual cross-country panel data. Our empirical methodology accounts for policy and conditionality heterogeneity across countries and time, and for the endogeneity of the IMF programs and conditions.

Professor Mitchell Callan

Co-Applicant: Dr N. Will Shead

SRG2223\230913

Personal Relative Deprivation and Mental Health Difficulties: The Buffering Role of Dispositional Mindfulness

University of Bath

Value Awarded: £8,272.20

Abstract: Personal relative deprivation refers to resentment stemming from the belief that one is deprived of a desired and deserved outcome compared with some referent (e.g., what similar others have). Research has demonstrated a robust link between personal relative deprivation and mental health difficulties. There has, however, been surprisingly little research into the psychological factors that might diminish the deleterious effects of personal relative deprivation on mental health. To address this gap, we propose to investigate mindfulness--a conscious awareness of one’s experiences in the present moment with a non-judgemental and accepting outlook--as one such protective factor. The proposed research will further understanding by investigating the buffering role of dispositional mindfulness in (1) the effects of unfavourable social comparisons on resentment and perceived unfairness, (2) the relationship between personal relative deprivation and negative emotional symptoms, and (3) the way people respond to daily, within-person changes in personal relative deprivation and negative emotions.

Dr Maria Cannon

SRG2223\231421

Blending the Family: Affection, Obligation and Dynasty in Early Modern English Stepfamilies

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £6,516.85

Abstract: The ‘blended family’ of full, half and step-siblings and parents is often assumed to be a distinctively modern phenomenon, born of divorce and relationship breakdown. But the high mortality rates made it relatively commonplace in earlier periods too. While early-modern family aspirations might be framed by idealised conceptions of patriarchal and dynastic authority and descent, groups at all levels of society wrestled with the practical and

emotional realities of more complex circumstances. This project, analysing the correspondence of several sixteenth-century blended families, is the first to drill into the detail of how individuals with differing connections of power and affection defined themselves and their relations, and strove to balance individual and collective desires and aspirations for security and success. In a contemporary context of increasing prevalence of blended families, this original study will illuminate their long-term history, and centrality to the lived experience of all sections of society.

Professor Giovanni Capoccia

Co-Applicant: Professor Isabela Mares

SRG2223\230770

Back from the Brink: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £9,900.00

Abstract: The literature on the current crisis of liberal democracies has paid substantial attention to the causes of democratic backsliding and the rise of illiberalism. However, analyses of potential responses to preserve liberal democracy--by governments, parties, civil society actors, and individual voters--are significantly less developed, and the existing literature is scattered across different subfields. This project brings together scholars of institutions, policy making, party systems, social movements, and voting behaviour to investigate the conditions for the viability and effectiveness of political, social and institutional responses to illiberalism in liberal democracies.

Dr Filipe Carreira da Silva

SRG2223\230092

Decolonising Humanism

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,246.63

Abstract: Decolonising Humanism is a study of decolonisation. It examines a worldmaking yet neglected episode in decolonisation’s intellectual history: the anticolonial critique of humanism. According to the standard account, the crisis of humanism and the emergence of antihumanism in the postwar period is a direct result of the devastation suffered by Europe in the Second World War and the anticolonial critique plays at best an external and secondary role. This reinforces rather than questions the racialised hierarchical ordering of the postwar period, including its hagiographical historiography. Instead, Decolonising Humanism posits that anticolonial thinkers and leaders spearheaded the crisis of humanism through their narratives of anticolonial founding. By theorising the end of colonialism and the beginning of the postcolony, these anticolonial narratives critiqued humanism in ways that still retain much of their relevance today. Debates on the Anthropocene, in particular, are likely to benefit from bringing power back into the analysis.

Dr Simon Carrignon

Co-Applicant: Dr Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau Dr Enrico Ryunosuke Crema

SRG2223\230262

Archaeoriddle: A collaborative game to improve archaeological inference

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £9,644.00

Abstract: Archaeoriddle is a collaborative project aiming to evaluate the robustness of archaeological inference through the quantitative analyses of a simulated, virtual archaeological dataset. In a first part of the project we created a virtual world where a population of farmers expands and replaces an incumbent population of hunter-gatherers while generating a virtual archaeological dataset.

In a second part researchers will be invited to analyse the simulated data and infer what process occurred after downloading the simulated dataset publicly available through an online website.

Applicants will send their results and discuss their findings in a workshop where the full original processes will be unveiled, allowing us to compare and contrast the different methodologies proposed. The workshop will produce a publication detailing the results of the project, and offering a platform for critically rethinking the current state of archaeological inference and promote the use of open, collaborative and reproducible research in archaeology.

Dr Gary Chapman

Co-Applicant: Dr Lorna Treanor

SRG2223\230366

The Gender Financing Gap in STEM Entrepreneurship

University of Nottingham

Value Awarded: £8,973.93

Abstract: A gender financing gap exists whereby women entrepreneurs are less likely to receive financing and receive less than males. We know little however, about how the gender financing gap varies across different sectors or between academic and private ventures, or how it may be attenuated within different organisational contexts. We will advance a more nuanced understanding by using quantitative data to explore the gender finance gap in government financial support for women academic entrepreneurs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. STEM ventures are critical for economic development and operate in highly masculinised, radical, and uncertain fields that create novel conditions for examining the gender finance gap. We will further examine how university affiliation and diversity charter status can reduce the gender financing gap facing UK women academic entrepreneurs. In so doing, the research will provide novel evidence to inform policy and practice to better support women STEM entrepreneurs.

Dr Aleena Chia

SRG2223\231296

Automation in the Creative Workplace: Stratification of Artistic Labour in British Digital Game Production

Goldsmiths, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,222.18

Abstract: This project investigates automation’s impact on equity, diversity, and inclusion in digital game production. It examines everyday working conditions – whether automation within software environments changes how artists are managed, and if this is stratified by technical and artistic expertise in relation to race, class, and gender. It analyses whether these stratifications impact rhythms and routines of the creative process in networked

software environments. This project conducts qualitative interviews with content artists and technical artists who manage them in the videogames industry hub of Guildford, Surrey. Far from revolutionary, the automation of creative industries is routine – directed towards efficient production rather than innovation. Research on the automation of creativity addresses invisible labour, cultural standardisation, and artistic attribution, but overlooks the granularity of the creative process. Examining automation’s stratified impact on technical artistry and artistic ideation, this project contributes to understanding present inequities in creative work and its future redress.

Dr Noleen Chikowore

SRG2223\230095

Who has the right to the city? Experiencing the everydayness of street vendors’ urban livelihood resilience

University of St Andrews

Value Awarded: £9,996.30

Abstract: City authorities acknowledge and contest the presence of street vendors in the urban streets of Zimbabwe. Yet, street vendors have represented a significant share of the urban informal economy since the 1990s. Economic hardships and political instability have seen different social identities engaging in street vending as a livelihood strategy. However, the livelihood opportunities and challenges of street vending based on social identities remain poorly understood. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic added another complex shock to street vendors’ livelihoods which remains understudied. Hence, the study aims to investigate the assets of street vendors that enable them to engage in their livelihood activity, assess the factors that contribute to street vendors’ vulnerability and examine how they cope and develop resilience in their urban livelihoods in Harare, pre and post-COVID-19. The study findings will identify possible development interventions to build more inclusive cities and enhance human security in urban environments.

Dr Stefano Cirella

Co-Applicant: Dr Beatrice Piccoli

SRG2223\231642

Enhancing Collective Creativity in Contexts of Job Insecurity

University of Essex

Value Awarded: £8,955.80

Abstract: A growing number of organisations rely heavily on creativity to enhance their capacity for generating new ideas. In several industries, there is a common necessity to integrate knowledge and skills available in different parts of an organisation to develop new products or improve processes. Despite a wealth of studies, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding and cross-disciplinary integration about how creativity can be supported within organisations during difficult and insecure times. This project sheds light on this area by investigating organisational competencies and practices to enhance collective creativity in contexts of job insecurity. We will develop (i) a literature review to identify specific gaps; this evidence will be the input for the (ii) design and (iii) development of empirical dimensions (collaborative research approach); (iv) interpretation of results will be the last phase. The project will also provide specific managerial guidelines to support creativity in job insecurity contexts.

Professor Stephen Coleman

SRG2223\231287

Election phone-ins: national conversation or dialogue of the deaf?

University of Leeds

Value Awarded: £9,476.00

Abstract: Since 1974 the BBC has broadcast national phone-ins in the lead-up to general elections. The BBC regards them as important moments of public-service broadcasting in which something approaching a ‘national conversation’ can take place before citizens vote. In the run-up to the next election BBC Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell Show, which will also be simulcast on BBC television, will provide a forum for pre-electoral debate. The proposed research involves i) monitoring the show between mid-2023 and the next election date with a view to tracing the various forms of argument and expressions of feeling that constitute the contemporary democratic conversation; and ii) recruiting a panel of callers to the show who are also regular listeners and exploring their openness to arguments and feelings that are different from their own. My broad research question asks whether the BBC’s flagship election phone-in play a role in widening its listeners’ perspectives.

Dr Kieran Connell

SRG2223\230682

The Rushdie Affair and the Making of Multicultural Britain

Queen's University Belfast

Value Awarded: £8,370.00

Abstract: The controversy following the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) is widely recognised a pivotal moment in the history of multicultural Britain. But understandings of the Rushdie Affair have hitherto been reliant on journalists, sociologists and literary critics. This project provides the first archival history of the Rushdie Affair. It analyses the large body of material held in Rushdie’s archive to locate The Satanic Verses in the wider climate of 1980s and 90s Britain, a period that is only beginning to be interrogated by historians. Without analysis of the roots of the Affair, its legacy cannot be fully comprehended. By taking a conjunctural approach that situates the Affair in relation to the social, cultural and political transformations brought about by post-colonial immigration, the project will reshape our understanding of Britain’s emergence as a multicultural society.

Professor Mark Connelly

SRG2223\230276

Seasons in stone: Englishness, the work of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the memory of the First World War.

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,928.00

Abstract: The cemeteries and memorials of designed and built by the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) after the First World War have moved and amazed visitors over the last hundred years, and their architectural and horticultural beauty has received much praise and is the subject of many books. However, the enigma of what make these commemorative sites such atmospheric, engaging and, even, uplifting places has not yet been satisfactorily explored or explained. This study will argue that to understand fully the work of the IWGC and its lasting impact, it needs to be placed within the wider context of what might be termed the 'English imagination' of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. It will argue that there were particular English concepts of time, place, landscape, travel and mortality. This

created a dominant cultural idiom which infused the work of the architects and horticulturalists who oversaw the IWGC's massive construction project.

Professor Mark Cornwall

SRG2223\230827

Surveillance and the Czech Security Police: Prague in 1989

University of Southampton

Value Awarded: £9,227.00

Abstract: This is a study of surveillance by the secret police (StB) in Czechoslovakia during the final days of communism. While the ‘Velvet revolution’ of November 1989 has been carefully documented, much less has been written about how the state authorities tried to control dissent earlier in the year. The Czech State Security Archive in Prague provides open access to all files of the secret police, offering a major opportunity for the historian to analyse the machinery of surveillance, its methods and efficiency. The project focuses on three types of people ensnared in the StB network: (1) targets of surveillance (especially foreigners); (2) informers of different calibres; (3) StB employees, especially those in ‘Section IV’ which specialized in surveillance. Through close scrutiny of surviving files, the aim is to reconstruct the operational routines and rationale of the secret police in order to understand better why the communist regime collapsed in 1989.

Dr Simone Corsi

Co-Applicant: Dr Vidya Sukumara Panicker

SRG2223\230776

Reversing the gear: Corporate governance determinants of reverse innovation in the Indian pharmaceutical industry

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £8,788.40

Abstract: Following the rise of emerging economies in the global innovation landscape, scholars have identified the phenomenon of reverse innovation, viz., innovation first developed and adopted in emerging economies, as a significant, ongoing phenomenon. However, the determinants and antecedents of reverse innovation at a micro-level remain largely unexplored. This research aims to partially fill this gap by exploring the impact of corporate governance characteristics on the reverse innovation performance of Indian pharmaceutical firms. This will be accomplished by creating and analysing a unique dataset that combines corporate ownership data with US-India patent dyads data to investigate this relationship. The findings from this study will have several implications for different stakeholders. This will include managers of multinational corporations that need to defend their positions or want to be globally competitive, investors aiming to manage their portfolio and policymakers in emerging economies who wish to foster international innovation of their domestic companies.

Dr Tony Craig

SRG2223\230242

A History of the Information Services of the Northern Ireland Office 1972-1998

Staffordshire University

Value Awarded: £8,375.00

Abstract: The proposed research will assess the effectiveness of state information produced and disseminated by the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) from its creation in 1972 until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. During this time, information products were consistently created and distributed to regional, national and international audiences, for both public and private consumption. Products included radio, newsprint, and TV advertisements along with briefing materials, books and even news copy. The research will identify and evaluate the extent to which such products established hegemonic narratives in line with NIO policy thereby harnessing political power and making an important contribution to the early peace process in Northern Ireland. It is anticipated that this work will complicate contemporary debates about the relevance of force in Northern Ireland, illustrating the developing sophistication of state soft power along with its effectiveness and utility at an important moment in the history of Northern Ireland.

Dr Jonathan Cranfield

SRG2223\231126

Print Culture in the Shadow of Silent Cinema

Liverpool John Moores University

Value Awarded: £2,415.66

Abstract: Cinema changed the business of writing forever. In the early twentieth century, novelists, journalists and essayists suddenly found themselves writing for readers whose expectations had been transformed by their experiences of cinema. Debates raged about whether film would first supplant the novel, the daily newspaper or the illustrated magazine. In fact, cinema devoured them all whole and helped to propagate a new, globalized culture industry by canalizing American popular culture directly to British audiences. This project and its resulting monograph will research and collate the experiences of writers, publishers, readers and filmmakers as film and print culture became interdependent: from the days of early film until the coming of sound in the late 1920s.

Dr Andrew Crome

SRG2223\230099

Philosemitism and Emotion in 19th Century British Evangelicalism

Manchester Metropolitan University

Value Awarded: £5,058.00

Abstract: This project examines the contested category of Christian “philosemitism” in mid-nineteenth-century Britain, a period often identified as the height of “philosemitic” feeling. It aims to challenge simplistic binaries between anti- and philosemitism by exploring the range of ways that Christians in the period were encouraged to experience “love” for the Jewish people. This research therefore advocates moving from looking at non-Jewish attitudes to Jews primarily through the lens of intellectual history, to viewing them within the context of the history of emotions. This explores the ways in which different groups of Christians experienced and demonstrated their “love” for Jews, and how different modes of feeling towards Jews became essential markers of difference between Christian groups. The research will therefore contribute to debates on definitions of anti- and philosemitism, Jewish-Christian relations in historical context, and the role of emotions in encounters between different faith groups.

Matteo Crotti

Co-Applicant: Professor Michael Duncan Dr Lorayne Woodfield

SRG2223\230965

Pilot of a teacher training intervention to deliver student-centred motor learning pedagogical approaches and improve primary school children’s motor competence and motivation in physical education

Coventry University

Value Awarded: £9,514.54

Abstract: Motor competence (MC) development during childhood is positively associated with benefits for children’s physical, psychological and cognitive development, yet many children fail to develop adequate MC for their age. Physical Education (PE) has been recognised as a key setting to improve MC. Nevertheless, many children undergo negative experiences during PE that can adversely affect their motivation towards PE and consequently their MC development. Furthermore, primary school teachers tasked to deliver PE often report a lack of confidence and competence to effectively deliver PE. A key strategy to tackle these problems on a large scale would be to develop online, professional development training for primary school teachers. Therefore, this project seeks to implement a pilot trial to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of an online teacher training intervention targeting teacher’s competence in delivering student-centred pedagogical approaches that focus on improving MC and motivation in primary school children.

Dr Ian Cushing

Co-Applicant: Professor Viv Ellis

SRG2223\230651

The affective dimensions of teacher education policy reform: narratives of deviance, compliance, and resistance

Manchester Metropolitan University

Value Awarded: £7,060.00

Abstract: Since the 1980s, university-based initial teacher education (ITE) in England has faced existential threats via a succession of policies designed to delegitimise the work of teacher educators. These policies have become increasingly prescriptive since 2010, with the government seeking to disrupt university-based ITE infrastructure and require that teacher educators show complicity with the state’s ideological positions on what constitutes ‘quality’ education. Despite the scale of changes to the ITE sector, there is an absence of research on the affective dimensions of ITE policy. Our research will address this, by facilitating focus groups with teacher educators across England. These groups will provide a space where teacher educators will be invited to discuss the effects of policy on their professional lives. Our work will build new theory in policy sociology by exploring how, for the first time, national changes to ITE policy have positioned teacher educators as compliant, deviant, and resistant.

Dr Moudwe Daga

SRG2223\231410

The Colonial Hero in the City: Understanding the Appropriation/Contestation of the Savorgnan de Brazza Mausoleum in the Republic of Congo

School of Oriental and African Studies

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: This project explores how the evocation of colonial history through the Savorgnan de Brazza Mausoleum in the Congo shapes popular attachment of Congolese citizens to their state. I undertake the research against the backdrop of the contestation of colonial memorials around the world, especially in anglophone Africa, while colonial legacy in francophone Africa remains celebratory of colonial figures. I use the Congolese case and the particularism of francophone Africa to draw lessons which could inform the increasingly polarised conversation on relations of race and the meanings of colonial memorials in so many cities around the world.

Professor Ranjana Das

Co-Applicant: Dr DORIS DIPPOLD

SRG2223\230187

“Duo says - ‘nicely done!” Linguistic minority families, emerging digital technologies, and the raising of bilingual children

University of Surrey

Value Awarded: £8,956.00

Abstract: Amidst globalisation and migration, parents investing time and labour into raising bi – or multi -lingual children isn’t new. Yet, the growing domestication of both higher end and more affordable technologies - to support music, vocabulary, grammar or conversation in the minority language - signals a socio-material shift. This pilot project investigates parents’ and children’s experiences of emerging digital technologies in developing children’s bilingualism, in linguistic minority households. We combine a survey of parents with three waves of observations and retrospective interviews with 10 households in south-east England, and ask – what role do these technologies play in linguistic minority families? (How) do they facilitate bilingual language development? How do they interface with parental anxieties and aspirations? (How) do children’s and parents’ experiences with these technologies align with or deviate from each other? What new inequalities arise or are reinforced as a consequence of the adoption of these socio-material resources?

Dr Nikhil Datta

Co-Applicant: Dr Jan David Bakker

SRG2223\230777

Housing policy in a two-sided market: Evidence from the Tenancy Fee Act in the UK

University of Warwick

Value Awarded: £9,800.00

Abstract: Housing affordability in the UK is firmly on the policy agenda, as housing costs have reached record highs. In this project we will evaluate the UK’s most recent flagship policy for reducing rental costs (the Tenancy Fee Act) which banned fees that agencies can charge tenants. It provides a novel approach to housing policy that aims to reduce the cost of intermediation compared to traditional policies that regulate the rent, which comes with well-understood efficiency costs. We will provide the first analysis of this type of policy and evaluate whether the government succeeded at reducing the cost of renting, and how the policy affected letting agents and landlords. To do so, we first estimate the pass-through of the reduction of tenant fees into landlord fees and rents. We will then combine these estimates with a structural model to assess the welfare effects of the policy and furthermore evaluate alternative policies.

Dr Maja Davidovic

SRG2223\231337

What Makes and Breaks Revisionist States? Historical Revisionism, Ontological Security and Agency in the Western Balkans

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £8,600.00

Abstract: While historical revisionism is commonly used to justify offensive foreign policies and mobilise war support, little scholarly attention is paid to its scope and importance in the Western Balkans, a region that continues to test Europe's security assurances. To advance the knowledge on prevention of conflict repetition and ontological security, this project investigates how historical revisionism, particularly atrocity crimes denial, emerges, develops and diminishes in states' foreign policies during post-conflict reckoning with the past. Underpinned by Critical Security Studies, the project aims to a) map out the use of historical revisionism by revisionist governments in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, b) establish the factors influencing revisionist behaviour and c) understand the role of 'ordinary' people in triggering, challenging and correcting such behaviour. The project employs document analysis, focus groups and interviews to trace the external-internal dynamics influencing the development and decline of revisionist states and carries significant policy-oriented implications.

Dr Clara Dawson

SRG2223\231233

Avian Poetics and Natural History in the Industrial Revolution

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £2,655.00

Abstract: Avian Poetics and Natural History in the Industrial Revolution, 1790-1910 examines how cultural and imaginative attitudes to birds change over the course of this period of industrial development and imperial expansion. It examines the emotional resonances of human-bird encounters (joy, wonder, melancholy, loss) and foregrounds the power dynamics which emerge from scientific practices of collecting and preserving birds. The proposed research investigates the scientific collection of birds across the British Empire and the role of European collectors and indigenous guides. Focusing on a British collector and ornithologist, Henry Dresser, and a German-Polish collector, William Blandowski, the proposed article explores the practices of collecting, transporting, and preserving birds. The article, 'Moving Birds: Poetry, Migration, and Collecting in the Nineteenth Century' compares ways of knowing and thinking about birds in nineteenth-century poetry with the scientific practices in order to offer a fuller understanding of the impact of birds on human-nature relations.

Dr Roxanna Dehaghani

Co-Applicant: Dr Tom Smith

SRG2223\231294

Responding to neurodiversity: lawyers, access to justice and Autism

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Recent years have seen a growth in interest in the extent and impact of neurodivergent conditions – such as Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Dyslexia – on the criminal justice system. Whilst practitioners and scholars have emphasised the importance of managing the needs of neurodivergent individuals in the criminal justice system for decades, it is only recently that policymakers have begun to consider this area in a focused manner. Despite such interest, little is known about how neurodivergent individuals access justice through legal representation. To fill this gap, this project will examine the practical relationship between criminal defence lawyers and autistic clients, specifically exploring the effectiveness of representation for autistic individuals accused of crime through surveys of and interviews with current criminal defence lawyers. In doing so, the project serves as a pilot for further research examining neurodivergent individuals’ experiences of (the effectiveness of) criminal defence.

Dr Laura Denning

Co-Applicant: Dr Deepta Sateesh

SRG2223\230948

Wet Ontologies: Decolonising the Scottish Landscape

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,968.00

Abstract: This is a project on decolonising the Scottish environment in radical ways. Dr. Laura Denning and Dr. Deepta Sateesh dialogue between parallel inquiries, both practices of dwelling, anchored in material practices of thatch, and the immaterial practices of kinship. This is a proposal for a collaborative fellowship where we seek to develop practice-based processes that dialogue with one another through an investigation in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. We propose to uncover deep socio-ecological relations that are significant to building adaptive resilient landscapes and their inhabitants. Working between material and immaterial practices, framed by wet ontologies, walking is a practice of animist research, towards decolonising the terrain. This research contributes to themes of kinship, articulated through artefacts and practices aligned with contemporary visual culture. Using embodied methodologies to understand the significance of transcorporeal intra-actions in wet environments in relation to kinship studies, the proposal presents these findings through practice.

Dr Hoa Do

Co-Applicant: Professor Helen Shipton Dr Xiaoshuang Lin

SRG2223\231353

Examining the dual effects of hybrid working on employee performance and well-being: A job demands-resources perspective

Aston University

Value Awarded: £9,820.00

Abstract: Hybrid working has become a norm, and thus a major policy decision in organisations since the Covid-19 crisis. Despite this, its impact is still debatable. While some state that hybrid working positively affects employee well-being, others highlight its negative effects on employee performance and productivity. As such, the influence of hybrid working (both positive and negative) on employee performance and well-being remains unclear. This study will therefore address this gap by investigating both the bright and dark sides of hybrid working through a longitudinal study of UK service organisations (e.g., banks, insurance companies). The study will seek to understand some of the theoretical factors influencing employee performance and well-being through the mediations of feelings of energy and job stress as well as the boundary conditions of servant leadership and qualitative demands underpinned by a job demands-resources model. This research will therefore have important implications for both academics and practitioners.

Dr Anna Dubiel

Co-Applicant: Dr Prokriti Mukherji

SRG2223\231202

Marketing Financial Services to First-Time Buyers in Emerging Markets: Evidence from Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) Micro-Insurance in Kenya

King's College London

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) occurs when people and wildlife meet and compete for space and food. While it can occur in any geography it is particularly bothersome in emerging markets (EM) like Kenya. Traditional defence measures like fences have been in use for generations though conservationists and policy makers alike argue for a broader introduction of microinsurance. While potential benefits of microinsurance seem largely unquestioned, existing research remains fragmented and inconclusive about meaningful drivers supporting their uptake. Moreover, most insights into new services adoption stem from developed markets (DM) making it challenging to apply in EM with their greatly distinct institutional or economic environments. Using a mixed methods approach this project aims to explore how first-time buyers of complex financial services make buying decisions.

Professor Jean Henderson Duffy

SRG2223\230217

Out of Line: Text, Image, and Voice in Jean Dubuffet’s Creative Writings

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £8,603.00

Abstract: As the first extended critical study devoted to Dubuffet’s creative writings, Out of Line will reveal the thematic richness and formal and linguistic sophistication of these little-known works and will situate them within both the history of twentieth-century visual‒verbal enquiry and the evolution of Dubuffet’s art practice and aesthetic thinking. Texts and artist’s books, hitherto considered to be marginal to Dubuffet’s core artistic activities, will be shown to be an integral part of his oeuvre, in constant dialogue with his extensive aesthetic writings and with his paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures, and providing him with another medium for the working-through of ideas, the resolution of formal problems, and the exploration of new materials and technical processes. By identifying thematic patterns running across the writings and artworks and by deciphering the quasi-phonetic and invented-language 'textes en jargon', Out of Line will significantly increase the accessibility and audience of this diverse corpus.

Professor Matthew Dyson

SRG2223\231341

Understanding Illegal Tort Claims: Comparative Legal Reasoning in Global Perspective

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: English law has spent decades trying to refine a test for when an otherwise valid tort claim should be dismissed because it is founded on unlawful actions. In general, the common law discourse, particularly within England, Australia, Canada and the USA has plateaued, with established positions still generating significant uncertainty. The highest courts, and law reform bodies, have not found robust answers. By contrast, this, the first project to compare civilian and common law legal systems, might offer new insights, concepts and techniques to develop the law. Many of those systems have relied on existing formulations of tort doctrine to handle such claims, rather than developing specific rules for rejecting illegal claims. This project brings together leading tort scholars from around the world to understand illegal tort claims more fully, and find better solutions for the real life problems involved. The work also aims to catalyse research in those jurisdictions.

Dr Lorren Eldridge

SRG2223\230671

The History of the Leasehold Estate in Land

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £5,440.00

Abstract: This project examines the history of the leasehold as an estate in land. English law does not have a concept of absolute ownership of land. Instead, it makes use of two ‘estates’ to mediate the relationships between people and land. ‘Freeholds’ are capable of subsisting infinitely, whilst ‘leaseholds’ are of a fixed duration and are used in many different commercial and residential contexts. However, the exact nature and scope of the leasehold estate are currently under pressure as a result of technical developments in case law and broader social and political circumstances. Further statutory and judicial reform of leasehold remain probable against a background of controversial case law and public disputes concerning their function and nature. This project investigates the history of leasehold in order to provide a firmer doctrinal grounding for such reform.

Dr Hadar Elraz

Co-Applicant: Professor Kate Sang

SRG2223\230205

Examining the workplace experiences of female academics with mental health conditions in the UK: Work Intensification and Intersectional effects

Swansea University

Value Awarded: £9,818.00

Abstract: While mental health conditions (MHCs) are a growing concern on a global scale, few studies have looked at this in relation to work intensification. This is particularly so in the context of Higher Education in the UK, especially amongst female academics. This project will address this gap by carrying out a qualitative exploration into how female academics with MHCs cope in the contemporary workplace, especially in intensified working conditions.

The project will identify how these workers engage with performance expectations, and it will examine the organisational support provided and how this is perceived. It will also feed into current equality and diversity discussions in research agenda, with findings that will help develop further policy. The study will qualitatively explore the experiences of female academics with MHCs across the UK, and it will also gather organisational perspectives by interviewing those who manage employees with MHCs in the academic sector.

Dr Florence Enock

SRG2223\230966

Understanding and enhancing people’s engagement with reporting hate speech and abuse online

The Alan Turing Institute

Value Awarded: £9,954.00

Abstract: The prevalence of online hate speech and abuse is a pressing global problem. While tackling such societal harms is a priority for research across the social sciences, it is a difficult task, in part because of the scale of the problem. People’s engagement with reporting mechanisms (‘flagging’) online is an increasingly important part of monitoring and addressing harmful content at scale. However, users may not flag content routinely enough, and when users do engage, they may be highly biased by group identity and political beliefs. Across ten highly-powered and pre-registered online experiments, we will examine the extent of social bias in people’s flagging of hate speech and abuse (Experiments 1-6), and we will provide the first empirical tests of two interventions aimed to improve flagging behaviours (Experiments 7-10). Understanding the social psychological mechanisms underlying user intervention against online hate speech is a crucial step towards ensuring a safer online environment.

Dr Anastasios Evgenidis

Co-Applicant: Dr Apostolos Fasianos

SRG2223\231632

The macroeconomic and labour market effects of Artificial Intelligence Innovations in the UK

Newcastle University

Value Awarded: £9,685.00

Abstract: The aim of this proposal is to study the economic and labour market effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations in the UK. AI technologies have been increasingly diffusing into numerous industries in recent years. Yet, their macroeconomic and labour market effects are largely understudied. This is due to lack of reliable data on AI innovations and appropriate identification strategies of AI diffusion to local industries. The aim of this proposal is twofold. First, we aim to employ textual analysis to construct a new measure of AI innovations based on registered patent data for the UK, which will be complemented to existing datasets for the US. A unique feature of our dataset will be the disaggregation between different types of AI innovations, across different sectors over time. Second, we will use our dataset to estimate the economic and labour market outcomes of the application of AI technologies in the UK.

Dr Jessica Fay

Co-Applicant: Professor Alexandra Harris

SRG2223\231264

Pioneers of Local Thinking (1740-1820)

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £6,423.46

Abstract: A dramatic change in thinking about the value of particular localities and environments occurred during the eighteenth century, and it generated an upsurge in pioneering approaches to place-writing and landscape art. The proposed project will provide new insights into the growth of localism in poetry and painting from 1740 to 1820 by examining specific ways in which Dutch and Flemish aesthetics influenced those working in provincial areas of Great Britain. Taking an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, the project will uncover a number of regional figures who developed innovative, idiosyncratic ways of observing and conceptualizing place: William Cowper, George Crabbe, John Crome of Norwich, William Green of Ambleside, Thomas Smith of Derby, and the Smiths of Chichester. Analysing how these figures were inspired by continental approaches, the project will advance understanding of processes by which art and literature can shape, and be shaped by, local identity.

Dr Daniel Feather

SRG2223\230245

‘Engaging with a Pariah State: British Cultural Diplomacy in Rhodesia, 1965 to 1980’

Liverpool John Moores University

Value Awarded: £7,715.00

Abstract: Debates about the value of cultural boycotts re-emerge on a cyclical basis, often coming hand-in-hand with the implementation of economic sanctions. The key question is always whether it is better to isolate a pariah state, or maintain cultural contact with the general population in the hope of softening attitudes, promoting change, and gaining influence. One example, which has received little scholarly attention, is the efforts by Britain to utilise cultural diplomacy in its dealing with the ‘rebel colony’ of Rhodesia. While Britain and Rhodesia had a unique relationship, and this contact took place at a very different time, this case study can be used as a microcosm for the contemporary challenges states face when attempting to sustain linkages through cultural contact with the aim of maintaining long-term influence. A journal article and extended essay will emerge from this research, in addition to a condensed article for a wide-reaching platform.

Dr Eva Fiks

SRG2223\231361

Repairing worlds: women’s work of creating ecologies of support in north India

Keele University

Value Awarded: £8,938.00

Abstract: Scholars and activists are increasingly concerned with the prospect of unliveable environments to describe the effects of the climate crisis. However, this concern originates from institutions in the global north and ignores that worlds have long been unliveable for many in the global south for reasons that are not only environmental. This ethnographic project seeks to understand how people live in unliveable worlds by using and expanding the framework of care. By centring on the life journeys of women from one extended family in north India, this project focuses on social, cultural, and political repair work carried out by women in response to processes which make their lives less liveable. It expands our approaches to ‘unliveable environments’ in climate crisis discourses and contributes to conversations on care and crises by examining how people use resources available to them to build the everyday ecologies of support that provide transitory protective effects.

Dr Samuel Forbes

SRG2223\231301

Tiredness in Infancy and Relationships to Effective Distribution of attention (TIRED)

Durham University

Value Awarded: £9,328.35

Abstract: Infants are notorious for poor sleep, and limited attention spans, and they tire easily. While the effects of infant sleep on areas such as attention, memory and executive functioning are well-known, the effects of their tiredness at the moment of testing these areas has not been investigated in depth. This project will investigate current tiredness by creating a tiredness questionnaire based on the infants current sleep and nap schedule, alongside measures of tiredness and attention in behaviour. The project will then apply this questionnaire with infants in a standard lab-based eye-tracking assessment to investigate how these factors impact learning and attention, and how this affects research done using these methods. These results will then be used to further refine the questionnaire which will be made publicly available as a research tool.

Dr Sally Foster

SRG2223\231611

Authenticity's child: current meanings and future destinies for the Stone of Scone (Perth, Scone and Westminster Abbey fieldwork)

University of Stirling

Value Awarded: £9,998.88

Abstract: The 2023 coronation of Charles III in Westminster Abbey and the 2024 relocation of the medieval Stone of Scone/Destiny to Perth’s new museum will rekindle high-profile debates about where this national icon ‘belongs’, what stories to tell about it and how. There is an unparalleled opportunity to explore for the first time the Stone’s contemporary authenticity and social value in real time while it moves between multiple contexts. The Stone is the supreme example of an object defined across time and space by how diverse communities negotiate its (in)authenticity and contest its meanings. A greater critical focus is needed to understand this and the part ‘movement’ plays in fashioning the Stone’s biographical trajectory. Ethnographic and qualitative research focused on communities in Perth, Scone and Westminster Abbey will identify and give voice to the contemporary authenticity and social value of the Stone, helping to transform its future meanings and destinies.

Chris Foye

Co-Applicant: Dr Lois Yixi Liao

SRG2223\231182

Examining Private Rented Sector Discrimination in Gentrifying London

University of Reading

Value Awarded: £6,583.00

Abstract: Over the last three decades, London's private rented sector (PRS) has more than doubled in size. The sector's expansion, together with the

UK government's welfare and immigration reforms, have provoked concerns that certain tenants are being systematically discriminated against. In documenting and understanding this problem, however, the academic literature has lagged behind, and there is a particular lack of evidence on the actions and rationales of the actors conducting this discrimination.

Our ongoing project seeks to address this gap. In Summer 2022, we completed 30 interviews with estate agents and landlords operating in rapidly gentrifying Walthamstow. In this second case study, we will conduct an additional 30 interviews in neighbouring Leyton/Leytonstone, where the gentrification process is significantly less advanced. In doing so, we will develop a fuller and more robust understanding of how and why discriminatory practices vary over small spatial scales, and their interaction with prevailing patterns of gentrification.

Dr Craig French

Co-Applicant: Dr Joe Cunningham

SRG2223\230257

What is psychotherapy? Towards a philosophy of psychotherapy

University of Nottingham

Value Awarded: £8,924.90

Abstract: The philosophy of psychotherapy is not an established field in philosophy, but it should be. For then the rich insights and methods of philosophy can be used to achieve a greater understanding of psychotherapy, and the power of philosophical research can be harnessed to influence psychotherapy itself. The project we are proposing is a step towards these long-term aims. We wish to explore the nature of psychotherapy, asking: what is psychotherapy? The project will result in two articles addressing this question, a public event, and the development of pre-existing partnerships with psychotherapists and psychotherapy institutes. The articles will be of wide scholarly significance: works of philosophy, but highly relevant to psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy research. The public event and partnership development will contribute to enabling our research to have impact beyond the academy. We are seeking funding solely for research assistance to support this work.

Professor Declan French

Co-Applicant: Dr Barry Quinn

SRG2223\231522

The cost of flying the flag

Queen's University Belfast

Value Awarded: £9,829.50

Abstract: Public spaces in Northern Ireland (NI) are often demarcated with flags, emblems and symbols to express political allegiances but many in this divided society perceive them as intimidating or annoying. Our programme of research is then to quantify the economic costs of public expressions of cultural identity in Northern Ireland. The aim is to establish whether there is an economic argument for removing divisive displays and expressions of identity. It consists of two main parts: (1) house price effects (2) retail effects. In the first study, the negative effect of cultural identifiers will be determined by applying computer vision and machine learning techniques to street view imagery (SVI) to create variables for inclusion in a hedonic house price regression. In the second study, we will manually collect data from the main arterial routes into Belfast to examine the effect of cultural expression on retail.

Professor Tim Fulford

SRG2223\230361

The Collected Poems of Henry Kirke White

De Montfort University

Value Awarded: £2,896.00

Abstract: I seek funding for a research trip to US archives that hold MSS, magazine-publications and American book editions, physical examination of which is essential to my project--the first ever scholarly collected edition of one of the most heavily published and widely read poets of the nineteenth century, Henry Kirke White. The edition will be introduced by a study of Kirke White's significance in book history and literary history. I will also interpret my findings in two journal articles containing critical discussions of the poet -- the role of literary magazines in his career and his significance, as shown by US editions of his work, in 19th century American literature.

Dr Wiktor Gebski

SRG2223\231603

Linguistic Diversity and Common Trends in the Grammars of Spoken North African Arabic Dialects of Jews and their Muslim Neighbours: A Comparative Study of Selected Tunisian and Algerian Dialects in a Language Contact Situation.

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £6,000.00

Abstract: The project I am conducting involves the documentation and establishment of means for the revitalization of selected modern Judaeo-Arabic dialects originally spoken in provincial cities in Algeria and Tunisia. The vast majority of these dialects are unfortunately on the verge of extinction at present. The native speakers of those dialects, the majority of whom currently live in Israel and in France, appear to be the last generation to have an active knowledge of Maghrebi Judeo-Arabic. For this reason, extensive fieldwork is needed in order to preserve the linguistic legacy of those communities. The analytic part of the project involves a comparative study of the documented Jewish dialects with their Muslim counterparts from the same locations, which will be published as a monograph. The British Academy grant will allow me to undertake extensive fieldwork in North Africa among Muslim speakers of Arabic, and in Israel and France among the Jewish ones.

Dr Marc Geddes

SRG2223\230901

Knowledge Networks in the House of Commons: A citation analysis of select committee evidence between 2015 and 2025

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,969.21

Abstract: What do parliaments know about the world they seek to embody and represent? While there are many debates across philosophy and social sciences about the relationship between knowledge and politics, we still know comparatively little about the role of parliaments within such discussions. This is despite their unique role in realising core democratic functions (in short: representation, law-making, accountability). To fulfil their role, they must represent and juxtapose not only democratic claims but also knowledge from a range of groups. In this project, I focus on select committees, seen as incubators for policy and legislation, and used as information-gathering tools for MPs, to examine patterns of knowledge use in Parliament. Building on previous research while also making use of an innovative methodology, my project sheds new light on how different types of knowledge impact parliamentary processes, with wider implications for the relationship between knowledge and democracy.

Dr Anthony Gerbino

SRG2223\231524

Charles Perrault's Parallel of the Ancients and the Moderns Regarding the Arts and Sciences, Volume I (1688), a new English translation and critical edition

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £7,000.00

Abstract: This research project will result in a new translation and annotated edition of Charles Perrault’s Parallèle des anciens et des modernes, making this key text available to English-language readers for the first time. Foundational for Enlightenment thought and deeply implicated in the origins of art history, the book launched the Querelle des anciens et des modernes. This great struggle of ideas entailed a number of interlocking debates: about the nature of the ‘canon’, the authority of expert versus amateur judgement, and the definition of modernity itself. The BA small research grant will help fund a collaboration specifically for the translation of Perrault’s poetry. This part of the original text is substantial (about 15% of the whole) and requires specialized knowledge of both French and English prosody.

Dr Celine Germond-Duret

SRG2223\231284

SeaSights: Deprived seaside towns and the blue economy - insights from young people

Lancaster University

Value Awarded: £9,043.87

Abstract: This project aims at giving young people voice and visibility into coastal and marine decision making. The blue economy concept has highlighted the possibility of combining ocean recovery and local prosperity. However, its social dimension has often been neglected. A key question is how to efficiently take into consideration the needs and aspirations of coastal communities into decision-making and ensure fair policies. This is all the more important for the younger generation, that have often been left out of decisions that directly affect their lives.

This project will combine and compare traditional and innovative methods (photovoice) to support young people to play an active role in shaping their environments and allowing them to drive local development ambitions. It will focus on three areas of the North West of England (Blackpool, Morecambe and Barrow-in-Furness) and utilise the findings to inform marine policy within the context of a blue economy.

Dr Soledad Giardili

SRG2223\230170

Teachers' Labour Markets and Job Match Quality

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,792.21

Abstract: The recruitment of teachers and their allocation across schools can have significant impact on a country’s stock of human capital and on the achievement gaps between students from different backgrounds. Due to the limited understanding of how teachers labour market function and how different mechanisms results in different sorting of teachers to school, especially in less develop contexts, the aim of this project is to study a matching market in practice. I leverage the centralized assignment of teachers to public schools in Argentina and assess it performance in terms of teachers' spatial distribution (equilibrium allocation), their match (a given teacher in a particular school) productivity, the level of job satisfaction (or incentives to move to a better school), and their incentives to move up the career ladder. Importantly, it would point towards policies that can improve labour market outcomes and achieve a better distribution of effective teachers across schools.

Dr Antje Glück

SRG2223\231747

Journalistic Courage and Resilience under Authoritarianism: Lessons learnt from the 1920s Weimar Republic, and implications for today's journalism

Bournemouth University

Value Awarded: £9,978.05

Abstract: The autonomy of journalists and media freedom is increasingly under threat. How do journalists retain independent critical voices when facing threats of oppression? Can we learn lessons from history that can inform our understanding of modern journalistic practices? We explore this through a study of the life and works of German journalist Carl von Ossietzky (1889-1938). Despite receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935, little is written about Ossietzky in the English language. As editor-in-chief of Die Weltbühne, Ossietzky was a vocal critic of Hitler’s rise to power. This ultimately led to his death at the hands of the regime. The project will entail archival work, employing close reading techniques, to examine his contributions as a journalist. This will help to identify lessons around resistance and courage of journalists working under authoritarian/totalitarian regimes. The insights will be shared academically and through public engagement emphasizing Ossietzky’s relevance for democracies of today.

Dr Marie Godin

Co-Applicant: Mrs Foni Vuni

SRG2223\230758

Refugees’ socio-digital futures in protracted displacement settings in Kenya

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £9,955.00

Abstract: This research project examines the nexus between refugee livelihoods, new technologies, and refugees’ aspirations in two contexts of protracted displacement in Kenya, examining the Kakuma refugee camp and the city of Nairobi. It seeks to better understand the existence, potential, and pitfalls of so-called ‘digital livelihoods’ for refugees. Through a multi-sited ethnographic approach, it will highlight who gets excluded or included in the ‘gig economy', looking at the composition of refugee networks, their gender, age, nationality, and location. It will explore how refugees’ socio-digital futures are being imagined from above ('Big futures') as well as how refugees themselves harness technological innovation to

imagine and create new solidarities, socialities, and new forms of refugee governance ('little futures'). Overall, this research will foster reflections on refugee entrepreneurship as an interdisciplinary domain of study and initiate a dialogue among disciplines and scholars on the role of entrepreneurship, business ownership, and self-employment for refugees.

Professor Miriam Goldby

Co-Applicant: Dr Franziska Dwyer

SRG2223\231689

What makes a successful Public Private Partnership in the insurance context?

Queen Mary University of London

Value Awarded: £8,865.73

Abstract: This research aims to establish a knowledge base on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) by (i) undertaking a review of available literature on PPPs generally and (ii) closing the gaps in that literature by acquiring insight into the functioning of PPPs directed at widening access to insurance protection. It will explore the participants, purposes and governance structures underlying the functioning of established PPPs, through both the review of existing studies and the generation and analysis of qualitative empirical data on insurance PPPs. The ultimate objective is to reach conclusions on what is needed for a PPP to be successful in the insurance context. Our specific field of interest is insurance against cyber-risks on which we are planning a broader interdisciplinary project into which this study will feed.

Dr Sarah Goldsmith

SRG2223\230833

Tailoring Bodies: Visualising the Absent Male Form, c.1840-1950

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £8,771.80

Abstract: Tailoring Bodies is a multi-disciplinary investigation into the complex relationship between nineteenth-and early-twentieth-century bodies, dress, representation and identity. Its central set of sources are the 31 measuring books of the Savile Row tailors, Henry Poole & Co (private collection). Dating from 1840 to c.1955, these contain body measurements and observations for an estimated 74,400 British and international customers. Tailoring Bodies is the first to examine them in their entirety. Placing the measurements in conversation with other surviving sources related to customers, including written and visual records, clothing, skeletal remains and material objects, the project will gain a deeper understanding of bespoke, historical tailoring and the individual and collective historical absent bodies represented therein. Following a successful pilot study, and in preparation for larger-scale funding applications, this application seeks funding to develop the project’s data capture system, and to run a measuring experiment and project workshop.

Professor Jeremy Green

SRG2223\230793

Monetary Origins of the Great Acceleration: Towards a Political Economy of the Money-Nature Nexus

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £9,881.00

Abstract: This project investigates how ideas and institutions of international money shaped the post-WWII ‘Great Acceleration’ of global environmental transformation. Leveraging insights from post-colonial sociology, monetary theory/history, and ecological economics, it develops an ecologically embedded political economy of international money. Investigating three critical monetary periods across the Great Acceleration – from Bretton Woods in 1944, to its breakdown amidst oil shocks in the 1970s, and the subsequent rise of ‘Bretton Woods II’ within the commodity super cycle – it examines linkages between changing representations of nature and distinctive patterns of energy and resource exploitation. Constructing a global post-colonial approach, the project contextualises and provincialises monetary trajectories shaped by Northern powers by exploring contending Southern visions. Archival sources and intellectual history are investigated, excavating ideas and strategic priorities concerning relationships between money, nature, and growth embedded in monetary regimes. Intellectual ideas are analysed in conjunction with global resources flows and developmental hierarchies.

Professor Elizabeth Grunfeld

SRG2223\231667

Medical Help-Seeking in the Era of Superdiversity

Birkbeck, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,591.00

Abstract: Prompt help-seeking is essential for timely access to healthcare services and impacts mortality and morbidity rates. Understanding medical help-seeking and the predictors and drivers of this in increasingly demographically complex populations is essential to guide and promote prompt diagnosis and treatment and reduce health disparities. The aim of this study is to explore how expectations and experiences of medical help-seeking vary across ethnicities, while taking account of immigration status, age, gender and geographical neighbourhood location. Forty recent migrants will be recruited. Purposive stratified sampling will be used based on the top five non-European country of origin locations (Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, and Brazil), gender and age. Interviews will focus on health beliefs/behaviours, coping responses to symptoms (including informal, professional, social, and cultural responses) and expectations and experiences of medical help-seeking. A “framework” analysis approach will be used. Findings will provide in-depth descriptions of health beliefs and help-seeking within superdiverse populations.

Dr Maria Guagnin

Co-Applicant: Dr Ceri Shipton

SRG2223\231473

An Epipalaeolithic rock art tradition in northern Arabia?

Independent Researcher

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Recent research has identified a rich archaeological record for the Neolithic of northern Arabia, which includes UNESCO World Heritage rock art sites, and the oldest large-scale stone structures in the world. Radiocarbon ages show a peak in human occupation for the late 6th millennium BC, which coincides with the end of the Holocene Humid Period, when grasslands and lakes spread across a landscape that is now desert. However, the period leading up to this rich cultural expression is still largely unknown. A survey of undocumented Epipalaeolithic rock art panels in the Sahout area, on the southern edge of the Nefud desert, coupled with archaeological surveys and test excavation can now give a first insight into the final Pleistocene and early Holocene human occupation of the region.

Dr Cecile Guillaume

Co-Applicant: Dr Bethania Antunes

SRG2223\231437

Is CSR achieved at the expense of employee engagement? Insights into the development of Employee Volunteering programmes in the UK.

University of Surrey

Value Awarded: £8,125.00

Abstract: This project investigates the expansion of Employee Volunteering (EV) programmes in the UK, as part of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. It seeks to complement extant academic research on the design, implementation, organisational and individual outcomes of these programmes designed to enhance the social value produced and delivered by corporations. Utilising qualitative methods, the aim of the research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of EV programmes, both from employer and employee perspectives. It seeks to examine employers’ motivations for launching EV programmes; investigate the role of programme managers and external actors in their design and implementation; analyse the relationships between EV programmes and equality and work-life balance policies; evaluate the impact of these programmes on existing performance and talent management practices; investigate employees’ experiences and the impact of volunteering on working and family lives.

Dr Andrei Gurca

Co-Applicant: Dr Sandeep Mysore Seshadrinath

SRG2223\231680

Designing Effective and Non-Exploitative Gig Economy Platforms

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £9,820.00

Abstract: This research project aims to investigate the internal tensions experienced by various types of gig economy platforms (e.g., platforms that intermediate online digital microwork or offline work on demand) when attempting to balance the conflicting demands of key stakeholder, i.e., the paying clients and the value generating workers. Moreover, the project looks to provide meaningful and transferable insights regarding the organizational design features that can enable gig economy platforms to ensure the protection of all participants’ interests by guaranteeing reliable output for clients and fair wages for workers.

Dr Hassan Haghparast Bidgoli

Co-Applicant: Professor Kishwar Azad Dr Francesco Salustri

SRG2223\230208

Developing and piloting mHealth messages to prevent childhood unintentional injuries in rural Bangladesh

University College London

Value Awarded: £9,825.48

Abstract: Injuries are responsible for around a million deaths in children each year. Unintentional injuries account for almost 90% of these injuries and are among the top three causes of death among children. About 90% of injury-related deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Unintentional injuries among children are largely preventable, as they are often a result of lack of education, knowledge, or attention, in addition to structural causes. Therefore, many interventions to prevent injuries apply behavioural science to improve the behaviour of caregivers. Among them, mobile health (mHealth) interventions that use mobile devices to inform and nudge children’s caregivers have shown to be effective. However, most of these interventions have been developed and tested in high-income settings. Our study aims to co-develop and pilot mHealth messages to prevent child injury prevention in rural Bangladesh, where more than 50% of overall deaths among children is due to injuries, and mainly drowning.

Dr Charlie Hall

SRG2223\231051

Knowing the Enemy: Nazism and the British, 1920-1950

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,510.00

Abstract: Britain has an obsession with the Nazis. In high-street bookshops, in television programming, and in political discourse – especially the simmering ‘culture wars’ – evidence of a fascination with stories of Nazi horror and of Britain’s fight against it abounds, and shows no signs of abating. This project will be the first to map out the origins of this obsession, by examining British perceptions, representations, and uses of Nazism in the period before, during, and immediately after that regime was in power in Germany. Drawing on a wide range of source material, including official documents, personal papers, propaganda, film, and newspaper reports, this project will address a number of key research questions: what did British contemporaries of the Third Reich understand Nazism to be? How did that influence policy? Did it change how the British saw themselves? And how did it forge a fascination which has lasted into the present?

Dr Ainul Hanafiah

Co-Applicant: Dr Marcello Bertotti

SRG2223\230660

Assessing the Feasibility of Social Prescribing in Urban Malaysia: Integrating Primary Care and Community Assets for Health and Wellbeing

University of East London

Value Awarded: £9,988.59

Abstract: Malaysia experiences persistent health inequalities alongside an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases. Growing UK evidence points to Social Prescribing (SP) as an approach that could address such issues concurrently tackling multiple facets of problems in society, enhancing community wellbeing, and social inclusion. SP offers GPs non-clinical pathway which involves the provision of personalised, non-hierarchical support by a ‘link worker’ and the referral to non-clinical activities delivered by voluntary, community, social enterprise sector. We propose to explore the feasibility of introducing SP to Malaysia by co-designing an adaptation of the UK SP model in two urban states, drawing upon insights from local stakeholders and end users on economic, cultural, and social nuances. Guided by the realist evaluation approach, we will generate empirical evidence, map, and discuss how SP may work in urban Malaysia. This will produce a Malaysian contextualised SP model for further empirical testing, aspiring to greater social equity.

Dr Anika Haque

SRG2223\231418

Climate change and women in cities: towards an inclusive pathway for climate change adaptation in the global South

University of York

Value Awarded: £9,570.00

Abstract: This project is a combined response to three overlapping global challenges of: 1) increasing vulnerability to changing climate, 2) growing inequality, and, 3) meeting the needs of rapidly expanding urban populations in the Global South. The project will develop conceptual and operational understanding for producing (gender) inclusive climate change adaptation policies specifically focusing on the women living in informal settlements in the global South cities. The primary empirical focus is Dhaka, Bangladesh. There are three aims: firstly, to investigate the current knowledge exchange between diverse stakeholders (the government/policy makers, NGOs and local communities) and to enable cross-learning between these parties; secondly, to explore the complex adaptation processes of women living in urban informal settlements in response to climate change risks (including the identification of the barriers and associated dynamics) through systems analyses; and thirdly, to provide recommendations for design of more effective and (gender) inclusive adaptation policies.

Professor Sue-Ann Harding

SRG2223\230681

Translating, editing, and curating The Memoirs of Anna Ey (1839-1917): Australian settler women’s life-writing, spiritual literature, and place

Queen's University Belfast

Value Awarded: £8,958.70

Abstract: I will use archival, site-specific and online research to prepare for publication a book: a new, critical edition of The Memoirs of Anna Ey (1839-1917). Anna was among the 19thC Old Lutherans who emigrated from Prussia to Australia. Her memoirs present a rare female perspective of this distinct, minority community, whose contributions to Australia’s multilingual settler history have been afforded little attention. The German memoirs (1900-1907) were translated into English (1957, 1986), with limited distribution. I will research Lutheran Archives, checking these translations against the manuscript, consulting life-writings and letters from Anna’s family, and translating and restoring German hymns to the memoirs. Site-specific research in Poland and South Australia will add local, contemporary, and visual layers to the text. The book will include editorial paratexts and critical reflections on memory, place, Indigenous Australia and the violence of colonisation to make the hidden histories in Anna’s writings visible to today’s readers.

Dr Stephe Harrop

SRG2223\231104

‘Amazing Stories That I Guess Are Sort of Ours’ – Researching Non-Appropriative Repertoires with England’s Storytelling Artists

Liverpool Hope University

Value Awarded: £7,000.00

Abstract: Contemporary storytellers are highly-skilled professional performing artists, committed to establishing engaging, diverse, and accessible presences for traditionally-inspired narrative arts across multimedia platforms. They can spend a lifetime building a repertoire of stories that speak to and stir our imaginations, helping us reimagine connections between past, present, and future in new, empowering ways.

But what happens when a community of storytellers needs to explore new stories? In the past, England’s storytellers have often borrowed (or appropriated) tales from other places and cultures. Now, a rising generation of storytelling artists are embracing different ethical values, seeking to create work that doesn’t perpetuate exploitative or colonialist practices. This project supports England’s professional storytellers in this enterprise, creating a space for a group of artists to experiment with stories from local narrative traditions, and identifying how artists and researchers can work together to create more ethical, sustainable futures for England’s storied imagining.

Dr Mohammad Hasan

Co-Applicant: Dr Robert Gausden Dr Javed Bin Kamal

SRG2223\231172

Geopolitical risks, carbon prices and green assets

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,795.72

Abstract: The threat of climate change has become increasingly well-recognized. To combat this, there has been a sharp shift in investors’ preferences towards portfolio decarbonization. Green assets are identified as a hedge against climate risks. In our study, we focus on the impact of carbon price developments and geopolitical risks (GPR) on green assets, which has not been examined previously. In particular, in this project, in order to estimate the effects of GPR and carbon price risks on green asset returns, a recent dataset is used in conjunction with established and modern linear and non-linear econometric techniques, such as Ordinary Least Squares regression, non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag models, and quantile regression. Our objective is to highlight the roles of these two new and unique channels in shaping green investors’ beliefs and concerns about climate change transitions.

Dr Rachel Haworth

SRG2223\230889

Stasera in TV: Italian variety television and its stars, 1954-1976

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,980.00

Abstract: Italian television of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s has been described as 'the school of the nation' . And this educative function of television was even embedded in the mission statement of the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, which was to entertain, inform, and educate the viewing public. Hidden within that mission was a wider aim of creating a unified, Italian viewing public so specific behaviours, ideals, and values could be transmitted that would promote a certain type of Italian identity. One tool RAI had at its disposal was the television stars and hosts who embodied these models and ideas. This project examines the most popular television stars of the period - those from variety shows - and explores how these figures came to represent ideals and ideas of Italian-ness in this period, and how their role as cultural symbols evolved between 1954 and 1976, under the state broadcaster's watchful eye.

Dr Jane Healy

SRG2223\231077

Inclusivity and Adversity in the Eurovision Song Contest

Bournemouth University

Value Awarded: £9,741.96

Abstract: The European Song Contest (ESC) is a global media event that occurs each year, and a site of gay and transgender visibility and diversity. LGBTQI+ communities regularly experience discrimination, isolation and hate crimes, but are significantly positively represented at the ESC through a non-heteronormative, inclusive programme of formal and informal events supported by the ESC, its fan culture and fan tourism. This qualitative study will explore LGBTQI+ communities experiences of the ESC event through surveys, interviews and observations that will examine attitudes, perceptions and practices that take place within the ESC environment. Given the growth in policy and media debate around the rights of trans individuals and communities, and the divergence of pro- and anti-trans feminist movements in the UK of late, this research is designed to explore whether the ESC can continue to be a site of intersectional inclusivity and LGBTQI+ ‘citizenship’ for minority communities.

Professor Anselm Heinrich

SRG2223\231523

Archival Re-Appraisal of Theatre in Britain During World War II

University of Glasgow

Value Awarded: £5,029.90

Abstract: Theatre in Britain experienced radical changes during the war. These changes did not only concern a short term focus on keeping up morale, but also related to lasting developments around funding, repertoire and access. Research so far has largely ignored this crucial period. When mentioned, scholars have either concentrated on wartime restrictions or claimed that theatres presented simple entertainment that did not warrant further investigation. My research will counter this narrative by in-depth research in various national, regional and municipal archives and establish that theatres did not only continue performing but that the introduction of subsidies constituted a major U-Turn which paved the way for the foundation of the Arts Council. Today stakeholders are increasingly interested in the history of arts funding during the current political climate, and the legitimacy this provides for continued support.

The key output of this research will be a monograph.

Dr Claudia Henninger

Co-Applicant: Dr Songyi Yan Dr Taylor Brydges

SRG2223\230596

Going in circles - insights from the fashion industry

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,276.51

Abstract: By 2030 fashion consumption will increase by 63% from 62 to 102m tonnes, of which 11kg of garments are landfilled per person annually (EC, 2022).

The circular economy is seen to counteract the fashion industry’s growing waste issue. Circular business models (e.g., swapping, renting, resale) are on the rise, which seek to extend garments’ useful lives and divert them from landfill. Garment utilisation is a key objective, which supports the EEA (2019) outlining that using garments for an additional 9 months can reduce carbon emissions and water usage associated with that garment by 20%.

Little is known about the effectiveness of these business models and the role policy plays in imploring the industry to implement more sustainable practices. Drawing on case studies of the UK, Canada and Australia, this project explores how environmental policy can support the transition to a more circular economy without going in circles.

Dr Ana-Maria Herman

SRG2223\231089

Women Artists Succeeding Against the Odds – A Study of Judy Chicago

University of Greenwich

Value Awarded: £9,868.00

Abstract: Women artists have been historically underrepresented, and their work undervalued, by art galleries, museums, and auction houses alike. A notable exception is the subversive American feminist artist Judy Chicago, who has broken through the barriers of the art world in a sixty-year career. At the age of 83, Chicago continues to work and show her art in blockbuster exhibitions – something her female counterparts have struggled to emulate. While the significant pay gap between female and male artists has been documented (Lindemann et al. 2016), the ways by which some women artists prosper have not been the subject of academic research before. This project will examine the Papers of Judy Chicago at the Schlesinger Library and evaluate how Chicago succeeded in the male-dominated art, culture, and museum industry. The outputs will include a framework for understanding how current and future women artists may succeed in the art world.

Dr Rebecca Hewer

SRG2223\230070

A Critical Evaluation of Rape-Clause Certification in Scotland

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £5,332.60

Abstract: The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 limits the number of children for whom a family can claim the child element of Universal Credit, to two. There are exceptions to this limit, the most controversial of which exempts families if their third or subsequent child is born of ‘non-consensual conception’ (the ‘rape-clause’). Only ‘approved third parties’ (ATPs) - healthcare practitioners, registered social workers, and sexual violence support-workers – can certify rape-clause eligibility.

This pilot project will ask: how do ATPs, working in Scotland's central belt, intend to approach rape-clause certification? How will available knowledge, and professional and political commitments, shape this approach? And what professional, ethical and social challenges should we anticipate? Given the highly gendered and contested nature of sexual violence, reproduction, and welfare reform, findings will be analysed in conversation with intersectional feminist scholarship and critical approaches to knowledge.

Dr Joshua Heyes

SRG2223\231044

Preparing pre-service primary and secondary school teachers to deliver Relationships, Sex and Health Education: mapping provision in Initial Teacher Training programmes in England

University of Lincoln

Value Awarded: £5,500.00

Abstract: In 2019, the UK government approved a new statutory curriculum requiring all English primary and secondary schools to provide Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). The new RSHE curriculum included a significantly expanded set of aims, including the combatting of gender-related violence and inclusion for LGBTQ+ young people. However, previous research has shown that many teachers in England feel ill-equipped and lacking in confidence to teach about potentially sensitive and complex topics. This study will map how Initial Teacher Training (ITT) providing institutions in England are preparing pre-service primary and secondary school teachers to deliver RSHE, using a national survey, follow-up interviews and observations of teaching on RSHE delivered to trainee teachers. Findings from this study will help provide a vital evidence base and rationale for future work enriching and strengthening teacher education practice in sexuality education and enhancing the quality and consistency of RSHE in England.

Dr Eleanor Higgs

SRG2223\230670

“In service for the girls of the world”: The transnational influence of the YWCA of the USA, 1947–2023.

Brunel University London

Value Awarded: £8,643.63

Abstract: The World YWCA is a transnational, interdenominational Christian women’s membership organisation and gender equality NGO, originating in Victorian England and spread globally through the British Empire. The World YWCA is now composed of autonomous national YWCAs and has represented their interests at the Commission on the Status of Women since 1947. Throughout the twentieth century, YWCA-USA, the world’s largest by membership, has financially supported the World YWCA and YWCAs in the majority world. Applying insights from decolonial feminist theory, this project will investigate YWCA-USA’s activities at the World YWCA to identify examples of complicity in, and resistance to, Christian, feminist, and US imperialism in international development, e.g., the ‘global gag rule’. Archival research will reveal the connections between the World YWCA, CSW, and YWCA-USA, with a focus on sexuality and reproduction as highly gendered concerns in which the YWCA, alongside feminist movements, churches, and development institutions, seeks to intervene.

Dr Nicholas Hodgson

SRG2223\231425

The biography of a late-Roman fort: the late antique to early-medieval transition at South Shields

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £6,000.00

Abstract: Objective: to elucidate social change in Roman military and successor communities occupying South Shields fort, at the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall, UK, during the fourth to ninth centuries AD. The research will test the hypotheses that: (i) there was an increased civilian presence, signified by women and children, inside the fort in the fourth century; (ii) the fort remined the seat of an important fifth-century community; (iii) the site became a high-status Anglo-Saxon centre.

Methodology: spatial analysis of structures and plotting of finds distribution in the later- and post-Roman levels of 1,500 sqm of the site, excavated in the 1980/90s but unsynthesised and unpublished. British Academy funding would be used to engage technical expertise (in Autocad and GIS) in collaborative research with the applicant to create the fundamental illustrative framework of the project, making possible spatial and temporal analysis and comparison, and high-quality illustration of the results.

Dr Julian Maria Hoerner

Co-Applicant: Dr Christopher Wratil

SRG2223\230449

The Role of Issue Salience in the Rhetoric of International Negotiations

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £9,966.66

Abstract: Recent research shows that governments take heed of domestic public opinion in international negotiations. However, we know little about how issue salience -the extent to which the public perceives certain issues as important- shapes intergovernmental bargaining. Extending a unique database of transcripts of international negotiations, we investigate the impact of issue salience on bargaining in the Council of the EU, using advanced quantitative text analysis methods. We hypothesize that when voters care about an issue, their government will address it more comprehensively and provide more clarity about its own position. We also posit that when the member states’ publics perceive different issues as salient, speaking time will be more equally distributed and the rhetoric among negotiators will be more neutral. The project will improve our understanding of the impact of issue salience on conflict and agreement in heterogenous organisations, with important implications for the study of international and domestic politics.

Dr Nora Honkala

Co-Applicant: Dr Victoria Barnes

SRG2223\230730

Women and the Gender Gap in Legal Publishing: Interviews with Journal Editors

University of Reading

Value Awarded: £9,140.45

Abstract: Publishing is central to one’s career progression and professional esteem in the legal academic profession. Studies in other fields have found a significant gender gap in publishing, as well as lack of representation of women on editorial and advisory boards, on works being celebrated and given awards. To date however, little is known about any potential gender gap in publishing in the legal field.

This study seeks to examine the gender statistics relating to women’s participation as authors in 20 leading law journals. In addition to understanding any potential gender gap, the applicants seek to explore journal editors’ perceptions as to the issues or challenges women face in publishing, as well as any strategies or programmes journals are employing to encourage increased participation of women.

The aim of the study is to shed light on the current nature of a significant gender equity issue in our professional field.

Dr Qilin Hu

Co-Applicant: Professor Mat Hughes

SRG2223\231626

Familisation: Is it a unique source for maintaining firm performance?

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £9,805.00

Abstract: We use “familisation” to describe the degree of firms close to a family firm involving the employees as a part of a “family”, which drives the nonfamily firm to carry family firm features. When nonfamily firms engage with familisation, they could have a certain intention to preserve nonfamily wealth, allowing them to behave effectively in communication and decision-making. Because of this, firms can gain an advantage. However, family firms may also lift firms’ concerns to protect the benefits of current employees, leading to myopic thinking and constraints of risk-taking. To understand how familisation impacts firm performance in the UK, this project will use a mixed-method approach to interview and survey familised firms in the UK. This project aims to explore the usefulness and barriers in familisation to assist firms in better performance.

Dr Serena Hussain

SRG2223\230800

Exploring British South Asian Relations against the Backdrop of the Leicester Tensions

Coventry University

Value Awarded: £9,978.06

Abstract: In September 2022 clashes between British Hindus and Muslims took place across the Midlands. Despite a long history of joint activism among South Asian heritage communities in the UK, there have been growing concerns that divisive government policies such as PREVENT, which focused attention on Muslims – at the perceived neglect of other minority groups (Kalra & Kapoor 2009); and imported ideological teachings of far right Hindu nationalist politics of India (Daly et al 2022) have detrimentally impacted the way communities interact within the British urban space. The ease in which inflammatory content can be shared transnationally via social media has been directly linked to the disturbances. Against this backdrop, the proposed study explores through qualitative fieldwork, how British Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs perceive contemporary relations among communities and ways to enhance joint South Asian activism witnessed between the 1970s to1990s in order to counterbalance violence and hate speech.

Dr Mostafa Hussien

Co-Applicant: Dr Tarek Abdelfattah

SRG2223\230255

Compensation consultant's reputation and CEO pay in the UK: A disclosure rule changes as a separating device

University of Westminster

Value Awarded: £9,858.00

Abstract: Employing compensation consultants is controversial and has been criticized by both academics and practitioners. In the UK, there has been considerable policy regarding the compensation pay and consultants. Since 2002, the regulator in UK has mandated disclosure of details of remuneration committee advisors and shareholders' vote on these compensation (Say-on-Pay, SoP), also, from 2013, there were further changes to directors’ remuneration reports and voting (SoP) via adding binding vote on remuneration policy and exit payments. However, little is known about the impact of these disclosures on CEOs’ pay level in UK companies and whether the reputation of the employed compensations consultants will impact the SoP vote and consequently the CEOs pay level. Thus, the project aims to investigate the effect of employing reputable compensation consultants on CEO pay. Also, the project examines how SoP voting patterns on CEOs Pay will be affected by the compensation consultants' reputation.

Dr Federico Iannacci

SRG2223\230011

Investigating the future of work in policing: a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of police forces in England and Wales

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £9,963.00

Abstract: This project aims at understanding how digital technologies are transforming work by investigating the transformation of work within criminal justice in general and policing in particular. The project introduces a sequential, multi-methods case study design revolving around Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) techniques. These techniques advocate the investigation of the holistic effects of causal conditions working in conjunction with each other. Drawing on theories of paradox, this study explores the contradictory effects of digital technologies in terms of public value creation. Accordingly, this study raises two fundamental questions: 1) How are police practices "migrating" to digital technologies? 2) In what way do digital technologies affect public value creation across police forces in England and Wales? It is expected that this project will promote the use of innovative mixed methods approaches based on comparative research, while contributing to the broader policy debate around the transformation of work within the criminal justice system.

Dr Boulis Ibrahim

Co-Applicant: Dr Hans-Wolfgang Loidl

SRG2223\231403

Automated Hybrid Machine Learning Software Module For Investment Strategy Development

Heriot-Watt University

Value Awarded: £9,921.60

Abstract: This project is to build a software module for the generation and testing of investment portfolios by innovative techniques. The new module aims to combine powerful machine learning techniques, especially genetic and evolutionary algorithms, with established domain-specific concepts, such as technical and econometric methods, to generate innovative hybrids. This generation process itself is automated to allow fund managers to explore and test a large number of ensembles of different portfolios and combinations of investment strategies in real time - a previously infeasible practice. The module will complement an existing software platform developed by our team to ultimately create a high performance virtual lab for fund managers. It is expected to be an invaluable FinTech tool for fund managers. We intend to develop this tool and evaluate its practical impact in conjunction with an industry associate group of companies (123 Invest Group), and use it to test investment concepts for publications.

Dr Stefanos Ioannou

SRG2223\230729

Small business lending in small island communities. The role of soft information.

Oxford Brookes University

Value Awarded: £9,135.00

Abstract: In this project I aim to study soft, or else non-quantifiable, information in small business lending in small islands. Literature from economics highlights the significance of soft information, suggesting that small businesses are more likely to receive funding when lending banks are in close proximity, and thus able to understand better the local environment and get to know their clients. These studies, however, shy away from exploring more deeply the production and use of soft information in daily life. Meanwhile, while other social sciences study soft information in the context of small communities, they say little about banking. My aim is to combine insights from the two sides. Using mixed methods, I will examine the ways in which inter-personal relationships and interactions in small island communities impact soft information, and by extension, the terms of borrowing for small businesses. As a case study, I will focus on the Scottish Isles.

Dr Zoe Irving

Co-Applicant: Professor Kevin Farnsworth

SRG2223\230564

Varieties of philanthrocapitalism: An investigation of the policy priorities and ambitions of philanthrocapitalists and their organisations

University of York

Value Awarded: £9,717.00

Abstract: Philanthrocapitalism, the application of market principles to charitable giving, is big business in the contemporary global political economy of welfare. The power of the ultra-wealthy in shaping the social contract of the future is increasingly exercised through individual and corporate giving in the choice of fundable projects and mechanisms by which funding is distributed. Knowledge of the operation and societal outcomes of philanthrocapitalist practices is increasing, but the opacity of the ultra-wealthy as research subjects prevents a deeper understanding of their societal and policy priorities and ambitions. This project investigates this unknown dimension of philanthrocapitalism through examination of the public communications of representative figureheads and their organisations. A quantitative content analysis method applied to documentary sources enables identification of philanthrocapitalists’ priorities and ambitions for human welfare, an understanding of their shared and competing interests and the implications for the reconfiguration of the post-pandemic global political economy of welfare.

Elvira Ismagilova

Co-Applicant: Dr Rohitkumar Trivedi Dr Chitivwa Zimba

SRG2223\230468

“Climate Change Is Not Real!”- The Use Of Various Message Formats To Counter Misinformation On Social Media About Climate Change

University of Bradford

Value Awarded: £7,992.00

Abstract: A large amount of misinformation travels through social media, and affects everyday life as well as knowledge and perception of important issues such as climate change. Misinformation about climate change can have significant consequences on citizens’ behaviour. Several studies have examined various approaches to alleviate the influence of misinformation. However, limited attention has been paid to the message format and to the social media user characteristics (such as the level of social media literacy and their impact on social media usage behaviour when devising strategies to correct misinformation). Based on dual coding theory and multimedia learning theory, this project aims to investigate the effect that various message formats (text, picture, video), delivered through social media, have on individuals who possess different levels of social media literacy, in correcting climate change-related misinformation.

Professor Oliver James

Co-Applicant: Dr Clare Lorna Maudling

SRG2223\231605

Legitimating Tax Administration through Identifying Taxpayers’ Preferences about Tax Collection

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £9,385.00

Abstract: An administrative system of tax collection that is seen as legitimate by taxpayers is at the heart of the effective functioning of democratic states. What taxpayers want from tax administration is an influence on the system's legitimacy but is seldom discussed, especially by comparison with debates about tax rates. Tax administration places a burden on taxpayers (which is often highest on disadvantaged groups) and affects tax compliance. Current changes towards tax digitisation, benefit/tax collection reform and more self employment in the 'gig economy' compound the topic's salience. This project aims to identify taxpayers’ preferences for interacting with the main UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs, and to identify differences in preferences including by region within the UK, age, and other socio-economic, and demographic characteristics. The findings are important for public debate about systems of tax collection and to inform policy making about their reform.

Dr Vikki Janke

Co-Applicant: Dr Gloria Chamorro

SRG2223\230847

Grammatical puzzles: a cross-linguistic perspective on children's development

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,993.57

Abstract: Young children’s grammatical development seems quite easy to track – at least up to a certain point. But around the age of 5, things get tricky. A whole host of complex constructions are being negotiated, and it has proven difficult to pinpoint the order in which they are fully mastered and the factors that impact most upon this sequence. Often, only a few sentence-types are tested, with only one kind of test. Generalisations are then made from these to seemingly similar ones. In addition, most studies assess children of different ages at one point in time. From these ‘cross-sectional’ studies, inferences are drawn about linguistic stages. Comparisons with other languages are also sparse. Our project offers a longitudinal, cross-linguistic perspective. By monitoring the same Spanish/English children over two years, and testing comprehension, production, vocabulary and working memory, we contribute fresh and focused evidence to the solving of this grammatical puzzle.

Dr Hana Jee

SRG2223\230253

The secret of letter shapes: exploring grapho-phonemic systematicity in human writing systems

York St John University

Value Awarded: £9,400.00

Abstract: Why does the letter ‘A’ look and sound as it does? This long-held question can be explored if we take a slightly different perspective. Exploring language as a complex system, we, for the first time, revealed that letter shapes may not be perfectly arbitrary with their sounds. Our previous studies (Jee, Tamariz, & Shillcock, 2020b; 2020c; 2022b) consistently showed that the human conventional orthography systems may inhere ‘grapho-phonemic systematicity’, defined as the correlation between the letter shapes and their corresponding phonemes. This implies that the way human cognition interacts with written linguistic symbols is not perfectly arbitrary. In this proposed research, I will investigate if the grapho-phonemic systematicity is also observed in human participants. It is crucial to confirm the existence of the systematicity in the behavioural experiment to strengthen the theoretical ground. At its early stage, the research also has various practical implications.

Dr Nele Jensen

SRG2223\231656

Rebel Doctors – expanding repertoires of care

King's College London

Value Awarded: £9,719.00

Abstract: This project examines the role of 'rebel doctors' – medical practitioners who, by experimenting with new modes of knowing and doing health, challenge the boundaries of ‘textbook medicine’ and established assumptions of ‘good’ care – to explore the kinds of alternative futures for biomedicine that their practices articulate. In doing so, it takes as its starting point the proposition that common social science critiques of the reductive nature of biomedicine, while sometimes appropriate, tend to also be too indiscriminate and too simplistic to be useful. More so, their oppositional stance risks closing down opportunities for constructive interdisciplinary engagement that could articulate how things could indeed be otherwise. In scoping existing relevant literature, identifying suitable case studies and building new alliances with biomedical practitioners and social scientists, this project will lay the groundwork for a major grant application to be submitted in 2024.

Dr Chunxia Jiang

SRG2223\231776

The bank business model (BBM) matters: The global evidence

University of Aberdeen

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: The global banking sector has undergone fundamental changes since financial deregulation in the early 1980s. Intensifying competition, financial innovations, financial crisis, and increasingly stringent regulations have induced banks to reconsider their strategic choice of business model, especially after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Although research on the bank business model (BBM) can be traced back to Amel & Rhoades (1988), it remains largely unexplored. After the 2008 crisis, the BBM has attracted more research interest, which, however, has primarily focused on BBM classification and associated bank-level characteristics in Europe.

The BBM has far-reaching implications, for which we have little knowledge. Based on a global sample of banks over the past 30 years, this project will classify BBMs, depict the evolution, examine the drivers and impacts of BBM changes, and further explore how the BBMs affect bank performance in capital markets and banks’ resilience to external shocks (i.e., Covid-19).

Dr Richard Johnson

SRG2223\230619

Education and Integration: Busing Policy in the US, UK, and France

Queen Mary University of London

Value Awarded: £9,157.00

Abstract: Busing was a policy tool used by some US school districts to tackle persistent racial segregation in schools. Children were transported from racially homogenous neighbourhoods to racially integrated schools. During its heyday in the 1960s-80s, busing was fiercely resisted by white parents and championed by civil rights advocates. It is less known that during this same period, some British local authorities also adopted busing schemes, transporting mostly British Asian children to majority-white schools. Unlike in the US, busing was mostly resisted by non-white families, who found it stigmatising and some argued that Asian children ought to be taught in predominantly Asian schools. France has recently embarked on its own busing experiments. No work has so far compared these policies and little has been written about the UK and French policies at all. This project will explore the different racial policy coalitions behind busing in the US, UK, and France.

Dr Chelsea Johnson

SRG2223\231019

Better Together: Rebel Mergers in Intra-state Conflict

University of Liverpool

Value Awarded: £9,739.00

Abstract: Contemporary intra-state conflicts often involve multiple armed groups, and in recent years, academic work has increasingly recognised the potential for group fluidity in such contexts. Much of this literature focuses on the effect of rebel alliances on conflict-related outcomes, such as duration, intensity, or the likelihood of a settlement. Few have analysed alliances as the outcome to be explained, and of these, none have disaggregated different degrees of cooperation. This project aims to fill this gap by investigating the phenomenon of rebel mergers as specific form of conflict transformation. It relies on a mixed-method qualitative approach, combining a cross-national analysis of 21 case studies of merger events in Sub-Saharan Africa with interviews of ex-rebel officers involved in the integration of three discrete rebellions in Côte d’Ivoire in 2003. The research findings speak to the causes of shifting coalitions—one of the biggest challenges of negotiating peace in multi-party contexts.

Dr Jessica Johnson

SRG2223\231621

Anachisale’s Life: narration and ethics in feminist anthropology

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £8,775.00

Abstract: This project will bring ‘Western’ and ‘African’ feminisms into conversation outside elite forums for the generation of feminist thought, simultaneously enabling analysis of the real time co-creation of ethnographic knowledge, and the ethics thereof. The aim is to produce a collaborative biography of Anachisale, a rural Malawian woman who has been my host, friend and research participant since 2009. Anachisale is 47 years-old, a landholder, wife, mother, and member of a chiefly matrilineage. Fiercely critical of men, her life so far and her hopes for the future have nevertheless been shaped by her relationships with kinsmen and intimate partners, as well as local expectations of gendered roles and matrilineal norms of residence and inheritance. For over a decade, her life has also borne the imprint of her status as ‘key informant’ for a visiting anthropologist. Together, we will analyse our mutual entanglement and advance the practice of feminist collaboration.

Ian Johnson

Co-Applicant: Ms Alexandra Healey

SRG2223\231637

Deciphering Diplomacy: Handwriting Recognition and Text Encoding of the Hilda Runciman Diaries

Newcastle University

Value Awarded: £7,814.69

Abstract: The focus of this project will be the diaries of Hilda Runciman (1869 – 1956); the wife of prominent Liberal MP Walter Runciman (1870 – 1949).

The Runcimans most enduring legacy was as key envoys to the 1938 Mission to Czechoslovakia. They supported the controversial dismemberment of the country under the Munich Agreement; a disastrous policy of Nazi appeasement which undid Chamberlain’s government. Hilda’s diary entries provide a first-hand, candid view of the Mission contrary to traditional perspectives.

The diaries will serve as a new corpus to the methodology devised through our AHRC funded ‘Evolving Hands’ project. Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) will be used to automate digital transcriptions of entries. The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) will then be applied to contextualise significant research features of the content.

The web-based output will provide an annotated commentary to these pivotal weeks of British foreign policy and open new research pathways to historians.

Dr Laurence Jones

Co-Applicant: Professor Rasha Alsakka

SRG2223\230499

The Impact of Brexit, Covid-19 Pandemic and Inflation on Bank Lending and Solvency in the UK and EU - A Dynamic Structural Estimation

Bangor University

Value Awarded: £9,865.00

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and soaring inflation rates have hit the UK and European Union (EU) banking sectors at a time when new regulatory reforms have changed the way they operate. The Bail-in regime shifts the cost of banks’ failures from the taxpayer to the banks’ own equity and bond holders. Hence, banks bear a greater burden in the event of failure and consequently change their risk-taking behaviour. More stringent capital requirements of Basel III increase the amount of equity held by banks to enhance their financial stability. We seek to understand the effectiveness of these measures in the face of recent negative shocks in the UK compared to the EU banking sectors, and how variations in their mechanisms (through simulated counterfactuals) can influence bank risk taking, solvency and lending activity. The findings will offer wide-ranging implications for policy makers and the banking industry in the UK, EU and beyond.

Professor Tom Jones

SRG2223\231186

The Oxford Edition of the Writings of Alexander Pope, Volumes I and II: Textual Study of the Early Poems (Works 1717)

University of St Andrews

Value Awarded: £9,768.00

Abstract: The Oxford Edition of the Writings of Alexander Pope will provide critical texts of all Pope’s writings, original and translated, in verse and prose. This project relates to work on volumes I and II of the edition and focuses on the completion of historical collations and textual accounts for the poems to be included, those of Pope’s Works 1717. The grant will support three in-person editorial meetings that will be combined with close study of copies of Works 1717 in each location, research presentations by the volume editors, and discussion with other colleagues at host institutions also involved in scholarly editing projects. The grant will also support the work of a Research Assistant to aid with collation, the study of multiple copies, and consistency across the volumes. The outcome will be the completion of a significant portion of the work on the texts, clearing the path to annotation and introduction.

Dr Jack Joyce

Co-Applicant: Dr Madeleine Tremblett Dr Tom Douglass

SRG2223\230347

Blood donations in research institutes (BlooDRi)

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Our research investigates blood-taking as a research activity. We aim to understand the motivations and challenges for participation in research and the practical accomplishment of taking blood. The importance of studying scientific practice is three-fold; first, to understand and improve transparency of the production of science; second, to investigate barriers to research participation, whether personal or organisational; and third, develop a body of evidence for subsequent work to develop an intervention to improve retention/uptake of research participation. To achieve this we plan to interview blood takers and blood donors about their experience and perspective of donation; critically review training documentation and literature on the sociology of science and blood donation; and, record blood donations in situ. Taken together our research will qualitatively scrutinise scientific practice as a situated and socially organised activity, and examine how scientific training is translated into scientific practice.

Professor George Kassimeris

SRG2223\231745

Daughter, Wife, Mother, Bomber: Women & Terrorism in Greece

University of Wolverhampton

Value Awarded: £9,440.00

Abstract: This project seeks to analyse the life histories of female militants in Greece in an attempt to understand the political reasons and motivational factors that led to their involvement in terrorism. Drawing on individual interviews with imprisoned militants, the project will be the first to gather systematic data from Greece’s new generation of female terrorists. By providing an insight into the backgrounds, motivations and complex personal dilemmas of female militants inside Greece’s gender-conservative and overwhelmingly male-dominated armed struggle movement, the project aims to make a significant contribution to the study and understanding of women and terrorism.

Dr Kiranpreet Kaur

SRG2223\230999

Peace Travellers: Memoirs of Indian Peacekeepers in Congo (1960-64)

University of Wolverhampton

Value Awarded: £9,440.00

Abstract: United Nation’s peacekeeping missions in Congo have been extensively studied by the war historians, social historians and others interested in governance, security and international relations. The personal memoirs of the peacekeepers have been treated as primary sources for these analyses. The literary value of these memoirs has been neglected, as has their potential to contribute to the fields of cultural materialism, new historicism, postcoloniality, neo-colonialism and travel writing. To address this gap, I intend to study peacekeepers’ memoirs for the representation of their travel experience in a conflict zone, and textual performativity of self and other to construct a favourable self. This pilot project centres on tracing and collecting the memoirs – written (published/unpublished) or oral (audio-visuals, interviews and questionnaires) - of these peacekeepers by accessing archives located in India, and New York, and conducting interviews of former peacekeepers. The collection will then be used for literary and analytical study.

Dr Adrian Kay

SRG2223\231363

Islam in UK policymaking: discourses, institutional change, and multilevel governance

Aston University

Value Awarded: £9,070.00

Abstract: The overarching aim of the project is to demonstrate the value of institutional theory to the study of Islam in UK policymaking. It will do this by applying recent advances in policy feedback theory to newly released archival sources from the period of the New Labour government between 1997 and 2001. The project offers innovation by building

theory in which recognition of group identity is a form of policy feedback; specifically, recognition of Islam within the context of multicultural debates and UK policymaking. In doing so, it will contribute to the development of the study of Islam at the policy level by seeking to bridge the gap between current critical approaches to multiculturalism as a policy discourse and empirical accounts of particular Muslim-orientated policy initiatives.

Liam Kelleher

Co-Applicant: Dr James Riley

SRG2223\230094

National survey of public awareness and perceptions of microplastic pollution and health

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: This project will implement a nationally-representative survey to understand public awareness and perceptions of microplastic pollution and its health impacts. The study of microplastics, a subset of plastic pollution, is a rapidly growing area of research that provides a sometimes-terrifying view into their abundance. Natural science research has studied their transport, findings in remote locations, health risks, and presence in people and animals. Despite this, there is limited social science research and public survey data on what populations both nationally and internationally understand of microplastics and their health impacts. Our survey will investigate the UK population’s awareness of and attitudes to microplastic prevalence and impacts on health. We will produce a journal article and public-facing report to benefit not only the research community, but also policy makers, healthcare and communications professionals. Both the data and report will be a resource for guiding policy, training and community engagement on microplastic pollution.

Dr Meryl Kenny

Co-Applicant: Dr Alan Convery

SRG2223\230763

Gender, Ministers and Institutions in Scotland

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,810.21

Abstract: Women have historically been under-represented amongst government ministers. Despite increasing pressure to consider representational criteria in cabinet composition, gendered patterns in appointment and ministerial career trajectories persist worldwide. This project examines the executive as a gendered institution, asking who gets (and stays) at ‘the top’, and why; how rules and resources shape access to executive power; and how ministers experience the executive once they get there. We explore these questions through a case study of post-devolution Scotland, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data to identify trends over time, and investigate how men and women ministers navigate the complex rules and networks of central government. In doing so, we advance theory-building and provide important new empirical data on the gendered nature of the executive, contributing to the gender politics and non-gendered executive literatures. We use these insights to generate practical policy recommendations around advancing equitable representation and diversifying ministerial teams.

Dr Fatima Khan

Co-Applicant: Professor Hannah Smithson

SRG2223\230896

Young Muslim Minds: a participatory study of the implications of Islamophobia for the mental health of young Mancunian Muslims

Manchester Metropolitan University

Value Awarded: £8,707.75

Abstract: This project examines the impacts of Islamophobia on the mental health of young Muslims living in Greater Manchester. Islamophobia is amongst the most pervasive forms of racism operating in white-majority global north states. Hostile systemic, institutional, and interpersonal conditions mean Muslims live in a state of hypervigilance that increases vulnerability to mental ill-health (Khan, 2022). Existing research has most often deployed quantitative analysis, neglected in-depth qualitative examination and failed to secure the participation of young Muslims born into and living with the “chronic daily hassles” of Islamophobia (Hankir et al., 2019). This project focuses exclusively on young Muslims, mobilising participatory and creative-qualitative methods to produce in-depth, youth-informed, and youth-led knowledge. These novel ways of understanding will accelerate scholarship in multiple disciplines that is concerned with intersecting structural constraints for young people’s mental health, the use and limitations of innovative methodologies and to develop Muslim-inclusive policy, practice and support services.

Dr Neil Kirk

Co-Applicant: Dr Mathieu Declerck

SRG2223\231206

Improving the ecological validity of language control research in bilinguals and bidialectals

University of Abertay Dundee

Value Awarded: £9,920.00

Abstract: Whenever bilinguals and bidialectals produce language, both varieties are activated and create interference with each other. Language control is the process used to minimize this cross-language competition and stop words from the non-intended variety being selected during bilingual/bidialectal language production. While ample research has investigated language control, the overwhelming majority of studies rely on single-word production tasks. Yet, some research has indicated that a sentence context decreases the necessity for language control relative to single-word production, though the evidence is far from conclusive. With this project, we will provide novel evidence whether – and to what degree - language control is affected by a sentence context through reliance on an understudied phenomenon, namely the blocked language order effect. Our secondary goal will be to examine if the outcome is similar for bilinguals and bidialectals as previous studies have shown both similarities and differences across bilingual and bidialectal language control.

Dr Maike Klein

Co-Applicant: Professor David Best

SRG2223\230184

Exploring Recovery Capital as Care Planning Intervention for Addiction Treatment: A Pilot Study

Lancaster University

Value Awarded: £8,590.00

Abstract: Addiction treatment systems must develop solutions for capturing accurate recovery data and providing more effective recovery support, particularly when an individual has finished their treatment. Care planning, or the process during which service providers and clients collaborate on a personalised plan for engagement during and after treatment, plays an important role in recovery (Matscheck & Piova, 2020). Recent developments in recovery research have operationalised the notion that recovery is an ongoing process of managing a person’s recovery resources (i.e., the recovery capital measure; REC-CAP), and therefore underline the importance of care planning to support this process. Despite this, there remains insufficient clarity on best practice around care planning within addiction treatment settings. This mixed-method study will be the first to implement and test REC-CAP (Cano et al., 2017) as a care planning intervention, with the potential to develop best practice in capturing more effective recovery outcome data in recovery services.

Dr Bouke Klein Teeselink

Co-Applicant: Dr Georgios Melios

SRG2223\231469

Shifting Involvements or Shifting Identities? The Effect of Secularisation on Polarisation and Economic Behaviour

King's College London

Value Awarded: £9,764.00

Abstract: For many western societies, secularisation has been one of the most profound social changes of the recent past. Nevertheless, many of its consequences remain unknown. On the one hand, people who de-identify with religion may seek their social identity in other sources such as politics. Alternatively, religious de-identification may cause a retreat into private life, whereby people shift their focus from religious pursuits towards material well-being. The proposed research uses US clergy scandals to examine the causal effect of secularisation on political identification and economic behaviour. To measure political identification, we consider turnout rates, political donations, and feelings towards opposing parties. For economic behaviour, we consider consumption decisions, saving decisions, and economic prosperity. Taken together, these measures provide a comprehensive picture of both political identification and economic behaviour, which allows us to answer the question whether religious de-identification causes either political polarisation or increased focus on materialistic pursuits.

Dr Harshan Kumarasingham

SRG2223\230854

The Elizabethan Constitution 1952-2022

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,455.00

Abstract: The Crown is the bedrock of the British Constitution. The state exists through the Crown, which has been a constant and salient feature of the constitution throughout history. In the modern era, however, the person that wears the crown rarely directs its powers. Yet, the Sovereign not only can symbolise a period in the country’s history and constitution, but their reign and role can provide a critical and unique perspective of political change and continuity. The death of Queen Elizabeth II prompts such a reflection after 70 long and eventful years on how the state and constitution both altered and retained traditional features during her reign. The research project would investigate the key characteristics and cultures of the modern Elizabethan constitution. Surveying the constitution from the Crown’s angle will allow a portrait of constitutional and historical significance, especially in understanding the conventions and politics that underwrite the British state.

Dr Mehmet Kurt

Co-Applicant: Dr Barış Öktem

SRG2223\231330

The Roots, Uprootedness and Home Making: The Case of Kurdish Gen Z Refugees in London and Berlin

Royal Holloway, University of London

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Generation Z, as the first digital natives of the world, encapsulates young people and children born between the 1990s and 2010s. Gen Z refugees consist of 40 percent of the world's refugee population. Although there is an increasing number of studies about the refugee crisis and displacement worldwide, scholarly research focusing on the particular case of Gen Z refugees is exceptionally scarce. As the world’s biggest stateless nation, the Kurds comprise a significant portion of the UK and Germany’s immigrant and refugee populations. However, they are an invisible diasporic community because they are most often registered as Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi, or Iranian. This research project aims to contribute to these understudied areas by investigating the notions of home-making, intersectional identities, digital relations, and integration of the Kurdish Gen Z refugees in London and Berlin in the context of their experiences of forced migration, asylum-seeking, and community-making in the diasporas.

Mr Aditya Kuvalekar

Co-Applicant: Dr Deepal Basak Professor Joyee Deb

SRG2223\231506

Protests and Social Media

University of Essex

Value Awarded: £8,200.00

Abstract: Two factors determine the likelihood of a protest being successful: firstly, effective coordination and secondly, overcoming the free-rider incentive of the potential protestors. Social media is a powerful tool for ameliorating the coordination problem by making the underlying cause salient. However, once an issue gains prominence, it could also provide incentives for people to free-ride and not participate, especially if people are convinced that an issue is widely supported. By amplifying the salience of an issue, social media can potentially harm a cause. The aim of this project is to determine which effect dominates, and when? Can social media facilitate more protests on important issues despite the free-rider effect? Can the incentives to free-ride outweigh the benefits of increased awareness that social media entails? We also wish to study the nature of regimes—resilient or weak—that are easier to be overthrown with social media.

Dr Azimjon Kuvandikov

Co-Applicant: Professor Andrew David Pendleton Professor Marc Goergen

SRG2223\231540

Do activist hedge funds transfer wealth from employees to themselves in merger and acquisition deals?

University of Essex

Value Awarded: £9,999.00

Abstract: This project will investigate whether mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with the involvement of activist hedge funds (AHFs) are associated with wealth transfers from employees to short-term oriented shareholders. There is limited empirical evidence on this topic, despite public and policy controversies surrounding the activities of AHFs. It has been claimed that AHFs capture value from other stakeholders, and ultimately prioritise short-term gains at the expense of long-term profitability of the targeted firms. This project will analyse the relationship between shareholder gains and changes in labour costs when AHFs own equity stakes in an acquired and/or an acquiring firm. It will examine the impact of AHFs on the takeover premiums, abnormal share price returns and labour cost savings. It will also study the moderating role of corporate governance variables (board composition, board independence, board ownership, and large block-holders) in explaining any association between shareholder gains and AHFs within the M&A context.

Dr Maria Kyriacou

SRG2223\231392

Data-Driven Methods for Spatial Socio-economic Networks

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,991.47

Abstract: In modern economies, individuals’ decisions and behaviour are shaped not only by their own attributes, but also via interactions with their peers. Such interactions form the kernel of economic networks which are important for both prediction and implementation of effective policies. In spatial econometric models, the heart of network structures lies within a spatial weights matrix which allocates weights to capture peer effects. Traditionally, these network structures are formed using geographic distance to measure proximity, ignoring that spatial economic networks are, in fact, formed by a complex set of socio-economic characteristics. This project aims to develop and evaluate a comprehensive toolkit using state-of-the-art data-driven methods to derive spatial network structures. These methods will be applied to Big Data frameworks of UK housing Data taking advantage of the volume of available information. Dissemination of results will be achieved by the availability of relevant programming codes and a 1-day workshop.

Dr Hao Lan

SRG2223\230851

How Does the Disclosure of Corporate Site Visits Add Value to Capital Markets?

University of Essex

Value Awarded: £6,900.00

Abstract: This project examines the implications of corporate site visit (CSV) disclosure for capital markets. CSVs are site visits conducted by market participants, including institutional investors, financial analysts, and media and press, in order to directly observe firms’ operations and talk to firm management. Currently, information on such visits is largely private in western countries whereas evidence from prior studies suggests that CSVs are of value to market participants. Therefore, we explore the unique context of the Chinese stock market where the disclosure of CSVs is mandatory and aim to advance our understanding of CSVs. Specifically, we address three research questions: a) to what extent CSVs reduce information asymmetry by providing value-relevant information; b) to what extent CSVs discourage managers’ opportunistic behaviour; c) what drives managers to engage in impression management (i.e. tone management) during CSVs and how the presence of tone management hinders the informativeness of CSVs.

Dr Taimaz Larimian

Co-Applicant: Dr Arash Sadeghi

SRG2223\230903

Energy cooperation among UK SMEs: Opportunities, challenges, and success factors

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £9,982.50

Abstract: The global energy crisis is a wake-up call for countries as their economies start to suffer and their unemployment rates rise. It is forecasted that the global energy crisis will have more negative impact on businesses than the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Federation of Small Businesses’ (FSB) recent report, 54% of the UK SMEs are at the risk of stagnation, downsizing, or closer in the coming 12 months as a direct result of soaring energy prices. This research aims to shed light on the success factors of cooperation between SMEs for the development of synergetic solutions within the energy scope. At the national level, energy cooperatives play an important role in transition towards energy decentralisation paradigm and developing low-carbon energy solutions. At the firm level, energy cooperatives will help businesses to access more affordable, available, and stable energy sources that would significantly contribute to their economic resilience.

Jac Larner

SRG2223\230342

Disability Stereotypes and Support for Redistribution

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £9,888.00

Abstract: Attitudes towards disability are a vastly understudied area of research across quantitative political science, yet the need for such research is acute. Approximately 20% of British citizens report some form of disability, with these individuals substantially more likely to require additional support from the state through interactions with health and care services and/or in the form of welfare, where disability brings additional costs or where access to the labour market is restricted. Moreover, increases in life expectancy across Western societies means the proportion of state spending dedicated to supporting these citizens, as well as political salience of the issue, is only likely to increase over time. As such, understanding attitudes towards this group is of urgent normative, as well as academic, importance. Using three novel survey experiments in the UK, this project will be the first study of how attitudes towards disability affect support for redistributive policies.

Dr Cherry Law

Co-Applicant: Dr Giacomo Zanello Dr Nithya Vishwanath Gowdru

SRG2223\230807

Linking energy use to household food security in India: An exploratory research

University of Reading

Value Awarded: £9,984.72

Abstract: Recently both energy and food prices have been skyrocketing across the world. These rising prices are likely to force disadvantaged households to make difficult trade-offs between food and modern energy (e.g. electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, kerosene and etc),

leading to lower food security and heavier reliance on polluting but cheaper fuels like wood, charcoal, or animal waste. Despite the close connection between household energy use and their diet, little is known about the dynamics behind this energy-food link, largely due to the lack of appropriate household level data. This exploratory research project aims to develop and pilot a comprehensive survey instrument in Telangana, India, which will be used to support and seek larger research proposals to assess the energy-food link on a granular level. This line of research will provide the highly needed evidence to help tackle the global challenges of food insecurity while reducing the reliance of polluting fuels.

Dr Sylvain Lemoine

SRG2223\231596

Territoriality and cooperation in Gibraltar Barbary macaques: anthropogenic effect on intergroup competition and cooperative behaviour

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £9,840.00

Abstract: Throughout human evolution, warfare is thought to be a strong driver of in-group non-kin cooperation. Evidence in chimpanzees point toward ancient origins of such parochial altruism, coupling out-group hostility and in-group cooperation. Whether such phenomenon is also present in more distantly related Cercopithecine primates remains poorly studied. The Gibraltar Barbary macaque population offers a unique setup to investigate patterns of territoriality, in-group cooperation, and intergroup competition, due to their high level of habituation, long-term demographic monitoring and high population density. Tourists are an integral part of the ecology of these primates. How touristic pressure affects patterns of territoriality, out-group hostility and population scale group dominance remains unknown. I propose to investigate the effect of touristic activities on the intergroup competitiveness of neighbouring macaque groups, whether tourists constitute a source of competition between the groups, what are their territorial strategies and tactics, and how in-group cooperation is impacted by out-group conflicts.

Dr Szilvia Linnert

Co-Applicant: Dr Alissa Ferry

SRG2223\231135

Do infants see what we see? A novel EEG approach to investigate real-time object categorisation in infants

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,212.00

Abstract: To understand how humans make sense of the world, we need to understand how we form conceptual knowledge and how this is organised in the brain. Categorisation and word learning studies in infants aim to investigate how knowledge develops; however, infant categorisation studies do not measure categorisation directly. Moreover, despite visual representations having been argued to form the basis of conceptual knowledge, categorisation studies do not consider recent findings on how the brain processes categorical information. The aim of this project is to overcome the limitations of traditional infant categorisation studies by identifying an electroencephalogram (EEG) signature that directly measures categorisation processes and can be used to investigate the role of perceptual processes in the formation of conceptual representations in 9-month-old infants. This project will be the first step in a programme of research aiming to establish novel approaches to investigate categorisation, word learning and underlying brain mechanisms in infants.

Dr Julie Litchfield

Co-Applicant: Dr Elodie Douarin

SRG2223\230388

War-time Sexual Violence in Kosovo: estimating the incidence of traumatic experiences and their impacts on political participation, gender attitudes and societal values.

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £9,936.24

Abstract: War-time experiences of displacement, injury and death can have dramatic and enduring impacts on victims’ social, economic and political choices. However, some forms of victimisation remain understudied. This is the case for war-time sexual violence (WTSV). Both men and women are likely to underreport their experiences when asked directly, thus hiding the true extent of WTSV and making it difficult to study its impacts. We propose to study WTSV experiences using innovative survey methods designed for sensitive topics, allowing us to get more accurate information about WTSV incidence, and then analyse the impact of WTSV, and other war-time experiences, on political participation, attitudes around gender roles and societal values. Kosovo is an interesting case-study as a government program running from 2018-2023 recognising and compensating victims of WTSV has had little take-up, evidencing a persistent stigma over 20 years after the war. Our research will therefore help inform future legislation.

Dr Ching Yiu Jessica Liu

Co-Applicant: Professor Caroline Wilkinson

SRG2223\230412

The Masked Skulls of Colombia: Archaeological Facial Depictions

Liverpool John Moores University

Value Awarded: £9,800.00

Abstract: The Colombian Institute of Anthropology and the Gold Museum of Bogotá curate a number of archaeological skulls with facial masks made with resin. These masks were made directly on the anterior aspect of the skull, covering the entire face and jaw of each individual. They are of extraordinary workmanship and so far, the only ones known to exist in Colombia.

Facial depictions can be a powerful tool to re-personify museological objects and artefacts containing human remains. No facial depictions have previously been made for these unique masks. The originality of this research will widen our understanding on the native population from the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, adding value to the history and cultural heritage of the population. Based on four masked skulls, this project aims to produce four facial representation of the native population from the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, 1390-1520 AD.

Saturnino Luz

Co-Applicant: Dr Fasih Haider Dr Ya-Ning Chang

SRG2223\231718

Multilingual approaches for early Alzheimer's disease detection through analysis of spontaneous speech

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £5,000.00

Abstract: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which has become a prominent global issue. Linguistic measures elicited from speech can provide important insights into cognition and prove useful in predicting cognitive decline in the early stages of AD. There is growing interest in using speech data for early detection based on computational linguistics methods. While various models have been proposed and applied in different language systems, progress has been hampered by (a) scarcity of speech datasets from clinical and preclinical AD patients; (b) lack of systematic multilingual studies aimed at identifying linguistic markers of AD that generalise across languages. This project will tackle these issues by developing dialogue protocols for collecting data from spontaneous speech conversations, and systematically comparing linguistic features derived from English and Chinese the detection of AD. Specifically, it will investigate network analysis methods that have been applied to English but not yet to Chinese data.

Professor Bonaventura Majolo

Co-Applicant: Dr Sam Andrews

SRG2223\231538

Understanding the causes of violence

University of Lincoln

Value Awarded: £5,712.00

Abstract: Are humans innately violent? What are the causes of violence? Answering these questions requires a cross-disciplinary approach, which has never been undertaken before. We aim to determine how culture (e.g., individualism) and socio-ecology (e.g., economic inequality) affect violence in modern human societies. We will use a large dataset on various types of violence (e.g., homicide, assault), constructed from a combination of existing world-leading datasets. We will compare our findings to the results of our prior project on violence in non-human primates. The comparison of results from the two projects will allow us to determine the relative role of socio-ecology, culture and evolution on human violence. This topic has great scientific, philosophical and societal value, and is timely, because the environmental crisis and global economic instability are predicted to increase the rate of violence within/between societies in the coming years. Understanding the causes of violence is essential for its prevention.

Dr Richard Mansell

SRG2223\230739

Majorca as a translational space: Exploring the effects of translation as a transformative force

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £2,733.00

Abstract: The concept of space has long been present in translation studies: translations take place in, and are affected by, a certain time and place. Yet only in recent years has analysis of how translation affects space been foregrounded by scholars such as Sherry Simon, studying how overlapping languages and cultures in urban sites around the world are part of those locations’ very identity. In this project I shall analyse the Mediterranean island of Majorca as a translational space, taking as case studies multiple sites featuring interaction between the co-official languages of Catalan and Spanish, as well as languages and associated cultural forms belonging to large tourist/expatriate and migrant communities. This will innovate in showing how these textual instances have personal, social and cultural effects, and lay the foundations for a future network to study these repercussions in society and culture, advancing our understanding of translation as a creative force.

Dr Alexandru Marcoci

Co-Applicant: Dr Ans Vercammen

SRG2223\231699

Measuring the quality of collective reasoning

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £9,603.00

Abstract: It is generally expected that by exchanging arguments and collectively scrutinizing the weight of the evidence and the quality of each others’ reasoning, we increase our chances of obtaining the correct answer, or getting to “the truth”. Nevertheless, this seemingly reasonable intuition has been proven wrong in practice. Existing research seeks to identify the source of collective (in-)accuracy in the structural features of the group or the individual characteristics of its constituent members. In this study we focus on an intermediary factor that has hitherto been neglected, namely the quality of the group’s reasoning process. Leveraging a novel metric for measuring quality of reasoning developed by the PI and a yet unreleased dataset of group deliberations about problems with normative answers, we propose to conduct the first study investigating the substantive characteristics of collective reasoning and its relationship to group accuracy.

Professor Raphael Markellos

Co-Applicant: Dr George Dotsis

SRG2223\231402

Does the Informal Economy cast a Shadow on Real Estate Markets?

University of East Anglia

Value Awarded: £2,650.00

Abstract: This study explores for the first time the effect of the shadow economy on the real estate market. Specifically, we analyse empirically at a country level the link between property index prices, rental yields and shadow economy levels using an extensive international panel dataset. The effect pathway controls for known effects related to, for example, liquidity and financing costs but also, more broadly, to the rule of law, money laundering and corruption. In addition to our main hypothesis, we also examine if the shadow economy has a different effect on market bubbles and within developing countries.

Dr Ryoko Matsuba

SRG2223\231002

Connecting Present to Past: Re-evaluating Japanese Traditional Printmaking

University of East Anglia

Value Awarded: £9,624.00

Abstract: Printing with woodblocks was the standard technology in Japan well into the modern era, however the industry suffered a drastic decline in the early 1880s. Only a few traditional print makers currently survive in Japan. With their passing, their skills are in danger of disappearing. Additionally, the loss of the natural resources essential to this technology through climate change adds to the uncertainty of the survival of these practices into the future. These factors add urgency to the need to undertake research in this under-explored field.

This one-year project centres on conducting field work in Japan to examine traditional print and paper making. The project will also examine the cultivation and processing of the materials used in the 19th century to produce washi paper, pigments, and wood blocks. The project will set the stage for further wide-ranging collaboration with artists and craftspeople, art historians, anthropologists, and experts on climate change.

Dr Samantha May

SRG2223\230669

Covid, crisis and belonging: Muslim charity in the UK

University of Aberdeen

Value Awarded: £9,500.00

Abstract: The proposal seeks to explore the alterations in Muslim charitable practices during Covid, specifically the shift to donating within the UK in contrast to a previous emphasis on transnational giving. Partly in response to domestic crisis, this shift in charitable donations may also be evidence of British Muslim’s sense of social and political “belonging” to the UK in contrast to narratives which view British Muslims as “isolationist”. The proposal seeks to explain how and why, Muslim charitable practitioners were at the forefront of Covid mitigation strategies and their unique capacity to engage in post-Covid recovery efforts which simultaneously aid “social integration” broadly. In addition to mapping and understanding transformations in charitable practises and the positives this brings to British civil life, the research also seeks to contribute to conceptualisations of 'social integration' beyond the Westcentric framework currently espoused by British Policy makers.

Dr Karen McBride

Co-Applicant: Dr Shraddha Verma Dr Sianne Gordon-Wilson

SRG2223\230423

Being a representative: Exploring Diversity, Equality, Inclusion and Belonging: an investigation of intersectionality in Board representation in large UK companies

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £9,944.00

Abstract: There are many reasons why the senior leadership of large companies should be diverse including performance enhancement, social equity, diversity of thought and the need to reflect the international environment in which these organisations work. Recent initiatives within the voluntary approach to DEIB in the UK encompass reporting gender pay gaps and The FTSE 100 target of ‘one by ‘21’ for Board inclusion for those from diverse ethnic backgrounds. In addition, intersectionality has been recognised as an area which requires greater attention. This project builds on recent research in this space. Using a novel phenomenographical approach, the research aims to explore challenges and opportunities in reaching Board level as experienced by those from intersectional backgrounds without pre-defining what these challenges and opportunities might be. We also seek to determine a set of wider business community procedures or good practice to support the promotion of diversity in senior leadership roles.

Dr Robert McCabe

SRG2223\230223

“A Sea of Opportunity” - The Maritime Dimension of Brexit Narratives

Coventry University

Value Awarded: £5,801.16

Abstract: Brexit was a seismic event that magnified the importance of the ocean as both an economic lifeline, but also a fraught and contested political space. Despite this, to date no study has attempted to understand how Brexit was shaped by narratives linked to the maritime domain. Specifically, how these narratives link to ideas of security, identity, and socio-cultural perceptions and how these perceptions shaped the campaign and referendum result. This project aims to address this gap in scholarly knowledge through new data and outputs that will, for the first time, reveal the maritime dimension of Brexit narratives, why this mattered, and how it continues to create impasses in UK-ROI-EU relations. This will establish the foundation for the development of a larger bid that will map the prevailing and evolving narratives around what it means to feel secure, and the changing ways people ascribe meaning and socio-cultural significance to the ocean.

Dr Richard McFarland

Co-Applicant: Dr Clare Kimock Professor Bridget Waller

SRG2223\230349

The impact of sexual dimorphism on facial expression in primates: implications for the evolution of facial communication

Nottingham Trent University

Value Awarded: £9,985.81

Abstract: Human facial communication is highly complex and plays a fundamental role in social interaction. There are subtle sex differences in some facial expressions, whereby women are generally more expressive than men, and men and women use smiling differently in aggressive and affiliative contexts. These differences might relate to facial masculinity constraining some facial movements, and our evolutionary history of sexual dimorphism. Despite observed differences in male and female facial expressiveness, we know very little about how facial expressions can be impacted by sexual dimorphism. We will examine how sexual dimorphism constrains facial communication. We will use chacma baboons as a model species to examine how sex differences in facial morphology—which are particularly exaggerated in this species—affect muscle movement and subsequent repertoire of facial expressivity. Our findings will further our understanding of how social and ecological selective pressures have shaped the evolution of complex facial communication in humans.

Dr Gordon McKelvie

Co-Applicant: Dr Elena Woodacre

SRG2223\230926

Rumour, Fake News and English Queen Consorts in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century

University of Winchester

Value Awarded: £7,189.91

Abstract: This project examines the existence of fake news and conspiracy theories in later medieval England through a case study of rumours about three queen consorts (Joan of Navarre, Margaret of Anjou and Anne Boleyn). Despite the vast interdisciplinary scholarship on conspiracy theories, the topic has not been examined systematically for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. England during this period is well-suited for understanding fake news and conspiracy theories in a historical context because it experienced several societal and political crises which are important for conspiracy theories and fake news to flourish in the modern world. This discrete project is a proof-of-concept study that intends to show the value of the legal records of late medieval England for understanding the circulation of rumours and conspiracy theories. It contributes to wider understanding of fake news and conspiracy theories in a historical context and has contemporary relevance to modern debates.

Dr Luis Medina Cordova

SRG2223\230307

Archiving Real-Time Literary Responses to the Covid-19 in Latin America

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £9,872.00

Abstract: Our understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic is incomplete if we forget how it was narrated when it was happening, when the fear of the virus was not a memory but a live reality. This project will investigate and create an online archive of the ways in which Latin American writers responded to the pandemic through social media and other digital platforms in the first two years of the health crisis. When these authors were experiencing the pandemic alongside their audiences, they produced an online body of writing deeply engaged with the fears and anxieties caused by the virus worldwide. As the world moves on from Covid-19, these texts risk getting lost in the Internet’s ever-growing mass of content. This project will create an open-access digital archive to study them, keep record of Latin America’s pandemic experience and enable public access and future research into the narration of a global crisis.

Dr Guy Michaels

Co-Applicant: Dr Amanda Dahlstrand

SRG2223\230212

Doctor consultations – in person versus online

London School of Economics and Political Science

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: We will study the causal effects of doctor-patient consultations taking place online versus in-person. The decision whether to deliver services online or in-person is crucial in many settings, but we know relatively little about its consequences. This decision is particularly important for delivering primary healthcare, due to the potential implications for patient health, the cost of healthcare provision, and the differential access that patients have to in-person care depending on their location and socioeconomic status. To shed light on this question, we assemble new data, which allow us to follow the health treatments and outcomes of (anonymized) individual patients in Sweden. We use quasi-random variation in the assignment of patients to nurses with different propensities to refer patients to online versus in-person doctor consultations. We then study the costs and health consequences of this decision, including on doctor-patient consultation duration, patient satisfaction, health diagnosis, prescription, and subsequent hospitalizations.

Dr Caroline Miles

Co-Applicant: Dr Elizabeth Cook

SRG2223\231309

Non-intimate femicide

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,381.38

Abstract: The focus of this research is ‘non-intimate femicide’, which broadly refers to the killing of women and girls by someone outside of the intimate and/or domestic sphere. There have been a number of high profile non-intimate femicides in recent years, some of which have attracted considerable media attention, however, there is a lack of evidence and knowledge about the contexts surrounding this subtype of femicide, who the perpetrators are, and how it might be prevented. The research will initially address (through a scoping review) conceptual and definitional issues including who and what counts for a killing to be considered a non-intimate femicide, before conducting the first analysis of official statistics (using Homicide Index data) in England and Wales focusing specifically on non-intimate femicide. Finally, a content analysis of media reports for non-intimate femicide will examine how this form of gender-based violence is represented in the media.

Professor Vivien Miller

SRG2223\231063

Vitriol-throwing and acid crime in the United States 1840-1960

University of Nottingham

Value Awarded: £8,984.00

Abstract: The project is the first major historical study of vitriol-throwing and acid crime in the United States, centring on the period 1840-1960. Acid was a fairly accurate means of deliberately harming another person’s face or body parts, or damaging clothing and property. Numbers of interpersonal and intimate acid assaults were increasing in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century urban-industrial United States, but this distinctive crime phenomenon has been largely ignored by historians and criminologists. This interdisciplinary project bridges history, criminology, law, literature, medicine, and forensic science. It interweaves intersectionality – evaluation of race, ethnicity, gender, class and age - with new approaches to crime, legal and social history, urban studies, and the history of emotions to analyse acid throwers and their victims. It investigates acid crime as a unique form of female vigilantism and gendered violence but also explores the distinct motivations and targets of male acid throwing.

Professor Anthony Milton

SRG2223\231100

Language, image & power: Thomas Wentworth (1593-1641)

University of Sheffield

Value Awarded: £7,597.80

Abstract: Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Strafford is one of the most famous but also complex figures of his times – a champion of parliamentary privilege who nevertheless became one of the most authoritarian of Charles I’s ministers. His trial and execution are a central episode in the events leading up to the English Civil War. This will be the first full-length study of Strafford in sixty years. It not only rethinks his career in a transformed historiographical context, but also pioneers an innovative and interdisciplinary style of political biography based around performance and representation. This allows a new exploration of how Wentworth promoted his personal and political agenda, ranging from his use of language to art, architecture and display. The sources available for this examination of Wentworth’s career are almost uniquely rich for this approach, and the resulting study will advance broader understandings of early modern political and intellectual culture.

Dr Rinchan Ali Mirza

Co-Applicant: Dr Lakshmi Iyer Professor Latika Chaudhary

SRG2223\231574

Electoral Accountability, Local Government Spending and Development in South Asia

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,964.38

Abstract: We plan to study electoral accountability introduced by the British colonial administration under an expansive decentralization reform in South Asia, the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms. These reforms were initiated in 1918 to gradually introduce self-governing institutions throughout British India across both the upper and lower tiers of government.

Using annual district level data, we plan to conduct a difference-in-difference analysis, to study the causal effect of elected members on public spending and revenues. We will trace the effects of spending on district level development outcomes, including literacy, mortality, agricultural growth, and occupational change. Importantly, many of these outcomes can be measured separately for women and some disadvantaged sections of society (e.g., lower castes), enabling us to assess whether electoral accountability results in inclusive growth. We will also test for interaction effects of decentralization at the provincial and district level, and for differential effects by religious and linguistic diversity of the local population.

Dr Maia Carmela Monteleone

Co-Applicant: Professor Elena H. Sánchez López

SRG2223\231573

The water use and consumption in Pompeian houses and workshops

Independent Researcher

Value Awarded: £8,630.72

Abstract: The use of water in Roman times has been identified with a great degree of detail in various Roman towns, based on historical records and archaeological remains; in Italy Pompeii remains a reference site for the presence of late republican and early imperial water installations. The remains of the pressure piping system, used in buildings to draw water from the public water mains, can be appreciated and surveyed in over 100 buildings, including private residences and workshops. The objective of the research is to verify the modes of operation of the system of basins, pools, fountains, reservoirs, and to identify the principles of water management, in term of priorities of use, quantities delivered, method of regulation in time and space, adaptation to water scarcity, water quality requirements. The applicants are proposing the study of 10 buildings in two years, based on archaeological and topographical surveys, followed by the hydraulic analysis

Dr Stephen Moore

SRG2223\231163

The solidarity of a shared craft: writing the history of a community of skilled workers in Middle Bronze Age Iraq

Union Theological College Belfast

Value Awarded: £3,283.00

Abstract: This project opens up a new perspective on how a shared profession in antiquity could generate and define a community within wider society. It will publish the texts and history of a community of skilled workers in Middle Bronze Age Iraq. The social and legal practices of the community were dictated by the fact of a shared specialism, in this case, the craft of reedworking. As well as breaking ground in the study of Middle Bronze Age Iraq, the project will contribute to a comparative-historical discussion in which, to date, the Roman collegium and the later medieval guild are the most cited examples of what a shared specialism could mean in antiquity. It will also pave the way for further research among social and economic historians of the ancient Middle East, for there are reasons to think this particular community was not exceptional in the way it was organized.

Dr Manuel Mosquera Tarrio

SRG2223\231467

Central Bank Communication: Should everyone care? Experimental evidence from consumption and savings decisions

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,960.00

Abstract: The study investigates how individuals incorporate interest-rate information in their lifetime consumption and savings decisions and how their choices depend on their income and previous exposure to information. In an experimental environment (laboratory), we expose subjects to different levels of income and different amounts of information about the interest rate governing the returns on their savings. We ask subjects to make consumption and savings decisions as they would in real life, observe their choices, and analyse how the different treatments influence their behaviour. Additionally, we elicit their willingness to pay for interest-rate information to assess its perceived relevance in their decision-making.

Dr Zahra Murad

Co-Applicant: Dr Zeliha Emel Ozturk

SRG2223\230285

Gender gaps in willingness to lead: Can co-leadership positions break the glass ceiling?

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £9,867.00

Abstract: This project puts forward responsibility-aversion as a barrier reducing women’s willingness to lead and proposes co-leadership positions as an institutional solution to attract more women to lead. Around the world, only 5.6% of Russel-3000 indexed company chief executive officers were female as of 2021, which in turn can significantly contribute to the persistent gender pay gap of around 7% of full-time workers. We are still far from understanding the exact mechanisms behind the gap in leadership positions and what works to reduce it. The project will use experimental methods and economic games to identify causal mechanisms behind the gap. We will run two phases of online experiments with working-age adults in order to test the effectiveness of co-leadership positions in reducing gender gaps to lead. Using the findings of our experiments, we will design effective interventions that organisations can adopt to reduce gender gaps in leadership positions.

Dr Kanchana Nadarajah

SRG2223\230890

Estimation and forecasting of nonstationary fractional time series

University of Sheffield

Value Awarded: £9,035.00

Abstract: Data in the economic and financial spheres often exhibit dynamic patterns characterized by a long-lasting response to past shocks. The correct modelling of such long-range dependence (long-memory) is of paramount importance, in producing accurate forecasts over long-term horizons. The proposed research will produce new methodological and theoretical advances pertaining to statistical inference and forecasting in time series models in which such ‘long-memory’ properties feature. In particular, we will develop a novel parametric estimation method with desirable properties for accurately estimating long memory characteristics in key time series variables. We will also develop a new data driven approach to produce accurate forecasts and to quantify forecast uncertainty over future horizons. The ideas will be developed within the most general class of such models - the fractionally integrated class - used to represent many macroeconomic and financial variables; aggregate output, inflation, exchange rates, interest rates and stock market volatility being foremost examples.

Dr Frances Nethercott

SRG2223\231544

Thomas Carlyle and the Russians: Intercultural Dialogue in the Age of Empire and Revolutions

University of St Andrews

Value Awarded: £4,700.00

Abstract: My project, which is currently supported by a British Academy/ Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (SRF22\220127), analyses the intellectual relationships between Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) and three generations of Russian thinkers. It charts the Russian discovery of Carlyle’s work during the 1850s, Russian socialist and pan-Slavist reception (1870s-1880s), and his posthumous legacy, from around 1900, as historians, economists and philosophers began thinking about the social and moral implications of modernity. In addition, the project explores Carlyle’s openly acknowledged fascination with the Russian world, ‘my Russia’, as he called it. It asks how his idea of Russia was constructed and how far it informed his polemics concerning social order and politics in Victorian Britain. Analysis of these personal and textual encounters confirms a rich interplay of ideas across borders in otherwise starkly contrasting socio-political settings. It also evidences the relevance of these ideas to cultural discourse in Russia today.

Dr RN Nezi

SRG2223\230916

Divided Nations: The Cultural Foundations of Affective Polarisation

University of Surrey

Value Awarded: £9,986.20

Abstract: Partisan polarisation has been a fact for most Western democracies but recently supporters of opposing parties view not only the party but also the supporters of that party negatively. This phenomenon called “affective polarisation”, describes a type of polarisation encompassing citizens' negative emotional reactions - animosity- towards an out-group on the basis of the party they support. Several recent studies have reported an increase in affective polarisation in many European societies but what explains this phenomenon? In this project, I propose an alternative theoretical explanation hypothesising that affective polarisation, is also a by-product of cultural divides cutting across partisan lines. The politicisation of cultural identities is increasingly aligned with a partisan identity to a degree that they now divide the new left and far-right voters. This pilot project will serve the purpose of a first small-scale empirical test that will be used to prove the viability of my theory.

Dr Julia Ng

SRG2223\230174

Daoism and Capitalism: Chinese Modernity in the Archives of Modern German Jewish Philosophy

Goldsmiths, University of London

Value Awarded: £5,342.88

Abstract: China is widely seen as both impassive to change and the competitor that has mimicked its way to global political economy’s forefront. This project proposes a novel analysis by articulating Chinese modernity from within the tradition of critical social theory. Examining unpublished texts from a rich seam of German-Jewish thought pivotal to the emergence of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, the project focuses on one concept broadly associated with Daoism—wu wei or ’non-action’—and its transformation by Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin into variations of non-participation in the capitalist ethic, non-conformity with the Christian-colonial project, and non-absorption into the racialisation of work prevalent in theories of political-economic activity even today. Reconstructing their response to a China at the intersection of colonialism, capitalism, and revolution, the chief output of this archival research will be two journal articles and contribute substantially to a monograph for a major university press.

Dr Hanh Nguyen

Co-Applicant: Dr Mohamed H. Elmagrhi

SRG2223\230338

Creating the Corporate Board Diversity Index (CBDI): A new approach to supporting Carbon Performance

Swansea University

Value Awarded: £9,520.80

Abstract: The relationship between corporate board diversity and organisational outcomes generates significant interest among academics, practitioners and policy makers around the world. Despite extensive debates on board diversity over the past two decades, little attention has been given to its specific impact on businesses’ carbon performance (CP). Many researchers use different measures of board diversity or create an index based on their own views when investigating the impact of board diversity on corporate outcomes. This project seeks to create a new and more effective measure: the Corporate Board Diversity Index (CBDI), which will be developed and refined by collating the views of board members. CBDI will then be used to investigate the impact of board diversity on the CP of UK FTSE 350 companies. Consequently, it will enable the relationship between board diversity and CP to be examined and better understood to help businesses act more sustainably.

Dr Caterina Nirta

Co-Applicant: Professor Andrea Mubi Brighenti

SRG2223\230558

Investigating the challenges of urban ageing at times of crisis.

Royal Holloway, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,624.00

Abstract: This study investigates the impact that experiences of hardship stemming from the Covid-19 health crisis and subsequent economic crisis have on older adults (65+) in the way they make use of urban public spaces. Research on the consequences of lockdown and unsustainable cost of living is growing steadily, but it focuses primarily on youth's socialisation. There is less qualitative understanding of the ramifications of a crisis in relation to older adults, their lifestyle and well-being. Utilising a mixed methodology comprising ethnography, visual research, ‘go-alongs’ and unstructured interviews, this research investigates how older adults navigate urban public spaces during a moment of crisis, how a crisis alters their engagement with and perception of ‘the social’, and the impact this has on habitation and home-making.

Dr Belgin Okay-Somerville

SRG2223\231267

Rethinking the Youth Employment Challenge: A Sustainable Human Resource Management Perspective

University of Glasgow

Value Awarded: £9,982.24

Abstract: Youth employment is a global social and economic challenge. We need to understand how businesses can support young people’s positive career experiences beyond securing jobs and into long-term sustainable employment. The research uses case study data from four Scottish organisations that have Investors in Young People accreditation, to understand why and how businesses choose to invest in youth employment. Within case study organisations, the research follows up young people’s career development for a duration of one year to understand the impact of employer practice on sustainable youth employment, reflected in happy, healthy and productive careers. Drawing on the sustainable human resource management theoretical lens, the study broadens our understanding of why businesses may support sustainable youth employment and how they can do so. The study has policy and practice implications for incentivising and guiding businesses in supporting social challenges, such as youth employment.

Dr Timothy Oliver

Co-Applicant: Professor John Denham Professor John Yorke Denham

SRG2223\231644

England in British Foreign Policy

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: The project explores how views of the UK’s place in the world held in England may shape British foreign policy. The EU referendum revealed how contested world views of English voters could determine a key UK policy decision and how the contested world views held in England were at variance with those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Much has been written about the effect of devolution on UK politics, but aside from Europe, little is known about how views in England compare with those in the rest of the UK on international matters such as transatlantic relations or emerging powers. There is also little understanding of non-UK views of England’s role in shaping UK foreign policy. This project will use opinion polling and elite interviews to inform a workshop (the first to be held on the topic) to discuss England’s place in UK foreign policy.

Dr Ali Onder

Co-Applicant: Dr Georgios Magkonis Dr Erin Hengel

SRG2223\230517

Women in STEM: Mobility and Productivity of Academic Labour

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £8,001.00

Abstract: Although women constitute roughly 40% of the UK’s trained labour force in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), they hold less than 20% of all STEM faculty positions in its higher education institutions (HEIs). Preliminary data analysis reveals that a higher share of non-UK women among female faculty members correlates with an overall lower share of women within faculty. Which mechanisms produce the observed correlation, and how does access to international labour markets affect women’s participation in the academic ranks of STEM departments? We propose to investigate these questions using Brexit as a natural experiment. Employing causal inference methods and drawing upon individual-level data on STEM department personnel in UK's HEIs, we will analyse the causal relations between STEM researchers’ international mobility, their academic productivity and their progress through the faculty ranks in their departments. Our findings will yield important policy recommendations to address the gender imbalance in STEM departments.

Dr Chris O'Rourke

SRG2223\231480

Dream Worlds: Studying the History of Screen Costume Design through the Archives of Oliver Messel

University of Warwick

Value Awarded: £5,181.00

Abstract: This study uses the archives of Oliver Messel (1904-1978) to examine the history of screen costume design in the British film industry between the 1930s and the 1950s. While Messel is well known for his theatrical work, he also designed costumes for major film productions in the UK and Hollywood. Surviving sketches, reference material, correspondence and photographs belonging to Messel provide a valuable window onto the creative process of the designer, his style and influences. His personal papers, recently made available and yet to be explored by film historians, also offer insight into the social and professional networks he drew upon to forge his career. Building on methods from feminist film historiography and queer production studies, the project sheds light on the working methods and changing professional status of the screen costume designer and traces the larger production cultures taking shape behind the scenes in British film studios.

Dr Josue Ortega

SRG2223\230794

Truthful behavior in manipulable school choice mechanisms

Queen's University Belfast

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Several countries use a centralized clearinghouse to assign students to public schools. Students report a rank over their preferred schools to the Education Authority, which applies an algorithm to the collected data and produces an allocation of pupils to schools. The school to which a student is assigned impacts their future earnings, their fertility choices, and the level of segregation in the society. But which algorithm should we use?

Several algorithms have been proposed and implemented in practice. All these mechanism satisfy a nice property, called strategy-proofness: students cannot game the system by reporting their preferences strategically. Although strategy-proofness is a desirable property to have, recent work has shown that any strategy-proof algorithm is bound to be inefficient and unequal. This proposal aims to study non-strategy proof mechanisms in a lab experiment. If truthful reporting is observed in non strategy-proof mechanisms, these could be implemented in real-life school choice markets.

Dr Adegboyega Oyedijo

Co-Applicant: Dr Meng Jia

SRG2223\231174

BRUFSS: Building Resilience in the UK’s Food Supply Chain System

University of Leicester

Value Awarded: £9,460.30

Abstract: BRUFSS project aims to develop a framework and an empirically validated road map for building resilience in the United Kingdom (UK)'s food supply chain. The issue of food supply is significant in the UK considering that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed food system's vulnerabilities, particularly insufficient capacity in domestic food production and labour challenges. As a result, policy reappraisal is required, which will expose governance gaps in food policy and increase the chances of adopting new governance structures. Previous policies and guidance provided to policymakers were "reactive" rather than "proactive." This topic is important because food supply chains employ over 4 million people and generate approximately £121 billion in added value to the UK economy each year. In response, the BRUFSS project will assist the UK in developing a resilient food supply chain system with long-term solutions to the country's numerous challenges, such as rising inflation.

Dr Anna Paolillo

Co-Applicant: Dr Matteo Curcuruto

SRG2223\230678

Rethinking employee safety and customer experience in the post-pandemic era: a pilot study in the hospitality sector

Kingston University

Value Awarded: £9,947.76

Abstract: Whilst hospitality is one of the highest-risk industries for work-related accidents and illnesses, customers’ satisfaction in this sector is highly reliant on how safe – in terms of hygiene and precautionary measures – hotels and restaurants are perceived to be. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory, the proposed research aims to investigate whether hospitality workers’ perceptions of safety in their workplace impacts on 1) their safety behaviours, in terms of compliance with safety rules and participation in safety; 2) their customers’ perceptions of safety and compliance with safety rules as related to that service; 3) their customers’ satisfaction with the service. Using a three-wave longitudinal research, data will be collected through an online survey administered to both employees and customers of hotels and restaurants in the UK. Results will help elaborate strategies for one of the most pandemic-affected sectors, with an innovative focus on both employees and customers as beneficiaries.

Dr Elisabet Pares Pujolras

Co-Applicant: Professor Simon Kelly

SRG2223\230154

Trusting the right sources: how does the brain weigh information according to its reliability?

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,890.00

Abstract: Making deliberate choices often requires agents to integrate multiple pieces of information over time. In many instances, information comes from different sources of varying quality. The aim of this project is to understand how the brain uses the reliability of various information sources to weight information and choose the right action. Three experiments based on a sequential evidence accumulation task will aim to determine how agents 1) assess evidence reliability, 2) adjust the weight they give to different evidence sources as a function of their reliability, and 3) update their beliefs about information reliability over time and adjust their decision-making strategies. We will employ a novel multi-source evidence accumulation paradigm and use a combination of computational methods and specific neurophysiological markers to investigate the mechanisms involved in this kind of decision-making.

Dr Laurie Parsons

SRG2223\231455

Thermal Inequality in a Changing Climate: The Social Geography of Excess Heat in the Cambodian Workplace

Royal Holloway, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,748.00

Abstract: As global temperatures rise, the impact of heat on human populations is one of the world’s most pressing questions. Yet although the severity of excess heat on the human body is well understood in theory, its manifestation in practice remains poorly understood. This is because heat in real-world settings is structured by social inequalities that shape people’s and communities’ capacity to protect themselves. From fans to breaks to air conditioning, the ability to evade heat is a key indicator of privilege and deprivation in the workplace.

Focused on Cambodia, one of the world’s most climate vulnerable countries, this project is the first to explore how social inequalities shape the lived experience of heat in the workplace. Combining scientific thermal data collection with quantitative and qualitative interviews, the project will shed vital new light on one of the world’s most pressing questions: how society shapes the human impacts of climate breakdown.

Dr Karissa Patton

SRG2223\231277

Wombs of the Nation: Feminist, Political, and Public Responses to Changing Reproductive Health Policy and Services in Canada and the United Kingdom, 1967-1980s

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £7,487.75

Abstract: This project investigates and compares the activist, political, and public responses to new reproductive health legislation and services in Canada and the United Kingdom from 1967 to the 1980s. Set during a period when national healthcare systems had to incorporate newly decriminalized reproductive health services, like abortion and contraception, this history underscores the role of activist lay-health practitioners as part of healthcare landscapes. This small research project contributes to my larger research program at the University of Edinburgh that analyses how specific places, politics, and nationalisms influenced discourse about reproductive health and citizenship in Canada and the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century. With the support of this grant I will consult archival sources from the Canadian Women’s Archives, gather and analyse newspaper coverage of reproductive policy and service changes, and employ a research assistant and transcription service to assist in archival source organization and oral history interview transcription.

Professor Melissa Helen Percival

SRG2223\230476

Indiennes, Toile de Jouy and France’s Global History of Printed Cotton Textiles

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: This book project explores French printed cotton textiles, from colourful 'indiennes' imported from Asia from late sixteenth century, to distinctive 'toile de Jouy' designs produced in France from the mid- eighteenth century onwards that became synonymous with French national style and hold that place today. The study decentres a narrative of good taste and industrial prowess by showing that French production was subject to complex international supply chains, slave and migrant labour, and colonial struggles. It identifies and contextualizes a set of tropes, emotions and imaginative responses to the fabrics, from solipsism and nostalgia to radical energy. Drawing attention to the incredible vibrancy and diversity of the fabrics themselves, the book also explores the mobility of designs to and from literature and other visual and decorative arts, and across national boundaries. This grant application invites support for primary archival and collections research, as well as dissemination of findings and network-building.

Dr Elena Perez-Alvaro

Co-Applicant: Professor Rose Boswell

SRG2223\231527

Women in the maritime profession: new approaches to gender role through ancient shipwrecks.

Independent Researcher

Value Awarded: £9,100.00

Abstract: Using historical maritime archaeological methods, this project will investigate the role of Indigenous women in oceans’ activities in the Pacific Islands in order to highlight the importance of Indigenous women knowledge for environmental security. This study will be aligned with the approach of the Science-Policy Platform of the United Nations of working with indigenous and local knowledge to offer solutions to environmental challenges. Environmental security is concerned with ecological emergencies such as climate change, food security or biodiversity loss and its effects on the security of people and societies. Indigenous peoples in general emphasise the spiritual nature of their relationship with the land or the oceans, which is basic to their existence and to their sustainable use of the oceans. Consequently, as custodians and teachers of significant traditional knowledge, Indigenous women bring a unique strength and insight to oceans’ governance.

Dr Patrizia Pezzoli

Co-Applicant: Professor Jean-Baptiste Pingault Professor Essi Viding

SRG2223\231404

Childhood maltreatment and later intimate partner violence victimization: Estimating causal effects and shared risk factors

University College London (UCL)

Value Awarded: £9,939.86

Abstract: Victims of childhood maltreatment are at risk of experiencing intimate partner violence later in life, and we do not yet fully understand why. In particular, we do not know whether being maltreated can cause some people to enter relationships that put them at risk of more harm, or if the same risk factors increase risk of childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence, and this is what causes revictimisation.

I will analyse data from the Twin Early Development Study and the UK Biobank, using methods that take into account genetic differences between people, to clarify if childhood maltreatment can have a causal effect on later intimate partner violence when considering the genetic and environmental risk factors common to both events. I will communicate results in a way that is sensitive and informative for vulnerable people and professionals working with them, so that findings can be used to develop better preventative measures.

Dr Claire Pierson

Co-Applicant: Dr Andreana Dibben

SRG2223\230888

Abortion law reform strategies and discourses: Reproductive Justice in Malta

University of Liverpool

Value Awarded: £9,978.80

Abstract: Malta has the most restrictive abortion laws in the EU. Whilst the island is known for its progressive approach to LGBT rights, there has been no political traction to liberalise abortion laws with activism only becoming more organised and vocal since 2018. This project seeks to investigate the momentum for abortion rights activism in this current moment, its potential to activate change on abortion law in the region, and to situate Maltese abortion activism in relation to global movements for abortion rights. Specifically, the project will address the strategies and discourses that activists are utilising in the Maltese context, the inclusivity of abortion rights activism, its connection to other social justice movements, and, if and how Maltese activists connect their goals to global abortion movements. In short, the project will provide unique and timely knowledge contributing to understanding abortion rights politics and movement building.

Professor Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan

SRG2223\230601

Poetic research by teachers in higher education: Methods, Features, and Contributions

University of Nottingham

Value Awarded: £7,502.19

Abstract: This project will look at teachers in higher education using poetry to research their teaching, contributing to public conversations about improving education for the common good. Higher education teachers increasingly use poetry’s artistic, symbolic, and rhythmic qualities to add expression, imagination, and empathy to their research methods and ways of sharing information. For example, poetry can be found in recent research by higher education teachers in arts and design, drama, music, nursing, social work, physical education, teacher education, and in transdisciplinary studies. This study will show how and why higher education teachers use poetry in researching their teaching in different fields, institutions, and countries. The analysis will capture the characteristics and contributions of poetic research that makes a qualitative difference in the knowledge and practice of teaching in higher education. Higher education teachers’ local poetic research expertise will become international public knowledge accessible to a broad audience.

Dr Ed Pulford

SRG2223\230448

Identity and Opportunity among Transnational Chinese Minorities in Asia

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,980.00

Abstract: China’s increased political, economic and social importance worldwide has motivated recent social scientific interest in two China-connected research areas. Alongside outward flows of capital, people and ideas embodying ‘global China’, also attracting attention have been developments within the PRC where minority populations confront a state uncompromising on ethnic pluralism. Absent from these agendas, however, have been Chinese minority, i.e. non-Han, communities beyond the country’s borders. This is striking since such groups are positioned exactly at the intersection of the PRC’s shifting geopolitical and ethnopolitical stances, negotiating both challenges and opportunities these present. This ethnographic and textual project will work with three communities living in regional hubs neighbouring China: Dungans/Hui in Almaty, Kazakhstan, Zhuang/Nùng in Hanoi, Vietnam and Chosonjok/Chaoxianzu in Seoul, South Korea. Exploring questions of identity and opportunity among these groups will shed light on intersections between changing ideas of ‘Chineseness’ within and beyond China, and on shifting Asian regionalisms.

Dr Elizabeth Reed

SRG2223\230677

Finding Queer TikTok: LGBTQ+ youth, knowledge and online space

University of Southampton

Value Awarded: £9,696.72

Abstract: ’Finding Queer TikTok’ is a project about LGBTQ+ youth, knowledge, and online space. TikTok’s structure obscures the individual user experience and interaction with the platform. Queer youth are at increased risk of social isolation, abuse, and harassment online. But, with high levels of digital literacy, they also have the skills to access community support and knowledge. Using an innovative creative methodology, mirroring the collaborative and iterative nature of TikTok, participants will create TikTok-style videos about queer life and knowledge. ‘Finding Queer TikTok’ will provide insight into what type of information is

valued, shared, or lacking, what tensions or stresses there are in being queer and young online, and what is communicated by and between queer young people as they seek and build community. This knowledge will be used to inform the support services and community facilitation offered by named project partners to better serve queer youth.

Dr Merten Reglitz

SRG2223\231332

Free Internet Access as a Human Right: A Philosophical Defence

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £5,590.00

Abstract: This project establishes the first comprehensive philosophical defence of the idea that Internet access should be considered a human right. It will complete a monograph titled Free Internet Access as a Human Right that argues that, without online access, today people around the world no longer have adequate opportunities to exercise most vital human rights. Digital exclusion now amounts to social and political exclusion. This project is thus timely and fills an important gap in the literature while also being of interest beyond academia. It aims to philosophically shape the academic and public understanding of the Internet. Completion of the monograph is planned for the end of 2023. Further activities include two manuscript workshops at the American University Paris (France) and at Twente University (Netherlands), a one-month research visit to Twente University, as well as a conference attendance at the 2023 Annual Conference of the Society of Applied Philosophy.

Dr Bert Remijsen

SRG2223\231121

The sound system of Sengwer, an endangered language of Kenya

University of Edinburgh

Value Awarded: £9,984.00

Abstract: Most of the world’s languages are currently endangered, with one language becoming extinct every forty days. Along with these languages, we are losing the ancestral knowledge and traditions of its people – pieces of humanity’s cultural heritage. In an effort against this trend, this project aims to document and describe one such language, Sengwer, spoken by a hunter-gatherer community in the highland forests of Western Kenya. Considered one of the most marginalised minorities in Kenya, the Sengwer people currently lack government recognition as a separate ethnic group, leading to violent evictions, murder and other injustices. By describing the Sengwer sound system, our goal is to start collecting the necessary evidence to challenge the current ethnic and linguistic classification, which, in turn, will aid the Sengwer people in their human rights struggle and the official recognition of their identity.

Dr Katharina Rietzler

SRG2223\230551

The International Thought of Women on the U.S. Right, 1920 to 1960

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £7,828.80

Abstract: Histories of U.S. women’s intellectual engagement with international politics have often centred on a commitment to international citizenship, building on feminist and/or anti-racist campaigns for women’s full citizenship rights within the nation. This cross-disciplinary project will offer a revisionist account of U.S. women’s international thought by focusing on women thinkers on the Right and their very different conceptualizations of citizenship from the First Red Scare after World War I to early second-wave feminism. Using archival research, textual and contextual analysis, I will recover and evaluate how right-wing and conservative women in the United States thought about relations between peoples, nations, empires and states, and challenged the public authority of their liberal and progressive counterparts. Drawing on Michael Warner’s concept of publics and counter-publics, this project will be the first to systematically analyse a crucible of diverse intellectual positions, and significantly contribute to our understanding of right-wing international thought and politics.

Professor Catherine Robinson

Co-Applicant: Dr Christian Siegel

SRG2223\231476

The role of skills in technology adoption – a study of UK firms

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,702.48

Abstract: This proposal builds on preliminary research, extending analysis to better understand the need for skills to complement new technologies and realise the productivity benefits. Specifically, we aim to consider whether digital technologies require complementary skills investment. A pilot study of SMEs in Kent (Robinson et al; 2021) explored this and observed new technologies do require skill investments and firms deem both new technologies and training of their workforce important for productivity. Firms facing difficulties attracting workers with the right skills are more likely to run own training programmes, suggesting a skills gap that may be holding back productivity and economic growth. In this proposal we seek to extend our analysis to the rest of the UK exploring regional differences and improving the statistical power of our research. Moreover, since the pilot the UK economy has experienced further skills shortages and thus, we extend our analysis to incorporate the post-Covid landscape.

Dr Alejandro Robinson Cortes

Co-Applicant: Professor Climent Quintana-Domeque

SRG2223\231374

Identifying matching models with outcomes: theory, empirics, marriage, and the intergenerational transmission of health

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £9,980.00

Abstract: The objective of this project is to develop an empirical framework to study identification in models of matching markets with outcomes. We apply our framework to study the interaction between the marriage market and the determinants of children’s health at birth. The goal of the exercise is to identify the preferences people have for partner attributes and their impact on the health of their future children. In our empirical application, we use a unique dataset of linked birth records across two generations from the state of Florida in the United States, between 1970 and 2014. In terms of policy, our study will help to assess the long-term effects of policies aimed at reducing disparities in early childhood. The long-term success of such policies will be mediated by the marriage market inasmuch partner choice is driven by preferences over child outcomes.

Professor Jennifer Rodd

Co-Applicant: Professor Chia-Lin Lee

SRG2223\231447

Learning New Word Meanings across the Lifespan

University College London (UCL)

Value Awarded: £5,000.00

Abstract: Effective communication is critical to quality of life across the lifespan. However, language is not static – adults must continue to update their vocabulary knowledge as new word meanings enter their language (e.g., the computer-related meanings of “mouse”, “tweet”, “post”). Here we explore how this important ability to acquire new word meanings changes across the lifespan. In particular, we investigate how the increased vocabulary knowledge of older adults might benefit or hinder these learning processes. We propose a 5-day web-based word-learning experiment in which younger and older participants are trained and tested on new meanings via paragraph reading and exercise worksheets. This collaboration brings together expertise of UCL-based researchers in the field of vocabulary learning, with expertise from Taiwan in conducting life-span research that includes older adults. It will shed light on the impact of ageing on word-learning abilities, which are critical to maintaining communication skills in later life.

Dr Melanie Rose Tugwell

SRG2223\231556

Landscapes of the National Parks: Part One - The New Forest

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,805.60

Abstract: Landscape is ‘over there’ a hypothesis so deeply ingrained as to disconnect us from nature. Drawing on specific bordered landscapes, in this instance the New Forest National Park, I will compare the landscape, as presented through artworks, through a time period that starts with the oldest depiction that can be found to the present day. These portrayals will then be presented in a digital format so that changes to the ecology, land-use, etc can be compared.

This project is straightforward in its methodology, but has immense potential to accord change, not only by offering practical guidance by opening conversations and nurturing local identity, along with closing the gap opened during the Renaissance - the age of enlightenment - which determined the severance of man and nature through the production of paintings of managed land which formed the basis of how landscape is viewed and managed today.

Dr Kerri Russell

SRG2223\230829

The Properties of Complex Compounds in Old Japanese

Oxford Brookes University

Value Awarded: £6,408.00

Abstract: This project investigates complex compounds in Old Japanese (OJ), the language of 8th century Japan, as learning about the earliest written stage of a language provides insight into how a language developed over time. There are two main issues being explored here, involving different aspects of the same data: 1) sound changes occurring in compounds and 2) features of noun incorporation (compounds involving a noun and verb). While these issues have been well studied for modern Japanese, they have yet to be fully described for OJ. I will co-author a book on rendaku (sequential voicing) in OJ, detailing where this sound change can, and cannot, occur in compounds. I will also produce an article on the grammatical properties of noun incorporation. Additionally, I will introduce a method for rating the reliability of OJ words based on how they were written, which will make a significant contribution to the field.

Dr Andrea Salvati

SRG2223\231613

Social Interactions, Bullying, and the Impact of Student-to-Classroom Allocations on Children’s Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Skills

University College London (UCL)

Value Awarded: £7,635.00

Abstract: School bullying is a major global issue among adolescents. The UNESCO estimates that one-third of the world’s youth are bullying victims. Understanding what drives bullying behaviour and how it affects the victims’ cognitive and socio-emotional skills is of paramount importance for policymakers to develop necessary preventive measures. Yet very few studies in the field of economics have tried to analyse this phenomenon. With this research project, I plan to develop a theoretical framework to describe how social interactions drive bullying behaviour and how the latter impacts the victims’ cognitive and socio-emotional development. I then exploit novel data on Chinese middle schools to perform a statistical analysis aimed at uncovering the empirical relevance of these mechanisms. Finally, the last part of the project involves the ex-ante evaluation of several anti-bullying policies based on the re-allocation of students to classrooms.

Dr Francesca Salvi

Co-Applicant: Professor Deevia Bhana

SRG2223\230010

Towards Caring Fathers: The Role of Young Fathers' Mothers in Enabling Alternative Masculinities in South Africa

University of Portsmouth

Value Awarded: £9,930.00

Abstract: This study aims to further understand how young men in South Africa embrace fatherhood through the support of their own mothers. When African teenagers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa become fathers out of wedlock, cultural practices around the acknowledgement of paternity and the payment of damages are invoked. Since teenage fathers are mostly in education, and therefore not economically productive, their immediate kin are involved in the negotiation of paternity and payment of damages. Initial findings (Bhana and Salvi, 2022) suggest that grandmothers can thus act as ‘enablers’, by supporting their sons through fatherhood. Yet, the modalities of these practices remain unclear, as well as their impacts on gender norms – for both young fathers and older mothers. Focusing on the intergenerational dimension of family formation will enable us to contextualise social change around gender norms regulating masculinity and parenthood.

Dr Audrey Samson

SRG2223\231326

In Praise of the Fallows: Critical materials and resilient methods

Goldsmiths, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,258.00

Abstract: As globalisation is increasingly predicated upon extra-national extraction of resources and labour, the frailty of these dependencies is underscored, becoming a matter of national concern. In the context of supply chains faltering under geopolitical strain, the proposed research, In Praise of the Fallows, is an art-led enquiry guided by the following question: Beyond anthropocentric notions of growth based on capital accumulation, how can interdisciplinary research support resilience models rooted in multispecies symbiosis, collaboration, and mutuality? Focusing on phosphate as a critical material, ‘In Praise of the Fallows’ will mobilise creative and multidisciplinary research outlets to delineate the field of research, identify and build synergies with potential collaborators, trial methodologies, and outline relevant steps towards a larger enquiry that can act as a framework to encompass a wide range of resource dependencies. Research outcomes comprise a manuscript proposal, a witness seminar at the Nottingham Contemporary, and a podcast series disseminated worldwide.

Dr Dario Sansone

SRG2223\231221

Estimating the size of the LGBTQ+ population

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £8,940.56

Abstract: The goal of this research project is to estimate the size of the LGBTQ+ population in the UK. This estimate is extremely important for politicians, activists, government officials, and several other decision-makers. For example, policymakers may use such information to determine how to allocate funds across different projects. However, recent findings suggest that the size of the LGBTQ+ population may be underestimated. Individuals might not feel comfortable revealing their LGBTQ+ status in surveys, and this could cause them to be undercounted. This is particularly worrying in countries such as the UK that have started to include sexual orientation and gender identity questions in their census questionnaires. To address this issue, this research project will implement a list experiment technique using a nationally representative sample in order to estimate the true size of the LGBTQ+ population in the UK.

Dr Rachael Scally

SRG2223\230355

Edinburgh-trained Medical Practitioners and Slavery in the British Caribbean, c.1726-1834

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £8,985.59

Abstract: How extensive, distinctive and significant was the connection between Edinburgh-trained medical practitioners and slavery in the British Caribbean? How important was their involvement in slavery in the British Caribbean to Scotland's economic, political, and cultural development? Did their participation in chattel slavery help to make Scotland great?

The project will seek to answer these questions by conducting the first-ever comprehensive prosopography of all known Edinburgh-trained medics in the British Caribbean who benefitted economically from slavery between c.1726 and 1834.

The study will respond to the recommendation of the Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group, which in August 2022 concluded that further research was needed into the colonial connections of the Edinburgh Medical School and the transference and impact of its medical students to and from the colonies. It will write the history of transatlantic slavery into the story of Edinburgh's development.

Dr Tom Schmitz

Co-Applicant: Dr Laurent Cavenaile Dr Ruben Gaetani

SRG2223\231245

Innovation life cycles, firm dynamics and the productivity slowdown

Queen Mary University of London

Value Awarded: £9,888.98

Abstract: Low rates of productivity growth have plagued the United Kingdom (and other advanced economies) for the last two decades. Our project investigates the role of innovation life cycles in shaping these trends.

Innovation is the main source of productivity growth. Many business studies emphasize that it proceeds through life cycles: after a technological breakthrough, productivity grows fast, driven by product innovation and the entry of new firms, but eventually, there is a “shake-out”, growth slows down and innovation becomes more incremental and process-oriented.

These cycles have received limited attention in macroeconomics, due to a lack of comprehensive empirical evidence and a focus on models with constant growth. Our project aims to change this by documenting empirical regularities of life cycles across industries and combining these facts with a new macroeconomic model. Our model can then be used to analyse both current productivity trends and public policies on research subsidies.

Dr Lisa Sezer

Co-Applicant: Dr Christian Lyhne Ibsen

SRG2223\231173

Lobbying and the influence of business associations in the digital agenda

University of Leicester

Value Awarded: £9,918.21

Abstract: Employment relations research has indicated that the interest groups of employers and businesses, business associations (BA), have increased their efforts at lobbying at national levels. However, detailed analyses of BA lobbying in the related fields of employment relations and regulatory policy are largely absent. We want to investigate, in the telecommunications and related ICT industries, first, how business is organized across BAs and what their policy preferences are, and second, how they lobby in policy-making and with what success. We focus on digital skills and infrastructure policy-making across four national contexts – Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and the UK. We ask for funding for a first step of ‘mapping the field’ across two countries, based on a mixed-methods design of documentary analysis and some elite interviews. The question of who influences policy and how the ‘rules of the game’ are made, has important implications for representative democracy and distributional outcomes.

Dr Rob Sharp

SRG2223\230464

European solidarity and refugee recognition in the context of the Ukraine refugee ‘crisis’

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £9,114.00

Abstract: This project will explore the formation of solidarity around the Ukraine ‘refugee crisis’ in Poland and Germany. Based on a mixed-method approach to studying online and offline solidarity, it aims to analyse and understand how charitable and cultural organisations and self-organised mutual aid groups—regulated by their political and economic environments—are employing solidarities to support Ukrainians arriving to Poland and Germany. In so doing, it addresses an absence in the empirical study of solidarity around migration. By developing previous studies of refugee solidarities in Europe (Georgiou, 2017; Georgiou and Zaborowski, 2017) it re-engages with the manifestation of legal, social and individual recognition as an expression of solidarity, within and beyond charitable and cultural institutions.

Professor Mark Shiel

SRG2223\231031

The Pavements Glistened: Kevin Lynch, Cities, and Visual Media

King's College London

Value Awarded: £9,996.40

Abstract: I will carry out three primary research trips to the USA in 2023-24 in order to complete the first book-length study of the life and work of the urban planner Kevin Lynch (1918-84). Based for most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lynch pioneered the use of photography and filmmaking in his highly influential analyses of cities, streets, and landscapes, especially The Image of the City (1960), The View from the Road (with Donald Appleyard and John R. Myer, 1964), and What Time is this Place? (1972). I will argue that his use of film and photography to understand the appearance, navigation, and use of the city by its inhabitants, at ground-level, played a key role in the emergence of participatory design in planning and architecture, and in architectural visualization, and therefore in late 20th and early 21st century efforts to democratize and humanize cities.

Professor Rudolf Sinkovics

Co-Applicant: Dr Noemi Sinkovics Dr Frank Siedlok

SRG2223\231623

Developing firm level management tools for net-zero action

University of Glasgow

Value Awarded: £9,988.00

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises are pushed to reinvent themselves towards a path to net zero. Yet, resources and management time are limited to strategically reflect and attend to net-zero pressures. This project sets out to produce management tools, which help with an assessment of carbon generating business activities and move towards carbon-emission reductions.

Professor Howard Smith

SRG2223\231765

Welfare effects of price controls in the food supply chain

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: Recently, governments have experimented with price controls to limit inflationary impacts on consumers. There are many questions about such policies, including their welfare impacts on different types of consumers and producers. There is, however, a lack of empirical evidence on these questions. This proposal seeks support to buy high-quality scanner data to allow the estimation of a model of monopoly and monopsony power in supply chains. The data are from Hungary, where the government recently introduced price caps on a number of food products. The consumer data are of an extremely high quality. We aim to link these data to data on food producers. Together, these data will be used to estimate a model of the supply chain from farmers through to consumers, which will be used to conduct a welfare analysis of the price-cap policies, including their distributional impacts and an analysis of whether the policies were well-designed.

Dr Neta Spiro

Co-Applicant: Dr Katherine Rose M Sanfilippo

SRG2223\230572

Pathways for implementing and equitably scaling up musical care during the beginning of life in England and Wales

Royal College of Music

Value Awarded: £9,787.00

Abstract: The first 1000 days of life are critical in children’s development. Musical care – the role of music in supporting people’s developmental or health needs – has been seen to be effective in supporting families during the beginning of life (pregnancy to infancy) and yet musical care activities are not equally distributed throughout England and Wales. The objectives of the project are to bring together an interdisciplinary group of experts and parents/carers to understand the facilitators of and barriers to increasing musical care during the beginning of life throughout England and Wales. Building on previous research on musical care experiences led by the lead applicant, three interdisciplinary workshops (two focus groups and one World Café) will gather key stakeholders to identify pathways to equitably upscale musical care for families throughout England and Wales. Data will be analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis and published findings will provide a co-designed policy agenda.

Professor Andrew Stafford

Co-Applicant: Dr Alexandru Matei

SRG2223\231408

Global Roland Barthes. Translation, Reception, Transmission

University of Leeds

Value Awarded: £7,800.00

Abstract: Of all the post-war literary and cultural theorists, it is arguably the French essayist Roland Barthes (1915-1980) who has persisted most widely in the twenty-first century. His work benefits not only from reaching a striking range of academic disciplines and cultural practices – from literature to historiography; from philosophy and Rhetoric to the performing arts and poetry; from cinema and photography to Fashion and Design; from semiology of medicine to legal studies – but also from being translated into over twenty languages. Barthes’s presence and influence – diffuse and ubiquitous rather than centralised and domineering – is unmistakable in World Literature and its partner, Travelling Theory. This project aims to trace then the Global Barthes: how his work has been received, translated, transmitted across the world, how an essayist has entered into literary theory, cultural studies, political discourse. critical practice, and to such a lasting effect.

Dr Whitney Standlee

SRG2223\231297

George Egerton: Terra Incognitas

University of Worcester

Value Awarded: £8,205.00

Abstract: George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne, 1859-1945), long overlooked and undervalued as a literary innovator, has gained increasing critical attention in recent years. A two-day conference devoted exclusively to Egerton ('George Egerton and the Fin de Siecle') at Loughborough University in April 2017 included papers by 22 scholars from the UK, France, Ireland, the USA, Switzerland, Canada and Turkey, and attests to he burgeoning importance in international literary scholarship. As yet, however, no full-length critical work on Egerton exists. Errors and misinformation in Egerton scholarship are thus frequent, and there is also a tendency to focus critical attention on the more thoroughly documented early phases of Egerton's writing life despite the fact that some of her most innovative texts were written later in her career. The proposed edited volume on Egerton will serve this growing critical interest, offering an intensively researched and accurate account of Egerton's life, career and legacy.

Dr Selwyn Stanley

Co-Applicant: Dr Ciaran Murphy Ms Carly Richardson

SRG2223\230728

Mental Health Status, Job Satisfaction, Work and Family Life Correlates in Social Work Practitioners: A mixed methods study

Edge Hill University

Value Awarded: £9,723.33

Abstract: There is enough evidence in the International and the UK literature to indicate that social work is a high-stress profession and the turnover of those in post is extremely high. The nature of the profession tends to take its toll on the wellbeing and mental health of these professionals. As such it is important to get a better insight into issues such as work life balance, the availability of workplace support, family-work conflicts and job satisfaction experienced by frontline practitioners. This study uses a mixed design to understand these issues in a sample of social workers in England. Data will be elicited through standardised questionnaires and focus group discussions. The findings of the study will help introduce ameliorative measures that can provide a work environment that is supportive and enriching and help negate adverse work-related experiences. This in the long run will promote resilience and enhance employee retention.

Iain Stewart

SRG2223\230055

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the History of Social Thought

UCL

Value Awarded: £8,463.00

Abstract: Merleau-Ponty was pivotal to some of the most consequential developments in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. By reorienting phenomenology from its focus on individual consciousness towards the underlying social dynamics that make such consciousness possible, he opened it to dialogues with Marxism and structural linguistics that would define the main terms of intellectual debate in postwar France. He was also a major figure in the history of liberal thought, first as an influential critic of cold war liberalism and later by advocating a ‘new liberalism’ that reshaped French intellectual life in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet because Merleau-Ponty has been little studied by historians, his rediscovery since the 1990s has been predicated on the profoundly mistaken view that he was “the unknown man of the twentieth century’s major philosophers” (Reynolds, 2008). This project offers the first archivally grounded historical study of Merleau-Ponty’s social thought and its overlooked legacies.

Dr Samuel Tang

Co-Applicant: Professor Colin Patrick Higgns

SRG2223\230858

Forced Labour and Transparency Standards

University College London

Value Awarded: £9,923.66

Abstract: 2021 global estimates of modern slavery indicate 28 million people are forced to work against their will. Despite greater awareness and new regulatory instruments, forced labour cases are rising and occurring globally. The risks for individuals already in vulnerable situations are set to be amplified by climate change, cost of living crisis, and conflict. A significant barrier to action is the lack of detail shared by businesses about forced labour issues and resolutions experienced, and bluewashing behaviour. Business reporting on forced labour, such as modern slavery statements, more closely represent due diligence than transparent information sharing. Co-creating a revised understanding and application of transparency offers the potential to form a valuable complement to existing regulatory and societal pressures to address forced labour. Thus, this project explores the role of transparency in raising public awareness of forced labour and its potential to build trust amongst key stakeholders to collaboratively eliminate it.

Dr Xiangming Tao

Co-Applicant: Professor Catherine Lihong Wang

SRG2223\230552

Entrepreneurial Learning from Serial Crowdfunding Campaigns for Public Benefit

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £9,718.86

Abstract: Crowdfunding provides an alternative financing solution for social entrepreneurship for public benefit, and a platform for social entrepreneurs to garner community support. However, crowdfunding campaigns often fail to meet their targets. This prompts us to ask a pertinent question: how do serial social entrepreneurs learn from their prior crowdfunding experience? We propose a two-stage mixed methods study to address this question. First, we collect secondary, quantitative data on crowdfunding campaigns for public benefit on Kickstarter to examine to what extent serial social entrepreneurs learn from their prior crowdfunding experience to improve subsequent fundraising performance. Second, we collect primary, qualitative interview data from 20 participants who have taken part in the previous stage, to study what and how serial social entrepreneurs learn from their prior crowdfunding campaigns. Our project findings will uncover the underlying process of entrepreneurial learning in crowdfunding campaigns and provide practical solutions for social entrepreneurs and crowdfunding policymakers.

Dr Daniela Tavasci

SRG2223\231761

Attainment gaps and diversified assessment methods

Queen Mary University of London

Value Awarded: £2,884.00

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic and contemporary movements to decolonise the curriculum in higher education renewed interest in the role of structural factors in undergraduate degree attainment rates. White students are more likely to obtain a first or upper-second-class degree than non-white students, because traditional forms of assessment may favour specific types of cultural and social capital. I contribute to this debate by investigating how different types of assessment affect this undergraduate attainment gap. To do so, I adopt a mixed-methods approach, combining four years of institutional data with semi-structured interviews of undergraduate students. The institutional context uniquely allows us to explore the relationship between assessment types and student outcomes by ethnicity, and, within this, by gender, because of the diverse student body and variation in the types of assessment across modules. This evidence is essential for higher education policy and university-level decisions about inclusive assessment methods.

Dr Christopher Till

Co-Applicant: Dr Jessica Drakett Dr Joseph Ibrahim

SRG2223\231629

Beyond Meat and Memes: Mapping the vegan activist discourse on Tik Tok and Instagram

Leeds Beckett University

Value Awarded: £8,691.50

Abstract: This project will explore the use of image and video based social media in promoting veganism and “plant-based” lifestyles. Instagram and TikTok are two of the most widely used and influential social media platforms today and are distinctive in their almost exclusive focus on image and video. This research will “map” out the discourses which are used to justify and promote a vegan lifestyle and analyse how discursive strategies intersect with the technical affordances of the platforms in the promotion of pro-vegan messages. The findings will help to explain how this increasingly influential lifestyle and movement is encouraged through the mobilisation of discourse and the affordances of social media technologies. The analysis offered will help to better understand the impact of image and video based social media on the formation of lifestyles and movements and more broadly how media influence functions in contemporary society.

Professor Renee Timmers

SRG2223\230636

Probabilities in the perception of emotion in music: a comparative study

University of Sheffield

Value Awarded: £9,985.00

Abstract: Psychological models of perception of emotion in music emphasise the remarkable commonality in emotional communication across cultures. Less attention has been dedicated to understanding emotional expression that is not shared across individuals or across genres and cultures. This project aims to put centre stage emotional interpretations of music that listeners and performers disagree on and explores how such variation may be understood. The theoretical foundation will be developed by acknowledging the probabilistic character of emotion perception in music, whilst individual and group variation will be modelled as variations in prior probabilities of emotions, musical properties, and their relationships. This project will formulate this theory and pilot-test its effectiveness, using participant pools from the UK and Japan. Acknowledging variability will considerably add to the realism and depth of models of emotion in music and promote understanding of differences in cognition from person to person and group to group.

Dr Ben Tippet

Co-Applicant: Dr Rafael Wildauer

SRG2223\231668

Who are the wealthy? Constructing a new dataset on UK wealth concentration from archives of The Sunday Time Rich List 1989-2023

University of Greenwich

Value Awarded: £8,840.00

Abstract: Despite worldwide data collection efforts, our understanding of those at the top of the wealth distribution is still significantly lacking. This research project aims to bring to light previously neglected data on the wealthiest 1000 households in the UK from archives of The Sunday Times Rich List. We will construct an annual panel dataset from 1989 to today and link this to existing data sources on wealth, to answer four unresolved questions: What is the top 1% share of wealth in the UK and how has it changed over time? What is the gender and racial composition of the very wealthy? To what extent do they make or inherit their wealth? What determines the rate of returns to wealth at the top of the distribution? Given increased attention on the very wealthy, providing accessible data is more important than ever to analyse the causes and effects of wealth concentration.

Dr Richard Tipping

SRG2223\231551

OSL dating and environmental reconstruction of stratified early prehistoric lithic assemblages on the River Dee, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Independent Scholar

Value Awarded: £9,264.52

Abstract: Very large Mesolithic (12000–6000 years ago) flint assemblages, tens of thousands of pieces, have been found on one river terrace of the Dee over many years, where hunter-gatherer-fishers (HGFs) returned to year after year or where activities were concentrated. 14000 year old Late Upper Palaeolithic flints, exceptionally rare in Scotland, have also been

found. Until now, the assemblages have come from ploughed soils and cannot be scientifically dated. Now we can date one stratified assemblage within 1.5m of accumulating riverine sands using optically stimulated luminescence. Flints are abundant, unabraded and in situ. From this we will define for the first time (a) when LUP HGFs colonised, (b) when and how frequently Mesolithic communities used the river and (c) what relation HGFs had with the first farmers 6000 years ago. The sands themselves provide information on climate-driven flood frequency and magnitude, to relate floodplain use to important environmental variables.

Dr Phuong Tran

SRG2223\230920

Supply chain social standards in emerging markets: The case of agriculture supply chain in Vietnam

University of Bristol

Value Awarded: £9,998.00

Abstract: Achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires fundamental restructuring of global supply chains, especially to meet objectives relating to sustainable production and consumption and decent work and economic growth. Many companies worldwide have put in place social standards, covering labour/human rights, designed to regulate and change suppliers’ behaviour. However, suppliers’ compliance regarding labour and human rights in emerging markets is problematic, and there is little evidence what determines compliance and the degree to which compliance with social standards ensures achievement with SDG goals. This research addresses these questions by analysing the implementation of social standards and their outcomes in agri-food supply chains in Vietnam. Through semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires, this project will gather data to uncover the implementation of human and labour rights standards. The results will contribute to the literature on sustainable supply chain management and provide meaningful implications for policymakers and practitioners seeking to achieve SDGs.

Dr Ted Tregear

Co-Applicant: Dr Namratha Rao

SRG2223\231614

Materialism and Metaphysics in Early Modernity

University of St Andrews

Value Awarded: £8,187.00

Abstract: Metaphysics and materialism may not seem to have much in common, at least not in early modern thought. While metaphysics was identified as the search for the most abstract and primary causes, and even routinely defined as the study of immaterial being, materialisms were often vocal in criticizing metaphysics -- even if they continued to do it by other means. Yet again and again, the two are found together in early modern thought and literature. This project aims to illuminate this curious affinity through a series of conferences and workshops. It will begin with a big open conference in November 2023, before continuing in a series of online workshops, and culminating in a writing workshop in July 2024. The final result will be an edited collection of essays, as well as a network of researchers across various disciplines whose work converges on the relationship between materialism and metaphysics.

Anna Tsakalaki

SRG2223\231432

Improving children’s literacy skills and families’ confidence: Strategy-based family-training for young refugees from Ukraine.

University of Reading

Value Awarded: £9,760.20

Abstract: This study aims to explore whether a participatory model of training in literacy strategy-use helps newly arrived refugee families of primary school-aged children from Ukraine to improve their children’s reading/writing skills in their home-language and English, the language of instruction in UK schools. It also explores the extent to which this model of training can improve families’ confidence level in supporting their children’s literacy development at home. This study is important as it is the first to explore the effects of such a training on refugee children’s strategy-use and their family’s confidence. 25 Ukrainian refugee child-parent pairs in Southwest England will participate in four 90-minute training sessions and supporting reflective meetings. Improvement in strategy-use and confidence will be measured via questionnaires, interviews and observations of home-literacy activities. We will explore statistical differences and qualitative change in strategy-use and confidence over the course of a calendar year after the training.

Dr Ana Valdivia

SRG2223\231263

(De)coding AI: Data centres and the impact of algorithmic infrastructure beyond the code

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £9,320.00

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) has a wide political and environmental impact. In the last years academics, journalists and civil organisations have centred their efforts in analysing algorithmic discriminatory codes and bias; yet little is known about how AI’s infrastructures are also contributing to social inequalities. Data centres manage and store much of the world’s data and are key infrastructures of AI. This ground-breaking research project investigates how data centres are transforming societies and territories. To do so, it will focus on Chile and Mexico, that have become the Latin America hubs for data centres. This study will explore interactions and controversies on data centres between communities, governments, and private actors. Digital methods and interviews will be combined to propose a transdisciplinary framework to analyse the political and environmental impact of data centres. This research will contribute to global and local debates on the broaden impact of the infrastructure of AI.

Dr Vicente Valentim

SRG2223\230427

The Stigmatization of Political Ideologies

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £9,493.90

Abstract: How do political platforms become stigmatized? I argue that large conflicts can work as critical junctures that generate narratives about winners and losers. The side involved in the conflict that can acquire the monopoly over means of production of a narrative over the conflict (education system, public memory) will likely portray itself as the winning (normatively good) side, thus stigmatizing the other side, perceived as the losing (normatively bad) side. This narrative about the conflict is then transmitted to citizens who learn who the wrongdoers in the conflict were, while also being made aware that others around them have also learned about it. This generates expectations that others in one’s reference group may sanction support for the ideology blamed for the wrongdoing, thus creating a social norm against it. I will test these expectations using a survey experiment and observational data.

Dr Vanessa Valero

SRG2223\230395

Should investors and workers be rewarded differently? Measuring perceptions of deservingness using economic experiments

University of Leicester

Value Awarded: £9,950.00

Abstract: This project investigates the role of perceptions of deservingness in the allocation of production rewards between capital and labor. Such allocation has long been of interest to economists and policymakers. Recently, globally rising capital shares have renewed interest in this topic, notably because it has been identified as a primary source of persistent inequality (Piketty, 2013). When rising capital shares are a concern, different policies can be used to reallocate production rewards between the providers of capital and labour, such as capital income taxes. While many factors may influence individuals’ support for these policies, one important consideration is the perceived deservingness of capitalists and workers. I will use online experiments with representative samples of the US and UK populations to understand perceptions of deservingness between capital and labour and the factors that shape such perceptions. This is critical for understanding people’s support for policies that differentially reward capital and labour.

Dr Valerie van Mulukom

SRG2223\230725

Worldly views worldwide: Examining secular worldviews in the Global North and South and the development of a new scale

Coventry University

Value Awarded: £9,870.39

Abstract: Despite a consistent increase in individuals who do not consider themselves religious and who do not believe in God, little is known about their worldviews. A first study identified secular worldview beliefs of individuals from 10 predominantly Western countries, such as belief in science, equality, and humanism (van Mulukom et al., 2022). However, important questions remain: How are secular worldview beliefs distributed in Asia and the Global South; are the patterns similar to those previously identified in the Global North? Do religious individuals also endorse these secular worldviews, and if so, to what extent? In this project, I design a Secular Worldviews Scale based on my previous research and run two global survey-based studies to answer these questions. This research supports nonreligious individuals around the world, whose beliefs have been largely neglected in quantitative academic research, and provide a scale pivotal for the nascent fields of nonreligion and worldview research.

Dr James Scott Vandeventer

SRG2223\230837

Conceiving sustainable space: Enacting organisation with(in) the built environment

University of Huddersfield

Value Awarded: £9,960.00

Abstract: This research will investigate how sustainable spaces are conceived – designed, planned, and constructed – in order to understand how such processes enact (i.e. bring into being) organisation within, and with, the built environment. Specifically, the research will examine a sustainable building project being delivered by a Manchester (UK) architecture firm and their partners. Guided by the extended case method, the research will focus on the organisational decisions taking place as the architecture firm, developers, financial actors, construction companies, and sub-contractors, alongside planners and policymakers, help realise this project. These actors’ processes of conceiving sustainable space will be critically analysed, considering how decisions give rise to coordination and stability, but also tensions and contradictions, as the built environment is organised. The research will contribute to understanding the multiple ways sustainable spaces are conceived, giving the built environment an organisational character, and how this can lead to more sustainable urban futures.

Dr Chrysovalantis Vasilakis

SRG2223\231157

Board Interpersonal population Diversity, Corporate Social Responsibility and pollution: International Evidence

Bangor University

Value Awarded: £9,631.00

Abstract: This research project aims to assess the impact of the interpersonal population diversity of board members on corporate social responsibility, connecting the sustainable economic, accounting, and finance literature. Although several aspects of board diversity have been examined, little is known about whether the population diversity of board members plays a role in the level of CSR engagement. The composition of board members has been increasingly heterogeneous, including different countries of origin and skills-set that construct the firm’s objectives and conducts. These skills could be potentially linked to deeper roots that developed thousands of years ago. On the one hand, population diversity lowers the trust between individuals, weakening the likelihood of collective actions as well as the existing social orders of the community. On the other hand, genetic diversity could contribute to new ideas and abilities that foster innovation and labor specialization.

Dr Tim Vestner

SRG2223\231093

Distortions of space and time in social interaction perception

Leeds Trinity University

Value Awarded: £9,445.00

Abstract: The visual perception of social interactions is a rapidly growing field that has within a short time uncovered surprising cognitive biases and phenomena, including recent reports of distorted inter-personal distance perception. The extent and mechanisms behind these phenomena remain largely unknown. In four distinct series of studies, this project will for the first time investigate the perception of both space and time when observing social interactions, potentially revealing novel effects but also producing robust evidence that will advance the understanding of the cognitive processes involved in social perception. During the initial stages, a battery of new experimental designs will be developed and validated. These will allow far more detailed insight than previously possible into the mechanisms underlying social interaction perception, making them useful to all researchers in the field and ensuring impact of this research beyond the duration of the project itself.

Dr Tom Vickers

Co-Applicant: Dr Jereme Snook Dr Michael Whittall

SRG2223\230298

Digital Mediations in the Workplace (DigiMed): Implications for wellbeing, equality and diversity

Nottingham Trent University

Value Awarded: £9,977.17

Abstract: This project explores the role of digitally-mediated power relations in workplace wellbeing, equality and diversity. A survey tool and expert interviews will be developed and applied in partnership with the GMB trade union and the CIPD association of HR professionals. These methods will identify groups of workers who face particular issues, to target further research and interventions. Three case studies will examine specific companies and sectors that provide examples of a variety of contemporary transformations enabled by digital technologies - warehouse workers employed by Amazon, private hire drivers using the Uber app, and call centre operatives working in their own homes for Capita. Lasting impacts will be achieved through outputs that include a report, briefings, academic publications and a self-assessment tool that can be used by employers, trade unions and other employee representatives, the HSE and other agencies to monitor outcomes for workers’ wellbeing, equality, and diversity in digitalized workplaces.

Dr Callum Walker

Co-Applicant: Dr Joseph Lambert Dr JC Penet

SRG2223\230565

Chasing Status: The Sustainability of the Freelance Translation Profession in the United Kingdom

University of Leeds

Value Awarded: £9,060.00

Abstract: Despite the value of the language services industry, there are growing concerns about the long-term sustainability of the translation profession in the United Kingdom, especially in light of technological developments like machine translation. The literature and data point to significant concerns over rates of pay, status, and working conditions for both new and established freelance professionals. This project’s survey and focus groups will engage directly with and collect data from UK-based professional translators, and better understand the various factors playing into this concerning economic climate. This research will provide much-needed practitioner-focused data on the oft-neglected human side of the industry, all too frequently masked by financial data and bold claims about technological breakthroughs. In so doing, it will provide a strong foundation to effect change and support a sense of ethical responsibility relating to the long-term sustainability of this vital economic industry.

Dr Clive Walker

Co-Applicant: Dr Ran Tao Dr Jiadong Liu

SRG2223\231450

Media, Momentum and the UK Stock Market: 1888–2021

Queen's University Belfast

Value Awarded: £9,994.00

Abstract: This study uses textual analysis of Financial Times articles to examine the relationship between firms’ media coverage and their momentum effect. While Hillert, Jacobs and Müller (2014) suggest that firms particularly covered by the media exhibit significantly stronger momentum using newspaper data between 1989 to 2010, the effect of media varies with informational efficiency of markets and investor characteristics (Turner, Ye and Walker, 2018). We propose investigating the long-run relationship between media coverage and the momentum effect on the London stock market from 1888-2021. We seek to address how investors respond to news in a less information-efficient context where they tend to learn from newspapers and word-of-mouth dissemination.

Dr Mengjie Wang

Co-Applicant: Dr Emike Nasamu Dr Paul Matthias Gorny

SRG2223\230041

Predict, Advise or Perform? – The Role of Automated Systems in Human Interaction

Cardiff University

Value Awarded: £9,938.33

Abstract: Digital tools based on artificial intelligence are already ubiquitous in everyday life, aiding humans in decision-making. Automated systems (AS) can predict behaviour, provide advice, or make decisions on humans’ behalf. It is yet unclear whether assistance by AS would be appreciated in human-human interaction and how their role - predictive, advisory, or performative - affects human acceptance of these tools. Do humans appreciate AS in human-human interactions, or are they afraid of losing control? How do these roles of AS affect the interaction outcomes? Does a neutral framing help to enhance the uptake of AS relative to a more ‘human’ framing? We propose controlled interaction experiments with a simplified trust game. Depending on the treatment, an AS provides i) predictions or ii) advice to subjects, or iii) subjects can delegate the interaction to the AS. Our study informs the design of automated tools aiming to improve human interactions.

Dr Richard Ward

SRG2223\230146

Character and the Criminal in the Nineteenth-Century Information State

University of Exeter

Value Awarded: £8,176.00

Abstract: From blocking cookies to entering false information online, individuals in the twenty-first century are shaping the nature of the personal information that is collected about them, and how organisations attempt to collect our personal data. Yet, in histories of the Information State, the subjects of personal data collection stand in the shadows of the state. This SRG project instead represents the first step in pioneering a bottom-up history of the Information State, revealing the hidden ways in which ordinary people have shaped (and continue to shape) the development of personal data collection. As a first step in this long-term research plan, this SRG project will investigate how offenders in nineteenth-century Britain responded to new attempts to collect information about their “character”, and how this shaped the modern systems of criminal information gathering, police profiling, and punishment.

Dr Neil Washbourne

SRG2223\231617

Listening to BBC Radio 2 (during Covid-19): understanding and valuing popular public service broadcasting

Leeds Beckett University

Value Awarded: £6,511.25

Abstract: The research addresses how diverse listeners of BBC Radio 2 use the programmes, music and presenters in order to assess their understanding of the station’s value as Public Service Broadcasting and contribute to policy. Radio 2 is the most listened to station in the UK yet is ignored in research. This research uses interviews and questionnaires to explore listeners’ experiences and thoughts about the station. It addresses how listeners engaged with the station before and during Covid-19 pandemic with its challenges and changed conditions of listening. Finally, it will evaluate whether, in what ways listeners think of it as PSB. The research investigates listeners’ experience of Radio 2 as vital to the ecology of Public Service Broadcasting in the UK, ignored in research, and crucial to current BBC policymaking. It also aims to provide a model useful for other listener research and encouragement to other researchers.

Professor Paul Watt

SRG2223\231340

Social Mixing and Estate Regeneration in London

London School of Economics and Political Science

Value Awarded: £9,776.00

Abstract: Social mixing, involving the mixing of housing tenures and social classes, forms the orthodox policy approach to housing development in the UK and Global North. The main policy goal for regeneration via the demolition and rebuilding of social housing estates, has precisely been the creation of these mixed-tenure neighbourhoods comprising newly built upmarket flats for sale alongside rebuilt social rental properties. However, there is a dearth of research on the longer-term aftermaths of estate regeneration in relation to social mixing. This project aims to address this important research and policy gap by examining two regenerated social housing estates in London. The project will analyse how social mixing processes are being experienced by both incoming homeowners and returning social tenants in these redeveloped neighbourhoods. What kind of mixed-tenure London neighbourhoods are being created by estate regeneration and who benefits from living in them?

Dr Sophie Watt

Co-Applicant: Dr Peter Watt

SRG2223\231371

Decolonising the lens: visual representation of migrating journeys

University of Sheffield

Value Awarded: £9,981.00

Abstract: Decolonizing the lens will bring together people with expertise in art, social science and migration studies. This research project focuses on the creation of a network of partners (academics, artists and NGOs) with broad experience working in the context of migration. The network will investigate the potential for a grassroots art-based approach to the wellbeing of refugees while emphasising their agency and it will design the digital dissemination of these projects. This project, which covers two research trips and an international workshop, will bring together different stakeholders to discuss visual representations of migration at three international border zones (France/United Kingdom, Morocco/ Spain and Mexico/United States) and will plan the commissioning of alternative artistic co-representations of border zones with artists and NGOs. A proposal for an AHRC standard grant, a co-authored research article and a book proposal will be drafted after the workshop.

Dr Lawrence Webb

SRG2223\230668

Advertising, Film and Visual Culture in the 1960s

University of Sussex

Value Awarded: £4,436.00

Abstract: This project investigates the history of advertising production houses as significant yet neglected sites of innovation and creative exchange. During the “creative revolution” of the 1960s, the US advertising industry transformed its cultural status by absorbing aspects of the counterculture into a new hip consumerism. Yet this story has exclusively been told from the perspective of the Madison Avenue agencies rather than the companies they subcontracted to film television commercials. This project reconstructs the working practices of a cluster of firms and traces their complex relationship to the visual culture of the period. It examines how advertising unexpectedly became a point of intersection between media industries and cultural forms, including television, documentary, photography, design, and Hollywood cinema. Studying these firms reveals the crucial role of advertising as a conduit between corporations and artistic subcultures, and provides a new perspective on the emergence of what would later become the “creative economy.”

Professor Michael White

SRG2223\231203

Richard Mutt: Case Review. Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' from the perspective of law

University of York

Value Awarded: £6,200.00

Abstract: Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain,' a urinal submitted to an exhibition in 1917, has become one of the most discussed works of art of the last century, continually referenced in controversies over the definition of art. My concerns with it are prompted by its sole publication at the time as a photograph, captioning it an 'exhibit,' which was printed adjacent to a text, 'The Richard Mutt Case,' defending the merits of the object in legalistic terms related to intellectual property and obscenity. Despite that steer, art historians have to date neglected to consider the legal landscape in operation at the moment of the work's production. When viewed from the intersection of art history and law, a new interpretative framework comes dramatically into sight, with implications both for the historical understanding of 'Fountain' and its use as a contemporary legal reference point in cases where statutory definitions of art are in play.

Dr Daniel Whittingham

SRG2223\231082

Contending With the Aftermath: British Military Strategy In the Middle East, 1918-26

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £7,910.00

Abstract: The proposed project will explore British military policy, strategy, and operations in the Middle East, 1918-26. The project will focus on what is rather more than a mere postscript to the story of the First World War in the Middle East: the military history of the ‘wars after the war’ in the region. Rarely have British service personnel been deployed on so vast a canvas, with such a direct bearing on the course of events, across a region that was a top British priority. Some of their activities are well known and have been covered in the literature, while others are largely neglected. Moreover, the relationships between the various roles, and the theatres in which the armed forces performed these roles, are often overlooked. The project will lead to a monograph which will provide the first comprehensive account of Britain’s military activities in the region during these years.

Dr David Wilkinson

SRG2223\230049

Proletarian Counterculture: Politics, Legacies and Class

Manchester Metropolitan University

Value Awarded: £9,470.00

Abstract: This project aims to investigate the contested legacies of the 1960s and 1970s British counterculture, illuminating its overlooked impact upon a conflicted present. To re-examine this moment is to confront a startling array of seemingly ‘contemporary’ issues: from the future of work to fractured national, sexual and gendered identities and a social crisis of mental health. I argue that social class is key to understanding the complexity of such legacies. Questioning existing scholarship on the counterculture, which portrays it as solely middle class, I concentrate on the neglected archives of working class writers Ray Gosling (1939-2013), Ann Quin (1936-1973) and Philip Callow (1924-2007) to examine the ways that class difference determined the aesthetics, politics and contemporary significance of their work. In so doing, I aim to provide a more informed assessment of the counterculture’s present-day value. The research will underpin a contracted monograph and an AHRC Networking Bid.

Dr Andy Willimott

SRG2223\230198

From Paris to Petrograd: The Paris Commune in the Russian/Soviet Imagination, 1871-1991

Queen Mary University of London

Value Awarded: £9,443.65

Abstract: Few historical events held as much meaning for the Soviets as the Paris Commune of 1871. Scholars have noted that Russia’s revolutionary elite, notably Lenin, wrote frequently about past revolutions--shoehorning Russia into a teleological and highly theoretical narrative of Marxist development. But little attention has been paid to how the tale of 1871--more so than 1789 or 1848--provided Soviet ideology with the emotional content and sense of relevance necessary to inspire popular engagement with the radical past.

Examining how 1871 was told and retold, read and re-read, through the lecture tours of veteran Communards, pamphlets, the popular press, radical commemorations, memoirs, and workers’ club activities, this project will recast Soviet engagement with the revolutionary past. Out of this project will emerge a better understanding of how the Soviets, and radical movements more broadly, sustained their sense of past, even as they declared their newness.

Professor Justin Willis

SRG2223\231509

The common bond: SACCOs, economics and citizenship in Kenya since 1963

Durham University

Value Awarded: £9,955.00

Abstract: This pilot project will initiate new debate on a ubiquitous, but largely neglected, Kenyan financial institution – the Savings and Cooperative Credit Organizations, or SACCOs. In partnership with the British Institute in Eastern Africa the project will provide research experience and mentoring to a recent Kenyan graduate and produce an academic article and a policy briefing paper. Through collaboration with Financial Sector Deepening Kenya (the leading research and policy institution on financial inclusion in Kenya) the project will engage with potential research users – giving the graduates experience of this work - and produce at least two public-facing blog posts. The project will develop a network of contacts that will provide the basis for a follow-on project that further pursues fundamental questions about SACCOs – about their successes and failures, and about how they have changed everyday attitudes to saving and borrowing in Kenya

Dr Lucy Willmott

Co-Applicant: Dr Jane Dominey

SRG2223\231399

Understanding Probation Regions: Accountability, Devolution and Power in Transition

University of Cambridge

Value Awarded: £8,444.00

Abstract: The aim of this research is to interrogate the growing importance of the regional structure in Probation Service governance in England and Wales. Regional empowerment, devolution of central administration and a reworked unified model of probation and prison services are the latest twists in a long process of probation reorganisation. This multi-method, qualitative study will be the first to investigate regional probation management in practice. It will draw on interviews with newly empowered regional directors of probation, to capture how power, accountability and responsibility flow in practice, alongside a documentary analysis of official sources to corroborate understanding and distinguish between the model as experienced and presented. This is proposed as the first step in a study of regional Probation Service governance across time and space, planned to consider local, central and cross-service perspectives, and previous models of probation governance to develop a sustainable model of probation service governance.

Dr Dominic Willmott

Co-Applicant: Dr Lee Curley

SRG2223\231748

Jury Decision-making in English Male Rape Trials: Investigating the Role of Defendant Race and Complainant Sexuality on Juror Judgments and Verdict Outcomes

Loughborough University

Value Awarded: £9,897.00

Abstract: In year ending March 2020, 155,000 men experienced some form of sexual violence throughout England and Wales (E&W) (ONS, 2021). Many studies have shown how rape myths and other biases can hinder female complainants access to justice, especially when jurors are the decision-makers. However, research is yet to examine whether such biases may also impact upon juror decision-making within male rape trials in E&W. With legislative restrictions preventing researchers from speaking to real trial jurors, this study aims to examine how mock juror biases, associated with defendant race and complainant disclosure of sexuality, impact upon male rape trial outcomes. Six variations of a videotaped mock-trial will be shown to 300 jury-eligible participants across 25 separate 12-person jury panels. Analysis of quantitative data concerning juror judgements and decisions, pre- and post-deliberation, and qualitative group discussions, will provide the first empirical insights into male rape victims access to justice, before English juries.

Dr Arnaud Wisman

Co-Applicant: Dr Andrew George Thomas

SRG2223\231546

Object of desire: The role of sexual arousal in sexual objectification of women by men

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £9,896.28

Abstract: The detrimental effects of objectification on women’s psychological and physical well-being are well known. Yet, scant research has investigated what exactly motivates men to objectify women. In the current research proposal, it is argued that next to dispositional factors (e.g., personality) situational factors (e.g., sexual arousal) play a role in the objectification of women. Inspired by evolutionary theoretical frameworks, we propose four experiments that will test the novel hypotheses that sexual arousal causes implicit, explicit, and cognitive forms of objectification. In all experiments we will test for potential moderating dispositional factors that are associated with lower empathy (e.g., the Dark Triad; Social Dominance Orientation). Moreover, we will explore if heightened manipulated empathy can reduce objectification in the context of sexual arousal (Experiment 2,4). The proposed experiments will shed new light on the important question of why men objectify women. Importantly, we will explore novel pathways to reduce objectification of women.

Dr Jenny Wong

Co-Applicant: Dr Saihong Li

SRG2223\231452

Cross-cultural Adaptation, Translation and Interpretation of Shakespeare's Theological Ethics from Page to Stage

University of Birmingham

Value Awarded: £10,000.00

Abstract: The study represents a first step in understanding the cross-cultural interpretation of theological ethics embedded in English literature. Furthermore, it will explore the interaction between the prevalent ideology of the target culture, individual theology and the translated stage performance, and the impact brought about by the misinterpretation and misappropriation to the socio-political arena at large. Shakespeare is chosen in this study because he was, and still is, a national icon in Chinese society who attracts a large following on the Chinese stage. With the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ten-year Chinese translation project just in place which involves the translation of all Shakespeare’s plays on the Chinese stage, this study can thus capitalize on the rich data it will produce to explore the relationship between one’s theology and interpretation, final production, and the impact which such adaptation brings.

Dr Eleanor Woodhouse

SRG2223\230933

The Politics of Private Involvement in Public Procurement (PPIPP)

University College London (UCL)

Value Awarded: £9,905.43

Abstract: Private involvement in the delivery of public goods and services is prevalent across the globe. Yet, we fundamentally do not currently understand the scale of this involvement. I address this issue by providing a simple, scalable way to compare the private involvement in a procurement contract. Through a supervised machine learning approach applied to publicly available procurement notice datasets from the European Economic Area, UK, and USA, I will produce a text-based measure that will make possible the comparison of the degree of private involvement across different countries, which to date was unfeasible. This measure will allow me, and the scholarly community more broadly, to ask and answer new and vital research questions regarding hybrid governance. For example, the examination of how a plethora of key features of governments –their ideological composition, civil service selection criteria, or lobbying legislation– affect the degree of private involvement in public contracts.

Professor Stephanie Wynne-Jones

Co-Applicant: Professor Anne Haour

SRG2223\230145

Indian Ocean earthenwares: a window into medieval connectivities

University of York

Value Awarded: £9,895.17

Abstract: This application is for a pilot project using petrography on medieval Indian Ocean earthenwares, to answer long-standing questions about interaction and trade. It will establish and cement a network of researchers working across the Indian Ocean, each contributing materials towards a petrographic study. This will be the first such comparative study for the region, applying modern techniques of thin-section analysis to everyday ceramics, to explore local priorities, values and consumption practices, particularly in the study of regional craft traditions.

The research will also produce and disseminate a methodology for studying these objects, with the outcomes discussed at a workshop, which will produce a journal article and a plan for further collaboration.

The potential of earthenwares to inform on movement, connection and daily life has been little realised in a region where trade networks are well attested, but commodity histories have continued to focus on imported goods rather than everyday objects.

Dr Nan Xiong

SRG2223\230284

Agency Conflicts and Equity Returns

Durham University

Value Awarded: £5,200.00

Abstract: Embedding a discrete-time structural model of the firm with the conflicts between managers and shareholders, I derive novel implications that information frictions have for the cross-section of equity returns within a q-theory framework. I construct a time-varying agency index that I project from the simulated data into the real data). Guided by the model, I then sort firms according to the agency index and examine the patterns in returns. I predict that by changing the investment policy of the firm, agency conflicts, and the ensuing need for incentive compatible contracts for managers, affects equity returns in the cross-section. This mechanism creates a dynamic in the severity of agency conflicts, which itself drives investment and returns.

Xiaowei Xu

Co-Applicant: Giulia Giupponi

SRG2223\230175

The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Workers’ Career Progression and Firms’ Occupational Structure

Institute for Fiscal Studies

Value Awarded: £9,800.00

Abstract: Recent years have seen a revival of interest in minimum wages, which are increasingly seen as an effective tool to boost wage growth at the bottom of the distribution. While there is ample evidence that minimum wages raise wages at the bottom, UK survey evidence reveals that pay above the minimum is a significant issue for many employers. Firms struggling to keep up with minimum wage increases might have to delay or reduce seniority raises, or cut back on pay scales. In this project, we shed light on these dynamics by examining the impact of the minimum wage on workers’ pay progression and the within-firm occupational structure. First, we will document impacts on the within-firm wage-tenure profile and on changes in the internal occupational structure. Second, we will analyze the impact of the minimum wage on pay progression, decomposing earnings dynamics within and across firms, and across labor market statuses.

Dr Rebecca Yearling

Co-Applicant: Dr Claire Fox

SRG2223\230282

Teaching Shakespeare’s violence in secondary schools: Beyond the content warning

Keele University

Value Awarded: £4,842.00

Abstract: The question of whether Shakespeare’s violent plays should come with content warnings has recently become a hotly debated topic in the UK popular media. However, far less attention has been paid to the question of how school-aged pupils and teachers actually feel about reading, watching, teaching and learning about violent early modern drama. The violence of these plays may be disturbing for some students, but also appealing for others, and the project will acknowledge this complexity, deepening and enriching the content warning debates by exploring the challenges that these texts present in the real-life secondary-education classroom. It will also develop new strategies which will allow educators to teach the violence of these plays in a sensitive and ethically-informed manner: helping students deal with the feelings of discomfort that such works might provoke, but also avoiding the reinforcing of dangerous pre-existing narratives, such as the romanticism of teen suicide.

Dr Ning Zhang

Co-Applicant: Dr Mathias Jensen

SRG2223\231429

The effects of parental death on children’s outcomes

University of Oxford

Value Awarded: £9,600.00

Abstract: Parents provide care and investment to young children, and most continue to support their children into adulthood. Losing a parent is one of life’s most universal events, affecting people worldwide. However, there is little evidence of the impact of parental death on children’s outcomes and well-being. This proposal outlines two projects studying the impact of parental death on children’s outcomes at different stages of life. First, we examine the effect of parental death or severe health shocks at various ages during childhood on children’s outcomes later in life. By knowing the age-specific impact of the absence of parental care on child outcomes, policymakers can target interventions for children at vulnerable ages. Second, we investigate the effects of parental death on adult children’s employment and earnings. Given its prevalence, the loss of parents in adulthood generates profound implications for population-level labor market outcomes and well-being, including gender inequalities.

Dr Yawei Zhao

SRG2223\231315

Digital Infrastructures on the Urban Scale: Artificial Intelligence and Data Centres in China

University of Manchester

Value Awarded: £9,514.76

Abstract: Social sciences research has increasingly illuminated the intertwined relationship between digital technologies and urban spaces. Within this intellectual context, the proposed project seeks to explore the impacts and implications of digital infrastructures on the socio-spatial arrangements of the urban. Grounded in the empirical case of China, the project will 1) investigate how national digital plans have translated into local urbanisation plans; 2) explore whether and how cities remain an indispensable node in networked and relational digital infrastructures; and 3) examine how the construction of digital infrastructures has (re)configured relationships between public institutions and private tech companies and what implications this reconfiguration has on urban governance. Overall, the project will add original insights to the scant scholarship on the geographies of data centres and the promises and uncertainties surrounding digital investment and urbanisation.

Dr Kuziwakwashe Zigomo

SRG2223\230679

Inhabiting Paradoxes: Pentecostalism and Political Femininities in Zimbabwe

University of Kent

Value Awarded: £8,300.00

Abstract: With the rise of evangelical Christianity in Africa, new feminine ideals are emerging which seem to be re-shaping gender roles in various disciplines (van de Kamp 2012, Gilbert 2016, Frahm-Arp 2010). In extending this growing body of scholarship, this project will explore how newly religiously mediated femininities are re-shaping gender roles in politics particularly during periods of transition. It will do so by investigating how young Zimbabwean women’s religious beliefs, values, and imaginaries are shaping their performances of femininity in the political sphere in response to, and amidst the growing pressures of neoliberalism and globalisation. And consider how they are reconciling their religious and secular commitments and practices of self. The project will broach women not as passive but active agents in appropriating religious messages and imaginaries to construct their own realities mainly in: re-thinking their place in society; in giving them greater mobility; and in realising their political aspirations.

Dr Alon Zivony

Co-Applicant: Dr Liadh Timmins Professor Lisa DeBruine

SRG2223\230932

Perceived gender non-conformity of transgender people's facial features and its association to transgender prejudice

Birkbeck, University of London

Value Awarded: £9,725.00

Abstract: Transgender people experience severe prejudice on a daily basis, but the psychological mechanisms that underlie this prejudice is poorly understood. We suggest that perception of gender non-conformity among transgender people is both an outcome of prejudice and a contributing factor to prejudice. Specifically, we focus on perception of gender non-conformity as expressed in the human face. In Study 1, we examine whether knowledge that a person is transgender affects perceptions of facial masculinity\femininity. In Study 2, we examine whether masculinization\feminization of the human face contributes to prejudice and stereotypes in a social evaluation task of transgender individuals. We predict that transgender people experience a vicious cycle when it comes to prejudice: knowing that they are transgender affects perception of their masculinity\femininity, and perception of their masculinity\femininity exacerbates prejudice towards them. Such a conclusion will inform the social discussion regarding transgender prejudice, which is an important step towards reducing such prejudice.