Funded by
Dr Adam Brandt
Co-applicant: Mr Joe Tindale, Ufonia
IF2223\230141
Exploring with Dora: identifying principles of effective conversational AI through an autonomous telemedicine service
Newcastle University
£49,748.80
AI conversational agents are becoming increasingly embedded in our growing digital society. This project brings together expertise from Applied Linguistics, and Ufonia, a market leading organisation in conversational AI, to investigate what makes interactions between humans and AI systems most effective. The qualitative linguistic approach of Conversation Analysis will be used to examine language use in calls between NHS patients and Dora, an AI clinical assistant used for autonomous telemedicine services. This will help identify areas for development of Dora’s conversational structures, which will then be implemented and trialled. Subsequent cycles of analysis will assess the success of the interventions. Findings will underpin a set of guiding principles for effective conversational AI. This will contribute to research on human-AI communication, and to organisations offering automated services across various sectors. The associated dissemination activities will inform our understanding and best practice for ensuring a more equitable digital society.
Dr Alanna Cant
Co-applicant: Ms Josephine Warren, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales
IF2223\230040
Addressing Challenges of Roman Catholic Heritage: Funding, Policy and Capacity-Building in England and Wales today
University of Reading
£83,549.60
There are over 2,800 Catholic churches in England and Wales. They constitute a significant portion of the nations’ religious heritage from the 19th and 20th centuries and are important foci of Catholic religion and identity today. Despite their importance, Catholic heritage projects increasingly struggle to secure funding. Recent changes in the funding and policy environment have led to expectations that Catholic projects should provide secular “community use” activities similar to those frequently undertaken at Anglican churches. However, these are often not compatible with Roman Catholic beliefs and Canon Law about how sacred spaces should be used. The proposed collaboration between Dr Alanna Cant and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales will investigate the policy environment and social and religious factors that contribute to this challenge in order to develop capacity building and policy recommendations to improve the level of success for Catholic heritage funding applications in the future.
Professor Stefano Caria
Co-applicant: Professor Imran Rasul FBA, Institute for Fiscal Studies
IF2223\230170
Green skills: Leveraging skills for climate change mitigation and adaptation
University of Warwick
£115,959.53
A new set of skills will be needed to make the green transition of developing economies possible. For example, to decarbonize their economies, low-income countries will require a large qualified workforce to install and maintain solar power plants. Furthermore, skills and employment play a central role in fostering the climate resilience of the poor. What barriers can prevent individuals from acquiring these “green skills” and what interventions can unlock their potential? I will collaborate with the IFS on two policy innovation projects that will address these questions. First, we will work on understanding the liquidity and information barriers that may currently constrain the provision of green skills. Of particular interest, would be the design of smart “income-sharing schemes” that will enable individuals to acquire green skills at no upfront cost, but with a later payment. Second, we will work on the design of a “skills-focused poverty graduation program”.
Dr Rachael Chapman
Co-applicant: Mr Jack White, Urban Green Newcastle
IF2223\230021
Innovation, Co-Governance and Democracy in Urban Greenspaces: Transforming Understanding and Responses to the Challenges
Northumbria University
£94,449.60
This project will support austerity-led innovative developments in UK urban greenspace provision through collaborative case study research and knowledge exchange. The project’s primary case study is Newcastle upon Tyne, where a historically significant decision was made to transfer management of all 33 of the City’s parks from the local government to an independent charity, Urban Green Newcastle, in response to budget cuts of over 90 percent. Democratic performance and governance comparisons will be drawn between this and two other UK cases involving charities, one similar to Newcastle but on a much smaller scale, and one where the local government retains control over park management with support from a charitable foundation. The project will address democratic, trust and capacity challenges associated with these pioneering solutions, particularly where park management is transferred out of local authority control. It offers new diagnostic tools, guidance and support for successful democratic performance and implementation.
Dr Shushu Chen
Co-applicant: Mr Jagwant Johal, Birmingham Race Impact Group (Volunteer)
IF2223\230135
The role of sport in fighting racial inequality and building social capital
University of Birmingham
£92,842.45
The aim of the project is to improve understanding of how sport (and sport infrastructure) helps to fight racial inequality and build social capital. Through a collaborative approach, this research-led fellowship also aims to strengthen the partnership between the Birmingham Race Impact Group (BRIG) and other community-based organisations and enable knowledge exchange. The BRIG is a community interest organisation that campaigns for racial equality, containing a consortium of local activists and representatives from across the public, private and voluntary sectors. Using a case-study strategy and qualitative approaches, this Fellowship project will (1) explore and define ‘sport infrastructure’ from the perspectives of Birmingham’s ethnic minority groups; (2) investigate the views and experiences of senior staff members in community-based organisations regarding the use of sport for facilitating integration and addressing inequality; and (3) explore ethnic minorities’ view on the value of sport for building social capital.
Dr Alison Chisholm
Co-applicant: Ms Sarah Allan, The Involve Foundation
IF2223\230050
Citizens’ voices making change: Enhancing the impact and legacy of citizens’ assemblies and citizens’ juries to tackle health inequalities and climate change.
University of Oxford
£109,522.91
Deliberative democratic processes (citizens’ assemblies and citizens’ juries) address the key societal challenge of mistrust in democratic institutions. They are characterised by representativeness (through a process of sortition), deliberation and links to policy, and are increasingly employed to address ‘wicked’ policy issues including climate change and health inequalities. Factors that make for sound deliberative democratic processes are well understood, but more research is needed to understand pathways to impact (social impact, or immediate or short-term effects on policy) and legacy (longer-lasting influences on society, or their systemic impact on the democratic system). It is critical to understand how these processes can equip government for long-term decision-making by increasing legitimacy and trust. Collaborating with the expert organisation Involve, this fellowship will analyse and evaluate pathways to maximise the impact and legacy of deliberative processes, with the overall aim of strengthening democracy in the future.
Dr Stephanie Coen
Co-applicant: Dr Victoria Downie, English Institute of Sport
IF2223\230055
Levelling the playing field: social innovations for addressing gendered inequities in sports injury
University of Nottingham
£119,931.40
Realising gender equity and inclusion in sport is an ongoing challenge. Sports injury is one area where gender disadvantage remains painfully clear: concussion and ankle sprain rates are twice as high in girls/women, while ruptures of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) occur up to six times more frequently. Whereas current approaches to sports injury prevention primarily target the individual—even internal—level (e.g., monitoring women’s menstrual cycles), this project innovates on the current bio-medical paradigm to understand sports injury as a bio-social phenomenon requiring solutions that recognise sporting bodies as situated in social environments with ‘gendering’ effects. Working with a national partner in the sport sector, this project uses arts-based knowledge exchange to develop and test a creative intervention to address the socio-structural factors (i.e., norms, practices, relations) surrounding the gendered sports injury gap and to ultimately foster more equitable opportunities for women and girls in sport.
Dr Emma Cohen
Co-applicant: Mrs Elaine Wyllie, The Daily Mile Foundation
IF2223\230066
Addressing the challenge of effective delivery of The Daily Mile in Northern Ireland: a cultural transmission approach
University of Oxford
£90,637.34
The Daily Mile is an inclusive, school-based intervention that has achieved extremely wide reach globally. Properly implemented, it can tackle problems associated with physical inactivity in children and help recovery from the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s physical, mental and social wellbeing. The exchange, research and impact activities of this project aim to support schools in implementing The Daily Mile effectively, with a particular focus on Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland children are least likely to meet recommended levels of PA compared with other parts of the UK and Europe and, due to patchy funding and policy backing across the UK, schools in NI have received least support for The Daily Mile. This project develops an innovative cultural transmission approach, drawn primarily from the cognitive-evolutionary anthropology of affiliation-based social learning, to support programme delivery for community-led health behaviour change in schools and beyond.
Dr Paige Davis
Co-applicant: Ms Miranda Thain, Theatre Hullabaloo
IF2223\230115
Play on Prescription: Teaching Play to Improve Community Outcomes and Wellbeing in the Wake of Covid-19
York St John University
£48,047.20
It is well documented that play promotes positive development in infancy. Play on Prescription (PoP) is a play programme by the Darlington community organization, Theatre Hullabaloo, aimed at families most in need. Using the social prescribing method where professionals “prescribe” social interventions, PoP helps parents from disadvantaged backgrounds gain social capital by learning to be more confident playing with their children. There is little scientific research on programmes like this for parents with 0-3-year-olds, and no guide for those interested in setting up these play interventions. This project will use interviews with parents and prescribers, alongside questionnaires and observational data, in order to begin to build evidence on how PoP works. The project will embed the researcher within Hullabaloo, with clear dissemination strategies design to impact practice both within arts, post-natal health and early years contexts.
Dr Aris Georgopoulos
Co-applicant: Dr Richard Freeman, Vamstar Limited
IF2223\230140
Integrating AI Solutions in the UK post-Brexit Public Procurement Legal Framework for Achieving Green and Socially Sustainable Procurement outcomes for the NHS
University of Nottingham
£98,796.61
Supply chains in healthcare procurement (namely the purchasing of goods like medical gowns, PPE, other medical equipment and services) are becoming more complex and unpredictable due to fast changing market conditions (for example COVID-19). There is an increasing pressure on the NHS and its suppliers to reduce costs and overall in-efficiencies that affect the quality of the provided care. New technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), are expected to contribute in achieving these efficiencies. However, these solutions need to inhabit an ever-changing environment of ethical, legal and policy (net-zero, social sustainability) standards. This fellowship, connected with the "Digital Societies” theme, aims at strengthening the collaboration between the Lead Applicant and the Co-applicant (Vamstar) -a data science powered “Business-to-Business (B2B) healthcare marketplace platform- for integrating AI Solutions in the post-BREXIT, post COVID-19 UK Healthcare Procurement Framework in order to achieve improved procurement outcomes for the NHS.
Professor Richard Hyde
Co-applicant: Ms Faith Reynolds, Amplified Global
IF2223\230096
Designing context sensitive and emotionally intelligent mandatory disclosures
University of Nottingham
£88,070.48
Mandatory disclosures do not always function to change consumer behaviour. Synthesising findings from law, economics, linguistics and computer science, this research will create innovative guidelines for designing disclosure that change the behaviour of consumers of, increasingly online, financial services, thereby engendering trust in disclosures and products. The project will look at information pre-contract, at the point of contracting, and post-contract, and consider, for the first time, how the different contexts and emotional situations may alter consumer responses. This research is timely as a consumer duty for providers of financial services, places more emphasis disclosures made to consumers, with requirements going beyond mere intelligibility to ensuring that consumers can (and do) take appropriate action in response to information they receive. Working primarily with Amplified Global, a lawtech business dedicated to improving information disclosure, the project will build and test disclosures and produce guidelines setting out what good information disclosure looks like.
Dr Henry Irving
Co-applicant: Ms Claire Shrewsbury, The Waste and Resources Action Programme
IF2223\230145
From Salvage to a Circular Economy: Exchanging Knowledge about Consistent Recycling Collection in the UK
Leeds Beckett University
£100,348.50
This fellowship will create an innovative partnership between a leading historian of waste and WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme). The project will use parallels between the UK’s Resources and Waste Strategy and wartime controls over waste material to produce insights that will help the implementation of a new recycling system in England. This will involve researching and sharing historical analogies to analyse interactions between official instructions, social norms, innate motives and structural issues. It will also involve the application of historical thinking to contemporary data on recycling attitudes and behaviour. In doing so, the project seeks to uncover evidence of habitual behaviour that are hard to capture in existing data. The outcomes of this knowledge exchange will shape WRAP’s wide-reaching advisory work and provide a model for practitioner engagement within the humanities, transforming an existing book project in the process.
Dr Melissa Jogie
Co-applicant: Mr Andy Fulkner, Sutton Night Watch Charity
IF2223\230018
Footprints in Sutton: Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to optimise business strategies for Sutton Night Watch Homeless Charity
Roehampton University
£68,792.02
Sutton Night Watch is a small high street charity with a strong reputation of services for their homeless clientele. They have built a reputation of trust and reliability with their community partners and the local council and are ready to move to the next stage of business growth to serve their clients more holistically. The needs of the homeless are dynamic and complex. Holistic service means addressing imminent issues like housing and rehabilitation, and also making them feel included, safe, and hopeful in the future. This requires an intricate understanding of the daily routines and activities of the homeless. Research suggests that homeless mobility (movement activity) data captures unseen narratives of homeless coping strategies embedded within the ways they experience marginalisation, uncertainty, and grief. This project proposes to align SNW’s vision for growth with a need for understanding their service users’ mobility using technology.
Dr Fatemeh Khosravi
Co-applicant: Ms Larissa Gross, E3G Think Tank
IF2223\230019
Residential cooling in a changing climate: Current practices, future expectations, and policy options
University of East London
£56,079.20
40°C has been recorded in the UK for the first time in July 2022 and global warming is already being felt across the country. The Met Office predicts that due to climate change heatwaves are 30 times more likely to happen. Despite this outlook, little attention has been paid to cooling in UK policy and research. There is limited data on how households behave towards extreme heat, and their awareness of low carbon cooling technologies. Therefore, this timely fellowship will engage with policy makers to understand their needs and to help design a nation-wide online survey. The research then engages with households through the survey across England to explore the households’ cooling behaviour and their awareness of low carbon cooling technologies. The results will be discussed with the policy makers through a deliberative workshop to provide cooling policy recommendations. Our partner, E3G, will support this research by providing policy advice.
Dr Helen McCabe
Co-applicant: Ms Ann Bonner, Karma Nirvana
IF2223\230102
What Data? What Happens? Barriers to Generating Evidence-Based Policy to End Honour-Based Abuse
University of Nottingham
£112,571.38
The importance of evidence-based policy is well-recognised, and an essential requirement for it is good data. Policy to combat and end Honour-Based Abuse (HBA), and to support survivors and identify those at risk is not currently well-based in evidence, and data-gathering on the issue by relevant bodies including the Home Office, police forces, local authorities and health professionals is patchy and idiosyncratic. Even where data is collected and shared publicly, it is not clear how this is used to inform decision-making by policy-makers at the local, regional or national levels. This project seeks to map key stakeholders who are, and who should be, collecting data on HBA; identify and share best-practice in data-gathering; recognise barriers to effective knowledge-exchange faced by stakeholders; and co-develop ways to overcome them. We will co-design policy recommendations about data-gathering and data-sharing to inform policy to combat HBA, and explore ways of ensuring these have impact.
Professor Holger Nehring
Co-applicant: Mr Tom Cargill, Wilton Park
IF2223\230126
Paradiplomacy and regional development (PARE): transnational agency in the making of regional social and cultural infrastructures since 1945
University of Stirling
£108,631.20
Transnational agency is key for building and maintaining regional social and cultural infrastructures in the UK. Working with Wilton Park, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s executive agency, this fellowship (PARE) explores the parameters of paradiplomacy - links between sub-state units with international actors - in the context of regional regeneration historically and in the present. Through a programme of research and policy labs, PARE creates mutually beneficial knowledge exchange between project partners and shares key insights with critical stakeholders involved in paradiplomacy and regional regeneration. PARE addresses two fundamental challenges the UK faces as it adjusts to its departure from the EU: first, the maintenance beyond Brexit of paradiplomatic networks that emerged during the UK’s EU membership and formed part of the socio-cultural infrastructure of regional regeneration; and, second, the emergence of conflicts between and among different agencies and actors within Britain about the role of these networks.
Dr Sarah Otner
Co-applicant: Ms Linda Key Jackson, The Fragrance Foundation UK
IF2223\230012
Enigma, or Elysium? Identity tensions and the talent pipeline in the UK Fragrance Industry
Kingston University
£94,434.40
In partnership with The Fragrance Foundation UK, and drawing on recent theoretical developments in identity and categorization, the present research will address the guiding question: What are the consequences of identity-category misalignment? The project will determine whether the fragrance industry is a STEM industry, one of the “Creative Industries”, or in the liminal space between STEM and SHAPE (i.e., non-STEM). By aligning the fragrance industry’s official categorization with its self-defined identity, then the benefits to the industry, to the economy, and to the wider society would include: (1) access to a larger, more diverse labor market; (2) dedicated financial resources and other forms of support; and (3) increased voice and participation in relevant decision-making. The BA Innovation Fellowship will co-create policy solutions for contemporary, hybrid industries.
Dr Manuela Perrotta
Co-applicant: Ms Sarah Norcross, Progress Educational Trust
IF2223\230087
Building bridges between fertility patients, clinics and regulators: A collaborative approach
Queen Mary University of London
£81,983.30
The proliferation and popularity of additional treatments in fertility care, also known as add-ons, has generated widespread debate. It is estimated that over 70% of the over 50,000 patients undergoing fertility care every year in the UK use one or more of these treatments, despite a lack of scientific evidence to support either their efficacy or their safety, and their considerable cost.
In partnership with the Progress Educational Trust (PET), a well-established charity fostering the public debate on new developments in fertility, this Fellowship will draw on previous research to contribute to the building of bridges between fertility patients, clinics and regulators. Through a collaborative approach, this project will address the ongoing challenges of how best to include, learn from and integrate the experiences of fertility patients and professionals, while engaging with and supporting the ongoing work of policymakers.
Dr Nirmal Puwar
Co-applicant: Miss Mary Gregory, Coventry Cathedral
IF2223\230167
Multicultural experiments in the civic life of a cathedral
Goldsmiths, University of London
£119,525.17
This project intervenes and experiments with different ways in which multicultural lives can be connected to a notable civic modernist cathedral, existing in a super diverse city. Coventry cathedral is seeking to deepen their understanding of activities programmed in the sixties and seventies, as a resource for generating bold thinking on how to connect with diverse populations in the city through creative projects facilitating the art of dialogue and collaboration. This project works with this challenge by investigating the cathedral archives to both register multicultural experiments, as well as to use what is found in the archives to innovate new multicultural contact zones. Workshops with the archives will lead to a collaborative book, a podcast series and public events with the cathedral, to both share past practices, as well as to cultivate new possibilities. This is a knowledge transfer project, built on specialist knowledge of innovative methods and multicultural spaces.
Dr Patria Roman-Velazquez
Co-applicant: Ms Margot Heller, South London Gallery
IF2223\230121
Community-led responses to EDI strategies and policies in the creative arts sector: Enhancing the cultural opportunities of migrant and ethnic groups post Covid19 pandemic
King's College London
£119,954.40
The project is aimed at addressing social and structural inequalities that hinder participation of migrant and ethnic groups in the cultural industries in a post Covid-19 recovery context. The fellowship will be delivered in partnership with, and will build on my existing relationship with, the South London Gallery and a range of community actors to advance equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) of migrant and ethnic groups in institutional settings. The fellowship will aim to open spaces for dialogue and awareness amongst communities that are disproportionately impacted by unequal access to cultural resources and spaces; and to contribute to greater institutional inclusivity.
Dr Larissa Sandy
Co-applicant: Miss Samantha Richardson-Martin, POW Nottingham
IF2223\230080
Developing an adaptive response to sexual and serious violent crime reporting in Nottingham
University of Nottingham
£97,229.76
While sex workers in the UK are diverse, violence is an occupational hazard. Estimates suggest street-based workers are twelve times more likely to die from workplace violence than other women (Sanders & Campbell, 2007). This innovative project will develop an adaptive response to serious violent crime reporting in Nottingham. Discriminatory relationships between sex workers and the police has resulted in inconsistent experiences accessing justice and very low reporting rates. Using a place-based partnership with Prostitute Outreach Work (POW), this co-designed project explores whether a well-designed reporting tool, partnered with a police liaison officer (PLO) operating separate from the police can lead to improvements in reporting and victim-survivors access to justice. It will do this by trialling and evaluating the use of an evidence based written-response interview protocol and an external, non-police affiliated PLO in developing a response to taking initial reports of sexual and violent victimisation experienced by sex workers.
Dr Daniel Strutt
Co-applicant: Mr Alexander Whitley, Alexander Whitley Dance Company
IF2223\230051
Dancing into the Cultural Metaverse: Inclusivity and Accessibility
Goldsmiths, University of London
£110,507.55
The focus of this Innovation Fellowship Scheme proposal is for Dr. Daniel Strutt to work closely with Alexander Whitley Dance Company (AWDC) and other stakeholders to provide research leadership toward a shared goal of lowering barriers to metaverse access in terms of both cost and usability. Inspired by the principles of intersectional, interdisciplinary, and disability-centred dance research, the partners aim to develop, workshop and disseminate tools for the benefit of ALL potential users of immersive media. The sustainable and inclusive design practices that this incorporates are: motion capture streaming tools for remote participation, and machine learning (ML) for adaptive modes of embodiment in virtual spaces. To fulfil the potential of a truly ‘cultural’ metaverse we must start to create a more open, collaborative, creative space, and contribute to a vision of digital society which is free, inviting, and that offers exciting and emancipatory forms of cooperation, sociality and collective affinity.
Dr Tara Stubbs
Co-applicant: Mrs Dilys Traylen Wood, The Second Light Poetry Network
IF2223\230153
Demystifying poetry - from 8 to 80
University of Oxford
£72,079.97
Many people are nervous of poetry, including the people who teach it. Recent moves to expand and diversify the poetry curricula are welcome, but only if teachers feel happy about teaching poetry. When running classes and public workshops for adults, I've found that people are nervous of poetry at all levels, and this is something they've often had since school; education is lifelong, and learning has lifelong effects. Young children love rhyme - yet adults are often stumped when they're asked about it. In this project my Co-Applicant, the Second Light Poetry Network, and I will work together to understand when and why this change happens, organising workshops to try out innovative ways of teaching and reading poetry in order to reinstate its importance to creativity, communication and self-expression. 'Demystifying poetry' will be supported by a website and a podcast that will offer concrete ideas for educational and cultural change.
Dr Joanne Tippett
Co-applicant: Mr Matthew Rabagliati, UK National Commission for UNESCO
IF2223\230117
Playing the RoundView: translating place-based sustainability learning into action with UNESCO UK
University of Manchester
£112,442.54
If ‘sustainability for people and planet’ can only be achieved by collaboration, how do we ensure that people understand this complex topic in a meaningful, inclusive and accessible way? Working with the UK National Commission for UNESCO, I will test creative, large-scale learning tools in UNESCO-designated sites. I will work with partners to test this playful approach to exploring the global story of sustainability in a local context in diverse locations (rural to urban). This Fellowship will assess their value for inspiring action and potential for wide-scale rollout. I am already established as a creative researcher able to design impactful tools for knowledge co-production. My facilitation tool, Ketso, is used across the globe. This Fellowship would allow me to turn my focus to embedding sustainability learning into widely-visited heritage and natural sites to create actionable knowledge. This work has direct implications for place-based practice at UNESCO sites worldwide.
Dr Wen Wang
Co-applicant: Dr Mark McCarthy, University Hospitals of Leicester
IF2223\230023
Building a supportive culture to retain doctors-in-training
University of Leicester
£114,375.23
The proposed programme is a knowledge-exchange project to improve direct connections of researchers with hospital leaders and health policymakers in the East Midlands. By co-creating and implementing an innovative intervention with University Hospital of Leicester (UHL) NHS trust, the project aims to retain doctors-in-training at UHL, as the dropout rate was 43% in the Midlands in 2022, a region that was badly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The project will focus on improving lateral and vertical communication for trainees. It comprises four stages: literature review, auditing current practices and identifying gaps (S1); a mixed methods approach to co-create intervention strategies (S2); intervention development and implementation (S3), and evaluation (S4). A knowledge-sharing event will showcase insights from the project to an invited audience of health policymakers, hospital leaders from 17 regional NHS trusts, health professionals and academics. Other outputs include blogs, video clips, evidence notes and conference papers.
Dr Laura Way
Co-applicant: Mr Paul Boucher, Lincolnshire Traveller Initiative
IF2223\230082
Working with Local Traveller Communities to Develop Inclusive Practice and Cultural Awareness in Lincolnshire
University of Lincoln
£42,803.51
Lincolnshire Traveller Initiative are unusual in their aims given that few services make serious attempts to include Traveller communities in service development (Robinson and Martin, 2008). In partnership with LTI, who champion Traveller communities and good practice, the proposed research will explore innovations in how both local and national mainstream services and support organisations can: 1) include Traveller communities in their service development, 2) make themselves easier to access for Traveller communities, and 3) engage more fully in inclusive professional practice, that is underscored by improved cultural awareness. A key methodological innovation of the study is the cocreation of inclusive practice and a transformative framework of practice with Traveller communities in an innovative participatory research project that facilitates them as ‘experts by experience’ (Lane et al, 2014) in order to co-develop authentic insights concerning good practice and effective support.
Dr Rachel Wilder
Co-applicant: Ms Marsha Mars, Mighty Girls
IF2223\230123
Transforming social infrastructure for positive peer cultures: Youth-led advocacy to reduce child-on-child sexual harm
University of Bath
£79,770.40
This fellowship will advance innovative child-led approaches to transform responses to child-on-child sexual harm. In 2020, thousands of disclosures of sexual violence on the website ‘Everyone’s Invited’ re-invigorated attention to child-on-child sexual harm in schools. Ofsted reported “the vast majority of girls indicated that harmful sexual behaviours happened ‘sometimes’ or ‘a lot’” and “young people talked about teachers ‘not knowing the reality’ of their lives” (Ofsted 2021:2). The dominant response to child-on-child sexual harm in schools is support and training for teachers (UK Department for Education 2022), but this has produced mixed results (Lloyd and Bradbury 2022). Youth-led approaches recognize young people’s agency to create change in their lives and advance social justice but are rarely employed in schools. By producing knowledge on youth-led approaches to child-on-child sexual harm, compiling the evidence and sharing it with diverse stakeholders, this partnership will transform policy solutions and promote positive peer cultures.