The British Academy is proud to announce the award of 231 British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants worth over £2.1 million to support primary research in the SHAPE disciplines.
This year, 1,116 applications were submitted for assessment, resulting in a success rate of 21%.
Worth up to £10,000 over a period of up to two years, the awards will support academics working at universities and research institutions across the UK – as well as independent scholars – by covering the cost of expenses arising from a particular research project.
Funding for the Small Research Grants programme is a public-private collaboration. Support is provided by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome. The program also receives support from other partners and endowed funds, including the British Accounting and Finance Association, the Honor Frost Foundation, the Journal of Moral Education Trust, the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan, the Sino-British Fellowship Trust, and the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.
The British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2024-25 awardees are:
Please note: Awards are divided by funder and arranged alphabetically by surname of the grant recipient. The institution is that given at the time of application.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)
Dr Ahmad Abras
SRG2425\250590
Parallel Accountability Practices in Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs): the Case of the Syrian Humanitarian Crisis
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,265.00
Funded By: DSIT
Holding non-governmental organisations (NGOs) accountable is important. However, the strict accountability processes and requirements, hierarchical structures and sometimes pre-determined priorities of donors can hinder NGOs’ ability to serve local communities. This may lead NGOs to follow ‘parallel accountability practices’ to meet the requirements of the cultural and social settings within local communities and to address their specific needs, which international donors may overlook. This project aims to examine the parallel accountability practices emerging within the local humanitarian aid NGOs as they manage the competing accountability demands of both international NGOs and donors, and local beneficiaries in the complex context of the Syrian conflict. Investigating these practices is imperative because, although often not formally reported by NGOs, these practices offer a more authentic reflection of the sense of accountability prevailing on the ground and its resultant actions and implications.
Dr Sevgi Adak
SRG2425\251878
Family-Oriented NGOs, State–NGO Partnerships, and Neoconservative Mobilisation in Turkey
Aga Khan University - Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
Value Awarded: £9,555.00
Funded By: DSIT
Familialism, both as a social welfare model and a neoconservative ideology championing the sanctity of the family, has been a key dimension of emergent populist authoritarianisms worldwide. Turkey’s authoritarian turn in the last decade has also been marked by familialist policies aiming to reinstate women’s roles as care givers and promote a religiously sanctioned gender regime. While this state-led familialism has been well-documented, less emphasis has been given to ‘civil’ familialism produced and disseminated by neoconservative, family-oriented NGOs across the country. Focusing on the proliferation of such NGOs especially in the provinces, that is, cities other than the major metropolises, this project explores 1) the role and impact of local family-oriented NGOs in the emergence of a ‘bottom-up’ mobilisation for familialist policies, and 2) their partnerships with the state as well as connections with local state and non-state actors to map the familiast networks along the local-national axis.
Dr Bisi Adenekan-Koevoets
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Funmilayo Afolabi
SRG2425\251182
Religious Beliefs, Occupational Health and Safety and Business Growth in Nigerian Food processing enterprises
University of Roehampton
Value Awarded: £9,874.00
Funded By: DSIT
Occupational health and safety (OHS) is often overlooked among cottage and small-scale food processors, due to financial constraints, lack of awareness, or cultural factors. In Nigeria, where religious values heavily influence personal and professional life, it is important to understand how these beliefs affect business growth. While research exists on OHS in larger industrial settings, there is limited study on how religious practices influence safety behaviour and how this interaction affects the growth of cottage and small-scale food processing businesses. An explanatory sequential mixed-method design will be employed to study 320 cassava processors and 12 religious leaders in Osun State, Nigeria. Quantitative data will be collected first while qualitative data will then be collected. Thereafter, a modified Delphi-technique will be employed to co-design a safety education intervention. The findings will generate a list of items for safety training module for food processors in Nigeria.
Dr Samuel Adomako
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Veselina Stoyanova & Dr Veselina Stoyanova
SRG2425\250489
Overcoming Barriers to Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Female Entrepreneurs Living with Disabilities in Ghana
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £8,531.50
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines the experiences of female entrepreneurs with disabilities in Ghana, focusing on the intersection of gender and disability. Disabilities create barriers to accessing education, resources, and financing, limiting full participation in entrepreneurial activities. In Ghana, social stigma and discrimination exacerbate these challenges, especially for women.
The study fills a gap in research by exploring the compounded obstacles faced by female entrepreneurs with disabilities, an area often overlooked in existing literature. Through a qualitative approach, the project will conduct interviews with 30 female entrepreneurs and 12 policymakers to identify the key barriers and evaluate the current policy landscape in Ghana.
The project will culminate in a report and a dissemination event aimed at policymakers and advocacy groups, providing actionable recommendations to support inclusive entrepreneurship. This initiative aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting gender equality and inclusive economic growth.
Dr Victor Agboga
SRG2425\250928
Evaluating Attitudes Towards Climate-Induced Pastoral Displacement and Resettlement in Nigerian Farming Communities
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Climate change has significantly impacted agrarian communities in Nigeria, particularly in the Middlebelt region, where competition for resources have triggered violent clashes between farmers and Fulani pastoralists migrating southward in search of forage. These conflicts, resulting in over 2,000 deaths annually and widespread displacement, are often framed as ethno-religious clashes, overshadowing the climate-induced factors driving the violence. This research aims to test if reframing the conflict as climate-induced can shift public opinion in southern Nigeria to support resettlement initiatives for displaced northern pastoralists. Through a survey experiment, the study will assess whether providing information to the public in southern Nigeria about the role of climate change in the conflict can reduce opposition to government plans to establishing grazing ranches in the south for northern pastoralists. Additionally, it will examine the "Not In My Backyard" (NIMBY) effect to determine if support for resettlement changes when participants consider proximity to their communities.
Dr Wafaa Ahmed
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Giovanna Culot
SRG2425\250369
Data for circularity: requirements, technologies and capabilities for the digital product passport
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,905.33
Funded By: DSIT
Digital product passports (DPP) are poised to transform product lifecycles, promoting transparency, traceability, and sustainable resource use. However, the actual development and implementation of DPP is challenging, stressing the need for rigorous research that investigates DPP development and implementation requirements across different supply chain (SC) configurations. We aim to develop comprehensive guidance and innovative multi-level SC data frameworks for DPP design and adoption. We will use mixed research methods to identify DPP data requirements, map challenges in product identification and data capture across SCs and explore the role of digital technologies in facilitating data sharing. The research will advance knowledge in DPP adoption and implementation, addressing regulatory demands and SC operational complexities. The frameworks will provide robust foundation for future empirical research and for industries to adopt DPPs. The project supports the broader transition to circular economy by unveiling possible options for effective data management, product traceability, and resource efficiency.
Dr Roy Alderton
SRG2425\250527
Anticipatory nasal coarticulation in Standard Southern British English and Multicultural London English
City, University of London
Value Awarded: £9,999.33
Funded By: DSIT
Anticipatory nasal coarticulation has been argued to drive sound change, whereby a sequence of a vowel plus nasal consonant (e.g. in English 'ban') is coalesced into a nasalised vowel. This process has been proposed for American English, which shows strong nasal coarticulation. However, it is not clear how coarticulation differs between varieties of the same language or what this implies for sound change. In this study, I propose collecting acoustic nasalance data from 30 speakers of two accents of English: Standard Southern British English and Multicultural London English, which represent relatively conservative and innovative varieties respectively. By analysing the quantitative differences in vowel nasalisation between the accents and between individual speakers, this project will provide (i) an insight into the cross-dialectal mechanics of nasal coarticulation as a sound change and (ii) an empirical analysis of nasalisation in British English varieties that have so far only been described impressionistically.
Dr Joyceline Alla-Mensah
SRG2425\251189
An institutional logics perspective to the institutionalisation of informal apprenticeship reforms in Ghana
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,700.00
Funded By: DSIT
The largest source of employment in Africa is the informal sector and the informal apprenticeship system is a key route into such work. Over the past 50 years, there have been many reforms to strengthen the informal apprenticeship system to foster inclusive development. However, the changes envisioned by these, fail to become established within the system due to the presence of multiple and often competing logics. This study aims to understand why informal apprenticeship reforms fail to become lasting, integrated parts of the system by using Ghana as a case study. It draws on the institutional logics perspective to examine how the values and belief systems of key actors involved in apprenticeship reforms shape their engagement with reforms and practices to integrate and sustain these reforms. The findings of the study will improve efforts to institutionalise reforms aimed at strengthening the traditional apprenticeship system in Africa.
Professor Gill Allwood
SRG2425\250239
What if Women Ruled the World?
Nottingham Trent University
Value Awarded: £9,432.76
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed research consists of three country case studies in Namibia, India and Barbados to strengthen the empirical evidence underpinning my current book project What if Women Ruled the World? (De Gruyter 2027). The book aims to expand our understanding of whether women in politics around the world make a difference, which women make a difference, and what difference they make. Responding to critiques that white western gender and politics scholars ignore the work of scholars in the Global South and the social, political, economic and environmental context in which women in politics in the Global South attempt to bring about change, these case studies attempt to rebalance the empirical base of the book, which currently benefits from easily accessible data and research on countries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and the UK. The research consists of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with politicians, academics and activists.
Dr Paul Anderson
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Coree Brown Swan & Dr Judith Sijstermans
SRG2425\250545
Collaging Crisis: Exploring Everyday Responses to Political Narratives
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £5,886.25
Funded By: DSIT
From the 2008 financial crash to the Covid-19 pandemic to the cost-of-living crisis, elite political narratives and British political institutions have been profoundly shaped by claims of crisis. But how do these elite-driven narratives affect voters? This research employs an innovative collaging method to explore how crisis narratives shape voters’ perceptions of politics, politicians, and institutions. Collaging enables participants to visually express the complexity of their everyday experiences, offering opportunities to capture more authentic and nuanced understandings of crisis in a novel way. We will conduct four workshops across the UK—one each in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales—and publicly exhibit the collages, alongside creating an online archive. The project will result in two journal articles: one analysing the key findings of the workshops and another focusing on the methodological innovation. Through this work, we aim to deepen the understanding of how political crises intersect with day-to-day experiences.
Dr Daniel Anderson
SRG2425\251170
Modular Structure in Classical Poetry
Coventry University
Value Awarded: £9,895.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines, for the first time, the use of modular structure in ancient poetic and writerly practices, and in ancient aesthetic theories, from Homer to the Hellenistic era. When applied to works of art and poetry, modularity refers to objects whose parts are structured in anticipation of a future moment change, adaptation, or reuse. Against widely held assumptions based on Plato and Aristotle, this project argues that modularity rests at the centre of thinking about and experiences of the poetry in ancient Greece. Classical scholars have become increasingly aware of the processes of change and adaptation that poetry in antiquity could undergo. What has not yet been recognized is the extent to which these processes are reflected in ancient aesthetic categories, and in the practices of ancient poets, who sometimes looked to anticipate and exploit how their own work might in future come to be refashioned in new forms.
Dr Nathan Archer
SRG2425\251392
Nurseries...the new frontier of the welfare state?
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £6,940.00
Funded By: DSIT
During the austerity years, post-2010 in England, several hundred integrated children’s centres were closed. These centres offered a range of services for young children and their families including health services, parenting support and outreach services such as home visits and benefits advice. Following these closures, since the COVID-19 pandemic and intensified ‘cost of living’ pressures, nurseries are increasingly stepping in to support families.
This study seeks to explore, through critical ethnographic case studies, the additional services and family support increasingly offered by early childhood education settings in England. Through detailed exploration of six nurseries in socio-economically disadvantaged communities, the study will document the additional support services offered to children and families and the implications of this for communities and for early educators. Combining observations, documentary analysis and interviews with leaders and parents/carers, the research seeks to explore an ‘under the radar’ phenomenon of hidden, unfunded services and unrecognised labour.
Dr Lucia Ardovini
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Andrew Chubb
SRG2425\251060
Tackling Transnational Repression in the UK: an Institutional Approach.
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £9,857.95
Funded By: DSIT
This project brings together academics, stakeholders, and policymakers to address the growing issue of Transnational Repression (TNR) in the UK. TNR occurs where authoritarian actors target individuals abroad to silence dissent, using tactics including cross-border surveillance, harassment, legal persecution, and violence. A number of countries including China, Russia, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have engaged in documented instances of TNR in the UK, violating targets’ fundamental rights and undermining UK democratic institutions. Building on the establishment of a working group comprised of TNR experts and affected communities in August 2024, the project aims to shape the development of a comprehensive institutional response to TNR in the UK. It proposes a four-part approach based on better monitoring, response and prevention of instances of TNR, and support for its targets through advisory, legal and diplomatic mechanisms.
Dr Emma Armstrong
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Anthony Lloyd
SRG2425\252090
Tensions in Teesside: A Case Study of Violence in Middlesbrough
Teesside University
Value Awarded: £9,782.99
Funded By: DSIT
This project seeks to understand violence in the Newport area of Middlesbrough, which was targeted in the recent riots. The selection of the Newport ward has derived from local crime data, as well as Wyszomierski et al.’s (2023) classification of neighbourhoods based on census data. Newport is characterised by high levels of crime but also unemployment and un-skilled workers, deprivation, social housing, and unstable populations (IMD, 2019). Existing analysis often overlooks the transient nature of neighbourhoods and its relationship to levels of violent crime. By integrating local datasets and qualitative insights gathered from ethnographic methods, such as walking interviews with residents and stakeholders, this research will attempt to address the limitations of recorded conceptions of crime in communities with little trust in policing. Working at a micro-level case study level, it is anticipated that the understanding generated from this project can inform future research.
Dr Oliver Ayers
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Christos Aliprantis & Dr Maria Kyriakidou
SRG2425\252050
Imperial transitions in the early Cold War: the UK and the USA in Thessaloniki (Greece), 1946-49
Northeastern University – London
Value Awarded: £9,068.18
Funded By: DSIT
The project investigates the swift transition of “imperial” power, which took place in the early Cold War, when Great Britain withdrew as a foremost global Power and was largely replaced by the USA as the leader in the western bloc. While the broad dynamic of this “imperial transition” have been studied, this project contends that there is still much to be learnt if this transition is approached through transnational, regional and geospatial methods. For this purpose, the project used the setting of Greece during its civil war (1946-49) and especially of its northern part and its largest city, Thessaloniki to examine how this swift in Great Power politics affected regionally one of the frontiers of the early Cold War. Given the profound Anglo-American influence in civil-war Greece, the project demonstrates that both British and American influence had notable ramifications for the urban life in Thessaloniki.
Professor Bruce Baker
SRG2425\250869
Civil War Blockade Runners and the Origins of United States Trade with Central America: The Career of John Douglas Mirrielees, 1824-1906
Newcastle University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project traces the career of the Aberdeen-born merchant John Douglas Mirrielees (1824-1906) to chart links between transnational British merchant networks, blockade runners during the American Civil War, and the late nineteenth century business connections between New Orleans, Britain, and Central America that paved the way for American control and exploitation of countries such as Honduras, where Mirrielees lived from 1867 until his death in 1906.
Dr Shardia Briscoe-Palmer
SRG2425\250612
Black Sexual Politics: Exploring Notions of Sex and Sexuality amongst Black Men in the UK
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,621.77
Funded By: DSIT
The sexualisation of the Black body, though explored partially in depth, offers little way into the experiences of Black male bodies and their sexual agency. Scholarship like Patricia Hill Collins in her book Black Sexual Politics (2005), provides examples of objectification on the female body, sharing narratives of Sarah Baartman as a ‘sexual freak of nature’ (p.27), to the billion-dollar insurance on Jennifer Lopez’s bottom. However, with little regard toward Black male bodies – historical or present- constructions of Black masculinities via racialised notions of sex and sexuality are lost. This project examines how ideas surrounding the sexualisation of the black male body has placed a legacy of fearmongering yet a fetishisation of black men and their sexuality. This project will lead to several scholarly outputs, a programme of public engagement which collates recordings of lived experiences with photographic experiences of being feared yet fetished.
Dr Alex Broadhead
SRG2425\250182
The Language of the Cockney School
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £3,569.80
Funded By: DSIT
My project will examine the language of the Cockney School: a radical group of writers from the early nineteenth century, including John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Leigh Hunt. Focusing on the poetry that emerged from specific shared moments, such as the sonnet competitions they waged in the late 1810s, the project will take a new and different approach to literary language, in that it will consider how the distinctive styles of the Cockney writers responded to specific ‘literacy events’. A 'literacy event', in brief, is an act of reading or writing understood in relation to the people, places, objects and contextual factors that are involved in it. The result of my research will be the first book-length study of the language of the Cockney School.
Dr Elizabeth Byrne
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Joni Holmes
SRG2425\250724
Is cognitive segmentation a distinct higher-level process critical for problem solving?
University of East Anglia
Value Awarded: £9,903.36
Funded By: DSIT
Fluid reasoning, a fundamental aspect of human cognition that enables logical thinking and problem-solving, depends on key executive functions like working memory and cognitive flexibility. Recent evidence suggests that cognitive segmentation – our ability to break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable parts – may also be crucial. 110 adults will complete tasks measuring working memory, processing speed, inhibition, switching, and cognitive segmentation to examine their contributions to fluid reasoning and determine whether cognitive segmentation is a higher-order skill distinct from other executive processes, something that has not been tested previously. Determining whether cognitive segmentation is crucial for fluid reasoning will provide insights into potentially modifiable targets for enhancing people’s cognitive skills and their economic and societal value, and advance our theoretical understanding of complex problem-solving and executive function subdivision.
Dr Thiago Cacicedo dos Santos
SRG2425\250831
Price dispersion on over-the-counter drugs market
Heriot-Watt University
Value Awarded: £6,928.26
Funded By: DSIT
Price dispersion occurs when a good is sold at different prices across sellers. Therefore, some consumers end up paying more than others, reducing consumer welfare.
There is a gap in the literature on how market characteristics affect the degree of dispersion, especially, regarding demand characteristics.
This proposal aims to study the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) analgesic market, which is projected to generate US$7.24 billion in 2024, with an annual growth of 4.86% in the next 5 years.
We will investigate two characteristics that can explain dispersion in this market: i) the share of individuals that qualify for Medicaid in a county; ii) the degree of opioid use in a county. We propose a method to test whether these characteristics cause price dispersion. Therefore, we aim to understand factors affecting pricing decisions for OTC analgesics. Understanding price decisions is important to formulate public policies to achieve higher welfare.
Professor Christine Caldwell
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Eva Rafetseder
SRG2425\250867
Evaluating a novel online test instrument for measuring Theory of Mind in adulthood
University of Stirling
Value Awarded: £4,695.00
Funded By: DSIT
The ability to reason about mental states such as beliefs, desires and intentions (Theory of Mind/ToM) advances strikingly in early childhood. However, little is known about how this ability changes over the rest of the lifespan, including when peak performance is reached, and whether it declines in older adulthood. The lack of an appropriate test instrument presents a significant barrier to studying ToM in adulthood. Tests used to evaluate children are too easy, but many tests intended for adults have been criticised for not requiring representation of mental states. Others involve complex stimuli or require subjective scoring, making them impractical for large-scale use. In this project we will evaluate novel test materials designed to measure ToM performance in adults. Testing across the adult lifespan (20-79 years), we will evaluate the test’s reliability and its validity. We intend to make the data and test materials available as a research resource.
Dr Mwita Chacha
SRG2425\251872
International responses to successful coups in Africa, 1990-2023
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,698.00
Funded By: DSIT
Despite declining in the early 2000s, coups d’état have made a comeback in Africa, with 11 successful military overthrows between 2019 and 2023. This resurgence in coups has eroded democratic gains and increased insecurity and political violence in the affected countries. Importantly, this recent wave of coups raises doubts about the efficacy of international efforts of the past three decades that have been identified as discouragers of coups and promoters of democracy. This project takes a different and novel direction from that of existing research that focuses on the causes and consequences of coups by evaluating how international actors have responded to coups in Africa since the end of the Cold War. Through the collection and analysis of original data, the project aims to unravel the types of responses to coups, the extent of coordination among responders, and the impact of these responses on post-coup democratization.
Dr Ruth Cheung Judge
SRG2425\250840
International Students and Transnational Parents: Nigerian masters students navigate changing UK migration governance
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,984.42
Funded By: DSIT
In January 2024, a UK immigration policy came into force, barring all international students other than postgraduate researchers from bringing dependants with them. Better understanding the impacts of this policy change on international students’ decisions and experiences is timely and necessary. Nigerian students are the UK’s largest group of international students from the African continent, and were previously the heaviest users of the right to bring dependants on student visas – in 2023 there were 60,506 dependants of Nigerian sponsored study visa holders (Home Office, 2023). Through exploring the perspectives and lived experiences of international masters’ students from Nigeria with dependants, this research will extend scholarly debates around international student geographies, and scrutinise the intersection between migration governance and transnational family life. The project will also highlight implications for policy and practice, examining how 'international-student-parents' intersectional experiences of precarity may be affecting the UK's appeal as an educational destination.
Dr David Clelland
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Liliana Fonseca
SRG2425\250298
How can a university presence help peripheral and disadvantaged places? The potentials and challenges for universities’ civic mission through branch or distributed campuses
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,844.43
Funded By: DSIT
Universities increasingly seek to demonstrate their role as 'civic' institutions and links with their localities, promoted in the UK through Civic University Agreements with local partners. However, this agenda has neglected the multi-locational nature of many higher education institutions, and the presence of branch or distributed campuses often in peripheral or disadvantaged regions. While these campuses are frequently justified as drivers of regional development, there is little evidence on their tangible impacts, or the specific challenges and opportunities they face in fostering civic engagement. This project critically examines UK universities' domestic branch campuses in their contribution to the socio-economic development of their localities, drawing on qualitative case studies - using policy analysis, in-depth interviews, and collaborative knowledge exchange with policymakers, universities and regional partners. The research will identify actionable evidence-based recommendations to inform both policy and institutional practices, enhancing the potential of branch campuses to maximize local development outcomes.
Dr Jonathan Colman
SRG2425\250278
Sir Alexander Cadogan and the Making of British Foreign Policy, 1936-51
University of Central Lancashire
Value Awarded: £6,838.40
Funded By: DSIT
Although diplomats are central to devising and implementing policy, we know far less about them than we should because they tend to be consigned merely to passing references in studies focused on Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries, or in thematic or chronological accounts. However, as historian Donald Cameron Watt pointed out in a respected study, the ‘personnel of the Foreign Office’ are ‘a crucial and permanent element in the formulation of British foreign policy’ because of how the system involves ‘close personal contacts’ between the officials and ‘their political masters’. The proposed research fills a gap in knowledge by exploring the contributions of Sir Alexander Cadogan (1884-1968) when he served as the Foreign Office’s Deputy Under-Secretary (1936-38), Permanent Under-Secretary (1938-46), Britain's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1946-50), and as chair in 1951 of a Cabinet committee evaluating the Burgess and Maclean defection.
Dr Timothy Cooper
SRG2425\250287
Weather Experience: Viewing the 1987 ‘Great Storm’ Through Mass Observation
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,601.10
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines the social and environmental history of Britain’s 1987 ‘Great Storm’. This event, which has subsequently become a part of popular folklore, is now often remembered in popular memories of the TV weather-presenter, Michael Fish, failing to forecast the storm. However, the Great Storm was a key moment in changing relationships between the British people and the climate. Exploring a sample of responses to the University of Sussex’s Mass Observation Project, this project examines everyday experiences of the storm, and places them in social and political context. It aims give the ‘great storm’ a place in academic histories of the 1980s, by revealing how meanings of the storm were contested across class and region, and how environmental and social histories intersected in this moment in ways that throw new light on the contested place of nature in the popular tensions running through eighties Britain.
Professor Jennifer Culbertson
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Simon Kirby
SRG2425\250853
Fluidity and abstraction in mental representations of the nominal phrase
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £9,966.00
Funded By: DSIT
What does it mean to know a language? Linguists agree that we have stored mental representations that facilitate production and understanding of phrases or sentences in our language even if we've never heard them before. However, linguistic theories differ dramatically in their claims about the content and origins of these representations. This project combines methods typically used by opposing camps to shed light on representations of noun phrases (e.g., 'two red cars'). We ask (1) What kind and how much evidence is needed for adults to change stored representations, or create new ones? (2) Does this change in cases where linguists have proposed a universal or innate representation? (3) Under what conditions are early representations, based on limited data, robust enough to allow generalisation to new contexts. The project therefore targets fundamental questions about how fluid and abstract our knowledge of language is, and what type of data supports this.
Dr Alexander Cullen
SRG2425\251398
Crocodile Oil: Negotiating Human-Crocodile Conflicts and Infrastructural Unrest in Timor-Leste
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £9,988.09
Funded By: DSIT
Timor-Leste‘s stalled Tasi-Mane Port and Refinery is undergoing rejuvenation in hopes of in-country processing for remaining offshore oil reserves. Construction has not only entailed displacement of local communities but disruption to cultural sites and salt-water crocodiles which are sacred to the Timorese. Crocodiles are central to Timorese identity, ecologies and cosmology, and invested with great cultural power/knowledge. In the decade since the infrastructure serving the refinery began construction, human-crocodile attacks have markedly increased. Some speculate that invasive “Australian” crocodiles might be the culprits. This research seeks to develop social, historical and political understanding of human-crocodile relations in Timor-Leste. It will identify factors driving increased contact; how local communities negotiate conflict; and the role of the Tasi-Mane's languishing 'infrastructural unrest' in mediating both human and crocodile worlds. The research will advance understandings of more-than-human geographies by integrating them with concerns for geopolitical and cosmological dimensions of power.
Dr Raphael Cunha
SRG2425\250701
The Stock Market Is (Not) the Economy: Asset Ownership, Market Performance, and Presidential Approval in the US and Brazil
King's College London
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
How do stock markets affect public support for incumbents? Existing work on democratic accountability focuses on the notion of economic voting, which posits a positive correlation between economic outcomes and incumbent support. However, such work largely overlooks the growing influence of financial markets in contemporary societies. While stock market performance is unrelated to improvements in well-being for the average person, the emergence of stock markets as a metric of economic health by which incumbents are assessed represents an underappreciated challenge to accountability. This project seeks to find out how voters engage with stock markets; how they consume information about the economy in general and stock markets in particular; and whether and how they use this information to evaluate incumbents and vote. This research has practical and normative implications for scholars’ understanding of how voters evaluate and sanction elected officials – a central topic in the study of democracy.
Dr Stephen Daly
SRG2425\251209
Taxing better - using AI to fix democracy
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,751.80
Funded By: DSIT
Artificial Intelligence is a threat to democratic norms. Machine learning bots can be, have been and are being used by malign forces to disrupt democratic processes. The literature as a result is replete with warnings! But the goal of this project is to turn the threat that AI poses on its head: to use AI to advance democratic norms. This is not about the efficiency benefits that AI will produce, often lauded in contradistinction to AI’s problems. There are very important values that can be fostered by AI. Specifically, the project will look at how AI can be used by HMRC to strengthen the rule of law, improve democratic participation, and render the tax system more legitimate. Though centred on the UK, the outputs will be relevant for other tax administrations at a similar stage of technological development and operating in jurisdictions which have broadly similar tax administration infrastructure.
Dr William Phanuel Kofi Darbi
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Hassan Yazdifar
SRG2425\251067
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement and the informal sector: toward an action-based framework enabling formalisation of informal businesses
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,995.78
Funded By: DSIT
The Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) agenda seeks to promote intra-Africa trade and structural economic transformation towards socio-economic prosperity in Africa. Yet, there are reservations about the prospects of AfCFTA tackling the informal sector: a pervasive socio-economic phenomenon synonymous with African economies. This concern is attributable to the diminished importance accorded the informal sector in the framing and implementation of AfCFTA agenda. Focusing on Ghana at this stage, an action-based framework enabling formalisation of informal businesses leveraging the AfCFTA will be developed by working closely with key stakeholders. The project will employ data analysis of documents, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, case studies, and survey questionnaires with key stakeholders. It will develop the theoretical underpinnings of the ‘global factory’ concept further and generate important coproduced policy and practice guidelines, that will be communicated to key stakeholders via policy briefs, trade/investment events, workshops, academic conferences and high-quality journal publications.
Dr Neha Deopa
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Sarah Meier
SRG2425\251222
Forest fragmentation and the burden of zoonotic diseases
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Around 60% of the global burden of emerging infectious diseases are of zoonotic origin, caused by shared pathogens between humans and wildlife. Growing evidence suggests that human-induced ecological and land use changes are important pathways for disease transmission. In this project we want to investigate if habitat fragmentation and deforestation can be causally linked to zoonotic disease outbreaks on the African continent. First, we compile a novel geo-referenced dataset of Ebola and Marburg virus disease outbreaks dating back to 1982 and harmonise it with satellite data on forest and land use dynamics, allowing us to analyse long-term trends. Second, we aim to establish causality by focussing on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Utilising the staggered timing and spatial variation in the formalisation of community forests across the country, we identify and estimate the impact forest fragmentation has on the spread of zoonotic diseases and their burden on local communities.
Dr Nicolas Dumay
SRG2425\251683
Is testing your knowledge of what you learnt yesterday alongside that of what you learnt today always a good review strategy?
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,947.16
Funded By: DSIT
Testing one's knowledge is a powerful means of securing learning beyond what can be achieved through repeated exposure. This project examines the extent to which recalling information consolidated overnight, alongside just learnt information, prioritizes recently consolidated knowledge for further consolidation during the following sleep.
This scenario occurs quite often in the classroom, when a teacher divides a big study load into smaller chunks and each day teaches one chunk before possibly testing their pupils on all the chunks acquired so far. Hence, answering the question of whether the testing effect interacts with the preceding sleep is of significance, not just for models of memory, but also--and more critically--for education and rehabilitation practice.
Whereas Experiments 1 and 2 look at perceptual learning (i.e., learning to discriminate between objects belonging to the same category), Experiment 3 tests whether the findings generalize to declarative memory (i.e., the ability to consciously recollect factual information).
Dr Wannes Dupont
SRG2425\250771
Cultures of Life and Death: The Catholic Response to the Global Rise of Birth Control and Population Management, 1945-1968
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £3,235.00
Funded By: DSIT
In the wake of the Second World War, a mixture of ecological and Cold War anxieties led to a push for the implementation of birth control and population management programmes in the 'Third World.' Strongly opposed to nearly all forms of contraception, the Roman Catholic Church quickly rallied to become the most daunting adversary of the so-called 'population establishment,' successfully blocking all attempts within the United Nations to make birth control part of developmental assistance programmes until the early 1960s. This project is the first to examine the history of the Church's internal mobilisation against what it saw as the West's growing 'culture of death' during this period. In so doing, it uncovers the formative prelude to the major mobilisations by the religious and populist right against reproductive and LGBTQI rights around the world since the 1990s.
Dr Victor Ediagbonya
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Folashade Adeyemo
SRG2425\250258
The Impact of Financial Technology on Financial inclusion and Sustainability in Developing and Emerging Economies (DEEs)
University of Brighton
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Financial institutions in developing and emerging economies have invested heavily in technologies to improve their services and reduce operational costs. While the rise in FinTech innovations is supposed to promote financial inclusion in Africa, given that 57 percent of the continent's population does not have access to bank accounts, the usage of financial services by those in rural/semi-urban communities has declined in recent times, thereby increasing the number of those living in extreme poverty. This research investigates the impact of FinTech innovations on financial inclusion in DEEs using qualitative data from interviews and focus group discussions from six rural/semi-urban communities across three African countries. Additionally, this research explores how Fintech firms, particularly those in DEEs, promote an equitable and sustainable society, given they handle large amounts of data, necessitating significant computational power and leading to substantial energy consumption. Data centres require constant cooling and power, resulting in high carbon emissions.
Dr Mahmoud Elsherif
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Kevin Paterson
SRG2425\250392
The Power of Words: How Do Language Abilities Change across the Lifespan?
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £9,580.00
Funded By: DSIT
Healthy aging leads to brain changes that affect sensory and cognitive functions, including language production and comprehension. While much research has focused on how aging impacts memory and attention, changes in language abilities over the lifespan remain less well understood. This study seeks to address this knowledge gap by examining age-related changes in both language and general cognitive abilities. Using internet-based platforms, we will collect large-scale data from healthy adults aged 18 to 80 and older. Participants will be assessed on core cognitive functions (memory, intelligence, and processing speed) as well as specific language skills (speech comprehension, reading fluency, vocabulary, and spelling). The results will offer new insights into which aspects of language ability decline, improve, or remain stable with age, and how these changes relate to shifts in fundamental cognitive functions. The findings could have significant implications for supporting individuals in managing cognitive changes as they age.
Dr Misha Ewen
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Michael Bennett
SRG2425\250359
The Barbados Census of 1679, Caribbean Slavery and Early Modern Britain
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £8,700.00
Funded By: DSIT
Barbados was the most important colony in the seventeenth-century English (later British) empire whose wealth was based upon the enslavement of Africans and their exploitation in sugar production. This collaborative project uses the 1679 census of Barbados and manuscript materials in UK and Caribbean archives to study the collective biographies of 700 of the colony’s largest enslavers, who claimed ownership over 86% of the island’s enslaved population. This approach allows us to address the absence of detailed analysis on the depth and extent of the ties between England and Barbados in this formative period, thereby advancing broader understandings of colonisation, slavery, and the interconnections between colony and metropole. We will establish an international research network, produce an article, and use this pilot study on Barbados as a platform for developing a joint AHRC funding application to enable a systematic investigation of the connections between Caribbean slavery and early modern Britain.
Dr Ali Feizollah
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Matthew Byrne
SRG2425\250409
A Sociological Exploration of Online Dental Patient Feedback in the UK: A Feasibility Study Using Natural Language Processing
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £7,585.00
Funded By: DSIT
Despite the growing use of online platforms for patient feedback, there is a paucity of sociological research exploring how these digital narratives reflect societal attitudes toward dental healthcare in the UK. This feasibility study aims to address this gap by utilizing Natural Language Processing techniques to analyse Google Maps reviews of dental practices, focusing on issues of healthcare access, quality, and patient-provider relationships. Our interdisciplinary approach bridges digital methods with sociological inquiry, offering insights into public perceptions of oral healthcare within the larger context of the UK's healthcare system. By examining the language patients use to describe their dental experiences, we seek to understand how digital platforms are shaping healthcare communication and patient empowerment. This study will assess the viability of using publicly available online data to inform health policy and contribute to the field of digital health sociology.
Professor Natalie Fenton
SRG2425\251395
Through the Revolving Door: Power mapping of political-media elites
Goldsmiths, University of London
Value Awarded: £9,991.43
Funded By: DSIT
This research project will ‘map’ the relational structure of the UK’s national news media, providing a rich empirical analysis of the elite networks that exercise significant influence and authority over major sources of news and information in the UK.
By examining the major institutions and personnel that comprise the national news media, and empirically detailing their connections with other individuals and institutions, this research will produce an original and authoritative account of the UK’s political-media landscape through a combination of power structures research and social network analysis.
The public outputs of this research will include a detailed summary report and a series of digital visualisations that illustrate the connections, dependencies and characteristics of political-media elite networks. Through this the research will undertake a novel approach in the sociological study of elites, as well as enhancing how the public understands, navigates and critically evaluates influential sources of news and information.
Dr Thomas Ferretti
SRG2425\251024
The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Applications in Workplaces: How to Mitigate the Societal Impacts of Automation and Workplace Analytics?
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £9,200.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project engages in normative and conceptual research in the fields of applied ethics and political philosophy. I develop an ethical reflection on how best to evaluate and implement AI applications in workplaces. To do so, I adopt and further develop an institutionalist approach, which looks at how AI systems interact with the social institutions in which they operate. This approach matters because a society’s background institutions influence whether new technologies have positive or negative impacts. With the goal of capturing the benefits of AI applications in workplaces while mitigating their risks, the project aims to provide normative justifications for institutional reforms addressing two societal risks: 1. how accelerated automation increases income inequalities and 2. how workplace analytics practices increase power inequalities at work. A particular contribution will consist in mobilising the literature on workplace democracy to investigate whether empowering employees through participatory mechanisms helps to mitigate these societal risks.
Dr Austin Fisher
SRG2425\250698
Un-American Activities: Cold War Popular Culture and the Blacklist Western
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,397.75
Funded By: DSIT
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) conducted investigations into Communist subversion in the movie industry in 1947 and 1951, with Hollywood studios subsequently blacklisting many artists for their alleged political sympathies. This project will focus on Westerns that were made by some of these artists in the aftermath. It will do this through exclusive access to the never-before-seen personal diaries of Carl Foreman (blacklisted screenwriter of High Noon) alongside further archival research into internal studio and governmental documentation, to interrogate received wisdom around these films’ production and exhibition contexts. By reading them as continuations rather than subversions of the Western genre, the project will illuminate the blacklist’s broader historical significance, since the tensions it foregrounded had always been inherent to white American identity.
Dr Maria Fotou
SRG2425\250820
Deviant deaths: research gaps in managing irregular death at the border
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £9,544.00
Funded By: DSIT
The issue of obligations towards irregular migrants has been debated for many years and has focused primarily on topics such as asylum, integration and expulsion. Little scholarly or policy attention has been dedicated to the obligations towards irregular migrants dying during border crossing. Relevant aspects of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) do not apply in migration while International Human Rights Law sidesteps the issue of migrant deaths, allowing for a diversity of practices at state level. As a result, these practices often fall short of established dignified funeral and commemoration practices, varying from makeshift cemeteries to unmarked graves and bodies stored in refrigerators. The proposed project will analyse post mortem practices in three Southern European entry points - Spain, Italy and Greece - and provide recommendations for states for best practices aligning with their duties to treat individuals with respect and dignity after death.
Dr Roberto Fumagalli
SRG2425\251328
Welfare Evaluations and Public Policies in the UK: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,900.00
Funded By: DSIT
This research project aims to identify and evaluate the main opportunities and challenges faced by a cross-disciplinary approach to the design, the implementation and the assessment of public policies in the UK. In recent years, various emergencies (e.g. COVID-19 pandemic, cost of living crisis) have forced UK policymakers to make challenging decisions involving individuals’ welfare. In the philosophical/social scientific literatures, many approaches to welfare evaluations have been proposed (e.g. theory-based approaches, evidence-based approaches, coherentist approaches). These approaches sharply disagree on how welfare should be defined/measured and frequently ground conflicting evaluations of public policies. This project will make a vital contribution to the ongoing debate about welfare evaluations and public policies in the UK by determining the extent to which a cross-disciplinary collaboration between philosophers, social scientists and policymakers can justifiably inform the design, the implementation and the assessment of public policies in the UK.
Dr Jayant Ganguli
SRG2425\251165
Restricted communication, information aggregation, and efficiency
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £9,667.00
Funded By: DSIT
Elections, juries, policy choice, and boards are prominent examples of collective choice scenarios. Research has shown that allowing unrestricted communication improves welfare in the collective choice problems. However, most real-world collective choice problems only allow restricted communication and information transmission. For instance, even the use of social media by an individual does not guarantee that a post would be viewed outside of that individual’s social network. In such cases, initial beliefs of individuals, but not the level of expertise, are frequently observed making the problem even more complicated because these initial beliefs might result in formation of group identity. We will study collective choice problems under limited information transmission in presence of possible group identity via a laboratory experiment based on theoretical analysis. The key questions we study address welfare, information aggregation, whether individuals reach out or stay within echo chambers when communicating.
Dr Javier Garcia-Brazales
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Micole De Vera
SRG2425\251116
Within-household differences in perceived income risk and its implications for consumption and savings
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,993.00
Funded By: DSIT
Households face uncertainty about their future income, which affects how they make decisions and intrahousehold inequalities. Traditional models of the household assume away differences in how both spouses perceive this uncertainty. In practice, this is unlikely to be the case for several reasons; for instance, one of the spouses might have better information than the other about future events. This project proposes to elicit, for the first time, perceived income risk jointly for both spouses. This will allow us to quantify the amount of disagreement between the spouses. Moreover, we will explore the reasons behind these differences and their implications for consumption and savings. For this, we designed surveys to be fielded to a representative sample of households in Mumbai. We hope to push this research agenda further by hosting a section dedicated to subjective expectations and intrahousehold inequalities at a workshop in the University of Exeter.
Dr Elena Georgiadou
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Elaine Conway
SRG2425\250794
An inclusive framework to measure the financial and non-financial return of digital transformation on SME internationalisation (RoDI)
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Despite evidence that Digital Transformation (DT) can act as a driver in firm internationalisation, it has also been observed that in reality, SMEs are lagging behind larger firms in terms of adopting and investing in DT. In fact, technological barriers combined with associated perceived impediments to digitalisation, may prevent SMEs from internationalising. SMEs’ reluctance to invest in DT, in part, stems from their decision makers’ inability to understand and measure the value that DT can create. Such value cannot be captured with traditional measures of financial performance as DT is a multifaceted phenomenon with a wider spectrum of non-financial implications. Through the means of focus groups and a survey with SME participants the objective of this project is twofold. First to unravel the reasons why SMEs currently choose to not invest in DT and second, to capture the financial and non-financial returns of such investment for SME internationalisation.
Thalia Gerzso
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Gabrielle Lynch
SRG2425\250164
Judicial Activism and Off-Bench Behavior: The Role of Legal Traditions
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,990.00
Funded By: DSIT
Because African courts' decisions now have important implications for democracy and countries' stability, scholars have sought to identify the factors that shape judicial behavior and explain why, in some countries, courts assert themselves, while, in others, courts remain under the influence of powerholders. Despite establishing a clear link between off-bench networks and judicial assertiveness, the literature does not explain the conditions under which judges become involved in off-bench networks and the kinds of networks that are most supportive of positive judicial independence. To address this gap, we are interested in exploring how the institutional structures inherited from the legal traditions imported during the colonial era (e.g., common law v. civil law) shape judges’ ability and motivation. To determine which legal tradition faciliate off-bench networks, we will collect original data by interviewing judges, lawyers, and civil society actors in Benin, Kenya, Zambia, and Senegal.
Dr Jason Grafmiller
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Dagmar Divjak
SRG2425\250035
Linguistic acceptability judgements: A systematic review and meta-analysis
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,902.25
Funded By: DSIT
Acceptability judgments have been a bedrock of theoretical linguistics for decades, yet their use as a source of evidence remains not only inconsistent but also contested within the field. We currently lack a comprehensive understanding of the range of methods, procedures, and findings reported across experimental acceptability studies, which hampers attempts to assess the rich array of findings this method has produced. The present project addresses this gap through a formal systematic review of the literature on experiments of linguistic acceptability. Systemic reviews are common in applied linguistics, yet are largely absent in theory-oriented linguistics research. Implications of this project extend beyond academia, as similar methods are common in studies of language variation and attitudes. Through a series of targeted public engagement opportunities, this project will raise awareness of how individuals’ attitudes and beliefs about language can influence their evaluation of others’ language usage, as individuals and as groups.
Dr Ariel Gu
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Hong Il Yoo & Dr Nathan Robert Kettlewell
SRG2425\251746
Behind the Box: The Influence of Ambiguity Attitude on Consumer Preferences for Loot Boxes
University of East Anglia
Value Awarded: £9,978.00
Funded By: DSIT
We investigate the behavioural economic foundations of consumer preferences for "loot boxes" in video games, which players can purchase with real money to receive random in-game items. With global revenues from loot boxes reaching $15 billion in 2020, their resemblance to gambling and the young demographics involved have prompted ethical and regulatory concerns. We will utilize laboratory experiments with university students to explore how "ambiguity aversion" and "ambiguity-generated insensitivity" influence consumer decisions regarding loot boxes. We aim to determine if providing explicit probability distributions impacts consumer behaviour, potentially mitigating irrational overspending encouraged by current loot box designs with opaque odds. Our study responds to calls from organizations such as the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the US Federal Trade Commission for enhanced consumer protections in this lightly regulated space, providing economic insights that can inform regulatory changes promoting consumer information enhancements in the gaming industry.
Dr Zeynep Gurguc
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Michalis Drouvelis
SRG2425\251321
Understanding the Interplay of Honesty, Cooperation and Coordination
Queen Mary University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Individuals often encounter situations where they may have to disclose some private information, and subsequently coordinate or cooperate to achieve a desired outcome. For successful cooperation, mutual trust built through honesty is essential, as honesty fosters a dependable environment where individuals can collaborate with confidence. The purpose of this research is to understand how the level of honesty, or lack thereof, impacts the overall coordination and cooperation levels by using an experimental setting. Additionally, it will investigate the threshold at which the presence of dishonest individuals can be tolerated without jeopardising the cooperative outcomes, examining the resilience of cooperative systems in the face of dishonesty. The insights gained are particularly relevant to broader societal and economic issues such as corruption, fake news, taxation and productivity, offering perspectives on mitigating the negative impacts of dishonesty and fostering more robust, trustworthy systems.
Dr Ian Gwinn
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Tabitha Alice Baker
SRG2425\250704
Skatallite Towns: An Oral History of Two-Tone and Ska in Regional England
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,985.20
Funded By: DSIT
This project focuses on the 2-Tone movement (c.1979-81) in Britain as a case study of the entanglements of culture, pop music and politics in specific geographies of place and space, examining how 2-Tone and ska were adopted by rural and coastal youth. Largely neglected in accounts of British subcultures, 2-Tone mixed ska with punk, forging a hybrid music form that infused the political insurgencies of anti-racism and lay the soundtrack to industrial decay and social unrest. The roots of the movement in England’s urban, multiracial centres are generally known, but we know little about how its influence diffused in predominantly white, rural, and coastal regions. The project addresses this gap by tracing 2-Tone’s influence at the time and its complex legacies for later subcultures, particularly the scooter movement, uncovering local experiences of belonging and place, as well as illuminating the dynamics of identity across different registers - class, race, nation.
Professor Geoffrey Haddock
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Travis Proulx & Dr Thomas Vaughan-Johnston
SRG2425\250777
The Two Faces of Ambivalence: Unmasking Cross-Cultural Differences in Social Perceptions of Dispositional Attitudinal Ambivalence
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £9,880.00
Funded By: DSIT
This research investigates cross-cultural differences in the perception and mental representation of dispositional attitudinal ambivalence, comparing a non-dialectical (British) and dialectical (Chinese) culture. Building upon findings using UK samples that a target’s dispositional ambivalence (whether they generally hold mixed versus non-mixed opinions) influences how warm and competent they are perceived, we test whether Chinese individuals, influenced by dialectical thinking (associated with ambivalence) normative in their culture, exhibit reduced reliance on ambivalence when evaluating others compared to British participants, for whom high ambivalence is not-normative. Using reverse-correlation methodology, we will generate visual representations of ambivalent and non-ambivalent targets across both cultures, to assess the impact of nonverbally expressed ambivalence on targets’ perceived warmth, competence, and behavioural expectations. By examining cultural differences in how ambivalence shapes impression formation, this research advances our understanding of the interpersonal consequences of dispositional attitudinal ambivalence, with implications for theories of attitudes, social cognition, and cross-cultural psychology.
Professor Jennifer Harding
Co-Applicant(s): Mr Jeff Howarth & Dr Nick Pollard
SRG2425\250441
Worker writers and community publishers: writing, solidarity and joy in the late twentieth century
London Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,265.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project will investigate the history and legacy of a social movement centred on working-class writing and publishing in the second half of the twentieth century. It will use oral methodologies to investigate the activities and reflections of members of the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (FWWCP 1976-2007), exploring how specific working practices, processes and affective atmospheres helped to nurture creativity, contest dominant culture, develop cultural capital and build community. The project will generate a publicly accessible collection of at least 30 oral histories, a website, academic papers, outreach activities, plus an exhibition and seminar to mark the fiftieth anniversary in 2026 of the establishment of the FWWCP. It will promote learning from a history of literacy-based activism among diverse audiences via these outputs. The project will be of particular significance to those interested in histories of class, literacy, community, alternative forms of cultural production and social movements.
Dr Oonagh Harness
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Cat Spellman
SRG2425\251175
On the road – Women's experiences of driving work in the UK
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £8,383.00
Funded By: DSIT
There are a multitude of jobs that involve driving. Whether for logistics, transportation or commerce, driving work is critical for maintaining the flow of people and goods. While driving work is considered a male-dominated occupation, this is changing as more women are taking up driving work. Yet, there remains a lack of research highlighting the realities of working as a female driver in the UK. Through a series of interviews, we assess the experiences of female drivers, focusing upon their engagement in identity work relative to gender norms of resilience, confidence and vulnerability. We also explore the performance of emotional labour as an embodied aspect of driving work that is enacted through everyday encounters with customers. In collaboration with the GMB, we intend to highlight the practical challenges of being a female driver, identifying possible changes and amendments to be considered by relevant organisations and/or in the context of policy.
Dr Joe Hazzam
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Dilrukshi Dimungu-hewage
SRG2425\251018
Can website metrics predict firm’s financial performance?: A longitudinal evaluation
Staffordshire University
Value Awarded: £9,923.00
Funded By: DSIT
Companies today use data from their websites and online activities to understand how well they're performing. With the growth of online channels, businesses have more ways to connect with customers. However, they need better marketing analytic processes and tools to identify useful metrics that make sense of all this information. Our project looks at how website data can predict financial success. We're studying the top 100 companies on the London Stock Exchange over time, looking at their website statistics and financial results. This longitudinal approach is different from other studies that only look at one point in time or use less reliable data.
We aim to create a scoring system based on website information that can show how well a company might do financially. This research will help businesses to understand which online measurements predict financial performance, guiding them on how to use digital data and contribute to economic growth.
Professor Christian Henderson
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Matteo Tondini
SRG2425\250025
The Use of Force in the Jus ad Bellum and the Law of the Sea: Never the Twain Shall Meet, Two Sides of the Same Coin, or in Unison?
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,981.60
Funded By: DSIT
Under international law states are prohibited from resorting to military force against each other on land, in the skies and at sea except in self-defence or if provided with authorisation to do so from the UN Security Council. This framework is contained in the Charter of the United Nations (1945) and also within customary international law. Sitting alongside this framework, however, is that which governs the use of force by states at sea in so-called ‘Maritime Law Enforcement’ operations, which is contained mainly within the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982). There is, nonetheless, a distinct lack of clarity regarding the relationship and distinction between these frameworks and the conduct that falls under them. Through a collaborative approach the proposed research seeks to examine and clarify the relationship and distinction between these legal frameworks and the ways in which their competing jurisdictions can be reconciled.
Dr Mark Holton
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Mark Riley
SRG2425\250457
Rural studentification: investigating the role of universities in rural development, community networks and gentrification
University of Plymouth
Value Awarded: £9,998.00
Funded By: DSIT
Studentification has become a significant indicator of residential, community and social change, witnessed through the large-scale, seasonal concentrations of students in towns and cities around the world. Yet, since its inception studentification has been considered only an urban concern. Using UK higher education as a lens, this project offers a unique opportunity to investigate how the social, cultural, economic and physical dimensions of studentification operate in rural contexts. Understanding such emergent forms of rural change is important in developing new knowledge of the potential role universities play in rural development, community networking and gentrification. Universities are considered key anchor institutions that, through processes of studentification, can contribute towards the social, economic and cultural revitalisation of the locations they are contained within. Hence, investigating rural studentification matters in understanding the challenges and opportunities for new and emerging social and cultural practices, and economic and technological advancements in rural areas.
Sue Hough
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Yvette Solomon
SRG2425\251636
Sustaining inclusive mathematics teaching: the pressures of academisation, the pursuit of excellence and the challenges of operating at scale
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £8,890.00
Funded By: DSIT
The academisation of schools into Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) is an under-researched area, particularly with respect to the process of rolling out lead school practices across a Trust. In principle, the idea of sharing the effective practices of a high-performing lead school is sound, but pressure to rapidly improve standards can result in demands for pedagogic consistency, leaving teachers unable to exercise and develop the professional judgement required to respond to the needs of individual learners. In the high-stakes area of secondary school mathematics, the focus on test performance fuels procedural teaching and a tendency towards attainment grouping despite its lack of impact and exclusion of disadvantaged students. This project focuses on a MAT where inclusive mixed attainment mathematics teaching is prioritised and supported by extensive professional development. We explore the challenges of maintaining this approach in the performative context of academisation as the MAT scales up.
Dr Marnie Howlett
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Carl Adam Heinrich Müller-Crepon
SRG2425\251284
Understanding Citizens' Perspectives Territory and Sovereignty in Wartime Ukraine
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,996.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project seeks to uncover the public opinion of Ukrainians amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The study will poll approximately 2,000 Ukrainians to investigate their attitudes towards their state's territorial integrity and political autonomy. This experimental project will moreover comparatively analyse the views of citizens in different regions of Ukraine with those of the same survey conducted in July 2022. The study is hence immensely valuable for uncovering, documenting, and elevating the most current views of Ukrainians, which have been noticeably absent from the international discourses around the Russia-Ukraine war. As questions about peace negotiations and possible territorial concessions to end the conflict remain critical within policy circles, the empirical data produced in this project will strategically aid both academics and policymakers in better understanding the political dynamics in Ukraine, as well as possible scenarios for achieving a sustainable peace in the region in both the short- and long-term.
Dr Chenchen Huang
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Neslihan Ozkan & Dr Swarnodeep Homroy
SRG2425\251549
How Vague are ESG Targets in Executive Compensation
University of Bath
Value Awarded: £9,529.00
Funded By: DSIT
This research investigates the specificity of ESG targets in CEO compensation, highlighting the concerns over vague ESG-linked incentives. Through machine learning-based textual analysis of DEF 14A filings, we develop a novel “Specific Targets Index” (STI) to quantify the clarity of ESG objectives in executive compensation contracts. Based on the constructed STI, the study examines the correlation between the vagueness of ESG targets, CEO compensation levels, and firm ESG performance, aiming to clarify whether specific and measurable ESG incentives effectively align CEO interests with corporate sustainability goals. The findings offer valuable insights to corporate governance and investment strategies, providing actionable guidance for structuring executive compensation to better support sustainable business models.
Iftikhar Hussain
SRG2425\250725
Ofsted Inspections and Compensating Wage Differentials in the Teacher Labour Market
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,548.71
Funded By: DSIT
This study seeks to evaluate the consequences of a subjective school evaluation system, namely the Ofsted inspection regime for schools in England. The focus of this study is the impact of school inspections on the teacher labour market. In particular, we ask whether schools at risk of poor inspection outcomes are forced to pay a premium, or a compensating wage differential, in order to attract teachers, senior managers and leaders to their schools. This premium may be demanded in a competitive labour market (where teachers and managers have the option to switch schools) either because of the stigma associated with a poor inspection rating or because of the threat of job loss. We will merge teacher workforce census data with Ofsted inspections data to undertake a ‘difference-in-difference’ style econometric analysis in order to uncover the impact of inspections on schools’ ability to hire teachers.
Dr Stephan Jagau
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Alex Possajennikov
SRG2425\250464
Turnover, Survival Pressure, and Market Competition
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
In many economic environments, being successful depends on being able to survive fierce market competition and related turnover. This research proposes a novel decision making experiment to investigate how turnover and survival pressure affect firm competition and market outcomes. Turnover is induced via periodically replacing active participants with new subjects from the waiting room. Survival pressure is independently varied by selecting participants for replacement either randomly or based on relative performance. Turnover and selection pressure are expected to affect competition through shaping “institutionalized memory”, i.e., the degree to which behavioural norms carry across replacement events. Our results will generate novel insights for industry regulators and policy-makers regarding how societal welfare is impacted by market forces eliminating or favouring individual firms based on their production decisions. In this manner, a long-standing evolutionary line of research in economic theory is linked with modern empirically founded approaches in applied and experimental economics.
Dr Ritesh Jain
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Michele Lombardi
SRG2425\251959
Empirical Implications of Matching Theory
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,785.00
Funded By: DSIT
The proper functioning of labour markets relies on how matches are made and whether these matches are stable. Economists have developed a theoretical framework to study labour markets and have vastly contributed to improving them by proposing changes in the design. For example, the theory has been used to guide designs of medical matches (Roth and Peranson, 1999), school choice (Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez,2003), course allocation in education (Sonmez and Unver, 2010; Budish and Cantillon, 2012), and organ donation (Roth, Sonmez, and Unver, 2004, 2005, 2007). Matching theory is a well-developed field within economics. In our project, we will be studying the empirical content of matching theory. In other words, we will find restrictions on the observable data that will allow us to identify and distinguish between different theories. With our theoretical exercise, we will be able to design empirical tests that will help us distinguish one from the other.
Dr Jing Jin
SRG2425\250862
Enhancing Aerospace Supply Chain with Generative AI: Managing Data Quality Dynamics
De Montfort University
Value Awarded: £9,250.27
Funded By: DSIT
The UK aerospace industry, contributing £30.5 billion in turnover and employing over 104,000 people (ADS, 2024), faces supply chain disruptions, including sourcing challenges, workforce shortages, and macroeconomic pressures (McKinsey & Co., 2023). Managing data quality is crucial for decision-making, regulatory compliance, and maintaining supplier relationships, yet fluctuating data quality—driven by external factors—remains a challenge.
This study addresses these "data dynamics" using Generative AI (GenAI), a technology that creates data resembling real-world information. GenAI will dynamically assess and improve data quality, reducing information asymmetry and enhancing data capture across supply chains.
- Practical Implementation:
The GenAI approach will optimise sourcing strategies, workforce planning, and responses to macroeconomic uncertainties.
- Expected Outcomes:
The research aims to deliver practical tools for improving decision-making, safety, and cost efficiency while meeting regulatory standards, setting a new benchmark in managing aerospace supply chain disruptions.
Professor Sean Kelley
SRG2425\250262
The Emergence of an Atlantic Slave System in Cape Verde and São Tomé, 1460-1600
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £8,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project is an academic monograph on the emergence of the Atlantic slave system in the Portuguese Atlantic archipelagos of Cape Verde and São Tomé. Over the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Portuguese settlers devised the template for later plantation societies in Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. The Cape Verdeans traded for captives in upper Guinea in exchange for cotton grown in the islands by enslaved labour. Meanwhile, São Tomé became the world’s first slave-based sugar-planting colony, the progenitor of later slave societies in Brazil and the Caribbean. It was also a major slave-trading centre, shipping thousands of people from modern Nigeria and Congo to the Americas. In addition to filling a major gap in the literature on Atlantic slavery, the project will offer a necessary corrective to current narratives that view the system as a New World innovation.
Dr Mushtaq Hussain Khan
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Angesh Anupam
SRG2425\251270
Governing Sustainability: Modelling the Optimal Composition of Sustainability Committees to improve ESG performance in SMEs
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,525.05
Funded By: DSIT
In recent years, companies have faced increasing pressure from various stakeholders to implement sustainable practices. Despite the introduction of corporate environmental governance frameworks in several countries, many businesses continue to engage in greenwashing, making spurious claims about their environmental efforts to capitalise on an eco-friendly reputation without incurring the real costs of sustainability. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may be particularly prone to greenwashing due to weak governance systems, limited resources, and the higher costs associated with ESG investments. To govern sustainability and combat greenwashing, this project seeks to develop a comprehensive board governance framework for SMEs by designing the optimal composition of sustainability committees using artificial intelligence and robust optimisation methods. This research is both timely and innovative, offering valuable insights for policymakers and regulators to better monitor corporate greenwashing, while protecting stakeholder interests, supporting the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UK's 2050 net-zero goal.
Professor Ruth Kinna
SRG2425\250496
Rose Pesotta: Transnational Mobilising in the USA 1921-1927
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £3,397.50
Funded By: DSIT
The project examines Rose Pesotta's role in the Sacco and Vanzetti campaign and considers its formative influence on her thought. Pesotta is remembered as a Jewish feminist and interwar organiser in the Ladies Garment Workers Union. She pioneered novel, intercultural, consensual strategies to overcome the linguistic, religious and ethnic barriers that inhibited collective action, rendering women ‘unorganisable’ in the eyes of the male union hierarchy. In the 1920s, she took the fight for Sacco and Vanzetti to a linguistically diverse workforce, participating in a campaign that united activists who shared little else in common apart from their assessment of the injustice. The long view of her campaigning supports a fresh analysis of her anarchism. Labelling it ‘transnational’ mobilising, I emphasise her commitment to solidarity and her empathetic, pluralist embrace of anti-oppression politics. Using Randolf Bourne's account of America transnational nation as a reference, I assess the complex trans-nationalism she promoted.
Dr Phillippa Lally
SRG2425\251213
Developing and validating a new methodology to create and assess habits
University of Surrey
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Habitual behaviours are performed automatically when we have learnt to associate a situation and an action through repetition. They are a key determinant of many everyday behaviours. However we lack reliable methods for understanding how people create and break habits. The aim of this project is to develop a methodology in the Virtual Reality (VR) laboratory in which we create habits in a way similar to how people act in the real-world. This will enable us to control key determinants of habit formation, including repetition, and to use a broader range of measures than is possible when measuring people’s habits in their daily lives. The project will involve a series of 3 pilot studies to refine the methodology and then a main study where we compare this VR program, to an equivalent computer game and then test whether participants have formed habits that translate to the real world.
Dr Emma Langley
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Alan Dolan
SRG2425\250653
Becoming dad: exploring the concept of patrescence in postpartum fathers
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,983.92
Funded By: DSIT
The concept of patrescence describes the process of becoming a new father. With the birth of a child comes the birth of a new parent, and from recent studies in neuroscience, we now know that fathers’ brains, as well as mothers’, undergo structural changes following the birth of their first child. Compared to motherhood however, less is known about the rites of passage to fatherhood and how the transition from ‘man’ to ‘father’ is experienced. We therefore propose to conduct the first empirical study of patrescence in the UK, capturing the experiences of 15 new dads and 8 male professionals who work with fathers during the first 1001 days of their child’s life. Given the significance of this life event and the importance of fathers in children’s lives, the study would contribute important new knowledge and have a tangible impact on professionals and services that support new parents.
Dr Pin-Te Lin
SRG2425\250924
Understanding the Nature of Housing Markets
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £4,871.00
Funded By: DSIT
While numerous factors such as amenities, demographics, and supply elasticity have been proposed to explain changes in housing prices, their precise contribution to explaining housing price dynamics remains uncertain. This study addresses this issue by using analysis of covariance to assess how effectively these factors explain both regional variations and changes over time in housing prices. Through this approach, I will look to evaluate the strengths and limitations of existing research and identify the key drivers of price changes. While the United States, as the world’s largest economy, is used as a case study in this project, the proposed method here offers a valuable framework for exploring the research question across other countries.
Dr Cynthia Liu
SRG2425\251434
Interactions between Greco-Roman and East Asian Classics (16th-19th centuries)
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,074.00
Funded By: DSIT
As scholarly interest in Classics beyond Greece and Rome increases, so has the volume of research on Classics and East Asia. While non-contiguous comparative study and the study of modern reception of Greco-Roman antiquity are developing apace, the textual interaction between Greco-Roman and Chinese ‘classical’ traditions in the early modern period remains understudied. The Jesuit missions to East Asia produced a fascinating corpus of texts in both Latin and Chinese, which included translations of works from both literary traditions (Chinese to Latin and vice versa) as well as original works influenced by both Eastern and Western ‘Classics’. This project brings together an international group of eight leading scholars of classical reception to study the early modern textual interactions between Greco-Roman and East-Asian Classical traditions. The research group will produce a co-written article that will set the methodology and parameters of this emerging field of study.
Dr Georgios Loukopoulos
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Gonul Colak & Dr Panagiotis Loukopoulos
SRG2425\250286
Board Gender Diversity Reforms and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-Tied Compensation
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,955.98
Funded By: DSIT
This study will examine whether and how board gender diversity reforms impact the ESG-linked compensation. This compensation practice is a recent phenomenon and aims to motivate companies to develop reward systems based on sustainability goals. We will use reforms from 25 countries aiming to improve gender diversity in corporate boards to explore whether they affect the decision to adopt ESG pay practices. Furthermore, we will investigate whether the effect of ESG on sustainability and financial outcomes is contingent on-board gender diversity reforms. Because our research design is based on staggered shocks, our analysis permits us to infer causal interpretations. Overall, our findings will inform the ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of gender diversity reforms. In this respect, our study will provide important insights to policy makers, investors, and managers interesting in the role of regulatory interventions in the realm of sustainability.
Dr Danielle Mackle
SRG2425\251967
Being Trans* today – exploring the impact of current societal attitudes on the lives of Trans and non-binary people
Queen's University Belfast
Value Awarded: £9,966.00
Funded By: DSIT
There has been a dearth of in-depth qualitative academic literature that relates to the quality of life and well-being of trans and non-binary populations. There are gaps in the knowledge and understanding of the issues and everyday experiences that impact the quality of life and well-being of people who identify as such. To explore this, the researcher has adapted a framework known as the Integrated Capabilities Framework (ICF). Using the adapted LGBT ICF questionnaire, this study will gather data from 15-20 participants. 5 in-depth interviews will be conducted with LGBT stakeholder representatives as well as with 15 participants with a trans/non-binary history/identity. The application of the LGBT ICF is likely to generate a wealth of new data. This new information will serve to enhance policy and professional practice with the aim of helping to improve the overall quality of life and well-being of the trans population in NI and beyond.
Dr Tiran Manucharyan
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Areeg Ibrahim
SRG2425\250303
Transformational Leadership in the Works of Egyptian Women Playwrights and Theatre Practitioners of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries
University of St Andrews
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed project will study the quiet and invisible, yet transformative leadership dramatised in and actualised through the work of the Egyptian women playwrights and theatre practitioners since the 1950s, largely ignored by scholarship. Within the traditionally male-dominated theatre establishment in Egypt, the playwrights Fathia El-ʿAssal, Laila Abdel Basit, Nehad Gad and Nadia El-Banhawi were rare exceptions who managed to see their plays staged for the wider public on major Egyptian theatre stages. Their plays brought to Egyptian stages the voices of women, approaching the issues of gender inequality in their society from women’s stance. Beyond gender-related issues their work addresses other issues of their time, such as poverty, social inequality, inaccessibility of healthcare and education, ongoing wars, and the environmental crisis. This project will revisit their work to identify and learn from the intersections between women’s empowerment and other societal issues dramatised in women’s theatre in Egypt.
Dr Ammarah Marjan
SRG2425\251552
Connected for a Net-Zero UK: How Multi-stakeholder Networks Can Drive Decarbonisation for Construction SMEs
London South Bank University
Value Awarded: £7,353.00
Funded By: DSIT
The construction sector contributes about 40% of the UK's carbon emissions and 60% of its waste. With 99.7% of the UK's 340,000 construction firms classified as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the sector faces unique challenges in achieving net-zero targets. Many SME managers perceive environmental initiatives as expensive and resource-intensive, resulting in limited voluntary engagement. A significant and under-explored research opportunity lies in understanding the specific, collaborative roles that multi- stakeholder networks—including principal contractors, clients, regulators, and academics—can play in amplifying sustainability initiatives among construction SMEs involved in Britain's mega infrastructure projects. A systematic literature review on collaborative sustainability actions for SMEs will be followed by 30 semi- structured interviews with key stakeholders to explore interdependencies and identify strategies supporting SMEs to decarbonise. The findings will inform an innovative framework that extends beyond isolated practices, guiding the sector and policymakers in achieving meaningful impact in advancing the nation's net-zero transition.
Dr Estelle Marks
Co-Applicant(s): Mrs Gemma Davies
SRG2425\250340
Cross-Border Criminal Evidence Transfer in the 21st Century – An Irish Case Study
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,996.25
Funded By: DSIT
National criminal justice agencies around the world face complex challenges in locating and retrieving criminal evidence through a dated system of mutual legal assistance (MLA). This can result in impunity for serious criminality. There is an urgent need to modernise domestic and international frameworks for MLA in response to the challenges of the digital age. Previous research recognises a need for in-depth understanding of domestic frameworks alongside the development of international treaties that seek to bridge them. This project builds on ongoing research that we are conducting in the UK and will offer the first ever empirical account of evidence exchange to and from the Republic of Ireland. Utilising a case study methodology, incorporating stakeholder interviews and legal analysis, this project will contribute to an international conversation about how MLA can be transformed to meet the demands of the 21st Century.
Dr Joseph D. Martin
SRG2425\250195
Assault and Batteries: The AD-X2 Affair and the Political Awakening of American Science
Durham University
Value Awarded: £9,930.80
Funded By: DSIT
In March 1953, Allen Astin, Director of the National Bureau of Standards, lost his job. He was fired by Sinclair Weeks, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s newly confirmed Secretary of Commerce, after the bureau concluded that AD-X2, an after-market additive advertised as extending the life of automotive batteries, was ineffective. Weeks regarded the condemnation as an attack on small business and sought to install friendlier leadership at the bureau. American scientists were outraged. A frenetic mobilisation quickly organised censures by dozens of scientific organisations and forced Weeks to back down; Astin would lead the bureau until his retirement in 1969. Attention to this episode clarifies how the American scientific community translated the attention nuclear weapons brought into concrete political influence—not through leveraging the power of the bomb, but by brandishing their apolitical credentials to exert control over key institutions and by emphasising the centrality of routine scientific practice to national priorities.
Dr Thomas Martin
SRG2425\250459
Understanding UK security politics in the 21st century
Open University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
The project’s objective is to establish a knowledge base on how UK publics understand ‘security’. This project is rooted in an understanding that the opinions and perspectives of the public are important, but current approaches often fail to capture the nuances, plurality and diversity of perspectives that circulate among UK citizenry on the topic of national security. As a result, national security policymaking, and the public debate on UK national security, often draws from a narrow understanding of what UK approaches to national security can or should be. To address this gap, the project will develop and implement a public opinion survey, building on focus groups (already funded internally by The Open University), to better understand the frameworks through which UK publics understand and experience ‘security’ and ‘insecurity’, the approaches they would take to produce ‘security’ for the UK, and their national security priorities.
Dr John McDaniel
SRG2425\251750
Police Protection of Victims during Large Scale Sexual Violence: Scoping and Indexing
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £8,354.80
Funded By: DSIT
For victims escaping widespread sexual violence, the police are a crucial source of protection. The extent to which officers can offer refuge within police stations, cordons or other sanctuaries, however, remains unclear in law and policy. Sanctuaries and mass detention raise significant human rights concerns and potential for abuse. This project will compare how police in Rwanda and Bosnia protected victims and continued investigations during atrocities. By examining archives, it will identify sample cases to develop a narrative of police safeguarding actions and behaviours. Additionally, a digital index of archived police-related materials will be created and shared publicly to support further research. This approach will help clarify the role of police in safeguarding victims and ensure that future policies are informed by historical precedents and practical examples. This timely research addresses human rights issues, providing tools and actionable insights for policymakers and law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Dr Carolyn Molesworth - St Aubyn
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Emanuela Sciubba
SRG2425\250689
An Experiment in Buy Now Pay Later: Liquidity Constraints or Preferences for Liquidity
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,285.16
Funded By: DSIT
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is a relatively new, rapidly growing, payment technology. To give some idea of market size, in 2021 the number of BNPL users in the US was around one fifth of credit card users, accounting for $214 bn of sales. The market is forecast to grow to $834bn by 2028. Empirical evidence shows that consumers spend between 30% and 50% more after adopting BNPL, and that consumers use BNPL even when there is no apparent liquidity need. Consumers who need to smooth consumption can benefit from BNPL - it is cheaper than credit card borrowing. However, relatively little is known about why consumers defer payment, and spend without liquidity need, and how this may affect financial stability. We propose a novel experiment which separates liquidity need from deferring payment. This work will contribute to understanding this empirically observed, but poorly understood, aspect of BNPL.
Dr Rachel Moss
SRG2425\250870
Medievalism, gender and politicised nostalgia in the British extreme right, 1962 – 1982
University of Northampton
Value Awarded: £7,382.27
Funded By: DSIT
In August 2017, a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, brought to public attention a strange aspect of right-wing extremism: its fascination with the Middle Ages. Medievalists were commissioned to write about the Crusader crosses and Viking runes that extremists raised at the rally, but analysis of these themes has focused on contemporary and mostly North American examples. In this pilot study, I will make use of the University of Northampton’s Searchlight Archive, an internationally significant but underutilised resource for sources on right-wing extremism, to explore the role historicised nostalgia for the medieval past plays in extreme right recruitment and radicalisation in Britain in the period 1962 – 1982. This was a period of upheaval and change in the British extreme right movement that helped shape the ideological direction of the movement as it exists today.
Dr Irene Mussio
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Kiet Tuan Nguyen
SRG2425\251014
Finding collaborative solutions to address water shortages in farming areas in the Mekong Delta: a behavioural approach
University of Leeds
Value Awarded: £9,950.00
Funded By: DSIT
The Mekong River Delta (MRD) suffers from the impacts of high climate variability. This means an increased likelihood of both droughts and floods. Some of the major impacts of droughts happen in provinces close to the sea, which in turn leads to a shortage of water for farmers in these rural areas. To address this, we use a validated economic game, the ‘Irrigation Game’ to deliver a self-contained piece of work based on economic decision-making. Irrigation games are particularly well suited, since they model the problem faced by people who have to participate in communal action. Farmers must consider the costs and benefits of maintaining water canals both to themselves and others. The objective of the proposed work is to provide insights into how to deliver a fair division of costs amongst farmers. This project leverages our prior work about farming and floods in the MRD (under UKRI GCRF funding).
Dr Sankararama Lakshmi Naaraayanan
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Nickolay Gantchev
SRG2425\251648
The Green Shift: How Deregulation is Greening India’s SMEs
London Business School
Value Awarded: £9,981.17
Funded By: DSIT
Our project builds evidence on the change in production and environmental impact of SMEs in emerging economies, particularly India, in the face of market liberalization. We use a natural experiment to generate robust evidence, specifically the implementation of dereservation policies, which removed protections for SMEs, allowing larger firms to enter the market. While prior research has quantified the economic effects of these changes, we are among the first to produce robust evidence regarding environmental outcomes. We leverage granular, firm- and product-level data to analyze whether increased competition drives SMEs to adopt greener practices or more polluting technologies, and explore sectoral differences in these responses.
Dr Maurice Nagington
SRG2425\251416
The social production of chemsex art
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,989.60
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed research project examines the social production of art about chemsex. Chemsex is often pathologized in both medical and social discourses and is increasingly constructed as a public health issue driven by internalized homophobia and medicalised interventions. This research provides a critical understanding of chemsex as a social phenomenon by examining how art is produced about chemsex. In doing so the project seeks to illuminate how artistic practices challenge (or reinforce) dominant narratives.
The project will map organisations and individuals involved in producing art about chemsex and then pilot a multi-sited ethnography. The research will be conducted across three countries in order to maximise the variety in the data.
The project is expected to make a significant contribution to the understanding of chemsex and how it becomes represented in art. It is also expected to have implications for the development of arts-based interventions for chemsex and other marginalised communities.
Atta Naqvi
SRG2425\251646
What are the cultural barriers faced by educators in teaching pharmacy in higher education, and how can they be supported to become culturally competent educators?
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,926.00
Funded By: DSIT
This study investigates cultural barriers faced by educators in pharmacy education, framed through Social Identity Theory and Cultural Capital Theory. It employs a qualitative approach, gathering data from both pharmacy educators and students through interviews and focus groups at two different stages. The research aims to identify key barriers in teaching and learning, focusing on how cultural dynamics influence both groups. Data analysis will inform the development of strategies such as training, resource creation, and policy recommendations aimed at fostering culturally competent teaching. These actionable strategies will contribute to enhancing inclusivity in cross-cultural educational settings, supporting both educators and students. The study’s outcomes will be instrumental in improving the curriculum and educational practices, ultimately contributing to the development of culturally competent educators and future healthcare professionals. Findings will be shared with educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers to promote a more inclusive and supportive learning environment in pharmacy education.
Dr Philip Newall
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Charlotte Eben & Dr Zhang Chen
SRG2425\251061
Attempting to understand the mixed results for the illusion-of-control in gambling
University of Bristol
Value Awarded: £9,798.00
Funded By: DSIT
Cognitive biases about randomness, such as the illusion of control and the gambler’s fallacy, play a key role in the widely-used cognitive model of disordered gambling. Our own previous work on core illusion of control gambling paradigms has shown mixed results with regard to the replicability of illusion of control effects. This is consistent with the replicability issues in psychology more broadly. To better understand these mixed results, we will test a novel hypothesis that the one replicable illusion of control paradigm might be better explained by the gambler’s fallacy. A large online experiment (N=3,000) will extend our previous work, by creating a new condition where the illusion of control and the gambler’s fallacy make different predictions. Our continuing exploration of the evidence base underlying key concepts will allow the field to better understand gamblers’ psychology, and inform effective treatments and government policies for preventing gambling-related harm.
Dr Trong Huu Nguyen
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Rohitkumar Harishkumar Trivedi
SRG2425\251315
Chatbot Failures: Investigating Avoidance Through Dehumanization and Psychological Contract Breach
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £1,800.00
Funded By: DSIT
By understanding how chatbot failure impacts chatbot avoidance, I aim to provide valuable insights into consumer behaviour within an emerging technology: AI Chatbot. I believe this will help AI developers and marketing practitioners develop chatbots for customer service appropriately. Specifically, they can decide how to incorporate promise made, empathy displayed by chatbots in customer service, and how to minimize customer tendency to avoid chatbots by using employees as a fallback option.
Dr Jonathan Norris
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Agnese Romiti & Dr Paul Telemo
SRG2425\251079
Beliefs on Children's Human Capital Formation and Mothers at Work
University of Strathclyde
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
The persistence of gender gaps and motherhood penalties in labour markets across countries may partly be explainable by beliefs that women hold an absolute advantage in producing children's human capital. Such beliefs would imply that policies targeted at the labour market to make it easier for mothers to work may not achieve the success hoped for in closing gender gaps. However, these beliefs are hard or infeasible to measure in standard surveys. We design a tailored survey experiment to measure these beliefs, understand what drives them, and investigate whether these beliefs respond to information about how well children actually do when mothers work full-time. Our pilot study suggests these beliefs exist in the United Kingdom, vary substantially across the population, and belief updating in response to information is driven only both those with positive prior beliefs. We aim to expand on this with a larger sample and more detailed survey.
Dr Gerardo Ortega
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Kate Bellamy
SRG2425\250139
The grammar of the body: a multimodal investigation of P'urhepecha-Spanish bilinguals
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,784.00
Funded By: DSIT
The body is a human universal, but how it is used in coordination with speech varies widely cross-linguistically. This project investigates how bilinguals speaking two typologically distant languages express notions of space and dimensionality in speech and co-occurring gestures. We focus on speakers of P’urhepecha, a highly agglutinating language isolate that uses bodypart reference as a key part of its morphological system; and Spanish, which does not. Study one will document naturalistic conversations between speakers of P’urhepecha and Spanish to form a baseline, while study two will comprise an interactive elicitation task targeting spatial and classificatory descriptions. Type-frequency and semantic alignment analyses will reveal how the prevalence of the body in P’urhepecha grammar influences its speakers’ associated gestures. This project will contribute to our understanding of multimodal interaction in underrepresented languages and will function as a baseline for future studies in multilingual, multimodal interaction, both in Mexico and beyond.
Dr Oghogho Destina Ovuakporie
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Arinze Christian Nwoba & Dr Oluwaseun Eniola Olabode
SRG2425\250507
Use of Knowledge Networks in Sustaining the Innovation Capability of Tech SMEs in Nigeria
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £9,591.12
Funded By: DSIT
Africa is regarded as the next frontier for economic growth and development. However, small businesses often face capability constraints with limited access to investors, business know-how and government support. Although studies have argued that knowledge networks increase innovation, there is still limited understanding on how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) engage with multiple knowledge networks to enhance their innovation capability. This is crucial for Tech SMEs in Nigeria where a significant number of businesses operate in isolation affecting their ability to innovate rapidly in response to market demands. Hence, this project will investigate how Nigerian Tech SMEs collaborate with local, regional, and international knowledge networks to sustain their innovation capability. The project will also explore the conditions that foster engagement with knowledge networks and the limiting factors. This will contribute to further understanding of how knowledge networks contribute to SMEs innovation capability which is of importance to academics and policymakers.
Dr Myrna Papadouka
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Nicola Montagna & Dr Giuseppe Serrantino
SRG2425\251920
Migrant Smuggling through different lenses: Exploring perceptions of practitioners, law enforcement representatives and migrants on the Mediterranean and English Channel Routes
Middlesex University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project investigates how the narratives surrounding migrant smuggling differ among migrants, human rights practitioners, and law enforcement representatives involved in border control In the Mediterranean and English Channel routes, and why these perspectives vary based on their roles. Despite the tightening of policy measures, undocumented migrants crossing the Mediterranean and the Channel in small boats have not ceased. While research links these movements to a complexity of factors, public debate centres on migrant smugglers as the key drivers and main responsible.
However, understandings of smugglers’ roles differ depending on one’s position within migration processes. Building on a pilot study exploring the impact of migration policies on smuggling networks, and drawing from interviews with humanitarian practitioners, law enforcement representatives, and migrants, this project examines how the agency and perspectives of those sharing their experiences contribute to shaping the narratives around migrant smuggling in the migration processes and impact on policy-making.
Dr Soul Park
SRG2425\250020
The Politics of Military Exercises in the Indo-Pacific: A Mixed-Method Approach
University of East Anglia
Value Awarded: £9,881.26
Funded By: DSIT
As the US-China great power rivalry intensifies in the post-Cold War era, the global center of gravity has gradually yet undeniably shifted towards the Indo-Pacific region. Underpinning this geopolitical transition in the international order is the complex regional security and foreign policy landscapes of the Indo-Pacific. This research project examines the alliance systems and alignment patterns in the region by focusing on a crucial yet underappreciated aspect – joint military exercises. Both the number and types of military exercises in the international system has seen an exponential growth in recent years with a large percentage in the Indo-Pacific not only multinational in composition but also involving non-allies. Our project on the political causes and consequences of military exercises adopts a mixed-method approach – conceptual, qualitative and quantitative studies – to better understand changing security dynamics and foreign policy calculus of key states in the region.
Dr Georgi Parpulov
SRG2425\250127
Descriptive Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts at the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,999.00
Funded By: DSIT
Outside of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the John Rylands Library holds the largest collection of Greek manuscripts in England. Unlike those in Oxford, Cambridge, and London, this collection has never been properly catalogued. I propose to prepare and publish detailed and accurate descriptions of all its fifty-seven manuscripts. These range in date from the eleventh to the nineteenth century. Their contents vary widely: biblical, liturgical, and other religious texts, secular literature, pharmacology, music, magic, and divination. The language is classical (archaic) Greek in some cases and modern Greek in others. As a whole, the collection opens a window onto Greek culture in medieval and modern times, and onto its reception in nineteenth and twentieth-century England. Some texts found in the Rylands manuscripts are very rare, so my catalogue will signal their existence to scholars who might wish to study them further. The work will be published in print and online.
Dr Prakash Pathak
SRG2425\251730
From Lottery to Livelihood: Economic Impacts of Random Access to Highly Desirable Labor Market in the Wake of a Disaster
University of Strathclyde
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
We propose to examine whether winning a highly desired taxi permit through a public lottery can support sustainable livelihoods for low-income individuals in disaster-affected areas. After Nepal's 2015 earthquake, 1,500 taxi permits were distributed among 150,000 lottery participants who were earthquake victims from 14 affected districts. The aim was to support economic recovery while also addressing Kathmandu's transportation needs. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, we plan to estimate how receiving a taxi permit affects winners' employment, income, health, and socio-emotional well-being. We will also analyze why some permit winners chose not to enter the taxi market, providing insights into barriers to market participation. Disasters push vulnerable populations into poverty, serving as lens to challenges in low-income environments. The proposed study will provide insights into the impact of employment-enhancing interventions on economic resilience and social mobility, informing policies for post-disaster recovery and securing lasting poverty alleviation in similar settings.
Dr Holly Patrick-Thomson
Co-Applicant(s): Mr Alistair Lawson
SRG2425\250828
Freelance Advisor: Identifying the future of peer advice systems using advanced technology
Edinburgh Napier University
Value Awarded: £9,998.39
Funded By: DSIT
The creative industries are notoriously difficult to break into, and business knowledge is key for those who are starting out, particularly for freelancers. However, recent research shows that 57% of freelancers don't feel well informed of their rights, 69% have issues with late or non-payment, and 57% rely on peer advice to solve contract negotiation problems and ‘grey issues’ not easily resolved by a quick internet search, such as setting hourly/daily/project-based rates. Existing advice systems rely on the inefficient mechanism of experienced freelancers repeatedly answering similar questions, and new freelancers tend not to know where and how to access reliable peer advice due to exclusionary networks . This research project uses an engaged scholarship approach to identify the potential for advanced technology to produce new forms of peer advice system, by developing an existing design prototype into a functional prototype and piloting it with a group of users.
Dr Bethmage Sandun Indeewara Perera
SRG2425\251073
Specification testing and forecasting in conditionally heteroscedastic time series models
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,980.00
Funded By: DSIT
Accurate specification of conditionally heteroscedastic time series models is of critical importance in empirical finance and economics, particularly for understanding market volatility and managing financial risks. These models are widely applied in areas such as asset pricing, risk management, and macroeconomic forecasting, where accurate modeling of time-varying volatility is essential. However, despite substantial research, existing theories on specification testing and forecasting often rely on restrictive assumptions that apply to only a limited set of models. This project aims to overcome these limitations by developing novel methods for model validation and forecasting that can be applied to a wider range of conditionally heteroscedastic time series models commonly used in practice. The anticipated outcomes include the development of new, theoretically sound statistical techniques, rigorously validated through real-world applications. These advancements aim to enhance the accuracy and reliability of volatility modeling, ultimately reducing financial risks, safeguarding investors, and supporting long-term economic stability.
Dr Rodrigo Perez Vega
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Adrian Palmer & Dr Yang Ding
SRG2425\250703
Exploring the Feasibility of LLMs for Assessment Feedback: A Pilot Study in Higher Education
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,998.50
Funded By: DSIT
Students often express dissatisfaction with feedback being received “too late to be useful”, highlighting a significant challenge in the assessment and feedback cycles within the higher education sector (Winstone and Boud, 2022). The introduction of Large Language Models offers potential to improve both the speed and quality of feedback on students’ work, while also enhancing the productivity of educational institutions. There is a growing interest from the Department for Education to introduce AI for marking and feedback, and this project explores the opportunities presented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education. An AI-enabled tool powered by custom LLMs will assess participating students’ work and provide formative and summative feedback. An experiment will compare feedback quality from the tool against instructor-led feedback, as evaluated by an expert panel and the students themselves. Ethical concerns will be mitigated through informed consent and ensuring the project runs in parallel with formal assessment arrangements.
Professor Vike Martina Plock
SRG2425\250718
James Joyce on Paper
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £7,684.00
Funded By: DSIT
Influenced by recent developments in critical archival studies, this project examines the physical properties of Joyce’s archived papers. While many of these documents are now digitally available, this turn to the digital tends to obscure the material traces of his writing. A materially literate analysis, uncovering these previously hidden physical traces, can provide important new insights into Joyce's work as a writer. But while this project is about Joyce, it also asks conceptual questions about the use of digital technology in archival preservation and in heritage management. We are currently experiencing a revolutionary shift in our media ecology, not dissimilar to what Joyce witnessed in his lifetime when new media technologies put paper's hegemony in jeopardy. But has digitisation really brought about the end of the paper archive? Or has it made critics newly aware of the physical archive's potential for future scholarship on authors and their work?
Dr Samah Rafiq
SRG2425\250180
From State to Market: Hybrid Regimes of Migration Control
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,906.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project researchers the move from state to market in the performance of everyday functions in migration control by terming the phenomenon “hybrid regimes of migration control.” It studies migration control processes between the UK and India, through archival, interview and document analysis methods. The project will research three aspects of hybrid regimes of migration control: first, their impact on our understanding and practice of the concepts of security, borders, citizenship and sovereignty; second, the distribution of accountability and functions between the state and the market actors, and third, the impact of hybrid regimes of migration control on the individual migrant. It investigates the claim to safety made regarding formal/legal pathways to migration by questioning their accessibility to migrants, especially in the context of involvement of private actors. It will add to scholarship on migration and borders in critical security studies, international political sociology and postcolonial studies.
Dr Trude Renwick
SRG2425\251336
Peripheries Mobilized: Infrastructure, Migration, and Creativity along the Pan-Asia Railway
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,935.00
Funded By: DSIT
Peripheries Mobilized examines the impact of the Chinese-sponsored Pan Asia Railway on conceptions of periphery and frontier in Thai and Lao cities along its central route. As key nodes along this new railway network, previously “peripheral” urban outposts of these nation-states are now central foci for the Thai and Lao governments. Beginning with the case of Khon Kaen in northern Thailand, this project explores how state-led investments in the creative industries in agricultural urban centers have paved the way for an influx of “creatives,” who are reversing the traditional labor migration patterns out of this city as they reshape its image. This interdisciplinary project uses ethnographic and archival methods to examine issues of inequality, aesthetics and labor migration that surround the development of infrastructural space in Thailand and Southeast Asia.
Dr Flora Renz
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Matt Howard
SRG2425\251088
Laws of the Game: Wheelchair Rugby Regulations and Participant Perception in Gender Neutral and Inclusive Sports
University of Kent
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
Wheelchair rugby, also sometimes referred to as murderball, is by now a well-established parasport version of standard rugby. It operates a relatively complex player classification system to ensure parity and fairness between teams composed of players with often vastly different kinds of impairments, from tetraplegia to multiple limb defects. In this project we will consider the wheelchair rugby classification system from a socio-legal perspective, as one example of a particular regulatory regime. In particular, this project will investigate how people subject to, and involved in, the classification system, engage with concepts such as inclusion, equality and fairness, which underpin the classification regulatory regime. To date most extant research on wheelchair rugby has primarily come from the fields of sports and exercise science and sports psychology rather than considering it as a specific regulatory approach designed to create and enhance equality.
Dr George Roberts
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Elizabeth Banks
SRG2425\250596
Beyond the Box: Towards a Global History of Twentieth-Century Shipping
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,905.00
Funded By: DSIT
Recent disruption to maritime supply chains has drawn attention to the essential but fragile role played in the global economy by international shipping. Despite this, shipping remains largely ‘invisible’ in contemporary global history. The limited literature associates innovations in shipping, like the container, with Western-led globalisation and imperialism. Our project contends that shipping infrastructure was contested by politicians, economists, and technocrats from the ‘Second’ and ‘Third’ Worlds with imaginative, alternative conceptions of an oceanic economy and new geographies of trade. It argues that these contestations were essential for the growth of a more integrated twentieth-century global economy. It does so by bringing together historians specialised in the Soviet Bloc and Eastern Africa. The grant will (a) fund archival research in Lithuania and Kenya and (b) support an international workshop which will assemble an interdisciplinary team of researchers with diverse geographic expertise to develop a genuinely global history of twentieth-century shipping.
Dr Matilde Rosina
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Omar Hammoud Gallego
SRG2425\250963
The Trade-Off Between Regular and Irregular Migration: How Reducing Labour Migration Opportunities Can Lead to an Increase in Irregular Migration
Brunel University London
Value Awarded: £9,973.00
Funded By: DSIT
Irregular migration is one of the most pressing and polarising policy challenges across Europe and beyond. Yet, little empirical evidence exists about the interplay between restrictive migratory policies and irregular migratory flows. In this research, we ask whether reducing labour migration opportunities for citizens from selected countries can lead to an increase in irregular migratory flows for citizens from those same countries.
We thus aim to test the “substitution effect” hypothesis, which claims that governments have limited means to effectively deter migrants. To test this hypothesis, we conduct (a) a quantitative analysis of official data on regular and irregular migratory flows, and (b) a conjoint survey experiment with migrants in Italy (n=1,200) from selected countries in North Africa and Central Asia where labour migration opportunities existed but were then abolished. Overall, the research contributes to a crucial academic and policy debate on the unintended effects of migration policy.
Dr Alice Rudge
SRG2425\250801
Open Minds, Closed Forests: Agricultural Education in Postwar Malaysia
SOAS University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project uses archival methods to explore the intellectual and political underpinnings of agricultural education in postwar Malaysia between 1945 and 1970. This is when agricultural education transformed from a tool of colonial expansion aimed at turning rainforests into productive land, to being simultaneously the pride of a new nation and an arm of U.S. and British Cold War interventions in Asia. These interventions were aimed at simultaneously shaping minds and ecologies, meaning agricultural education offers a unique microcosm of the ideas about the political, the psychological, and the scientific. This project therefore asks: what were the models of mind and ecology that underlay colonial and postcolonial efforts at educating Malaysian farmers and planters? This begs a broader question: how might the simultaneous molding of both minds and ecologies have been used for political ends in postcolonial contexts? And what were the cracks and omissions in these seemingly totalizing agendas?
Dr Juliana Santos de Carvalho
SRG2425\252017
Territories and alternative grammars: exploring non-dominant feminisms in global governance
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
When describing her experience at the 1904 and the 1919 International Congresses of Women, American civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell remarked she was the only delegate ‘who had a drop of African blood in her veins’. More than a century later, gender-focused spaces in global governance continue to be dominated by White, Western, and Anglophone feminist actors and their visions of gender equality and justice. Moreover, feminist scholars have also generally focused on such dominant feminisms, exploring how they maintain their hold over policy- and decision-making on transnational gender-related concerns. Against this background, we propose building a network of scholars and activists that, instead, centre their work around non-White, non-Western, and non-Anglophone feminisms in gender-focused global governance. This network would then aim to cultivate spaces where such feminist actors can come together to connect, discuss, strategise, and support one another in surviving in (or reimagining anew) gender-focused global governance.
Dr Eden Sarid
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Haim Abraham
SRG2425\251242
Queering Private Law
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,100.72
Funded By: DSIT
Queer theory and private law rarely make eye contact. Private law—the field governing personal rights, obligations, and relationships between individuals—is associated with economic rationality and neoliberal ideas, emphasising stability and economic value. It constructs binary distinctions, such as reasonable/unreasonable, wrongful/non-wrongful, and misfeasance/malfeasance. In contract, Queer theory explores sexuality, gender norms, and the performativity of identity, emphasizing indeterminacy and fluidity. Thus, queer theory provides a particularly valuable framework for interrogating fundamental questions seldom addressed in private law, and illuminating long-standing debates. For instance: What are the conventions that structure private law’s rules and standards? How have these conventions become the norm? And how can we expose their broader social, political, and economic impacts? This project tackles these questions, highlighting queer theory’s often overlooked jurisprudential value for rethinking private law, and its potential to reshape legal doctrine to advance equality, diversity, and inclusion, ultimately fostering a more equitable legal landscape.
Dr Sarah Sauvé
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Nadia Sarai Corral Frias
SRG2425\251180
Improving diversity in social science curricula
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £9,989.04
Funded By: DSIT
Teaching plays a crucial role in shaping future researchers and higher education (HE) institutions have a unique position in society to shape discourse and professional practice and nurture citizenship. The lack of visible minoritized individuals in taught content in HE limits challenges to the status quo and role models for minoritized students. While lack of diversity in HE curricula is increasingly recognized, formal quantification of diversity and tools to help improve diversity are scarce. We will develop a workshop to introduce and facilitate the use of a self-assessment toolkit providing tools and resources that empower educators in HE to diversify the sources of the content they teach in terms of gender, race, location, neurodiversity and epistemology in two contrasting HE contexts. The workshop will be evaluated using an audit of lecture content before and after the workshop and a survey circulated to students asking them about diversity in taught content.
Dr Laura Sbaffi
SRG2425\250593
GOOSE & ACADEMIC PREDATOR: A gamified approach to help academics identify predatory publishing
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,648.00
Funded By: DSIT
We aim to develop "GOOSE & ACADEMIC PREDATOR", an innovative digital board game designed to educate researchers about the complexities of academic publishing, particularly the risks associated with predatory journals. By combining elements of traditional board games with artificial intelligence, the game will offer a unique and engaging approach to learning about the ethical implications of scholarly publication.
Players navigate a virtual board, encountering challenges and opportunities related to subscription-based, open-access, and predatory publishing models. Through interactive questioning and scoring, the AI will provide real-time feedback on players' understanding of key concepts. The game's customisable elements and multi language communication capability will enhance its accessibility and appeal to a diverse audience. We will use this grant to bring the game from concept to reality and engage academics across career stages to provide feedback on its usability and share their experience with publishing practices to further improve the game's content.
Dr Elisa Schweiger
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Ray Charles "Chuck" Howard
SRG2425\250046
Exploring Income and Expense Prediction Biases in Retail Spending: Impacts on Consumer Budgeting and Financial Stability
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,904.23
Funded By: DSIT
The rising cost of living in the UK has intensified financial pressures on individuals, compounded by common biases in predicting future income and expenses. This research examines how overestimating income and underestimating expenses impact spending and budgeting, particularly in retail settings. By conducting experimental studies and analyzing real-world data, we aim to uncover how these biases influence financial decisions and identify the role of different product types (hedonic vs. utilitarian) in exacerbating these effects. Additionally, the study will profile individuals to determine susceptibility to these biases based on traits like optimism and impulsiveness. The findings will inform strategies for policymakers, consumers, and retailers to improve financial planning and stability. The research will be disseminated through conferences, publications, and public engagement, offering actionable insights to mitigate the adverse effects of prediction biases on personal finances.
Dr Farah Shahrin
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Benachir Medjdoub & Professor Benachir Medjdoub
SRG2425\251005
Sensor and Cooking Up Change: Amplifying Unheard Voices in Co-Creating Net Zero Policies through Cultural and Gender-Inclusive Engagement
Nottingham Trent University
Value Awarded: £9,993.00
Funded By: DSIT
The current Net Zero approach often neglects community needs by prioritising technology-driven solutions. This research aims to bridge that gap with culturally sensitive, community-led strategies, empowering marginalised communities, especially women, to participate in the Net Zero transition. It identifies socio-cultural, economic, and gender-specific barriers to involvement. The study uses innovative 2-staged cooking competition of two marginalised communities, leveraging the cultural significance of food to foster dialogue through cooking competitions. These events serve as data collection event through interviews and questionnaires. Findings are presented to local leaders, including MPs, followed by an open dialogue about energy policies to bridge the gap between communities and policymakers. The study's bottom-up approach amplifies voices often excluded from policy-making, promoting inclusiveness through multilingual conversations. The research aims to create a more equitable policy framework and develop a community-driven energy engagement toolkit for future projects. The output identifies essential elements for a community-driven energy engagement tool.
Dr Saori Shibata
SRG2425\250057
Digitalisation and gender equality: lessons from Japan
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,860.00
Funded By: DSIT
Digital technologies have the potential both to improve gender equality and to worsen the gender divide, presenting a challenge for policymakers aiming to navigate these two possibilities. This project examines the gender implications of digital policy in the case of Japan, where policymakers have been highly active in introducing policies that aim to harness digitalisation as a tool of gender inclusion, but have done so in a context which has one of the highest levels of gender inequality of the high-income democracies. Japan therefore represents an ideal case through which to draw lessons for digital gender policy. The research fieldwork will consist of policy analysis, evaluating policy initiatives designed to improve gender inclusion in two areas: the workplace and community. The findings will provide important insights into the potential for policymakers to wield digitalisation as a tool for gender equality, to be shared through a knowledge exchange workshop with policymakers.
Professor Alireza Shokri
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jie Ma & Dr S M Riad Shams
SRG2425\251155
Mapping supply network for circular public procurement in UK local authorities
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £9,324.00
Funded By: DSIT
Using taxpayers’ money, public procurement is economically significant for local authorities as policy makers and buyers of goods and services. However, its environmental dimension, with a particular focus on the circular economy, has received less attention from UK local authorities due to a lack of clear mapping of their supply network. This project aims to address this gap and recommend a practical implementation framework for local authorities to stimulate a collaborative environment with their suppliers, focusing on establishing and evaluating a circular public procurement (CPP) system. By conducting an embedded case study with mixed-method approach for data collection and analysis of Gateshead Council in Tyne & Wear and its supply network as SMEs, good practices, areas for improvement, as well as drivers and barriers to this transformation are identified. The project aims to trigger a transformation towards CPP in the UK, with significant economic, environmental and policy implications.
Dr Boban Simonovic
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jack Bryne Stothard
SRG2425\250882
Exploring pre-service teachers use of critical thinking skills when engaging with Generative AI
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,754.18
Funded By: DSIT
In an era of digital transformation, the proliferation of online information and AI-generated content presents both opportunities and challenges for educators. This pilot project aims to address these challenges through three objectives:
- Assess pre-service teachers' (PSTs) self-efficacy, critical thinking, and attitudes towards AI.
- Present a previously published and verified critical thinking (CT) intervention to a sample of 5-6 students, followed by focus group discussions.
- Collaboratively develop a bespoke, tailored CT intervention designed to address PSTs' specific needs.
This approach will enhance PSTs' ability to navigate AI-generated content while strengthening their resilience against misinformation and academic integrity issues. The project aims to prepare the next generation of educators for an AI-augmented educational ecosystem.
This research will provide valuable insights for teacher education programmes worldwide, supporting educators to harness AI's benefits while mitigating risks, thus shaping the future of education in the digital age.
Dr Ana Soares Peres
SRG2425\250666
Rethinking the WTO lawmaking for a multipolar trading system: Addressing the challenges of the green and digital global economy
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,238.20
Funded By: DSIT
This research project explores how the World Trade Organization (WTO) can respond to the policy shift towards a green and digital economy. The research aims to show how current needs affect traditional understandings of trade and the WTO's role in regulating trade issues. Geoeconomics, marked by the use of trade to maintain, challenge or attain global power, reveals the urgency of promoting multilateral efforts. Sustainability and digital technologies are pressing issues at the centre of trade policies triggering unilateral measures that escalate conflicts and increase protectionism. Reimagining the purpose of the WTO to ensure its relevance in the 21st century is essential to overcoming geoeconomic perils. The research findings will contribute to the literature on international trade law and WTO governance by discussing WTO initiatives to regulate the green and digital global economy that surpass established legal conceptions concerning what rules are, how they are created and who creates them.
Dr Jeremy Steffman
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Megha Sundara
SRG2425\250068
Specificity and generalisation in biphone-based learning in speech perception
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £8,617.86
Funded By: DSIT
Speech is notoriously variable across talkers and contexts: an essential challenge listeners face is transducing speech input into a stable linguistic percept. Listeners, accordingly, develop and deploy knowledge about language-level sound patterns, and talker-specific speech acoustics, to interpret speech input. Thus, speech perception is an active cognitive process, with the listener as an every-day “learner for speech”. Recent research shows sound pattern learning unfolds rapidly and flexibly; listeners modify their expectations of what sounds they hear on the basis of co-occurrence with adjacent speech sounds after short exposure in the lab. The present proposal will test if and how this learning generalises 1) across different talkers, and 2) across similar types of sounds. In other words, what is the nature of, and what are constraints on, perceptual learning for speech sound sequences? This is a timely unification of disparate research on talker adaptation and sound pattern learning in speech perception.
Dr Richard Stockwell
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Aya Meltzer-Asscher & Professor Dominique Sportiche
SRG2425\251983
The role of focus in dislocated disjoint reference effects
University of Ulster
Value Awarded: £2,916.67
Funded By: DSIT
There is ongoing controversy as to the grammaticality of questions like (1), where 'she' co-refers with 'Beth'; this despite coreference being definitively bad in the corresponding answer (2):
(1) Which picture of Beth did she frame?
(2) She framed this picture of Beth.
We propose an experiment which aims to settle this empirical debate by testing the hypothesis that focus plays a crucial role. In particular, we claim that (1) is grammatical with focal stress on 'she', as predicted by a theory where its meaning has the structure of 'nobody but her'. Where from this perspective the controversy is rooted in people's differing propensity to read ‘she’ as focused in sentences like (1), our experiment is designed to control for focus on the pronoun.
Dr Robert Stueber
SRG2425\250787
Mapping Minds: Understanding Views on Global Inequality
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,980.00
Funded By: DSIT
Although there is abundant evidence on individual preferences for policies that reduce national inequality, there is very little evidence on preferences for policies addressing global inequality. However, international income disparities are significantly larger than those within countries and many national policy questions involve substantial redistribution of resources across countries. To investigate people's perceptions of global inequality and to explore the role of these perceptions for policy preferences, I conduct an online experiment on representative samples from four countries. I investigate (1) perceptions of income inequality across countries, (2) perceptions of income inequality within countries, (3) perceptions of inequality in living standards, and (4) the causal relationship between these perceptions and policy preferences.
Dr Isabel Tavora
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Saleema Kauser & Dr Syed Imran Saqib
SRG2425\251052
Employee Resource Groups as a Voice Channel: Perceptions and experiences of underrepresented employees in British organisations
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,882.86
Funded By: DSIT
Women, ethnic minorities, LGBT+ and disabled employees continue to face workplace discrimination and bias despite record levels of spending on Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives in the UK. Moreover, research suggests that they lack adequate voice channels in the workplace, with traditional voice mechanisms such as trade unions having a mixed record with respect to how well they represent equality and minority interests. Therefore, this project will investigate the potential of employee resource groups (ERGs), also known as staff networks, as an alternative voice mechanism for traditionally underrepresented employees. Despite being widely used and seen as a valuable resource for organisations and their employees, ERGs’ role as voice is not well understood. Our qualitative study will tap into employees' perceptions and experiences of participating in ERGs and illuminate whether and how ERGs can amplify the voices of employees from under-represented or marginalised groups, thereby contributing to more inclusive workplaces.
Dr Liam Temple
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Cormac Stephen Begadon & Dr Jonathan Bush
SRG2425\250670
Religious History and Catholic Archives: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach
Durham University
Value Awarded: £9,600.00
Funded By: DSIT
The demise of many Catholic religious orders in Britain has prompted secular universities and libraries to intervene, saving many communities’ collections from possible obliteration. This mediation - severing collections from their original environments - poses challenges to those seeking to understand the history and culture of these often-hidden communities of men and women. This project bridges this considerable anthropological perforation, offering ways to preserve the perspective of the religious themselves towards the collections. Through an international workshop and archival showcase (featuring anthropologists, historians, sociologists and theologians), the project will shape a methodology in which practitioners and religious converge. This will allow for more accurate ways for these historical collections, which have importance to the histories of topics including healthcare, politics, colonialism, gender, and race, to be understood. A co-edited volume will challenge the ways scholars interpret the history of Catholic religious minorities and diasporas in an age of secularization.
Dr Guillaume Tiberghien
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Justin John Lennon
SRG2425\251289
Asylum Tourism, Ideology, and Well-Being: A Pilot Study of the Crichton Royal Institution, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,954.00
Funded By: DSIT
The contested nature and lack of commemoration of asylum heritage through tourism have rarely been examined. The Crichton Royal Institution operated as an asylum between 1838 and 2013, pioneering an internationally recognised system of creative therapy. Its landscaped site—the Crichton—now hosts diverse academic, business, and leisure partners and is developing a Centre for Memory and Wellbeing, a facility for ethical research and exhibitions.
At this crucial time, this pilot study will explore CRI’s contested history. We will galvanise approaches for sensitive, accessible and appropriate interpretation. We aim to advance understanding of the nexus between asylum heritage, well-being, commemoration and tourism, using qualitative approaches and three key questions:
-How should historical interpretation be selected and shaped in asylum tourism?
-How should stakeholders utilise CRI heritage within the Crichton visitor experience?
-In what ways should understanding asylum heritage influence the planning and development of tourism and well-being within the UK?
Dr Valerio Torti
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Damiano Canapa
SRG2425\251041
Optimal Policies in ICT Standardization (OPICTS)
Edinburgh Napier University
Value Awarded: £4,150.00
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed project (OPICTS) intends to respond to the legal challenges posed by the rapid advancement of science and technology, which increasingly rely on the implementation of complex ICT (information and communication technology) standards. A seismic technological shift has indeed affected the ICT sector, which heavily depends on efficient standardization. The recent regulatory interventions at EU/UK levels highlight the existence of tensions in this context, between innovators (patent holders) and product implementers (potential licensees), and the urgent need of substantial changes.
The project aims at supporting the standard setting community in shaping for the better the standard development organizations (SDOs) legal framework and in effectively streamlining efficient and sustainable standardization activities, to the benefit of the society as a whole and of innovation-driven welfare. In particular, it aims at strengthening the intellectual property (IP) policies to be implemented in SDOs context and facilitating the licensing negotiations between innovators and implementers.
Dr Aliz Toth
SRG2425\250170
Land and Leviathan: The Political Economy of Eminent Domain
London School of Economics and Political Science
Value Awarded: £9,867.00
Funded By: DSIT
This book project explores why compulsory land acquisition for infrastructure leads to conflict between the state and landowners in India. Infrastructure investment, crucial for economic growth, often faces resistance, especially in rural areas where land holds significant livelihood and social value. Prior theories suggest resistance arises from weak state capacity and inadequate compensation. This study argues that negotiation failures arise from mutual commitment issues—states struggle to credibly offer sufficient compensation, while landowners cannot assure non-resistance. Using a mixed-methods approach, the project will collect quantitative data on land acquisition conflicts from news archives (1980-2024) and conduct 70-100 interviews across Indian states to probe the dynamics of bargaining over land. This project will map the pattern of conflict over time and space, analyze commitment dynamics, and recommend policies for smoother infrastructure development. The findings will contribute to the literature on state-society relations, highlighting the conditions for infrastructure success amidst societal resistance.
Dr Shunsuke Tsuda
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Tomohiro Hara
SRG2425\251251
Building Market Opportunities and Social Cohesion for Vulnerable Populations in a Diverse African City
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £9,970.00
Funded By: DSIT
This research studies the simultaneous process of enhancing market transactions and fostering coexistence between ethnic and religious groups in tension through market and non-market forces. We focus on vulnerable populations in geographically concentrated yet culturally segregated fragile communities in Nairobi where tensions exist between Christians and Muslims. On one hand, market forces alone can indirectly facilitate peaceful intergroup relationships by enhancing market transactions between diverse groups. On the other hand, non-market forces that directly promote intergroup interactions may be necessary to initially remove barriers between conflicting groups. To investigate these mechanisms, we introduce experimental interventions through occupation-specific vocational training to create new market opportunities within and beyond each community, as well as opportunities for intergroup contact. We evaluate short- and medium-term impacts of these interventions on economic, social, and psychological measures related to intergroup interactions and relations, as well as on the likelihood of marginalized youths engaging in high-risk activities.
Dr Layla Unger
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Rebecca Jackson
SRG2425\250829
Everyday Learning: How Incidental Exposure Shapes Category Knowledge
University of York
Value Awarded: £8,911.50
Funded By: DSIT
Our minds simplify the complexity of the world into categories such as “dog”, “cup” and “chair” that guide how we think about and interact with their members. For example, recognizing something as a dog allows us to anticipate that it is likely to walk on the ground rather than take flight, interpret its behaviour as friendly or threatening, and discuss it in conversation. Understanding how we simplify the world into categories has long been a focus for efforts to understand the human mind, yet these efforts are largely divorced from everyday reality. Lab studies typically prompt learners to explicitly figure out how to divide new things into categories, whereas everyday reality is full of incidental encounters, such as passing a dog on the street. These different experiences may lead to fundamentally different forms of learning and category knowledge. We therefore aim to investigate how incidental encounters shape category learning.
Dr Priyanka Vedi
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Jenna Ward
SRG2425\250851
Emotional labour in healthcare and implications for future practice
Roehampton University
Value Awarded: £9,360.00
Funded By: DSIT
A sociological analysis of emotions experienced by workers in the frontline of healthcare delivery can be assessed by exploring connections between NHS organization systems and practices and the emotional labour at the point of delivery. This research project considers the link between institutional logics and workplace emotion by conducting a case-study of frontline healthcare professionals to examine their lived experiences which may be used to improve their conditions of work. Forces such organizational bureaucracy, professionalism, consumerism, and community expectations affect the experiential realities of healthcare workers. Through a qualitative exploration using semi-structured interviews, this study aims to address an empirical-gap by developing new research on workplace emotionality; it creates the potential to also offer new directions for future research by considering the interplay of emotion within and between key professional-groups.
Dr Luke Vinter
SRG2425\251374
Exploring the Career Experiences of Neurodivergent People in Policing
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,980.44
Funded By: DSIT
There has recently been an increased interest in neurodivergence in criminal justice contexts, and issues of inclusivity for neurodivergent people in workplace settings more broadly. Despite this, there is an absence of research that has explored neurodivergence within the police. Therefore, the project proposed in this application will seek to capture in-depth, novel insights into neurodivergent people’s experiences of working in policing. A combination of visual career maps and semi-structured interviews will be used to explore and capture the lived experiences of neurodivergent people in different stages of their policing career. Analyses of this data will aim to identify challenges and/or obstacles neurodivergent people experience when pursuing policing careers, identify where they may benefit from support when pursuing policing careers (and what that support may look like). From this, the aim is to formulate policy and practical recommendations to enhance recruitment, training, progression and support of neurodivergent people in policing.
Professor Ian Walker
SRG2425\250131
Special Education Needs, Delay to Support, and Non-Mainstream Schooling
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
A significant and rising minority of pupils have Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND). The important policies to tackle SEND’s adverse consequences have been the provision of additional resources and of non-mainstream schooling.
Existing research fails to address the separate effects of SEND with and without additional support. Nor does it address whether attending special schools improves outcomes. This project will use two large, high-quality cohort datasets, and sophisticated statistical methods, to attempt to redress these gaps in the literature - to assess whether enough is being done, and done soon enough, to ameliorate the SEND penalty.
Recent research, using a large cohort of children born in 1999/2000, showed a SEN educational penalty of approximately 20 GCSE letter grades. Recent official research suggests that ONE such grade is worth £8.5k over the lifetime, so a crude calculation suggests a huge loss of labour market productivity worth £170k per SEND pupil.
Dr Matthew Ward
SRG2425\250936
A new scholarly edition of the works of Lord Byron for the Longman Annotated English Poets series (Volume VI)
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed project provides essential research towards the completion of a major new edition of Byron’s poetry, under contract with Routledge, as part of their prestigious Longman Annotated English Poets series. Focusing on foundational work for volume 6 of The Poems of Lord Byron, the project requires editing works afresh from the original manuscripts, and thus involves archival research so as to produce an entirely new reading copy of Byron’s poetry from 1820-21, accompanied by extensive headnotes and comprehensive annotations. The edition offers original research into Byron’s life and times as well as compositional practices, detailing the experiences of a cosmopolitan poet in exile in Italy, one immersed in the philosophy, science, and politics of the day. Byron’s writing has always been a testament to and expression of personal, poetic, and political liberty. Volume 6 will ensure his radical voice is heard by the next generation of scholars and students.
Dr Till Weber
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jonathan F Schulz
SRG2425\251163
Partisanship and the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions
Newcastle University
Value Awarded: £9,993.64
Funded By: DSIT
Effective economic and political institutions are frequently thought to be a key driver of economic prosperity. Apart from the set of rules they prescribe, their perceived legitimacy may likewise be crucial for their effective functioning. For example, democratically implemented institutions may offer a “democracy premium”, suggesting they could be more effective than their otherwise identical but non-democratically implemented counterparts. Given the strong correlation between partisanship and political values, our study aims to investigate this relationship through an experimental approach. We will explore how partisanship affects the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions and whether experts or strong leaders can likewise enhance institutional effectiveness. By utilising decision-making experiments and questionnaires, our research will provide novel evidence for the role of legitimacy in institutional effectiveness and in doing so contribute to an ongoing debate across economics, psychology, and political science.
Dr Gillian West
SRG2425\251895
Assessing Narrative Language Development in Young Children: Evaluating the Use of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument of Narrative (MAIN) before and after children’s transition to school
University College London (UCL)
Value Awarded: £9,806.05
Funded By: DSIT
This longitudinal study will investigate the development of children’s narrative language skills between the ages of 3 – 5 years using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument of Narrative (MAIN; Gagarina et al., 2012), a comprehensive assessment capturing a wide range of macro- and micro-structure language components, which offers detailed insight into the development of children’s narrative language skills as they make the transition to school. Additionally, it is estimated that approximately 30% of children attending preschool in England speak English as an Additional Language (EAL; SCEYP, 2023). This study will, therefore, seek to identify any differences between children with EAL and their monolingual peers in both initial level of preschool narrative skills and growth in narrative skills achieved once children reach school. Finally, narrative skills will be examined in relation to teacher ratings of children’s behavioural adjustment to school to examine the interplay between language, socio-emotional development, and school readiness.
Dr Matthew Woolgar
SRG2425\250668
Indonesian Environmentalism from the 1970s to the 1990s: A Global-Local Perspective
University of Leeds
Value Awarded: £8,385.00
Funded By: DSIT
Understanding the conditions for increasing environmental consciousness in society is a pressing global issue. However, scholarship on the rise of environmentalism has been notably uneven, marked by a striking bias toward developments in the Global North. This project shifts our perspective on the global environmental movement by foregrounding the interaction between changing international trends, increasing diplomatic engagement surrounding environmental protection and the growth of environmentalism in Indonesia from the 1970s to 1990s. To do this, the project addresses key ‘contact points’ between global environmentalism and developments in Indonesia. A first strand focuses on state-led activity, analysing Indonesia’s participation in international environmental conferences; a second strand focuses on civil society actors, examining the discourses of prominent Indonesian environmental NGOs with international connections. The project will result in a conference paper, peer-reviewed journal articles, an article for an online magazine, and will also feed into a subsequent large grant application.
Dr Ting Wu
SRG2425\250721
AID-ECO: AI-enabled impact modelling and Data analytics of renewable energy development on decoupling ECOnomic growth from carbon emissions
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £8,666.00
Funded By: DSIT
The overarching goal of this AID-ECO project is to explore the power of data analytics and AI techniques in the impact evaluation and strategy development of renewable energy. Accelerating renewable energy development has become a global endeavour to address climate change challenges, while sustaining economic development. Most of the existing research focused on the use of econometric methods to characterise the relationships between energy consumption, carbon emissions and economic growth, which makes it difficult to inform decision making on decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. This research aims to collate data from different databases and then develop explainable AI and data science models to capture the complex causal relationships between traditional and renewable energy consumptions, carbon emissions and economic growth nationally and internationally. The analytical findings will be helpful to support data-driven decision and policy making on net-zero strategies.
Dr Min Yan
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Qionglei Yu
SRG2425\251198
Exploring Service Robot Preferences: Enhancing Well-Being for Lonely Consumers
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £9,954.00
Funded By: DSIT
Loneliness has emerged as a pervasive social issue, significantly impacting individuals' emotional well-being and overall quality of life. This research aims to explore the social psychological mechanisms behind lonely consumers' preferences for service robots over human interactions. Specifically, it will investigate how emotional loneliness influences these preferences and identify the features of service robots that can enhance satisfaction and well-being for lonely individuals. By examining the interplay between emotional loneliness and service robot attributes, this research seeks to provide valuable insights into how service robots can be optimised to meet the emotional needs of lonely individuals. The findings will contribute to the existing literature on loneliness, technology, and consumer behaviour, offering practical implications for service industries aiming to foster emotional connections and improve customer experiences. Ultimately, this study aims to advance understanding of how technology can serve as a supportive tool in addressing the loneliness epidemic and enhancing emotional well-being.
Professor Shu-Jung Yang
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Lin-Chih Wu
SRG2425\251583
Optimising Product Line Design in Professional Service Operations
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,740.00
Funded By: DSIT
Professional service providers, including those in accounting and consulting, face increasing pressure to customise services to meet diverse client needs. Contributing around 8% to 10% of the UK’s GDP, the professional service sector is vital to the national economy. We propose the use of product line design (PLD) techniques from operations management to enable these firms to deliver tailored solutions effectively. Using auditing as a case study, where quantitative data is available, we will develop an empirical model based on the analytical PLD framework to assess how PLD enhances service customisation in competitive markets. Although focused on auditing, the findings are expected to be applicable across various professional services. Our project introduces a quantitative approach to professional service operations, addressing a significant gap in a field reliant on qualitative research. This project will provide actionable insights for optimising service offerings to meet client expectations while sustaining a competitive edge.
Dr Abubakri Yekini
SRG2425\250308
The Effectiveness of Matrimonial Dispute Resolution in Non-State Judicial Bodies: The Nigerian Independent Shariah Panels (ISPs) as a Case Study
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,890.00
Funded By: DSIT
Many Nigerian women, married under Islamic law, turn to non-state judicial bodies, specifically the Independent Shariah Panels, to resolve divorce and other matrimonial disputes. There exists a dearth of literature on the effectiveness of this alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism. To address this gap, this project seeks to investigate the question of access to justice within the Shariah Panels by gathering primary data through the examination of court records and interviews with court registrars, judges, legal practitioners, and the litigants involved. This project specifically focuses on financial support payments awarded after marriage dissolution, the rate of compliance, and the enforcement mechanisms in place. The findings and recommendations will be disseminated through workshops, publication in reputable international journals, and communication with policymakers and the broader public. Ultimately, this project aims to inform evidence-based policies that can enhance access to justice for Nigerian women who are subject to Islamic law.
Dr Aiora Zabala
SRG2425\252006
AI-generated information for climate-smart agriculture adoption in the U.S.
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £5,931.25
Funded By: DSIT
Conventional agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions globally, and practices such as cover crops can transform current systems into Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA). However the adoption of these practices is slow, despite government incentives. This research examines the effectiveness of AI-generated information in increasing cover crop adoption among farmers in the U.S. Midwest. We compare traditional agricultural extension services with AI-driven advice tailored to individual farms, considering regional climate data, crop types, and optimal planting dates. Farmers in the treatment group receive AI-customised recommendations via email, while the control group rely on traditional extension methods. This study contributes to knowledge about AI’s role in promoting sustainable farming practices. By evaluating whether AI-generated information can enhance or outperform traditional extension services for the adoption of specific CSA practices, the findings will inform future strategies for integrating digital technologies into agricultural decision-making, potentially accelerating CSA adoption more broadly.
Dr Gabriel Ziegler
SRG2425\251998
Misaligned Reasoning
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £6,445.00
Funded By: DSIT
This project aims to advance game theory by developing a model that accounts for misaligned reasoning, where individuals hold beliefs about others that don’t necessarily match reality. Unlike traditional models, which implicitly assume players share an aligned reasoning processes, this framework allows for "misalignment," acknowledging that people often misinterpret others’ knowledge or preferences. Such differences are crucial in understanding behavior in markets and other strategic settings, where uncertainty and varying perspectives influence decision-making. Our work will explore how this misalignment impacts economic behaviors, with potential applications in market design, financial trading, and policymaking. We will collaborate in person to refine our model, analyze economic implications, and prepare a working paper. Presenting our findings at an international conference will help us gather feedback and build a foundation for future research. By incorporating more credible assumptions about interactive reasoning, our approach leads to more robust insights in economics and related fields.
Leverhulme
Dr Columba Achilleos-Sarll
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Toni Haastrup & Dr Jennifer Thomson
SRG2425\250297
Feminist Foreign Policy: Map, Policy, Power
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,952.59
Funded By: Leverhulme
In 2014, Sweden launched its ‘feminist’ foreign policy (FFP). Although Sweden has since retracted its policy, almost a decade later, many more FFPs have been adopted globally, in both Global North and South. With over a dozen countries adopting a feminist approach to their international affairs, FFP’s influence has been substantial. This project has three key objectives: 1) mapping the current state of FFP globally; 2) developing and analysing a 'living' archive of FFP policy documents, and; 3) identifying patterns across FFP sites and practices. An original, multi-functional, website will be the flagship project output. The first of its kind, the website will serve as an essential research and policy tool for different audiences, including governments, civil society, and academics. The project will offer new insights on FFP, preserve FFP documents for future use, and inform the development of feminist informed policies globally based on the best practices identified.
Dr Nayara Albrecht
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Emily Rainsford
SRG2425\250207
Data Science and Artificial Intelligence for Government Intelligence: A Study of Local Authorities in England
Newcastle University
Value Awarded: £8,694.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science offer transformative tools for decision-making, yet their application in the public sector is underexplored. This project seeks to fill this gap by investigating how local government organisations in the North East of England use AI and data to enhance policymaking and service delivery. Through online surveys, in-depth interviews, and observational research, the team will examine current practices in local councils. Partnering with the North East Data Network (DataNEt), a community of local government officials and data specialists, this research will co-deliver best practices and guidance to local policymakers on effectively utilising data science and AI. The project will address key challenges and highlight opportunities, helping policymakers navigate and implement these technologies. By creating practical resources—such as guides and toolkits—it will bridge the gap between advanced technology and public administration, offering insights that can be extended to other regions.
Dr Matthew Alexander
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jane Johnstone
SRG2425\250039
Beavering away: Nature restoration and the community
University of Strathclyde
Value Awarded: £8,719.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Rewilding and nature restoration initiatives aim to reverse global biodiversity loss, severely impacted by human activities – in the UK, for example, half of all wildlife and plant species have been lost. These projects focus on ecosystem restoration through species reintroduction and natural processes, allowing nature to self-regulate. Success, however, depends not only on ecological outcomes but also on community engagement and managing socio-political challenges, as land use and species reintroduction can provoke public tension. This research will examine how individual and community actors engage with rewilding projects, assessing the factors that influence acceptance, identifying opportunities and barriers in project design and delivery, and evaluating ways to balance ecological goals with local economic, cultural, and social interests. Using a multi-method qualitative approach, including digital research and ethnographic fieldwork, the study aims to provide insights into how community engagement can enhance the effectiveness of rewilding projects and contribute to biodiversity conservation.
Professor Zeynep Aycan
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Mustafa Ozbilgin
SRG2425\251653
Don't judge a leader by their reluctance
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £9,994.63
Funded By: Leverhulme
This study delves into the global challenge of biases in identifying high-potential leaders, with a focus on reluctance to lead. Despite competence, reluctance may impede the recognition of effective leaders. Emerging literature indicates a curvilinear relationship between reluctance and leader effectiveness. Through vignettes portraying varying levels of competence, reluctance, and typicality (male vs. female), human resource practitioners will evaluate candidates for inclusion in the talent pool. The research will investigate the interaction effects among study variable to discern the conditions that are most and least conducive to biases. HR professionals will participate in data collection via professional associations (i.e., Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), FT500 companies and online platforms. This research aims to uncover biases in talent selection processes and shed light on critical aspects of organizational leadership development within a concise framework. The study will generate impact on legal and social regulation of leadership emergence and succession.
Dr Saeed Bagheri
SRG2425\251881
Military Necessity and the Evolving Dynamics of Military Advantage in International Humanitarian Law
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,957.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project questions States’ discretion in interpreting international humanitarian law (IHL) as a way of justifying their military actions during armed conflicts. The project tackles a series of scenarios that separate discrete legal questions from being examined about misreading IHL by States. For example, Russia deliberately attacked Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, including dams and energy ports, and Israel’s heavy bombardment of civilian populated areas in Gaza is expected to contaminate the natural environment in the long term. The discussion will focus predominantly on rationales for justifying such actions, and the question of whether and the extent to which States can legitimately resort to military necessity when attacking civilian infrastructure that does not have direct military use and might be questionable under IHL.
Dr Oriol Bosch Jover
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Francesco Rampazzo
SRG2425\251717
Biases in Computer Vision Training Datasets: A Methodological Perspective
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £9,807.14
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project examines how bias in image labelling affects the fairness of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, especially in Computer Vision (CV). CV algorithms enable machines to interpret images by identifying objects, people, or other features. These algorithms rely on labelled datasets, often created by humans, whose individual biases can affect how labels are applied. This can be particularly problematic when labelling complex societal concepts such as race or family. Bias may occur from mistakes or stereotyping, which can result in algorithms that misrepresent marginalized groups. Using methods from survey science, this project will test how labellers’ characteristics (e.g., gender, political views) and task designs influence labelling accuracy. We will focus on the challenge of identifying families —a subjective task that can result in biased outcomes (e.g., not recognizing same-sex families). By exploring approaches that reduce bias, the findings will help researchers develop fairer algorithms, improving the inclusivity of CV systems.
Dr David Churchill
SRG2425\251915
The price of justice: public spending and the political economy of UK criminal justice in historical perspective
University of Leeds
Value Awarded: £8,308.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
The way the criminal justice system functions is shaped by legislative reform, institutional design, political ideology and professional practice. But criminal justice is not just a matter of law, institutions, politics and practice — it is also a matter of money. The resources governments devote to the criminal justice system determine, in part, its form, reach and limitations. Yet research on the fiscal dimension of criminal justice is under-developed internationally. This project will provide the first empirical study of changing patterns of public spending and their relation to criminal justice in long-term historical perspective. It will document and evaluate available quantitative data and key archival records illuminating criminal justice spending in the UK since c. 1850, and deliver an outline study of patterns of public spending on criminal justice. Thus, the project will lay the foundations for future interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research addressing how public spending shapes criminal justice.
Professor Ignacio Cofone
SRG2425\252012
Preventing AI Discrimination by Governing Data
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,928.49
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project aims to develop a proactive data governance framework for AI decision-making in the private sector, focusing on preventing discrimination and enhancing transparency. It will investigate how AI systems built on personal data contribute to discriminatory outcomes and opacity, proposing regulatory solutions that mitigate these risks. The project will focus on AI-driven decisions in critical areas such as employment, finance, and housing, aiming to balance citizens’ rights with business interests. The research will deliver two major outputs: a framework for regulating AI training data to prevent bias and recommendations for transparency mandates in AI-based decisions.
Professor Raquel de Pedro Ricoy
SRG2425\250504
Indigenous Language Rights in Postcolonial Developed Countries (InLaRi)
University of Stirling
Value Awarded: £9,575.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project aims to generate knowledge about language policy planning and implementation that addresses the needs of Indigenous populations in postcolonial contexts in the Global North. Specifically, it will focus on analysing different attitudes towards the value of translation and interpreting as facilitators of access to Human Rights for minoritised communities in developed countries. Complementing previous collaborative research related to Indigenous Rights in developing Latin American countries funded by AHRC/GCRF, this project seeks to analyse the status quo in Canada and New Zealand. The rationale for this choice lies in the access to well-established local networks and in the evolving polarisation regarding the object of research in both countries, which seems to mirror that in Latin America (especially, since the Covid-19 pandemic), although, apparently, for different structural and infrastructural reasons. The project will contribute to the disciplines of Language Rights and Translation and Interpreting Studies.
Dr Zachary Dickson
SRG2425\251410
Energy Prices and Backlash to Climate Change Policies
London School of Economics and Political Science
Value Awarded: £6,500.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Public opposition to policies that are intended to reduce the impact of climate change - such as carbon taxes or energy efficiency projects - are increasingly met with opposition from voters. However, climate change itself can increase household costs associated with energy expenditure, which is often the primary means through which voters ‘feel’ the additional costs of climate change policies. This project combines machine learning and causal inference methods using microdata on household energy efficiency for over 26 million buildings in the UK to understand how voters respond to increased energy costs when they are driven by events outside the control of the government. This project will provide insights into how energy prices shape public opinion on climate change policies and party vote choice and will inform policy makers on how to design effective climate change policies that are resilient to public backlash.
Professor Matt Ffytche
SRG2425\251820
Writing out of this World: A collection of marginal, excluded and idiosyncratic texts from ‘outsider’ and psychiatric archives
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £6,717.50
Funded By: Leverhulme
The project assembles a corpus of writings (1900-1970) from psychiatric and ‘outsider’ archives, focussing on texts by individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia. Throughout the 20th century such texts were archived as symptoms of pathology. Although the mid-century emergence of art brut and ‘outsider art’ reassessed visual artworks by such patients as significant aesthetic productions, their textual works remain relatively undiscovered. This project makes a new intervention in the history of cultural and social responses to mental illness by gathering these neglected texts, and de-medicalising them, using approaches and methods drawn from history, literary theory, medical humanities, anthropology and practices of therapeutic listening. It argues that overcoming the segregation of outsider writings – as pathological or not worthy of cultural reception – and understanding them as acts of meaningful communication, even familiar human gestures, is a key step in overcoming the impulse to marginalise mental illness and people who live with it.
Dr Mohammed Ilyas
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Christian Kaunert & Dr Iqrak Sulhin
SRG2425\251715
Decolonial approach to de-radicalisation in Indonesia
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This study introduces an original, decolonial approach to de-radicalisation in Indonesia, exploring how individuals in prison-based programs disengage from radical ideologies and violence. Unlike conventional methods focused on behavioural change or religious re-education, this research uniquely links radicalisation and de-radicalisation to deeply personal experiences of loss, anger, shame, and trauma—rooted in local sociopolitical grievances and the ongoing colonialities affecting the Islamicate.
What sets this study apart from other research on de-radicalisation is its original methodology: participants are engaged as co-creators of knowledge, challenging traditional frameworks that often disregard historical power dynamics and the complex legacies of colonial influence. This decolonial approach provides a layered, original understanding of how individuals reconstruct their identities and beliefs during disengagement, even while causes of radicalisation persist.
The findings offer transformative insights to reshape de-radicalisation practices, guide policy, and support community-led initiatives, laying the groundwork for future decolonial research on de-radicalisation in Muslim-majority societies.
Dr Claire Jenkins
SRG2425\251237
$100 Million Women: Hollywood's Women Directors
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £3,357.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project will provide the first historical analysis of women filmmakers working within Hollywood. The project foregrounds women who have directed films that have made over $100 million at the American domestic box office – this is the industry marker of a mega-hit. The project will draw upon Hollywood histories, archival material, popular and trade press coverage, first person interviews and film analysis in order to provide a holistic analysis of women’s experiences within Hollywood. The culmination of this research will be a monograph that takes a chronological approach, from the 1980s to the 2020s, placing women, for the first time, at the centre of Hollywood history.
Dr Sobia Ahmad Kaker
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Zoha Waseem
SRG2425\251833
Patchworked Policing: A pilot study of policing arrangements in socio-spatially divided southern megacities
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £9,990.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This pilot project is a first exploration into the multiple and varied ways that pluralised policing is spatialised in unequal southern megacities. In megacities such as Karachi, characterised by sharp socio-political inequalities, socio-spatial divisions, and hybrid arrangements of urban governance, policing is a pluralised project. It is organised as an ensemble of formal and informal, state and non-state actors, institutions, technologies and processes that operate differentially across the urban landscape. Sometimes collaboratively and at other times in opposition, depending on localised arrangements of authority. Through a close investigation of the spatialisation of pluralised and hybrid policing across space in Karachi, an exemplary southern megacity, this project sets out to introduce and investigate the concept of 'patchworked policing'. It will outline how 'patchworked policing' operates, and with what effects on public trust and legitimacy for formal policing. Our findings will be disseminated through journal articles, workshops, podcasts, and blogs.
Dr Yousuf Kamal
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Andrews Owusu & Dr Rezaul Kabir
SRG2425\251361
Modern slavery practice in the global apparel supply chain: developing an accountability framework for slave-free apparel production and sourcing
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,937.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Modern slavery in global apparels industry and their supply chain is a growing issue of concern that has attracted increased attention in recent years (Oxfam GB, 2022). While the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA) mandates firms with a turnover of more than £36 million to produce annual slavery report, evidence suggests that compliance with the MSA is disappointing (Monciardini et al., 2021) and has allowed social wrongs, including modern slavery to persist (Ahmed et al., 2024). Murray et al. (2019) document that modern slavery is increasingly recognised in the apparel industry in Bangladesh, yet less attention has been paid to how the production of annual slavery report by the UK brands mitigates modern slavery down the supply chain in the apparel industry. This proposal attempts to develop an accountability framework for the UK brands and factories down the supply chain in Bangladesh to improve compliance with the MSA.
Dr Elif Kubilay
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jesica Mwithia & Professor Levi Obonyo
SRG2425\251521
Misinformation and Take-up of Social Programmes: Evidence from Western Kenya
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Social programmes are a powerful tool to help the poor break out of poverty traps. Designing and implementing these programmes, however, presents multiple challenges. A significant problem is incomplete take-up– not everyone eligible decides to participate in a program. This may lead to inefficient use of resources, as well as lack of statistical power and selection bias during programme evaluation. In this project, we investigate an unexplored barrier to social programme take-up: misinformation. Using mixed methods, we will examine the prevalence and types of misinformation about social programmes offered by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Western Kenya. Additionally, we will determine how susceptible individuals are to misinformation and to what extent this poses a significant barrier to programme take-up.
Dr Azar MahmoumGonbadi
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Nadine Leder
SRG2425\250975
Scaling-RC: Scaling Repair Cafés for a Circular Economy: Policy Innovations, Business Models, and Community Engagement.
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £9,990.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Repair is a key approach for extending the lifespan of products, and opting for repair services over buying new items generates local added value while supporting the circular economy and reducing waste. Repair cafés are community-driven spaces where volunteers assist people in fixing everyday items, helping to cut down on waste and promote sustainable consumption. Despite their potential, these initiatives face significant obstacles; Scaling-RC will explore how policies like Extended Producer Responsibility can help overcome these barriers and strengthen repair activities. It will focus on interviewing representatives from approximately 40 Repair Cafés across UK, excluding individual repairers, to understand their unique challenges and opportunities. Through interviews, surveys, and case studies, the research will develop strategies to align the repair movement with Environment Act 2021 goals. The findings will provide actionable recommendations for communities, businesses, and policymakers to foster a repair culture, scale Repair Cafés, and promote sustainable practices across UK.
Dr Nick McGlynn
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Les Wright
SRG2425\250344
A Golden Age of Bears?: archived origins and development of the gay/bi/queer men's 'Bear' phenomenon
University of Brighton
Value Awarded: £9,917.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Gay/bisexual/queer (GBQ) men who are fatter, hairier, older, and more masculine than popular imaginings of GBQ men are often characterised as Bears. From US origins in the early 1980s, as of the mid-2020s Bear identities, spaces, communities, and media exist globally. But Bear as a phenomenon remains under-researched and ignored in queer and wider sexualities scholarship. Furthermore Bear has been challenged by rising tensions relating to bodies, racism, and gender; and by recent critical scholarship disputing Bear as an identity. Central to these are questions of what Bear was, is, and should be. This project will enhance understanding of these challenges by investigating the development of Bear during its supposed 'Golden Age' (1980s to early 2000s). The funded project comprises primary research at an unexplored, at-risk archive of Bear historical materials held at Cornell University (USA), in collaboration with the archive's inceptor and a community oral history project.
Dr Christopher McMahon
SRG2425\251814
Game Over: A Re-Evaluation of Physical Social Gaming Spaces
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £4,670.53
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project will analyse the structures of feeling produced when videogames are played in a shared physical social space, allowing for the consideration of the importance of videogames in creating a space that is different from everyday experience and why that is so essential when avenues for escape are reducing. Using football-themed videogames as the focus, the study aims to the significance of physical spaces that allow for shared gaming experiences during a time where gaming culture is becoming increasingly immaterial. As physical game releases and sales are continually dropping and gaming consoles that are digital only become more economically accessible, there is a genuine danger that physical gaming spaces will significantly reduce further. Work that articulates the significance of physical gaming spaces from a games and media studies perspective is lacking. I aim to address this gap via ethnographic studies of shared play-spaces.
Dr Hairul Sharani Mohd Radzuan
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Siti Intan Nurdiana Wong Binti Abdullah
SRG2425\250192
Just Transition Towards Sustainable Transportation to Alleviate the Negative Impacts of Urban Overtourism
London South Bank University
Value Awarded: £9,843.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Overtourism has been a recent problem in large conurbations that attract millions of visitors annually. Cities like London and Amsterdam are flooded with tourists who fly in from all over the world, contributing to both the positive sphere of socio-economic growth and the negative sphere of environmental pollution. In addressing the contemporary pressing issue of just transition and climate change, our first research objective is to review the overtourism problem in two highly visited cities in the UK, Edinburgh and Manchester to compare with the situations in European cities. This will be followed with a field study involving a survey on tourists’ behaviours and perceptions towards sustainable transportation and a focus group with local tourism boards and local authorities. This study intends to aid tourism stakeholders, practitioners and businesses in achieving their net-zero goals in 2040 while curbing the issue of overtourism and addressing SDGs 11, 12 and 13.
Dr Timothy Neff
SRG2425\251249
Climate Change News in the US and UK: Assessing Ownership, Audience, and Policy Impacts on Quality Journalism
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £4,597.27
Funded By: Leverhulme
The object of this research programme is to establish the optimal media ownership structures, media revenue sources, media policies, and climate policy contexts – which are primary sources and contexts for climate news production – for producing and disseminating high-quality climate news for audiences from all socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds. As climate change is a rapidly intensifying problem that requires collective action, it is essential to understand how to inform and engage the broadest swath of the public in the search for solutions. Media portrayals of climate change are the primary means by which various audiences learn about climate change. By funding help with coding and with intercoder reliability testing for a content analysis of news texts produced from 2021 to 2023 in the US and UK, the grant would enable testing of correlations between high quality news and ownership, revenue models, media policies, and climate policy contexts.
Dr Emeka Njoku
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Kudus Oluwatoyin Adebayo
SRG2425\251735
“Everyday Violence” and (Im)mobility Experiences of LGBTQ+ Persons in Nigeria and the UK
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,992.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project explores the experiences and influence of everyday violence on LGBTQ+ individuals in Nigeria. In doing so, it examines the social, political, and socio-cultural factors that shape their migration aspirations and (im)mobility experiences between Nigeria and the UK. Exiting African LGBTQ+ mobility research rarely considers everyday violence and existentialities of discrimination, societal attitudes, and legal restrictions, and how such violence shape their (im)mobility experiences as they engage with border regimes in Europe. This impedes our understanding of the influence of everyday violence on African sexual minorities and their transnational movements from the Global South to the Global North. Therefore, this project will create new knowledge on the queer Africa scholarship and centring the African sexual perspective while advancing policies for transforming local attitudes and practices and global systems of control and regulation affecting sexual minorities in the Global South.
Dr Sarah Olive
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Lowri Jones & Mrs Gwawr Maelor
SRG2425\251613
Diversity in literary texts taught in secondary schools in Wales: a focus on characters
Aston University
Value Awarded: £9,688.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project explores characters' diversity in texts taught in secondary schools in Wales. It focuses on the representation of protected characteristics, including gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability, class and faith. It develops an instrument for conducting a diversity audit of the most popularly taught texts, then undertakes an audit using it. Findings about characters' diversity in these texts will be compared to diversity objectives in relevant Welsh Government education, cultural and language policies (e.g. Curriculum for Wales, Anti-racist Wales Action Plan, Cymraeg 2050). The research will draw conclusions about the extent to which characters' representation in the texts taught supports these policies and their enactment in educational settings. Recommendations concerning characters' diversity in the texts taught will be disseminated to Welsh Government, exam boards (i.e. WJEC), literary and cultural organisations, as well as schools, teachers, and initial teacher trainers, across and beyond Wales.
Dr Dennis Olsen
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Jonathon Crewe & Dr Marcus Nicholls
SRG2425\251948
Embedding co-creation in practice-based research to challenge and overcome ageist stereotypes in the UK
University of West London
Value Awarded: £9,992.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Ageism is the most commonly experienced form of discrimination in the UK, yet it is often overlooked when discussing forms of representation in narrative media and their contribution to negative stereotypes and subsequent impact on socio-cultural understandings of identities. Our project aims to counter this by producing an in-depth understanding of ageist representational tropes in fiction media and creative practice. From this, we aim to work with older actors to co-create a screenplay and film that explores the authentic lived experience of ageing, whilst avoiding binary and homogenous portrayals. These co-created artefacts, the screenplay and film, will be used as a central focus for the creation of additional resources to be made available to the general public, as well as for educational purposes. In addition, the project will form a template for future projects to embed co-creation with a community to challenge stereotypical representations of people with protected characteristics.
Professor Stephen Osborne
SRG2425\251503
Embedding value creation in the circular economy for vintage clothing: evaluating the approaches of the for-profit and non-profit retail sectors
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £9,403.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
The market for used and vintage clothes has become a significant element of the clothing retail market in Europe - in part because of consumer concerns about supporting an environmentally sustainable economy and in part because of the impact of the recent economic recession upon consumers. This study will explore how vintage clothing retailers seek to add value to the lives of their customers through their retail experience. It will explore what these 'value propositions' are, how they are enacted within their shops, and how they are experienced by and influence customers. In particular it will compare and contrast the approaches of for-profit and non-profit retailers and their customers, and consider the implications of this for sustainable retailing in the field of vintage and used clothing.
Dr Dan Paget
SRG2425\251188
Priming republican attitudes? Popular conceptions of democracy and the effectiveness of anti-authoritarian movement messaging
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,979.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Past research finds that democracy activists in authoritarian regimes espouse distinctive visions of democracy. It suggests that activists mobilise public opinion against authoritarian regimes by espousing those visions. However, past research has not analysed whether members of the public share those visions. Therefore, we do not know whether democracy activists are saying the right things to mobilise people against authoritarian regimes. I will place original survey questions in Tanzania (a hotbed of anti-authoritarian activism) to find that out. I will determine whether these democracy activists’ visions of democracy are reflected in public opinion. I will test how and whether people turn against authoritarian regimes when they hear activists espouse those visions. I will disseminate this urgent and timely research to democracy activists by publishing the research not only in academic journals but also op-eds in international and regional newspapers.
Dr Orestis Papadopoulos
SRG2425\251714
Emotions in Action: Exploring the Intersection of Labor Studies and Social Psychology in Collective Mobilization
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,987.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Since the summer of 2022, there has been a significant increase in strike activity worldwide. In the UK, prolonged disputes have emerged as workers seek to address the impacts of global economic challenges, including the conflict in Ukraine and rising energy costs. Despite this, many workplaces remain non-unionized, and numerous workers choose not to engage in industrial action. This project aims to reevaluate existing industrial relations frameworks that fail to account for the low participation rates, even in unionized environments marked by injustices and strong union identities. By drawing on insights from social psychology and the sociology of emotions, the project explores the often-overlooked role of emotion in collective action. Through qualitative research, we seek to understand how emotional dynamics operate at macro, meso, and micro levels, influencing participation in collective efforts.
Dr Tom Parr
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Areti Theofilopoulou
SRG2425\251306
Toxic Work Culture
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,791.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Toxic work culture is experienced by many workers. Its victims are often women, members of ethnic and racial minorities, and/or from other marginalized communities. Despite recently receiving public attention, the phenomenon has been under-explored by political philosophers. Our aim is to address two important questions. The first is the diagnostic question of when and why toxic work culture is unjust. Our hypothesis is that toxic work culture amounts to a form of abuse, and that to understand its wrongfulness we can reflect on its similarities with domestic abuse. Abusive co-workers and managers are, therefore, morally analogous to abusive spouses. The second question is the prescriptive one of who ought to address these injustices and how they should do so. Our hypothesis is that, just as governments are gradually strengthening individuals’ legal rights against toxic treatment in relationships, they should strengthen employees’ rights against toxic treatment in the workplace.
Dr Vahid Parvaresh
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Tahmineh Tayebi
SRG2425\250244
Discrimination Unveiled: A Mixed-Methods Study of Hate Speech Against LGBTQ Muslims on Social Media
Anglia Ruskin University
Value Awarded: £9,622.80
Funded By: Leverhulme
Hate speech significantly affects marginalised communities, particularly LGBTQ individuals, who face dual discrimination due to their sexual orientation and cultural or religious norms. Aligned with the British Academy's goal to enrich societal debates on pressing issues, this project investigates hate speech targeting LGBTQ individuals from Muslim backgrounds, highlighting their vulnerability in countries where their identities are often criminalised, and where laws may enable or support hate. The project will analyse hate speech on social media platforms, mainly Instagram, by examining the linguistic strategies employed in these expressions. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines advanced corpus linguistics techniques and discourse analysis, we will collect and analyse hateful comments directed at 20 non-celebrity LGBTQ content creators from Muslim background. This research aims to provide insights into the societal norms underpinning hate speech, contributing to discussions on language, discrimination, and the unique and understudied experiences of LGBTQ individuals from Muslim-majority backgrounds.
Dr Halley Pontes
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Christian Montag
SRG2425\251444
Levelling the Odds: Exploring the Intersection of Gaming and Gambling in the Digital Age
Birkbeck, University of London
Value Awarded: £9,450.03
Funded By: Leverhulme
This project will investigate the convergence between gaming and gambling, specifically examining how engaging in these activities impacts psychological health and wellbeing over time and across different age groups. While preliminary evidence suggests that gaming can increase the risk of problem gambling, this study will explore the ‘convergence hypothesis’ further by examining how the interplay between gaming and gambling behaviours affects psychological health and wellbeing, with particular attention to younger and more vulnerable individuals. By analysing data at multiple time points, the research will address a critical gap in understanding the long-term effects of this convergence. The findings will provide essential, evidence-based insights to inform policymakers and public health initiatives, helping to develop targeted strategies to protect individuals, especially those at greatest risk. This research will not only tackle an increasingly important issue but also contribute to a broader understanding of how digital entertainment influences psychological health and wellbeing.
Dr Mohammed Rahman
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Damian Breen
SRG2425\250712
The UK Crime-Terror Nexus: Threats to Security and Community Safety
Birmingham City University
Value Awarded: £9,991.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
The UK Government identifies both serious and organised crime (SOC) and terrorism as significant threats to national security, yet they are treated and policed separately (CONTEST 2023, NCA,2024). Birmingham faces distinct challenges, with organised crime linked to street gangs and county lines, while extremist and radical ideologies are often linked to terrorism. Despite evidence suggesting a connection between both crimes, the 'crime-terror nexus' remains under-researched in the UK. This project aims to investigate the links between SOC and terrorism in Birmingham. It will review existing research, conduct primary investigations, and offer practical recommendations to mitigate security threats and improve community safety. By addressing both crimes together, the project seeks to inform more effective policies, particularly for marginalised communities disproportionately affected by these issues. The findings will contribute to public understanding, inform interventions, and enhance national security strategies, filling a critical gap in research on the crime-terror nexus in the UK.
Dr Kay Ritchie
SRG2425\250848
Understanding within-person face variability
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £8,614.28
Funded By: Leverhulme
The proposed project represents the much-needed starting point in a large programme of research in the field of face perception. Research suggests that exposure to within-person variability, that is the idiosyncratic ways a specific person’s face changes across different images, is important for many aspects of face identification. To date, however, we do not have a way of quantifying and controlling the amount of variability in image sets. This project will address this need by collecting ratings of the similarity between different images of the same person. We will collect 456,000 ratings of 120 different identities, compare them to computer-based representations of face similarity generated from convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained for face identification, and use them to design the first experiment testing two competing theories of variability. The data generated here will be used by the research team in future projects, as well as the wider face research community.
Dr Ayele Kebede Roba
SRG2425\250532
Imagining Peace: The role of orature in conflict resolution and peace building among the Guji of Southern Ethiopia
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,999.98
Funded By: Leverhulme
The main purpose of this project is to study oral imaginative expressions that negatively portray the opponent groups and incite conflicts, and how they also promote peace, challenge traditional concepts of male bravery that encourage them to be violent among the Guji of the southern Ethiopia. The project follows an interdisciplinary decolonal approach to examine how the different elements of orature and their performance are shaped by and shape socio-cultural practices that situate orature within national and world literary production. It also foregrounds the role of women in the production and practice of orature to debunk a gender bias that presents women’s literary expressions as inferior to men’s. The project duration is 24 months; however, I need this fund to do a fieldwork in Ethiopia for two and half months in order to further develop a broader project, which studies how orature is interlinked with socio-cultural practices.
Professor Gillian A Rudd
SRG2425\251385
Eco-Grief and Its Consolations
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £3,965.22
Funded By: Leverhulme
The sudden felling of the ancient tree at Sycamore Gap on Hadrian’s wall on 27th September 2023 gave rise to public outcry which attracted wide-spread media coverage. The response was immediate, deeply felt, and intensely personal, as evidenced by the deluge of messages to the National Trust (NT) and Northumbrian National Park (NNP), the two bodies responsible for the Sycamore Gap site. Both organisations commissioned artwork marking the tree and reactions to its felling. These works of commemoration are analogous to consolation poems such as the anonymous Pearl and Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, which look to the natural world for solace. This Workshop will bring together representatives from the Environmental Humanities, psychoanalysis and the NT and NNP to explore causes and expressions of eco-grief and consider how best institutions and individuals might respond. Could what we know about human bereavement illuminate grief over the loss the natural world (eco-grief)?
Dr Paul Ivo Schaefer
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Mert Gumren & Dr Tingyan Jia
SRG2425\251887
Social Relationships and Beliefs about Preferences
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £9,960.00
Funded By: DSIT & Leverhulme
In strategic and social situations, decision-makers can anticipate others' actions in unfamiliar situations by forming beliefs about their preferences. We aim to investigate if and how their beliefs differ if they are about a person they are familiar with (e.g. a colleague or a friend) versus a stranger. We do that with an experiment in which we invite pairs of friends to the lab, elicit their risk and social preferences and beliefs about friends’ and strangers’ answers to the same elicitations. We structurally estimate the underlying preferences and probabilistic beliefs. Then we analyze the difference in accuracy, bias and variance between beliefs about friends and strangers preferences. The resulting data allows us to measure the difference in beliefs between friends and strangers and investigate mechanisms behind these differences such as Bayesian updating, the false consensus effect, homophily or empathy.
Dr Graham Scott
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Christopher Hand & Dr Gray Felton
SRG2425\251628
Investigating Online Abuse Against Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals
University of the West of Scotland
Value Awarded: £9,983.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) individuals are disproportionately targeted by online abuse relative to cis-gender individuals. They are a vulnerable group; the abuse they receive is typically sexuality- or gender-based and more harmful than abuse against cis victims. We will investigate abuse, and perceptions of abuse, against TGNC individuals via two strands of research. In strand 1 we will gather qualitative data from a spectrum of TGNC individuals about their identities and the online abuse they receive. We will co-create and norm authentic examples of abuse for use as experimental stimuli. In strand 2, we will produce ‘screenshots’ of abusive online interactions and empirically investigate the roles played by victim gender identity and abuse type (defined in strand 1), and observer characteristics (e.g., transphobia), over three empirical experiments measuring observer perceptions of severity and victim blame. We will disseminate our findings to academics, stakeholders, the public, and governmental policy makers.
Dr Charlotte Unruh
SRG2425\251003
Meaningfulness and Automation
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,004.00
Funded By: Leverhulme
Many people want to live meaningful lives. But with new technologies, more and more activities that we find meaningful can be automated, resulting in ‘meaningfulness gaps’ or even ‘crises of meaning’. The literature in AI ethics explores how automation can impact meaningfulness in different domains, such as meaningful work or relationships. However, ethicists have not yet fully explored how meaningfulness connects to other important values such as well-being, leaving the significance of meaningfulness gaps unclear. This project explores the nature and significance of meaningfulness gaps, especially in the context of work. It does so, firstly, by drawing on philosophical theories of harm to analyse harms of meaningfulness, secondly, by exploring subjectivist perspectives on meaningful work, and finally, by bringing these results together to analyse the harm of meaningfulness gaps in the automation of work.
Dr Hilary Wynne
SRG2425\251626
Eliciting language-specific signatures for expertise in the human brain
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £7,781.60
Funded By: Leverhulme
What does it mean to be an expert in terms of language? Using a specialised language (many which feature small vocabularies and restricted syntax) is often an integral part of being an expert in a field (e.g. medicine, aviation). Expertise comes, in part, from prior knowledge gained through training and experience. A growing body of research has focused on differences between experts and non-experts; however, evidence for the contribution of language to expertise is scarce. This project uses electrophysiological measurements of brainwave activity to examine how experts in the field of aviation employ contextual cues to process violations in the specialised language of Aviation English. While nonstandard language use in aviation has long been identified as a serious problem, the industry lacks effective data on how it is processed. By establishing precisely how violations affect the expert brain, we can demonstrate why maintaining language standardisation in aviation is so important.
Wellcome
Dr Adrien Allorant
SRG2425\251834
Optimizing HIV Self-Testing Delivery and Data Integration to Enhance HIV Care in Mozambique
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £7,350.00
Funded By: Wellcome
Mozambique has one of the highest HIV burden globally, with an estimated 2.4 million people living with HIV and 81,000 new infections in 2023. A major challenge to epidemic control is that only 86% of people living with HIV are aware of their status, significantly below the global target of 95%. Additionally, pre-exposure prophylaxis access remains limited, with 2.5 million users against the 2025 target of 10 million.
HIV self-testing (HIVST) offers a promising strategy to address these gaps. However, challenges persist in ensuring that those who self-test positive are effectively linked to care, and those who test negative are connected to prevention services.
This research seeks to (i) evaluate whether facility-based HIVST improves linkage to services compared to community-based distribution; (ii) I will map existing data sources and stakeholders to assess the feasibility of integrating fragmented electronic medical records into a unified platform to enhance HIV surveillance systems.
Dr Atif Bilal
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Aykut Berber & Mr Fatih Avcilar
SRG2425\251272
Cultural Adjustment, Identity, and Well-being: An IPA Study of Workplace Inclusion Challenges Faced by Foreign Workers in the UK
University of the West of England, Bristol
Value Awarded: £8,000.00
Funded By: Wellcome
Abstract
This research investigates the experiences of foreign workers in the UK, focusing on their cultural adjustment, identity formation, and psychosocial well-being within the workplace. With the increasing influx of international professionals, understanding their challenges in achieving workplace inclusion is critical. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study will conduct qualitative interviews across various sectors to explore how cultural identities are shaped and tested in workplace dynamics. The research aims to identify specific obstacles, such as language barriers and social isolation, while examining coping mechanisms, including support networks. The findings will provide actionable recommendations for policymakers and organizations to foster more inclusive and equitable environments, ultimately enhancing the emotional well-being and identity of foreign employees. This research addresses an urgent need for evidence-based strategies that can inform organizational practices and contribute to a more inclusive workplace culture in the UK.
Dr Liam Chawner
SRG2425\250084
Understanding the role of children’s food liking on consumption at mealtimes
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £9,699.75
Funded By: Wellcome
This project will measure the effect of children’s liking for individual food items on intake of those foods when served at mealtimes. Children commonly like vegetables less than other foods that are served within meals (e.g. proteins or carbohydrates), meaning that vegetables are under consumed at mealtimes due to competition between foods. This study will collect food liking and intake data within primary schools (children 5-7 years) over three separate tasks: 1) computer-based liking and food choice, 2) willingness to try a snack vegetable, 3) intake of foods at school mealtimes. This project is novel as it will determine in a natural setting how children’s liking for individual foods affects the amount of foods eaten or avoided during mealtimes. Understanding this will help to develop interventions that will increase vegetable intake at mealtimes, when vegetables are most commonly served to children.
Professor Beverley Clough
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Anna Nelson
SRG2425\250860
Birth doulas as a liminal actor with/in medical law: Identifying regulatory and conceptual tensions
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,982.40
Funded By: Wellcome
There is increasing interest in birth doulas from pregnant women and birthing people in the UK. Doulas are not medically trained but are seen as a source of physical and emotional support for the birthing person. They are not formally regulated professionals, and the exact definition and boundaries of their role remains open to interpretation. As doulas are largely unregulated, there are concerns as to quality and consistency of care or service provision. There is also evidence that doulas can positively impact birth outcomes. The lack of clarity around their role leads to significant uncertainty for doulas, those who engage doulas, and for healthcare professionals. The project aims to produce original knowledge on the nature and role of birth doulas and to understand their position in relation to existing medico-legal frameworks. The knowledge produced will expand academic and policy understandings of birth doulas, inter-professional dynamics, medico-legal concepts and regulation.
Susan Coan
Co-Applicant(s): Ms Jill Jones & Ms
SRG2425\250567
Learning from the Welsh language revival programme to develop programmes to protect British Sign Language and improve deaf children's wellbeing
Leeds Beckett University
Value Awarded: £9,995.30
Funded By: Wellcome
British Sign Language (BSL) was officially recognised as a language in Great Britain in 2022, but the majority of deaf children are born into hearing families and do not have the opportunity to learn sign language.
Supporting deaf children to become bilingual in BSL and English has benefits for their cognitive development and their overall wellbeing through involvement in both Deaf and hearing communities, but BSL is considered an endangered language by UNESCO.
This research aims to learn from the Welsh government’s Welsh language revival plan, in particular the stream of work supporting non-Welsh speaking parents to encourage Welsh language acquisition in their children, to inform policy and programmes that support the deaf children of hearing parents to learn BSL.
This project will use a literature review and qualitative data collection to learn from the Welsh language revival plan and then apply the findings to develop recommendations to protect BSL.
Dr Altricia Dawson
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Anne Touboulic & Dr Lucy McCarthy
SRG2425\250791
Co-creating sustainable food systems to support good health and wellbeing in marginalised communities
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,891.98
Funded By: Wellcome
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals highlight the urgency of transitioning towards Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12) and achieving Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG 3). This study focuses on empowering marginalised stakeholders in food systems to enhance their opportunities to achieve these SDGs. The sustainability agenda is often dominated by developed countries, marginalising smallholder farmers and consumers in developing countries. To address this, our research engages smallholder farmers and consumers in Jamaica, exploring their perspectives and experiences with the sustainability agenda relevant to food systems and health. Using a participatory approach, including stakeholder workshops and interviews, the project aims to rehumanize food supply chains and build capacity to tackle SDG 12 and SDG 3 collaboratively with developing countries. By amplifying the voices of marginalised stakeholders, we seek to influence sustainability policies and practices, fostering healthy and sustainable food systems.
Dr Elisavet Hasa
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Ioana Petkova
SRG2425\250910
Holistic Care Through Participatory Design: Integrating Community Gardens into Urban Health Strategies
London South Bank University
Value Awarded: £9,840.00
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates how urban community gardens function as critical interventions for mental health and social cohesion in London, addressing urgent challenges of urban isolation and environmental justice. Through mixed-methods research combining GIS-enabled spatial analysis of 33 community gardens and participatory workshops with a smaller sample, we will generate novel insights into how these spaces foster psychological resilience and community bonds across diverse socioeconomic contexts. The study will produce three key outputs:
(1) an evidence-based spatial framework mapping the relationship between garden designs and mental health outcomes;
(2) practical design guidelines co-created with community stakeholders, and;
(3) policy recommendations for integrating therapeutic gardens into London’s urban development strategies.
By examining these gardens as sites of both mental health intervention and social innovation, this research will provide urgently needed empirical evidence to support policymakers and urban planners in developing more resilient, inclusive, and mentally healthy cities.
Dr Paul Hibbard
SRG2425\251471
Optimal sensory coding and exposure to extreme body types: understanding the implications for body image disturbance
University of Stirling
Value Awarded: £9,743.00
Funded By: Wellcome
Misestimating the shape or size of one's body is a key risk factor in the development of eating disorders, muscle dysmorphia and depression. One’s body image can be influenced by societal norms, personal experience and the media. Exposure to images of extreme body types, as can occur on social media, can distort our perception of bodies, including our own. For example, if we are surrounded by highly muscular bodies for a period time, an average body will appear low in muscularity. This change in perception is predicted by theoretical models in which mental representations are shaped to match our recent experience. Our research will test whether this adaptation changes our perceptual sensitivity, making us less able to accurately judge anatomical differences between bodies that are unlike our recent experience. The distortion of perceptual sensitivity is proposed to play a key role in body size and shape misperception.
Dr Alanna Higgins
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Kieran Phelan & Dr Sam Strong
SRG2425\251304
The (In)Visibility of Student Food Insecurity: A pilot study of student food insecurity and educational geographies at the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £8,331.33
Funded By: Wellcome
Students attending UK universities report increased financial hardships during the current cost-of-living crisis. This pilot study will use participatory and qualitative methods to investigate the relationships between student food access and the broader educational context to examine how various factors influence students’ academic success and students’ ability to actively and successfully participate at university. Student voices will be at the forefront of the work through the use of photovoice and focus groups to capture their experiences. The project will contribute to empirical understandings of food insecurity among UK students, a topic that is currently under-researched. Project findings will inform immediate institutional responses as well as developing a robust participatory methodology. This will lay the groundwork for larger-scale studies at regional and national levels, which will ultimately guide policy decisions on student support packages in Higher Education.
Professor Ilke Inceoglu
SRG2425\251656
Understanding the Sunday Night Blues
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,967.45
Funded By: Wellcome
The aim of this research project is to better understand the Sunday Night Blues. Many people report feeling down and anxious on a Sunday evening in anticipation of the work week ahead. Although plenty of advice is offered in the media and well-being apps on actions to take to feel better on a Sunday evening, the phenomenon of the Sunday Night Blues is not well-understood. The objectives of this project are to examine how people’s transition into the weekend, their activities on weekends and sense of control over their leisure time, have an impact on their emotions on Sunday evening and their well-being and work behaviours on Monday. Applying ‘experience sampling’ as a study design, data will be collected with a sample of a minimum of 400 working adults who will be surveyed across two weekends on their emotions, well-being and activities from Friday evening until Monday evening.
Dr Siew Kei Kho
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Sarah Bate
SRG2425\250117
Optimizing transcranial electrical stimulation for enhancing face identification
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,972.40
Funded By: Wellcome
Face identification is essential for everyday social interactions, and losing this ability as a consequence of brain damage or abnormal development can profoundly impact one's social and personal life. Face identification skills are also crucial in forensic scenarios whereby the identification of others is important (i.e., eyewitness identification, identity checkpoints). Thus, finding methods to improve face identification skills is important for both mental health and national security. Transcranial electrical stimulation has recently emerged as a method to enhance face identification, but the results are inconsistent, probably due to differences in parameters and tasks employed across studies. Across two different experiments, this project will determine the optimal stimulation parameters for improving face identification in different tasks (face memory and face perception). This research will inform the use of electrical stimulation to enhance face processing and cognitive abilities beyond face processing, paving the way for significant advancements in neuroscience and practical interventions.
Dr Ye Seul Kim
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Courtney Szocs
SRG2425\251352
Brand Perception and Well-being of Minority Consumers
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Wellcome
This proposal outlines a research project that examines healthiness perceptions varying by customer segments. Specifically, this research will investigate minority consumers' perceptions of human referencing brands (i.e., brands that highlight human involvement) and how they vary from perceptions of non-minority consumers. The understanding of minority groups’ healthiness perception and healthy choices is essential to mitigate health disparities and enhance well-being in minority populations since obesity rates are disproportionately high in some minority groups. This research will also provide valuable insights for marketers and managers by identifying marketing factors that may be uniquely effective to specific target groups.
Professor Praveen Kujal
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Joaquín Gómez Miñambres & Professor Stephen Rassenti
SRG2425\250415
Work Breaks, Productivity, and Wellbeing
Middlesex University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Wellcome
Breaks in the workplace are deemed important for worker welfare and productivity. U.K. government regulation requires short breaks after 6 hours of work. Additionally, post Covid there has been increase in flexible work-from-home policy with unmonitored breaks. Several related studies have examined the effects of taking breaks but, most face significant limitations, such as small sample sizes that lack statistical power and inadequate experimental control, making it difficult to establish causality. Though breaks are widely used, little empirical evidence is available as regards worker productivity and wellbeing in a controlled experimental setting. Using laboratory experiments, we propose exploring the role of different break formats on worker productivity and wellbeing. Work break schedules are either pre-set or chosen by the worker: short breaks occurring at frequent intervals, a single long break mid-way, and no-break until the end. Finally, this study will lay the groundwork for a future larger intervention.
Dr Jinfeng Lu
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Dimo Dimov
SRG2425\251166
Natural Language Processing to explore the Mental Health Landscape of Entrepreneurs in UK
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £9,500.00
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates the mental health challenges faced by entrepreneurs using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to analyze data from social media, blogs, and interviews. Given the unique pressures of entrepreneurship—such as financial risk, isolation, and overwhelming workloads—this research aims to identify prevalent mental health issues, stressors, and coping mechanisms within the entrepreneurial community. Key research questions focus on the prevalence of mental health challenges, their underlying causes, and how discussions around mental well-being evolve throughout the entrepreneurial journey. It also includes temporal analysis to examine how mental health discourse changes during periods of economic stress or crisis. By employing methodologies like topic modeling and sentiment analysis, the study seeks to create a comprehensive framework for understanding entrepreneurial mental health. The findings will provide valuable insights for entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers, ultimately contributing to targeted interventions that foster resilience and well-being in this critical economic sector.
Dr Evangelia Marinakou
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Michele Board
SRG2425\250806
Dementia-friendly hospitality and tourism services
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,676.05
Funded By: Wellcome
Dementia is becoming a major global health issue. Research shows that tourism-related activities can significantly enhance well-being and mental health in the early stages of dementia. Most current studies focus on facilities and services for tourists with dementia, however research on hotel employees', that serve customers with dementia, emotional labour, exhaustion and burnout are not studied. This compelling situation prompts several important questions: Are hotel employees and managers adequately prepared to assist guests with dementia? How does their interaction with this demographic impact their own well-being? Is there potential for training programmes to help them create positive experiences for guests with dementia?
This pilot study is groundbreaking, marking the first empirical research focused on emotional labour and exhaustion among employees and managers serving this demographic, while also tackling challenges related to labour shortages and sustainable talent retention in the hospitality industry.
Professor Veronica Martinez
SRG2425\251223
Smart Positioning of Therapeutic Wearables for Children: A User Experience Approach in Healthcare
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,981.84
Funded By: Wellcome
This research studies the positioning of therapeutic wearables in children– two to seventeen years old– using AI and smart sensing technology. While there is a growing adoption of therapeutic wearables in adults, the adoption and usage of these in children is scarce. One of the main factors hindering the adoption is the lack of research on the positioning of the wearable devices in children’s body. In this study, we use the service user-experience and digital healthcare literature to guide the method for data gathering and analysis. This research project has two phases. First, the Experiments: testing, data collection and data analysis. Second, a Survey study: Extend the generisability of the experiments’ results by understanding the user-experience from the perspective of the patients and children’s guardians. The smart sensing technology is ready for the experiments. The outputs will yield a ‘typology of therapeutic wearable positioning by child age’ and practical/user-experience recommendations.
Dr Matan Mazor
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Sanjay Manohar & Professor Tobias Gerstenberg
SRG2425\252032
Model-based self-simulation in memory reconstruction
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,009.00
Funded By: DSIT & Wellcome
When retrieving a past episode from one's memory, the brain does not simply read out a full copy of its past experience, but infers the most likely experience given a "compressed" memory trace and using prior beliefs about the world (“It would have been a grey day”), and critically, about the self: the acting self (“I would have turned right at the junction”) and the remembering self (“I would have remembered if she was there”). Having a good model of what oneself is likely to do and remember therefore becomes a highly effective compression device, allowing one to remember the past more accurately and efficiently. Despite this critical importance of a self-model to episodic memory, surprisingly little is known about its role in remembering the past and, crucially, its compensatory role in age-related memory loss. The proposed study is intended to fill this gap using a large-scale gamified experiment.
Professor Farhad Nikhashemi
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Farhad Nikhashemi & Dr Farhad Nikhashemi
SRG2425\251517
Does chatbot language enhance humans’ capabilities and well-being? A cross-sector investigation
Oxford Brookes University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Wellcome
To successfully implement artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, organisations must determine which language characteristics maximize interaction quality. This endeavour generates multiple questions, such as which language chatbots should use to enhance individuals’ capabilities (e.g., perceived competence), well-being, and interaction value while in contact with an organisation. Should these language strategies vary depending on the service sector in which an AI agent assists a human? Drawing on psychology and consumer behaviour we examine whether AI chatbots’ efficiency-, experience-, and power-oriented language shapes individuals’ perceived competence, interactive value, well-being, and behaviour. We contend that depending on the service industry and communication modality (i.e., verbal vs. textual), individuals may distinctively benefit from interacting with AI agents in terms of the language used by the agent (efficiency- vs. experience- vs. power-oriented), ultimately influencing their perceived competence, interaction value, well-being, and use behaviour.
Dr Karen O'Brien-Kop
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Sujatha Vijayaraghavan
SRG2425\250946
Plant ontologies, material practices, and knowledge circulations in Ayurveda: Towards sustainable futures
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,990.00
Funded By: DSIT & Wellcome
In what ways are ayurvedic practitioners engaging with sustainable practices in their use of plant-based formulations? This project will provide an integrated regional analysis (India and UK) in how the health system of ayurveda incorporates sustainable principles in plant-based practices today. The traditional medicine system of Ayurveda, rooted in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, dates back to the first millennium BCE and employs plant, mineral and other healing modalities. This study will examine ontological, health and spiritual beliefs in relation to the material practices of plants in contemporary ayurveda, comparing communities of practice in India and the UK. Focusing on ayurvedic practitioners and practices, the study will develop an integrated case study through archival research, interviews and organisational data collection, looking at both traditional ayurvedic and alternative health practices, and framing their connections within the herbal medicine industry and sustainability.
Dr Marek Palace
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Malinda Carpenter
SRG2425\250997
TAILWIND: arT & role-plAy in well-beIng & Loneliness of War-affected UkraINian chilDren
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £9,635.84
Funded By: Wellcome
Worldwide, the numbers of children facing the headwinds of war displacement have risen dramatically, with few tailwinds of support available.). At the start of 2022/23, over 20,000 school places were offered to children arriving in the UK from Ukraine. Informed by our Pilot Study 1 suggesting the compromised well-being of over 70% of Ukrainian refugee children at our partnered schools, our team will produce and evaluate a novel art-based therapeutic intervention hypothesized to improve the children's well-being. Informed by therapeutic research on expressive drawing and writing, our intervention will be based on a blend of Narrative Exposure Therapy and Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity. Building on fantasy imagination and role-play gaming research, this approach will enable us to understand the children’s identities better and provide them with a sense of empowerment through the shaping of their visual narrative creations.
Dr Aurélie Slechten
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Dakshina G. De Silva & Dr Anita R. Schiller
SRG2425\250680
Environmental Injustice in the UK: Exploring the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Pollution Exposure
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £8,982.87
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates whether certain communities in the UK are disproportionately affected by pollution based on their socioeconomic status. The study aims to explore how environmental injustice evolved between 2009 and 2019, and to what extent socioeconomic factors are related to this evolution.
Using data from the UK Pollutant Release and Transfer Register and socioeconomic information from official statistics, we will map pollution levels against factors such as income, education, and employment rates in local areas. We will analyse various types of pollutants separately, including those with local, regional, and global impacts.
The findings could reveal important patterns in how environmental risks are distributed across society. This information is crucial for policymakers working on public health, environmental protection, and social equity. By identifying areas where pollution exposure may be linked to socioeconomic factors, this research could inform targeted interventions and contribute to debates on environmental justice in the UK.
Dr Anna Strowe
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Richard Fay
SRG2425\250425
Translation as Method in Global Mental Health Research Outputs
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £7,107.00
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates the role of translation as an aspect of methodology in global mental health (GMH) research. Taking a corpus of contemporary research from a selected set of journals in this field, we will compile a database to explore large-scale trends in how frequently translation is discussed and in what level of detail, and to investigate more deeply the conceptualisations of translation that are articulated and implied. This project is both a contribution to translation and interpreting studies (TIS) about the treatment of translation in a particular domain, and a preliminary step towards ongoing bilateral learning between TIS and GMH, and beyond. Funding is requested to hire a research assistant to help primarily with the data collection and coding. The project anticipates at least two journal articles as outputs, in translation studies journals, with the possibility of additional articles, research training guidance, and further grant applications following on.
Dr Nina Teasdale
SRG2425\251212
Unpaid care and gender expectations in same-sex partnerships: opportunities to re-shape policy?
Glasgow Caledonian University
Value Awarded: £9,998.93
Funded By: Wellcome
Unpaid care is a crucial issue amid ageing populations, rising living costs and financial challenges faced by public services. Existing research mainly focuses on heterosexual couples and childcare, neglecting the experiences of same-sex couples in caregiving. The proposed project seeks to address this gap by investigating how same-sex couples navigate different caregiving responsibilities and how family-related policies influence their arrangements. Thirty joint and individual interviews will be conducted with ten couples in Scotland. While gender disparity is not the core variable in same-sex partnerships, lived-experiences are nevertheless situated within wider social norms, practices and institutions that are gendered, creating care-related challenges. Shifts in public policies to provide support for diverse families care responsibilities remain pivotal to the recognition, valuing and gendered redistribution of care work. The findings will contribute to understanding caregivers’ needs in same-sex relationships to inform policy recommendations, challenging the common heteronormative model of unpaid care arrangements.
Professor Renee Timmers
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Ning Ma
SRG2425\251419
Co-designing music for sleep: longitudinal case studies
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,923.00
Funded By: Wellcome
This study investigates how personalised music can support sleep onset and quality, using a novel co-design methodology with participants as active collaborators in selecting and adapting music for sleep. While previous research has documented individuals’ use of music for sleep or tested the efficacy of fixed music interventions on sleep outcomes, these approaches overlook individual needs and context. This project addresses these gaps through a dynamic action-research approach, using longitudinal case studies involving the participants as co-designers of music and its usage for sleep. Each case study will start with a standardised music-listening paradigm, which will be iteratively adjusted over a four-week period based on participants’ feedback and sleep experiences. This dynamic approach allows exploration of key factors in music for sleep, establishing in-depth insights into the personalised functionality of music for sleep. Findings will inform future research and contribute to developing tailored, effective music-based interventions for sleep support.
Dr Laura Valadez-Martinez
SRG2425\250463
Drawing the Summer: Understanding Inequalities in Child Wellbeing During School Breaks
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £9,963.75
Funded By: Wellcome
This project explores inequalities in wellbeing, expressed by children, during the school summer holidays. For many, the summer break means reduced intellectual stimulation (Cooper et al., 1996), worsened physical (Weaver et al., 2019) and mental health (Kromydas et al., 2022), and less social interaction (Morgan et al., 2019), especially in children with pre-existing disadvantages (Eglitis et al., 2024).
In this study, a socio-economically diverse sample of primary school children in England will use drawing diaries to express their wellbeing over the summer break. Drawings are a child-centred approach (Merriman & Guerin, 2012) that provide rich qualitative data (Tay-Lim & Lim, 2013). This research contributes to literature on time-use during school breaks and their impact on children (Chambers et al., 2023), and on literature that recognises drawings as a method to give children a voice (Eldén, 2012). The study aims to inform interventions to support disadvantaged children during out-of-school periods.
Dr Thomas Wilcockson
SRG2425\251487
Unmasking Functional Neurological Disorder: The Role of Facial Emotions in Diagnosis
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £9,946.94
Funded By: Wellcome
Functional neurological disorder (FND) remains a challenging diagnosis due to its complex nature and the lack of clear biological markers. Emerging research suggests that emotional factors play a significant role in the development and maintenance of FND symptoms. This study aims to investigate the potential of facial emotion analysis, using FaceReader software, to aid in the diagnosis of FND. By comparing the facial expressions of individuals with FND, organic neurological conditions, and healthy controls, we aim to identify distinct emotional patterns associated with FND. Emotional expressions will be analysed during standardised interviews designed to elicit certain emotions. This research may lead to a better understanding of the emotional underpinnings of FND and potentially provide a novel diagnostic tool. Successful implementation of this approach could streamline the diagnostic process and improve the accuracy of FND diagnosis, ultimately leading to earlier and more effective interventions.
British Accounting and Finance Association
Dr Jonathan Tweedie
SRG2425\251456
On the non-production of an accounting standard: Climate change, emissions trading, and legitimacy maintenance
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,942.33
Funded By: BAFA
The proposed research plans to investigate the work carried out by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) from 2002 to the present on financial accounting for emissions allowances. Despite societal pressures and repeated calls from the accounting profession, global accounting firms, industry, and transnational governmental and regulatory institutions, no standard or actionable guidance is in place for how to account for these allowances. The absence of regulation in this area is a major problem for global attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through emissions trading schemes. As such, we propose to investigate how the IASB is able to maintain their legitimacy while not settling this important financial accounting issue over a period of decades. In so doing, we aim to advance understandings of: (i) organisational inaction on climate change; (ii) the response to climate change by accounting standard-setters and; (iii) the communicative construction of legitimacy in accounting standard-setting.
Honor Frost Foundation
Dr Benjamin Redding
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Claire Jowitt
SRG2425\250676
The Wreck of the Gloucester: A Seventeenth-Century Warship Through Time
University of East Anglia
Value Awarded: £9,050.00
Funded By: Honor Frost Foundation
The Wreck of the Gloucester: A Seventeenth-Century Warship Through Time is an interdisciplinary essay collection on the most exciting and high-profile maritime discovery since the Mary Rose was found in 1971 and raised in 1982. The book is contracted to Boydell & Brewer Press following a superb reader's report, and the 150,000-word collection will be submitted on 1 September 2025 for publication on 1 June 2026 (exact date tbc by the Press). Editorial work by Benjamin Redding (PI) and Claire Jowitt (CI) on the collection's twenty-eight original essays is at advanced stages, with contributions being submitted for editing in batches between March and December 2024. This application is to support image licensing costs (permissions and high-resolution digital copies) for seventy-six of the c.150 images that are a fundamental part of the collection. These images are central to the volume achieving its full impact in changing understanding of seventeenth-century maritime history.
Journal of Moral Education Trust
Dr Ten-Herng Lai
SRG2425\250508
Immorality Set in Stone by Law
University of Stirling
Value Awarded: £5,420.00
Funded By: JME Trust
Responding to protests against the statues of historical wrongdoers (e.g. the Edward Colston statue that once stood at Bristol Harbour), the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) promptly proposed the “Retain and Explain” Policy (2021) and Guidance (2023): The re-evaluation of any heritage asset should proceed “with the presumption that it will be retained,” and decisions to remove can be vetoed by the government. The grant will fund a workshop that involve scholars across different disciplines - including philosophy, politics, urban studies, and art - to shed insight on the potential shortcomings of the policy, including: how the policy fails to take into consideration the morally thorny issues of publicly honouring the immoral; artistic measures such as replacing and transforming heritage assets; and current and future generations’ interests in reclaiming the scarce resource of high-profile public space. The follow-up work aims to enable interdisciplinary grant and publication writing.
National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), Taiwan
Jung Woo Lee
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Alan Ewen Scott Bairner & Dr Ren-Shiang Jiang
SRG2425\250501
Taiwan Celts GAA: Intercultural connections and citizen diplomacy through playing Gaelic games in Taipei
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £9,907.00
Funded By: DSIT & NSTC
This research concerns an Irish expatriate community in Taiwan and their interaction with local Taiwanese people through playing Gaelic games. Irish immigrants often organise Gaelic sport clubs in their new settlement. Since 1995, a Gaelic athletic club in Taipei, namely Taiwan Celts, has used this traditional Irish sport to maintain its Irish connections and build its relationships with local Taiwanese. This study aims to identify the intercultural communication process between the Irish guests and Taiwanese hosts that the Gaelic games facilitate. It also considers how such a civic-level international link can develop into a citizen diplomacy network between them. This project entails an ethnographic investigation into the culture of Taiwan Celts. It also involves interviews with staff from the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) headquarters and the Taipei Representative Office in Dublin. This research will demonstrate the values of Gaelic games in Taiwanese multiculturalism and its implications for Taiwan-Ireland cultural exchanges.
Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Dr Steven Chen
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Zhangfan Cao
SRG2425\250181
Adapting Human Capital to Climate Change: Evidence from Job Postings
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,629.90
Funded By: DSIT & Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Climate change poses not just physical threats but also significant uncertainties to business operations, which inevitably have profound implications for firms' strategies, especially in how they manage and transform one of their most critical assets—human capital. This project will investigate how climate risks reshape firms' talent recruitment patterns and strategies as reflected in their job postings, offering insights into the skills and competencies demanded in response to evolving climate conditions and global commitments to sustainability. The study will provide a granular view of how corporate recruitment patterns shift in response to climate risks and regulatory changes. This research will provide valuable and timely insights for managers and policymakers adapting to climate-related challenges, directly contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
Dr May Chu
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Xiujuan Wang
SRG2425\251179
Community-Based Climate Change Adaptation: Building Social Resilience in Agricultural Communities
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,987.40
Funded By: DSIT & Sino-British Fellowship Trust
This research investigates the role of social resilience in facilitating agricultural adaptation to climate change within the Chinese context, specifically comparing Hubei and Guangxi provinces. By examining social factors such as social networks and social capital, the study aims to understand how these elements contribute to successful adaptation strategies in response to flooding. Addressing a critical gap in the literature, which primarily focuses on Western contexts, this research explores the unique challenges and opportunities faced by agricultural communities in these two Chinese provinces, each with distinct social and geographical settings. Incorporating qualitative data collection through interviews and focus groups, a framework for conceptualizing and measuring social resilience will be developed. This research makes significant contributions by advancing our understanding of the social resilience concept and developing its measurement. By providing evidence-based insights, this research can inform the development of effective policies and practices in climate change adaptation and sustainable agriculture.
Dr Elisa Gambino
SRG2425\251712
Regulating African markets from afar? Chinese tech giants and South-South trade
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,980.00
Funded By: DSIT & Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Economic globalisation in the 21st century has been marked by a major shift in the direction of global trade, which is now increasingly concentrated around South-South exchanges. Chinese products have notably substituted much of Africa’s imports from Europe, leading to the growing presence of Chinese private companies operating in African trade hubs. These trajectories intersect with established trade modalities and market governance structures, often raising tensions between the strategies driving the internationalisation of Chinese companies and existing trade networks and regulatory frameworks in African markets. The project investigates the trade of Chinese consumer electronics in West Africa, specifically focusing on Chinese private tech company Tecno and its relations to Togo- and Ghana-based West African traders. It seeks to analyse the extent to which Chinese tech giants shape the structures within which African trade unfolds. In doing so, it contributes to current debates on the development potentialities associated with South-South trade.
Professor Philippe Mueller
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Paul Whelan & Dr Ingomar Krohn
SRG2425\251858
Currency Risk Premia in High Frequency and Violations of Uncovered Interest Parity
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,982.00
Funded By: DSIT & Sino-British Fellowship Trust
The proposed research offers a new perspective on two key issues in international finance: the forward premium puzzle and the carry trade anomaly, both highlighting failures in uncovered interest parity (UIP). UIP suggests that high-interest currencies should depreciate to counterbalance potential carry trade gains (by investing at a higher interest rate funded by borrowing in the low-interest currency).
Unlike existing studies that rely on monthly or quarterly data, we examine UIP violations at daily and intraday levels. This approach helps identify when exactly returns on FX trading strategies are earned, such as intraday versus overnight, or on impactful days like FOMC or macro announcement days.
Our findings promise to enhance academic insights into currency market behavior and offer practical benefits for investment and risk managers. By pinpointing when currency positions may either be profitable or risky, our research supports more informed trading and improved risk management strategies.
Dr Geng Wang
SRG2425\250185
Skills on the Go: exploring the voices and choices of young precarious workers in self-selected work-related training in China
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,841.00
Funded By: DSIT & Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Over the past two decades the growth in precarious ‘gig’ workers - those in insecure employment - has made them an integral part of the workforce in most countries. Whilst the rise in gig work has been viewed as a panacea for youth unemployment by offering much-needed opportunities to young people, it has also been associated with a degradation of the skills training process. In China, young people tend to be caught in a ‘precariousness trap’, remaining in jobs which do not offer them opportunities for professional development that could contribute to a positive transition. But there is a research, and consequent policy, deficit on how young precarious workers access and experience training. This study aims to fill that research gap and to develop policy recommendations for improving training accessibility and provision for these workers, which in turn would improve their lives, and the economic contribution they can make.
Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
Dr Ozlem Araci
SRG2425\250694
The Social Impact of Organizations: Leveraging The Power Of People
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £5,396.00
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
Organizations have been shown to be important vehicles for positively impacting the communities they operate in, yet we know nothing about how best to embed social impact into organisations’ people strategies. The purpose of this project is “to establish best practice guidelines for embedding social impact into people strategies”. Specifically, the project aims to analyze how HR practices can be aligned to support social impact objectives and to identify the essential skills and capabilities required for HR professionals to effectively contribute to these efforts. To achieve this purpose, semi-structured interviews with HR professionals in the UK, and the following questionnaire will be used to collect data. This project will contribute to producing guidance on how the involvement of HR practices can be increased to be socially impactful by effectively balancing the economic and social purposes of organisations and directs the strategic potential of HR professionals in bringing positive social change.
Dr Alastair Langtry
SRG2425\251596
Harmful norms within organizations
University of Bristol
Value Awarded: £9,665.00
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
Organizations spend significant time and effort trying to shape their culture and acting to stop harmful norms such as discriminatory behaviours or workplace bullying. Whether people follow a harmful norm is likely influenced by whether those around them follow it too. This project aims to better understand how harmful norms might arise and spread within organizations in a setting where people’s behaviour is determined by those around them. Based on this, it also aims to provide high-level policy recommendations for an organization attempting to reduce the prevalence of a harmful norm. These recommendations may help UK employers meet the new legal duty to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment before it occurs – a duty introduced in the Worker Protection Act (2023).
Dr Lei Liu
SRG2425\250844
Bridging Worlds: Investigating the Integration of Academic Insights in Prosocial Organizations
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,117.00
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
This research explores how prosocial organizations focusing on social services and community development engage with academic research to improve their effectiveness in addressing societal challenges. While management research has the potential to offer practical benefits, little is known about the extent to which these insights are applied by prosocial organizations. This study will assess how management research is used in these organizations and identify key barriers and facilitators influencing its adoption. By conducting interviews and surveys with stakeholders in UK-based social services and community development organizations, the project will provide evidence-based recommendations for enhancing the adoption of management research. The findings will help bridge the gap between academic research and practical application, enabling prosocial organizations to improve their impact and contribute to more sustainable communities.
Dr Elisa Pannini
SRG2425\251923
Remote Working, Algorithmic Management and Artificial Intelligence in Call Centres: Workers' Experience and the Role of Trade Unions
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £9,754.00
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
This project will focus on how AI and automation, algorithmic management and remote working arrangements, are changing work in UK-based call centres. This is an increasingly urgent issue to investigate given the growth of use of these technologies and their impact on workers' wellbeing. The study is part of a wider international comparative study of technological change in the service sector. A common survey tool will be administered to investigate new patterns of technology use in the call centre sector, how workers experience transformation and how union representation impacts this process. This will be integrated by interviews with unions to finalise the survey and interpret results.
The project is developed in partnership with unions within the sector in the UK, to co-create knowledge, provide valuable insight on technological change, its impact on workers and their wellbeing, and offer strategies for unions to mitigate negative effects and potentiate positive outcomes.
Dr Nicola Platt
SRG2425\251426
Exploring the organisational challenges and responsibilities affecting the recruitment, retention and management of volunteers
University of Central Lancashire
Value Awarded: £7,948.28
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
The proposed research will develop a holistic understanding of the varied roles of volunteers and their motivations, expectations and needs, and offer tangible insights into how organisations might better support their volunteers to enhance recruitment and retention, and manage the risks involved in volunteer-delivered services, so as to address and mitigate against the declining rate of volunteering in the UK. Adopting an inductive qualitative methodology, the project will explore volunteering with a range of stakeholders across multiple empirical settings to provide a rich, detailed and broad understanding of the challenges that both volunteers and organisations experience; the structures in place to support and manage volunteers; and the potential to extend the reach and impact of volunteering in the delivery of more extensive, community-based services. Through co-production workshops, the project will generate stakeholder-led, policy-relevant, actionable recommendations for the recruitment, retention, management and support of volunteers.
Dr Richard Tee
SRG2425\250888
Who Benefits from Generative AI? Investigating Business Models and Public Policy Implications
University of Surrey
Value Awarded: £9,940.00
Funded By: DSIT & Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
The last few years has seen an explosion in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), driven by startups like OpenAI as well as established firms like Microsoft, Meta, and Apple. Generative AI appears to have tremendous potential for value creation but may also come at significant socio-economic costs. As a result, public policy makers are considering what policy actions need to be taken to maximise social welfare and minimise negative externalities. The study will focus on how generative AI services are embedded within technological architectures, how value is created, and how managers and policy makers shape this process. A better understanding of these dynamics is important to ensure that the benefits of generative AI accrue to a broad range of stakeholders, including both the firms developing and using it, as well as customers and end users.
Endowed Funds
Professor Graeme Barker
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Emma Pomeroy
SRG2425\251900
The transition from Neanderthals to Modern Humans (Homo sapiens) at Shanidar Cave (Iraqi Kurdistan) and its implications for the Neanderthal extinction debate
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Caton-Thompson Fund
One of the liveliest debates in human evolution research concerns the possible reasons why the Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago and whether our own species was implicated in their demise. We propose to excavate an unusually well-preserved sediment sequence in Shanidar Cave (Iraqi Kurdistan) that our pilot work in 2024 has established encompasses the transition from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens (‘Modern Humans’) and hints that both were using the cave in the millennia preceding the former’s disappearance from the record. The objective is to collect high resolution chronological, behavioural and palaeoclimatic data in order to elucidate the timing and character of the transition at the site. The results should have significant implications for debates about the possible factors (cultural and/or demographic/genetic and/or climatic) involved in the demise of the Neanderthals not just in the Zagros mountains but more generally across the Neanderthal realm.
Professor Martin Bell
Co-Applicant(s): Professor John Boardman & Professor Ian David Leigh Foster
SRG2425\252036
Sunken lanes: interdisciplinary investigation of the origins and sedimentary consequences of transhumance routes in the Rother Valley, West Sussex
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £9,986.00
Funded By: DSIT & Chittick Fund
A project testing the hypothesis that long distance cross-topographic routes originate before first historical attestation in the later Saxon period. Their contribution to structuration of landscape is investigated in the Rother catchment, South Downs National Park. Multiple, parallel, regularly spaced routes, often deeply incised routes will be planned using a GIS framework and their spatial relationships identified drawing on multiple sources. Key routes will be walked. Our main field site Hungers Lane, a long, deeply incised routeway, a parish and hundred boundary, is of at least later Saxon date. There is a large alluvial fan discharged from the holloway where it meets the river. Machine excavation of a pit and boreholes will relate the fan and riverine sequences, producing samples for dating and palaeoenvironmental analysis. Evidence will be provided of long-term erosion and sedimentation rates. Excavation and catchment wide survey will establish the multidisciplinary significance of these early routes.
Dr Lloyd Bowen
SRG2425\250292
Language, Labels and Making Political Communities in Britain and its Empire, 1642-1714
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £8,549.00
Funded By: Browning Fund
Scholars and laypeople alike know the seventeenth century as a time of conflict between ‘Cavaliers’ and ‘Roundheads’, ‘Whigs’ and ‘Tories’, labels which originated as epithets of enmity. Yet we only have a very partial understanding of how such terms were deployed in everyday life and of how they contributed to the fracturing of national and local political communities. This project explores the nature of popular political discourse and political community formation in Britain and its colonies from the outbreak of the civil wars down to the Hanoverian accession, by focusing on the use and abuse of party stereotypes among ordinary people as well as within the popular press. It examines how political labels were adopted and deployed in local as well as in (trans)national contexts; how such terms crossed linguistic and national boundaries; and how ordinary people adopted national political labels as part of their identities in this period.
Dr Marouf Cabi
SRG2425\251734
The Emergence of Modern National History Writing for Stateless Peoples in the Early 20th-Century Middle East: A Case Study of the Kurds
London School of Economics and Political Science
Value Awarded: £8,350.00
Funded By: DSIT & Elie Kedourie
This research proposal aims to conduct archival research in Iraqi Kurdistan, focusing on identifying foundational works and early texts that shaped modern Kurdish national history writing in the early twentieth century. This research is a crucial component of a broader book project examining the emergence of modern national history writing on behalf of stateless or marginalised communities within the modern Middle Eastern states. The proposal seeks to understand the significance of this historical narrative in such communities’ epistemic survival, as well as its impact and challenges for contemporary transnational historical scholarship. Many archives and libraries remain largely unexplored, making this research particularly timely and significant. The research is assisted by several prominent historians working in the region. The anticipated outcome is a collection of vital primary sources integral to the progress of the book project.
Dr Rebecca Gould
SRG2425\250323
Doves Born from Light: Writers Homes at the Ends of the Earth
SOAS University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: DSIT & 44th International Congress of Americanists
Doves Born from Light: Writers Homes at the Ends of the Earth investigates the peculiar power of writers’ house-museums from rural England to cosmopolitan Tbilisi to the mountainous regions of Chile. More than a travelogue, Doves Born from Light is an inquiry into the role of place in readers' emotional, personal, and intellectual lives. Some of the writers whose homes I explore—including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy and Pablo Neruda—are well-known to the general public. Others—such as the Georgian poet Titsian Tabidze and the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral—are relatively obscure. By visiting the homes where these authors lived and wrote, I show how their creative processes were inflected by place. As importantly, I explore how readers relate to the mediation of literary texts by material institutions like the writer's house museum. To quote Bachelard, when mediated by literature, the home becomes “an embodiment of dreams.”
Dr Russell Grigg
SRG2425\251566
Exploring our sense of belonging, heritage and community ('cynefin') through the Young Educational Researcher Network (YERN)
Swansea University
Value Awarded: £9,963.00
Funded By: DSIT & Research Fund
The project aims to develop research competences of primary teachers working as co-researchers with their classes as part of a new, original Young Educational Researcher Network (YERN). The project’s value lies in establishing what teachers and pupils understand by research and how they can be effectively supported in developing and applying their research skills in practice. In the project context, focusing on co-research is timely given two key reforms in Wales: the implementation of a curriculum that aims to develop ambitious and capable learners; and a National Strategy for Research and Professional Enquiry with emphasis on teachers as researchers. We know very little about how to engage both teachers and pupils in a meaningful dialogue as co-researchers, and this study would shed light on what practices are most effective. The outcome of this project would be to provide clear guidance for teachers interested in co-researching with their pupils.
Dr Hans Hönes
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Joanne Anderson & Dr Catriona McAra
SRG2425\251906
Aberdeen’s Artworlds, c. 1976. The Linklater Bequest in Context
University of Aberdeen
Value Awarded: £7,858.40
Funded By: Marc Fitch Fund
The proposed project documents and contextualises the Linklater bequest, an important collection of Scottish Modernist painting, given to the University of Aberdeen in 1976. Through curation of a major exhibition, we aim to reconstruct the motivations and strategies of the collectors, Eric and Marjorie Linklater, who were closely affiliated with social and nationalist causes in North-East Scotland and on Orkney. We seek to reframe the Linklater collection as an instrument to promote not only Scottish art, but Scottish artist-women in particular. Second, we interpret the bequest as a contribution intended to support art and culture in the North-East, at a time when Aberdeen’s artworld expanded significantly across different social registers. Instead of seeing North-East Scotland as peripheral to the central belt, we will explore the dynamics between the North-East and the Islands, and argue for the emergence of a dynamic regional art scene in the 1970s.
Dr Mirela Ivanova
Co-Applicant(s): Dr Alexandra Vukovich
SRG2425\250379
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in Eastern Europe
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,400.00
Funded By: DSIT & Elisabeth Barker Fund
The Legacies of Muslim Rule in Southeastern Europe examines how states from the Balkans to the Black Sea sharing a common Byzantine-Ottoman history manage a layered heritage landscape in a modern national(ist) context, and how they engage with debates around conservation, destruction, and obfuscation of these pasts. We will host a workshop in Istanbul for historians and heritage practitioners to examine how heritage management intersects with national historiography, and then undertake a heritage tour to explore how historical sites with layers from more than one period of history manage the co-existence of Byzantine and Ottoman (and therefore Christian and Muslim) remains. The proceeding publication and further research will propose new ways forward for both narrating and presenting historical remains that challenge homogenising national stories, and encourage local visitors to develop new, more complex understandings of their embattled heritage.
Professor Sarah James
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Sara Blaylock
SRG2425\251744
Socialist Ecologies: Speculative Methods for Retrieving Lost Futures
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Elisabeth Barker Fund
One of the most productive periods of eco-socialism: many eco-feminist and eco-communist environmental theories of the future emerged in the former German Democratic Republic, where alternative visions of socialism flourished - anchored by a militant environmentalism - in the spheres of political theory, philosophy, literature, and the visual arts. Our interdisciplinary research project brings together a group of theorists, art historians, political philosophers and artists for an intensive three day workshop to attempt to collaboratively replot these unrealised socialist environmental positions in the present, as a critical counter to the dominant ideologies of our age of climate catastrophe. The project takes seriously the futural nature of the socialist theories, fictions and practices examined, by utilising and testing current methodologies that have emerged within 'speculative research' and practice-based research. The first stage in a more ambitious project, it will conclude with a special issue journal and ultimately a major exhibition.
Dr Alice Koenig
SRG2425\250431
(Re)Visualising Peace and Peacebuilding across Antiquity
University of St Andrews
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Ancient Persia Fund & Marc Fitch Fund
How we understand and build peace is one of the most urgent questions of our time. Via the establishment of an Ancient Peace Studies Network, this project will transform our understanding of how peace was visualised and made across the ancient world, from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia and Greece through to the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. Looking especially at the intersection between lived experience and representation, it will make three distinctive contributions, by (1) moving beyond militarising conceptions of peace and peacebuilding, (2) paying attention to non-elite voices and local, everyday contexts, and (3) treating representations of peace/peacebuilding not just as inert reflections of an underlying reality but as world-building narratives that shaped ordinary people’s lives. It will explore how modern peace studies can transform our study of antiquity; and how new analyses of ancient discourses of peace and approaches to peacebuilding can enhance peace literacy in the 21st century.
Dr Juan Latorre-Ruiz
Co-Applicant(s): Professor Marta Diaz-Guardamino
SRG2425\251808
Raiders of the lost copper: How did copper flow internally in Iberia during the Late Bronze Age (1200-800 BCE)?
Durham University
Value Awarded: £9,996.00
Funded By: J R Moir Fund
How did copper flow internally in Iberia during the Late Bronze Age (1200-800 BCE)? Answering this question, due to Iberia’s strategic position between the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Central Europe, is important to understand continental copper flows. Lead isotope and chemical composition of artefacts informs about the area where its copper was mined, and the routes employed to transport it. Forty-nine samples provided by collaborators in Spain and Portugal will be analysed. Sampling will focus on Atlantic Iberia as previous research has focused on the Mediterranean and the copper-rich south. We anticipate three scenarios: 1) all Iberian regions used copper from South Iberia; 2) outside Southern Iberia, copper was extracted in local mines; 3) Iberian coastal regions employed foreign copper; possible candidates are Central Europe, Wales, or Cyprus. Due to Iberia’s strategic position between the Atlantic and the Mediterrenean, each scenario provides important information about European copper flows.
Dr Frederik Pedersen
SRG2425\251688
An Edition of Fourteenth-century Marriage Cases from the archdiocese of York
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,720.00
Funded By: Marc Fitch Fund
This project will provide a scholarly edition of a selection of dossiers of marriage cases ('Cause Papers') preserved in the Borthwick Institute for Archives in York. The edition will provide summaries of the cases and a full Latin transcription of the records of marriage litigation heard by York's fourteenth-century consistory court. The edition will contain a comprehensive selection of complete case files and will enable scholars to study Latin transcripts of all surviving documents in a selection of cases for the first time. It will provide a rich source to the study of social, cultural, legal, and economic history. Additionally, the edition will enable scholars to analyse how legal clients interacted with the legal system of the medieval church and to trace the outline of how court narratives changed to match the letter (and not necessarily the spirit) of the law.
Dr Corina Snitar
SRG2425\250482
The Third Communist International's (Comintern's) Textbook of Breaking Through. Romania as a Study Case
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,312.00
Funded By: Elisabeth Barker Fund
Previous studies have traced the Comintern’s structure and missions, but scholarship to examine the role played by the Comintern in creating the premises for the Communist takeover in Central and Eastern Europe after the World War II is relatively sparse. Besides, many of these studies appeared before the collapse of Communism in Russia and Europe, and in the early 1990s when the authors had to rely almost solely on published sources and interviews since the access to the archives was extremely limited. Drawing on recently unearthed documents, this project aims to fill this gap, by analysing how the Communist takeover was possible in Central and Eastern Europe after the war. A study of how Soviet policies helped the Communist takeover in Central and Eastern Europe will lead to a better understanding of problems that are still on the agenda of Western scholars and policymakers today whether in Ukraine or Moldova.
Professor Sam Turner
SRG2425\251741
Mesa Mani: (re)discovering a Byzantine landscape
Newcastle University
Value Awarded: £9,997.00
Funded By: Albert Reckitt Fund
This project examines one of the richest and most iconic historic landscapes in the Mediterranean: Mesa Mani in the southern Peloponnese.
We aim to discover the rich history of this landscape, how it was experienced in the past, and the strategies people used (e.g. water and soil management) to make it socially and ecologically sustainable. Our pilot studies have proven that much of today’s abandoned and neglected historic landscape is far more ancient than suspected - including roads, field systems, quarries, cisterns and many buildings that were first created in the Byzantine era. Having mapped sections of these remains based on imagery from satellite remote sensing and unmanned aerial survey, we now plan to focus on the survey of selected key sites (including settlements and churches) using conventional and digital survey methods.
Revealing the time-depth of Mani's landscape will inspire deeper appreciation and inform future conservation and management.
Dr Alexander Weide
SRG2425\251351
Capital economies in ancient Mesopotamia: reconstructing palatial cuisines and agricultural systems at Carchemish, Niniveh, and Dur Kurigalzu
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £10,000.00
Funded By: Albert Reckitt Fund
The Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA) in southwest Asia saw major socio-political transformations, including the rise and fall of the Hittite, Kassite and Neo-Assyrian empires. Alongside socio-political and economic instability, climatically induced droughts are among the most frequently cited causes for the collapse of these states. However, direct evidence for the impact of droughts on agricultural systems is virtually absent from these periods, rendering hypotheses that see climate change at the heart of the crises hypothetical. This project will analyse primary archaeobotanical evidence for agricultural productivity and adaptation from three cities that were involved to different degrees in the LBA-EIA transformations: Carchemish on the upper Euphrates, the Kassite capital Dur Kurigalzu in central Mesopotamia, and Niniveh, capital of the late Neo-Assyrian empire at the upper Tigris. Together, these archaeobotanical assemblages enable us to study a unique agricultural sequence through the rise and fall of empires.