British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants Awards 2025
The British Academy is proud to announce the award of 212 British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants worth over £1.9 million to support primary research in the SHAPE disciplines.
This round, 1,200 applications were submitted for assessment, resulting in a success rate of 18 per cent.
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, EY, the Honor Frost Foundation, the Journal of Moral Education Trust, the Sino-British Fellowship Trust, and the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies.
The British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2025 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 Sabeen Ahmad
SRG25\250772
Project Title: Gender diversity management in foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises in Pakistan, global integration or local responsiveness
Brunel University London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
The globalization of organizations and changing demographics of workforces around the world have driven much interest in the areas of diversity and diversity management among management scholars and practitioners. Though research on diversity management in multinational enterprises has received increasing attention, gender diversity management remains an under-researched area. Gender needs specific attention as it is not only a distinct source of an individual’s identity yet a reason of discrimination and inequality globally. Building on qualitative data from ten case studies, this research will explain how Western multinational enterprises in Pakistan manage gender diversity in their subsidiaries and what kind of challenges they face while transferring best practices and initiatives related to women. This study will fill the gap in literature by providing systematic analysis of contextual differences and will develop theoretically informed evidence-based recommendations on improving gender diversity management across different countries context.
Dr Oluseyi Ajayi
SRG25\252010
Project Title: Exploring the Impact of Food Insecurity, Personal Safety Concerns, and Economic Challenges on Youth Emigration Intentions in South-Western Nigeria: Pathways for Sustainable Development Solutions
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £9,964.08
Funded By: DSIT
Youth migration from Nigeria has seen a sharp increase, driven by a mix of push and pull factors, including food insecurity, lack of economic opportunities, and rising concerns over personal safety. In South-Western Nigeria, a region with unique socio-political and economic dynamics, understanding these drivers is essential for creating policies that address the root causes of migration. This research aims to bridge this knowledge gap and seeks to explore the impact of critical socio-economic and security factors on emigration intentions among youth in South-Western Nigeria. With rising levels of food insecurity, economic disempowerment, and safety concerns, the pressures on young people to consider emigration abroad as a viable option are intensifying. This study will investigate the relationships between these issues and the motivation for emigration, utilising both quantitative and qualitative methods to identify key patterns, predictors, and offer insights into sustainable development solutions that can curb unsustainable levels of migration.
Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy
SRG25\251468
Project Title: The Role of Monthly Office Days in a Fully Remote Work Model
King's College London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
Remote work has become a defining feature of today’s workplace, offering flexibility but also raising concerns about productivity and employee satisfaction. This project explores how remote work can be improved by testing a simple yet potentially powerful intervention: monthly in-person office visits. Focusing on call centre agents in Şanlıurfa, Turkey, the study will use a randomised control trial to compare outcomes between employees who remain fully remote and those who attend the office once a month. Over nine months, we will track differences in productivity, job satisfaction, and staff retention, supplemented by follow-up surveys to assess longer-term impacts. The goal is to generate rigorous evidence on whether occasional in-person contact can enhance the remote work experience. Findings will help guide organisations in designing effective and sustainable hybrid work policies that support both employee well-being and organisational performance.
Dr Nancy Annan
Co-applicant(s): Dr Laura Sulin (Welsh)
SRG25\251627
Project Title: Civilian to civilian protection: exploring women’s unarmed protection strategies in conflict affected contexts -the case of Ethiopia
Coventry University
Value Awarded: £9,994
Funded By: DSIT
This pilot research project investigates women’s unarmed community protection strategies in conflict-affected contexts, with a focus on Ethiopia. Civilian protection (PoC) has traditionally relied on militarised interventions; however, the emerging concept of unarmed civilian protection (UCP) shifts focus to nonviolent, community-led strategies, emphasising local agency. Despite growing interest in UCP, the specific role of women in these initiatives remains under-explored especially in Ethiopia. This study addresses that gap by examining the grassroots, nonviolent methods women employ to protect themselves and others during violence and armed conflict. Drawing on feminist security studies and nonviolence theory, the research will generate new empirical insights into women’s protective agency. The findings will advance theoretical understanding through feminist security and non-violence theory, and inform policies, such as the UN Women, Peace & Security Agenda and the UN policy on Civilian Centred approach to Protection of Civilians (PoC)on gendered approaches to UCP.
Dr Elise Antoine
SRG25\252075
Project Title: The Politics of AI Regulation: Examining Regulatory Approaches and the Role of Organised Interests
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming societies worldwide, yet we lack a global perspective on how it is being regulated. Existing research focuses largely on a few prominent jurisdictions, such as the European Union, while systematic cross-national comparisons remain scarce. Moreover, little is known about how the participation of interest organisations, such as firms or civil society groups, affects the content of AI regulations. This project addresses these gaps by: (1) creating an open-access repository of approximately 1,000 AI policy documents from diverse jurisdictions; (2) analysing the complexity (how difficult regulations are to understand) and restrictiveness (how much they limit or direct action) of these texts, as both characteristics affect how regulations are interpreted, implemented, and challenged; and (3) examining how patterns of interest group participation relate to regulatory outcomes through case-based investigation. By combining large-scale text analysis with case studies, the project provides the first global comparative perspective on AI.
Ms Giorgia Barboni
SRG25\251660
Project Title: Machine Learning Approaches to Understand Financial Access and Welfare in Rural India
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,749
Funded By: DSIT
We propose to employ advanced AI tools to deepen our understanding of results from an already completed large-scale RCT on financial access in rural South India. The original experiment, which randomised the opening of new bank branches across 870 villages, showed strong effects. We found increased use of formal credit, reduced informal borrowing, and gains in income, labor demand, and welfare. We now want to expand this—examining how impacts vary across individuals, exploring spillover effects, and better understanding the mechanisms driving these changes. To do this, we’ll use random forest models to estimate who in control villages would likely have borrowed had branches opened. We’ll compare implementations in Python and R, both to validate our approach and to learn from their differences. The resulting paper will offer new evidence on the heterogeneous effects of financial access at scale.
Dr Fatih Bayram
Co-applicant(s): Professor Patrick Rebuschat
SRG25\251816
Project Title: The Grammar of Knowing: Evidentiality and Heritage Grammar under Pressure
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £9,998.88
Funded By: DSIT
This project investigates how heritage speakers (HSs) of Turkish in the UK process evidentiality—a grammatical feature that marks how the speaker knows something (e.g., whether they saw it, heard it, or inferred it). In Turkish, evidentiality is grammatically required and encoded through verb endings, while in English it is optional and expressed with words like apparently or I heard. This structural mismatch, along with reduced input, limited instruction, and shifting dominance, places the heritage grammar under significant pressure.
Using a fully remote design, we combine online methods (eye-tracking, self-paced listening) with offline tasks (judgment tests) to examine how evidentiality is processed and retained. We compare three adult groups—heritage speakers, L1 attriters, and L2 learners—and model individual differences in cognition and experience.
By targeting a domain where grammar, meaning, and input interact, the project sheds light on the resilience of heritage language systems and informs more inclusive models of bilingual development.
Dr Mohammad Bitar
Co-applicant(s): Professor Amine Tarazi and Professor Amine Tarazi
SRG25\250877
Project Title: Geopolitical Fault Lines: Tracing the Impact of Geopolitical Tensions on Financial Sector Stability
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,992.47
Funded By: DSIT
This project offers an original investigation into how recent geopolitical tensions—such as armed conflicts and trade disputes—affect financial system stability and credit flows to the real economy, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While market responses to such shocks are recognised, their capacity to generate systemic risk and constrain lending remains underexplored. Using novel cross-country data and institutional analysis, the research assesses whether geopolitical risk (GPR) raises crisis likelihood, how effects differ between global and domestic financial institutions, and the consequences for real economic actors, particularly in banking-dependent communities. Anchored in the UK’s globally integrated financial system, the project advances understanding of risk transmission, economic resilience, and inclusive finance. Crucially, it also serves as the foundation for a broader research programme on how geopolitical shocks propagate through interconnected financial networks—tracing how stress in core institutions spreads to firms, households, and local economies, with important implications for academic and regulation.
Dr Luc Boutsen
Co-applicant(s): Dr Martin Juttner
SRG25\251433
Project Title: Does a facial difference determine how we see faces? A comparison of holistic and analytic perception of facial disfigurements
Aston University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
In everyday social interactions, we quickly form impressions from persons we meet, largely on the basis of a global visual analysis of the face. Facial cues provide hints to not only internal states of the person but also social attitudes (trustworthiness) and health status. Here we study the effect of facial cues to disease on how observers visually analyse and form impressions from persons. First impressions from others are based on many considerations, including the need to avoid disease. Persons with a facial difference (disfigurement) experience negative attitudes and behaviours from others they encounter. We study here whether this bias is related to the way in which observers visually analyse faces during first encounters. In 4 studies we measure whether observers analyse facial difference using a local (analytic) rather than global (holistic) strategies. The findings help understand and seek remedies for facial bias.
Dr Anna Brown
Co-applicant(s): Professor Ruth Woodfield and Dr Maksym Karpovets
SRG25\250132
Project Title: Women’s Leadership in Higher Education: Breaking Barriers, Building Stories
University of St Andrews
Value Awarded: £9,995.21
Funded By: DSIT
Improving representation of women at senior levels is central to supporting gender equality in higher education. Yet, despite their increasing participation, women remain underrepresented in senior roles across higher education institutions globally. The proposed research documents senior academic and professional service women’s experiences of navigating career progression and undertaking leadership roles in higher education institutions in the UK and Ukraine. Through a comparative case study, the project will explore the extent to which common barriers and facilitators to career progression exist for academic and professional services women. The project’s comparative elements explicate how global gendered regimes are perpetuated across HE contexts, including at time of accelerated social change brought about by the Russio-Ukraine war. The project explores the impact of these extreme circumstances on gender equality in HE and offers insight into the circumstances under which change is possible, and to what extent it can be achieved.
Dr Helen Burns
Co-applicant(s): Dr Catherine Reid
SRG25\252235
Project Title: Developing Posthuman Imagination in Museums
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
We are concerned with creating pedagogies for enhancing 'posthuman' (Briadotti) imagination, with partners: The Grand Egyptian Museum (the largest museum in the world) and North East Museums (previouslyTyne and Wear Archives and Museums) (UK). Imagination is vital in equipping individuals as creative agents within a global, convergent crises of structural injustice, environmental emergency and a shift in what it means to be human due to technological change. Museums offer a space and inspiration for imagination which formal education settings cannot always provide. Indeed, some say that schools can become ‘disimagination machines’ (Giroux) where accountability is the top priority, negating opportunities for imagination (Biesta). By collaborating in Participatory Action Research with museum educators and an artist, we aim to explore and create narratives about what effective pedagogies for posthuman imagination can be like, trialling these with learners, sharing them with teachers, creating associated resources and applying these in museum education practice.
Dr Lindsey Cameron
Co-applicant(s): Dr Katie Goodbun
SRG25\252292
Project Title: Does intergroup contact trigger intergroup felt understanding and confidence in contact in children? Determining the impact and drivers of the Schools Linking intervention in Primary Schools
University of Kent
Value Awarded: £9,753.30
Funded By: DSIT
Intergroup contact, that is meaningful interactions between members of different social groups (e.g. religion, ethnicity, nationality), is one of the most effective techniques available to reduce prejudice, tackle stereotyping, and create better community relations (Rutland, Killen & Cameron, 2025). To harness the power of intergroup contact, we need a deeper understanding of the experience of contact, how it works, and the impact it has on children. The proposed research will evaluate the impact of an intergroup contact education programme delivered in schools among children (aged 9-11 years). Utilising pre-post intervention surveys and in-depth interviews, we will examine the impact of intergroup contact on children’s intergroup attitudes and behaviours, and investigate the role of two new constructs: intergroup felt understanding and confidence in contact. We expect children in the intervention condition to develop more positive outgroup orientation, and this will be driven by increased confidence in contact and felt understanding.
Dr Hongryol Cha
SRG25\252181
Project Title: Factory-less Manufacturing in the Reshoring Era: Designing Ecosystems for Strategic Transformation in the UK and EU
Queen's University Belfast
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines the sustainability and governance of the Factory-Less Manufacturing (FLM) model, in which firms retain core capabilities while outsourcing entire production, in the context of growing reshoring trends. Global value chains have now faced decoupling vulnerabilities caused by pandemics, geopolitical shifts, and climate change. Decoupling led FLM firms to adopt more agile and sustainable alternatives in the reshoring business. However, the feasibility of this model remains uncertain in local contexts within the UK and the EU, particularly due to diminished industrial capacity. Derived from complexity science, we aim to develop a new theory of sustainable manufacturing ecosystem design. Using a multimodal mixed-methods approach, this project investigates the strategic, institutional, and systemic dimensions of the FLM model. It incorporates case studies and geospatial analysis of shipping data. As such, this research will contribute to academic debates on post-globalisation production models and offer actionable insights for policymakers and companies.
Dr Muluken Chekol
SRG25\252007
Project Title: Migration Literacy: Digital Media Driven Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes towards Migration to Europe from the Horn of Africa
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £9,677.66
Funded By: DSIT
This study investigates how digital media influences migration literacy among youths in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Ethiopia. While digital platforms offer migrants practical support, connection, and inspiration, they also spread idealized or misleading narratives about life in Europe. Drawing from literature that highlights the multiple roles of digital media, this research explores how digital narratives influence the knowledge, attitudes, and decisions of young Ethiopians considering migration to Europe. Despite Ethiopia’s significant role in African migration dynamics, limited academic attention has been given to digital media implication of migration. Employing a convergent mixed-methods design, the study integrates survey data from 400 youths and in-depth interviews with 25 participants. Data will be analysed using SPSS and NVivo to examine digital media use, migration-related knowledge acquisition, and decision-making processes. This research aims to offer critical insights into how digital content shapes migration literacy, motivations, and perceptions among youth in digital media.
Dr Peter Chonka
SRG25\250719
Project Title: The governance of online trust and safety in a conflict-affected context: understanding Somalia’s 2023 ‘TikTok ban’
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,990
Funded By: DSIT
The emerging impacts of short-video social media platforms on governance and security in fragile and conflictaffected states remain under-researched. This is particularly true in African contexts where the use of TikTok has expanded rapidly in recent years. The perceived significance of short video sharing platforms on security dynamics was underscored in 2023 with the government of Somalia’s announcement and attempted implementation of a ban of TikTok (and certain other digital platforms). Motivated by the pressing need to understand platform governance practices in fragile, conflict-affected states with highly active local language digital publics, the proposed project will use key informant interviews with local policy makers and focus groups with young users of TikTok in order to assess the rationale and prospects of the government’s ban of the platform, as well as its implications for on security and civic digital freedoms in Somalia.
Professor Linda Clarke
SRG25\252205
Project Title: The role, significance and development of Direct Labour Organisations in Britain
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,980
Funded By: DSIT
The aim is to assess and depict stages in the development of local authority building departments, known as direct labour organisations (DLOs), since the 1890s municipal socialist movement in Britain. It will identify the roles DLOs have played in: building, refurbishing, repairing and maintaining council buildings, especially housing; training the construction workforce; setting good, secure work and employment conditions; training and employing women, ethnic minority groups, and blacklisted workers; engaging in local communities and the construction trade unions; setting an example of good quality work; and providing an alternative to the private building industry. Drawing on historical and contemporary data, individual histories, and detailed investigation of selected departments, the research will provide a wide-ranging account, show the continued relevance of DLOs, especially for zero energy building and retrofitting, and set them in the context of developments in Europe, particularly Vienna. Outcomes include a book, exhibition, and separate publications.
Professor Diana Cullell
Co-applicant(s): Dr Gabriel Hernández Espinosa
SRG25\251541
Project Title: Poetry Slams: Addressing Identity, Inequality and Multilingualism in Community Spaces in Mexico
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,920
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines poetry slams in Mexico, approaching them as a social movement that addresses crucial societal challenges. This year Mexico is hosting the World Poetry Slam Championship (Ciudad Juárez, 30 May-1 June), which will further increase the popularity of slams in the country. Poetry slams –and performance poetry in general– revolve around very complex cultural identities and mixed ethnic, social, linguistic and economic backgrounds in Mexico, and they work as a non-elitist, bottom-up poetic movement generated by poets that often feel marginalised and aim their cultural production at audiences with similar concerns. We will capitalise on the interest generated by the World Championship, looking at public engagement and how the physical and cultural space in which perfopoetry takes place can turn into negotiating spaces for contested identities. This will also help understand issues of societal inequality, inclusion, disadvantage, negotiate contested identities and cultural remittances and foster better community relationships.
Dr Matteo De Marco
Co-applicant(s): Dr Ignazio Puzzo and Professor Veena Kumari
SRG25\252247
Project Title: Is verbal aggressiveness associated with a reduced ability to process abstract concepts?
Brunel University London
Value Awarded: £9,974
Funded By: DSIT
There is a negative link between verbal aggressiveness and the ability to argue. Argumentative people tend to challenge another person’s position on a topic, while verbally-aggressive people tend instead to attack the person.
This research will empirically examine, in two distinct cohorts, the potential link between verbal aggressiveness (attacking the self-concept of others) and the ability to process abstract knowledge. Specifically, we will probe the hypothesis that verbal aggressiveness is associated negatively, while argumentativeness (challenging the object of a point-of-view; socially acceptable) may be linked positively, with our ability to process abstract knowledge. This is because, to challenge a person’s position, one must focus on the argument, and this requires cautious and fine-grained processing of abstract concepts. This is not needed in a verbally-aggressive exchange. We expect that our findings will inform research on aggressive behaviour and help define new angles to design strategies to limit verbal aggressiveness.
Dr Xiaoying Deng
SRG25\252475
Project Title: Green Investment and Carbon Footprint
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,997
Funded By: DSIT
This project leverages a comprehensive dataset of publicly listed U.S. firms and their facility-level emissions from 2000 to 2024 to analyze firm-level carbon reduction strategies. By examining both operational improvements—such as renewable energy investments and technological upgrades—and green asset allocation toward sustainable properties, this study moves beyond general ESG metrics to assess the actual impact of green investments on carbon emissions. By comparing green investment patterns among low- and high-emission firms across industries, the research will provide insights into how these strategies translate into carbon reductions and respond to evolving environmental policies. This approach not only addresses an urgent issue in corporate sustainability but also offers valuable policy insights by identifying which green investments effectively reduce emissions, enhancing firm resilience. The findings aim to clarify the distributional impacts of environmental policies on individual firms, filling a critical gap in firm-level environmental research with both immediate and long-term implications.
Dr Antonino Di Raimo
SRG25\250374
Project Title: The Body Holds the Story, and the Place that Framed It
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £9,850
Funded By: DSIT
While the notion of embodiment, drawn from philosophy and cognitive sciences, has become increasingly influential across the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, there remains an urgent need to explore its full potential in terms of applied methods and knowledge production. There is still a lack of practical methodologies capable of capturing how individuals experience embodiment in everyday life. This proposal outlines a pilot project aimed at testing a new qualitative, arts-based research method, developed through the extension of an existing one.
We aim to extend body mapping, an established arts-based method, to incorporate the built environment into data generation, specifically examining how spatial contexts shape embodied experience. Working with two local institutions, we intend to embed the project within a diverse urban community, using co-design to develop the method.
The research will contribute to the development of new knowledge and lay the groundwork for further enquiry in this field.
Jing-Lin Duanmu
SRG25\250744
Project Title: Multinational Wage Shocks and Multinational Moves: Unveiling Employment Effect of Minimum Wage on Multinational Affiliates in China
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project aims to investigate the employment effects of minimum wage policies on Japanese multinational affiliates operating in China in 1995-2019. China has long been a key destination for Japanese foreign direct investment due to its low labor costs, growing market, and geographic proximity. While such investment benefits China through job creation, rising minimum wages may reduce employment at Japanese-owned affiliates and deter future investment. Existing minimum wage literature largely focuses on the service sector, where low-wage workers are more prevalent, leaving the impact on foreign-owned manufacturing affiliates under-explored. This is a significant gap, as manufacturing affiliates are particularly sensitive to international wage differentials and often choose production locations based on labor cost advantages. The project focuses on the manufacturing sector and uses high-quality micro-level data from Toyo Keizai to evaluate how minimum wage policies influence employment and investment decisions by Japanese multinationals in China, with broad policy implications.
Dr Marin Dujmovic
Co-applicant(s): Professor Pavle Valerjev
SRG25\250519
Project Title: The Dynamics of Automated Reasoning Processes
University of Bristol
Value Awarded: £9,991.44
Funded By: DSIT
The dual-process approach to reasoning traditionally identifies Type 1 (automatic, fast and cognitively cheap) vs Type 2 (slow, deliberate and cognitively expensive) processes. In the past couple of decades methodological and theoretical developments have eroded this division. It is proposed that many processes previously categorized as Type 2 share characteristics with Type 1 processing. Additionally, conflict detection (between reasoning processes generating opposing decisions) and resolution have been introduced to the base model. During the past few years we have developed methods and tasks to probe and quantify the dynamics of these processes. In order to advance our understanding of reasoning processes, these new approaches need to be deployed at scale in a set of carefully designed experiments. These experiments will explore how a set of cognitive strategies becomes an automated reasoning process and provide inferences about how opposing processes combine to affect reasoning decisions and metacognitive judgments about those decisions.
Dr Murtaza Faruquee
Co-applicant(s): Professor Kulwant Pawar
SRG25\250935
Project Title: Contextualising UK-Bangladesh supply chain resilience under geopolitical disruptions
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,821.01
Funded By: DSIT
The UK sources many components and products from Bangladesh, making it the second largest importer of Bangladeshi apparel after the EU. The relationship between the UK-based buyers and Bangladeshi suppliers is crucial for both economies. However, current geopolitical disruptions, such as the USA's tariffs on imports, are causing major uncertainties in global supply chains, impacting non-USA supply chains like the UK-Bangladesh one. Therefore, it is essential to examine the resilience capabilities applied in the current context and strategies deployed by the suppliers to maintain stability. This research will delve into resilience tools and mechanisms, conceptualising short-term and long-term resilience strategies in the context of complex geopolitical disruptions. This research will advance the literature on supply chain resilience for current contexts of complexities and constant disruptions.
Dr Mark Fenemore
SRG25\251623
Project Title: The Revolutionary Impact (as a concept and as reality) of Balloons as Weapons of War, 1783-1903
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,888.46
Funded By: DSIT
It is difficult to overstate the impact the onset of manned flight had on human consciousness. The experiment in launching a balloon at Annonay in 1783 had profound repercussions for the imaginations of Europeans. The ability to ascend over the battlefield had the potential to revolutionize warfare. Almost as soon as the Montgolfier brothers managed to achieve tethered and then free flight, experts imagined military utilizations of the new technology. Within a decade, their invention was being used on the battlefield, defending France against its multitude of enemies. Examining the use of observation balloons not only in the revolutionary wars, but also in the American Civil War, the project will show how an arms race developed in the 1880s, which resulted in balloons being used in multiple far-flung colonial hotspots.
Dr Melissa Gatter
SRG25\250567
Project Title: Surveilling Sanctuary: Migration and Municipal Governance in the Age of AI
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,980
Funded By: DSIT
The US Department of Homeland Security relies on AI technologies developed by private companies to track, detain, and criminalise migrants at the US-Mexico border. Since 2022, conservative lawmakers governing the border have sent over 100,000 asylum seekers directly to sanctuary cities like Chicago, where civil servants struggle to protect asylum seekers from the surveillant AI technologies employed by local and national law enforcement. This ethnographic research examines the intersecting systems, people, and AI technologies in Chicago’s ongoing asylum seeker crisis, employing two stages of short-term ethnography with key municipal actors (asylum seekers, city officials, aid actors, and local police) as well as semi-structured interviews with actors in private tech, national government, and immigration law. By examining the repercussions of the (inter)national political economy of AI on the municipal level, this research lays the foundation for interrogating the fraught meaning of sanctuary in everyday localities in an age of AI.
Dr Konstantinos Gavriilidis
Co-applicant(s): Dr Vasileios Kallinterakis
SRG25\251113
Project Title: Price Manipulation in Victorian Equity Markets
University of Stirling
Value Awarded: £9,975.08
Funded By: DSIT
This project aims to empirically examine the presence of stock price manipulation in a pre-20th century market, an underexplored research area in the financial history literature. Using an exceptionally detailed archival dataset containing transaction-level records from the Aberdeen Stock Exchange during the period 1845–1891, the study will shed light on whether, and to what extent, manipulative trading behaviours occurred in early stock markets. The findings will offer valuable insights into financial misconduct and investor behaviour during the Victorian era, contributing to the research of both economic historians and financial economists. Another key output of the project will be the creation of a new, publicly available dataset of historical stock prices and transactions from a provincial market, enhancing resources for future research.
Dr Kadija George
SRG25\252106
Project Title: Reading the Multiplicity of Blackness in Black British Magazines : 1990-2000
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,985
Funded By: DSIT
This history of the book project will uncover details of Black British life in the 1990s. Research will be implemented through close reading of magazines produced by Black publishers and by interviewing publishers and those who worked with them in various capacities from writing through to production and distribution. Collecting data via interviews using an experimental process is an important part of the research project. It covers a period when there was a notable change in the ethnic makeup of Britain, therefore knowledge on Black British life at this time is crucial to understanding changes in Britain’s Black community and its correlating changes on British society, yet it has been overlooked in scholarship on Black British history. The project entails sharing knowledge gained through public mediums including social media platforms. It will add a new cultural history to the broader history of book, print culture and Black British history.
Dr Juliana Gerard
Co-applicant(s): Dr Muskaan Singh and Dr Gearóid Ó Domagáin
SRG25\250561
Project Title: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models for children's language development in Irish: a study on computational tools for under-represented languages
University of Ulster
Value Awarded: £9,967.40
Funded By: DSIT
This pilot project will develop a longitudinal, annotated corpus of spontaneous Irish child-directed speech to support qualitative and quantitative analysis of transcription accuracy and speech variability. Longitudinal recordings will be collected from parents of children from Munster, Connacht, and Ulster dialects of Irish, capturing both dialectal and developmental variation in a real-world, home environment.
The audio will be transcribed and linguistically annotated to enable qualitative interpretation and quantitative benchmarking. We will evaluate Whisper, an open-source ASR model, using both standard quantitative metrics (e.g., Word Error Rate) and qualitative categorization of transcription errors, e.g. recognition errors tied to initial mutation, dialect-specific verb forms, and bilingual influence from English. The annotated corpus, evaluation tools, and linguistic diagnostics will be made publicly available, addressing a key resource gap for Irish language technology. The project lays the groundwork for future research in computational linguistics, child language acquisition, and inclusive speech processing for minority languages.
Dr F Jeane Gerard
Co-applicant(s): Dr Sally Atkinson-Sheppard
SRG25\251217
Project Title: Parental experiences and the gang; an intersectional analysis.
University of Westminster
Value Awarded: £9,887
Funded By: DSIT
This study explores the experiences of parents whose children are involved in gang activities and serious violence, examining their attitudes and the profound impact on their lives. It incorporates insights from criminal justice practitioners, social workers, and charity staff to provide a comprehensive view. The research adopts an intersectionality framework to understand how race, class, gender, and culture influence parental experiences, providing a nuanced understanding of the complex social dynamics at play. Methodologically, it involves 40 semi-structured interviews with parents and professionals, analysed through thematic analysis. The study aims to shift the narrative from blaming parents to addressing broader social factors, offering evidence-based recommendations for effective and supportive interventions. The study's significance lies in addressing critical gaps in understanding the experiences of parents with children involved in gangs, instead of stigmatising them. The outcomes will inform policies to support and strengthen family bonds in the fight against gang involvement.
Dr Matthias Gobel
Co-applicant(s): Professor Simona Sacchi and Professor Rosa Rodriguez-Bailon
SRG25\251955
Project Title: Next door, worlds apart: Examining how economic inequality shapes wellbeing in the immediate physical surroundings of neighbourhoods
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,916
Funded By: DSIT
Economic inequality has become a central focus of psychological and social science research, with growing evidence linking it to poorer mental health and wellbeing. Yet findings remain mixed—largely because existing studies often overlook how inequality is psychologically experienced in the immediate, everyday surroundings of people’s neighbourhoods. This project addresses that gap by capturing the lived, moment-to-moment experience of inequality in immediate contexts. We will conduct a longitudinal diary study with 1,000 London residents, collecting weekly reports of real-world encounters with economic inequality. These personal accounts will be integrated with psychological, demographic, and neighbourhood-level data. Using multilevel modelling, we will test how economic inequality affects wellbeing at individual, interpersonal, and community levels—and identify for whom and in which neighbourhood contexts these effects are most pronounced. By grounding structural conditions in psychological experience, the project advances theory and informs more psychologically attuned urban planning and public health policy.
Dr Sarah Hambidge
Co-applicant(s): Dr Kari Davies
SRG25\250705
Project Title: A Cross-National Comparison of Online Indicators in Detecting and Disrupting Online Sex Trafficking.
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,976.94
Funded By: DSIT
Human trafficking has become increasingly digital, with the internet a significant enabler of criminal activities in this area. There is limited understanding of how to recognise and assess the effectiveness of online indicators in detecting sex trafficking, especially in terms of how these indicators differ across countries. This research aims to identify recurrent online indicators of sex trafficking online. A comparison of UK and US data will uncover shared patterns of sex trafficking online-indicators and examine national differences that may need tailored detection methods. Planned events with US and UK stakeholders will bring together multidisciplinary expertise to inform best practice. Critical insights into the strengths and limitations of the data, including current implications for policing sex trafficking online, will also be explored. This collaborative approach responds to the gap in the theoretical literature and the inaccuracy of data-scraping tools, contributing to more effective, data-driven strategies for combating online sex trafficking.
Dr Maria Ishaque
Co-applicant(s): Dr Fatima Yusuf
SRG25\251360
Project Title: Early years of Mandatory Structured Digital Reporting in the UK: Improvements, Ongoing Concerns and Possible Solutions
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This proposed project is an extension of our previous project that explored challenges associated with digital corporate reporting in the UK. In October 2021, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) raised concerns about the quality of early structured electronic reports produced by the UK companies, raising apprehensions about the future of digital corporate reporting. In 2022, we conducted 28 in-depth interviews with representatives from Financial Reporting Council, the big 5 accounting firms, software vendors and CFOs/secretaries. We understood the challenges faced by companies, specifically in the areas that FRC found to be particularly weak (process, usability & appearance, and tagging) in their early implementation survey (2021), post-implementation survey (2022) and investors survey (2023). With three years into mandatory structured digital reporting, we aim to interview the same group of participants (and more) to explore how/if the previous challenges have been resolved, ongoing issues, possible solutions and any organisational and regulatory initiatives.
Dr Anna Jackman
Co-applicant(s): Dr Paul Cureton
SRG25\250332
Project Title: Future drone skies: Planning in volume
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,988.38
Funded By: DSIT
From infrastructure inspection to emergency services, aerial drones increasingly feature in UK skies. The UK Government, alongside airspace regulators and industry alike, argue that drones at once support wide-ranging applications and offer economic, social, and sustainability benefits. While a recent UK Government ambition statement outlines aims for commercial drones to be “commonplace by 2030,” the impact of drones upon built environments is nonetheless yet to be fully considered and addressed. From landing pads and charging stations to flight routing, drones raise critical yet under-examined questions about changing geographies of UK planning. Bringing together academics in geography and design, this interdisciplinary project employs a case study approach, engaging with both UK planners and publics through workshops, serious games and citizen crowdsources mapping, to address a major research gap surrounding the implications of drones in three-dimensional (volumetric) airspace for UK built environments and the lived experiences of residents in their midst.
Dr Chul Jang
Co-applicant(s): Dr Seyoung Park
SRG25\250812
Project Title: Financing homeownership through pension savings
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,955.39
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines the effects of counterfactual pension policy reforms on individuals’ saving, investment, and housing decisions over the life cycle. The reforms permit young workers to access their pension savings for home purchases or mortgage repayments. We develop a novel life-cycle model with a liquid taxable account, illiquid retirement account, and homeownership account including mortgages. The proposed model not only enables the exploration and evaluation of experimental policy reforms. It provides an innovative academic framework that bridges the gap between theoretical and empirical studies as well. Model parameters are primarily calibrated on US household data, with UK data as a secondary source to support potential extensions to the UK context. Our model and findings to be documented offer valuable exercises and insights for policymakers and stakeholders in both pension and housing markets, informing the design of welfare-enhancing pension policy.
Dr Arnold Japutra
Co-applicant(s): Professor Lyndon Simkin and Dr Andreawan Honora
SRG25\250285
Project Title: More Than a Message: Brand Attachment and Influencer Effectiveness in Communicating Sustainability
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,980
Funded By: DSIT
As sustainability and UN SDGs become more central to businesses’ strategies and branding, many brands promote green credentials. However, some brands under-communicate their sustainability efforts, possibly due to assumptions about low consumer awareness or interest – particularly in the emerging markets. Brand attachment plays an important role. This study investigates the role of consumer emotional attachment in shaping responses to sustainability communication, exploring how emotional connections to brands and influencers affect responses to sustainability messaging on social media. The study also compares the effectiveness of human versus virtual influencers in promoting sustainable products. Using a mixed-methods approach, it identifies the psychological mechanisms that influence loyalty, perception, and willingness to pay. By focusing on the Indonesian context, the research offers practical insights for brands aiming to communicate sustainability more meaningfully in emerging markets, contributing significantly to the discourse on responsible branding and consumer engagement more broadly.
Hannah Jennings
Co-applicant(s): Professor Irene Kretchy and Dr Leonard Baatiema
SRG25\251607
Project Title: FOCUS: Facilitating Opportunities for Community Understanding and Support; exploring mental wellbeing, NCDs and community support in urban Ghana
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,995
Funded By: DSIT
The mental wellbeing of people with a non-communicable disease (NCD) is an important and under-explored area. Living with a chronic condition, such as an NCD, can place considerable strain on one’s mental health. Mental and physical health have a complex bi-directional relationship, yet tend to be addressed in silos. In Ghana, due to an aging population, rapid urbanisation, changing diets and other factors NCDs are increasing and are a major public health issue. Within this context, little is known about how living with an NCD affects one’s mental health and what psychosocial support is available within communities. Building on existing relationships and previous work this project will explore the relationship between mental and physical health, what community support is available and what more is needed in urban Ghana through in-depth qualitative research and community engagement. The findings will inform future actions to help address this important public health issue.
Dr Hae-Sung Jeon
SRG25\250842
Project Title: Multimodality in interaction: speech prosody and head movements in the Jejuan language
University of Central Lancashire
Value Awarded: £9,999.41
Funded By: DSIT
The realm of multimodal communication research concerning how talkers use different modalities such as speech and body language has been expanding. This project analyses communicative features of the Jejuan language (‘Jejueo’) which is an endangered language spoken on Jeju Island in South Korea. Specifically, this project establishes an annotation scheme for multimodal spontaneous interaction data; examines Jejueo focusing on speech prosody (e.g. melody and timing); and investigates how talkers coordinate prosody and head movements. Analyses are carried out to examine the relationship between linguistic and stance factors, speech prosody in both spoken sentences and sentence-external backchannels (vocal feedback), and talkers’ eye, lip, and head movements. The project takes an innovative approach by conducting detailed analyses of spontaneous interaction. The outcomes provide novel data to augment the relatively sparse existing documentation of multimodal communication in non-European languages and contribute to understanding of how we integrate information from multiple sources during interaction.
Dr Patricia Jolliffe
Co-applicant(s): Dr Helen Collins
SRG25\251994
Project Title: Barriers and opportunities to participation in education among marginalised communities: A Gypsies, Travellers, Roma, Showmen and Boaters (GTRSB) perspective
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £6,800
Funded By: DSIT
Many GTRSB students are not attending secondary school, and little is known about the exact numbers of Gypsies, Travellers, Roma, Showmen and Boaters (GTRSB) students in Liverpool secondary schools. What is known is that many do not attend because they have ‘dropped out’ or been excluded, too often based on assumption and stereotype rather than on research with the subjects concerned. Widening participation in further and higher education from disadvantaged communities has been stubbornly unsuccessful for the most marginalised groups. Reasons underpinning low participation rates in FE/HE from this community begin much sooner than standard university entrance age, e.g. through low aspiration, high rates of exclusion and poor appreciation of GTRSB culture by those in authority. Building on our 10 years plus community experience, and led by them, we want to find out the numbers of GTRSB pupils in/out of school, and understand the barriers.
Dr Magdalena Kachlicka
Co-applicant(s): Professor Adam Tierney
SRG25\251685
Project Title: Encoding of acoustic and linguistic information during language learning
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,917.86
Funded By: DSIT
Learning a second language (L2) in adulthood is not easy and not all learners achieve the desired level of proficiency. One challenge during learning is that individuals must learn to detect acoustic and linguistic structures that differ from those of their native language. Can immersion experience help learners encode acoustic cues and linguistic structures better? Does the robustness of acoustic and linguistic encoding drive language proficiency? The primary aim of this project is to investigate how learners with different levels of proficiency and immersion experience encode acoustic and linguistic information in L2 speech. The results from this study will advance our understanding of how learners process different types of information during learning. This work will help pinpoint which aspects of language individuals are struggling to follow and which should be addressed with remedial training.
Mr Subham Kailthya
Co-applicant(s): Dr Minh Tung Le
SRG25\252468
Project Title: Misallocation, Price Control and Weather Shocks in Vietnam
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,960
Funded By: DSIT
Increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events reduce agricultural productivity, raise prices, and threaten food security. This proposal aims to study how weather shocks interact with rice price control policies in Vietnam, potentially amplifying misallocation of labour and capital in the agriculture sector. While the current literature views them as isolated factors, we will study their interactive effect on agricultural productivity. To achieve this, we will develop a quantitative framework to obtain testable predictions, which we will verify using multiple rounds of Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS). Additionally, to test behavioural assumptions that underlie farmers’ adaptation responses to climate risks, we will implement a pilot survey in the Mekong delta to elicit bias in subjective perception of climate shocks and uncover risk attitudes. The findings from this study will contribute to the broader research agenda of understanding agricultural productivity gaps to inform climate-resilient food policies.
Dr Hesam Kamalipour
Co-applicant(s): Dr Nastaran Peimani
SRG25\251377
Project Title: Contested Streets: Informal Livelihoods and the Politics of Public Space in Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £9,998
Funded By: DSIT
This project investigates how street vendors in Hanoi (Vietnam) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) navigate and contest public space to sustain their livelihoods. As informal employment accounts for a significant share of the global workforce, especially in the Global South, this research addresses a critical gap in our understanding of how informal economies shape and are shaped by urban governance. Despite their contribution to economic vitality and urban vibrancy, street vendors face spatial exclusion and regulatory pressures, particularly in the Global South. Through a comparative urbanism framework and qualitative methods, including observation, interviews, and mapping, this study aims to generate new empirical insights into the everyday politics of urban informality. The research will contribute to theoretical debates on Southern Urbanism and inform spatially grounded, context-responsive planning and design approaches. Outcomes will include peer-reviewed publications, policy-relevant findings, and methodological innovations applicable across diverse urban contexts where informality is integral to city life.
Dr Kee-Youn Kang
SRG25\252163
Project Title: Monetary Policy and Moral Hazard
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project explores how central banks’ monetary policies can unintentionally encourage excessive risk-taking in financial markets when there are hidden incentives—known as moral hazard—between borrowers and investors. I develop a framework to show how firms raise money by issuing complex financial products, and how the availability of central bank support may influence investor behaviour. While such policies are often seen as beneficial because they boost the economy by increasing liquidity, this research highlights how they can also lead to unintended financial instability. By combining recent insights from financial markets and contract design, the project aims to offer new perspectives on how to balance economic support with financial safety. The findings will inform both academic debate and real-world policy discussions, contributing to future decisions on central bank monetary policy, asset purchases, and public debt management.
Dr Krzysztof Krakowski
Co-applicant(s): Dr Egon Tripodi and Dr Marco Giani
SRG25\252046
Project Title: Measuring Critical Thinking in Adolescence
King's College London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
In an era shaped by generative AI and digital misinformation, the ability to think critically is more essential—and more endangered—than ever. Yet fewer than one in four 15-year-olds can reliably distinguish fact from opinion online. This project lays the groundwork for a large-scale randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of school debating on adolescents’ critical thinking. We request support to develop and validate a 20-item short-form critical thinking test, adapted from the 71-item Cornell Critical Thinking Test. The new tool will be fast to administer (≤15 minutes), cover the five dimensions identified in the Delphi consensus, and retain strong psychometric properties. We will use an online UK sample (N ≈ 250) and a Polish classroom sample (N ≈ 200) to assess internal consistency, factor structure, cross-cultural invariance, and predictive validity against academic performance. The final product—a bilingual, open-access testing toolkit with scoring manual and preregistered code—will serve educators and researchers.
Dr Lars Laamann
Co-applicant(s): Dr Yingzi Wang
SRG25\252465
Project Title: Creating a New Order: The Northern Frontier Areas in Qing China, 1901–1911
SOAS University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This jointly endeavoured research project aims to investigate the cultural transformation of the Korean-Mongolian-Manchurian border region at the turn of the twentieth century, with a specific emphasis on the establishment of social institutions as well as state-sponsored activities. The first decade of the twentieth century would change the course of East Asia’s history in a most profound manner, spelling an end to the European powers' relevance in East Asia – as well as to China's historical dominance. The region’s transformation should be seen against the background of the changing geopolitical situation, and by taking account of sources in all relevant languages, including recently discovered archival sources. The conceptual idea behind our collaboration is for the British side to investigate all sources available in Europe (in particular Britain), whereas the Chinese side would concentrate on the sources available in eastern Asia (in particular China).
Dr Ranjit Lall
SRG25\250939
Project Title: Administering the Algorithms: Mass Preferences for the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,955
Funded By: DSIT
The effective governance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has emerged as one of the most urgent challenges confronting the international community. A critical requirement for any successful transnational regulatory regime is that it enjoys broad support from those under its jurisdiction, yet we know strikingly little about whether – and in what institutional form – the public desires global AI governance. The proposed project seeks to address this research gap by conducting the first cross-national survey of public attitudes toward AI governance at the international level, encompassing approximately 6,000 citizens of six world leaders in AI development and adoption. The resulting database will constitute a valuable resource for academics as well as policymakers, offering unique insights into how citizens believe AI should be globally governed and what determines such preferences. The findings will provide the basis for a monograph as well as two articles intended for leading political science outlets.
Dr Matthew Lane
SRG25\250974
Project Title: Transitioning away from renewable energy: Infrastructural Futures and Zambia’s Climate Justice Paradox
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £9,900
Funded By: DSIT
This project will advance understandings of the rapidly evolving relationship between the nation state, climate change, and infrastructure politics. It departs from mainstream accounts of sustainability transitions which foreground shifts from fossil fuels to renewables. Such framings are increasingly undermined by a range of political, cultural and technological justifications for fossil fuel infrastructures. The project examines the case of Zambia’s ongoing construction of its first ever coal power plants - a response to the catastrophic impact of climate-induced drought on its existing renewable hydro-electricity output. From this paradoxical perspective, it will explore how state planning and decision-making on energy infrastructure is justified to the public, to financiers, and within the context of global environmental agendas increasingly tuned to notions of climate ‘justice’. Amid wider backlash against ‘green politics’ it will illuminate the importance of considering the history, materiality and politics of infrastructure change.
Dr Signe Rehling Larsen
SRG25\251915
Project Title: Post-Imperial Unions: Federal, Transnational, and Regional Constitutionalism after Empires
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,999.54
Funded By: DSIT
What if the European Union were not a historical anomaly, but part of a broader—now largely forgotten—global pattern? In response to imperial decline after WWI, political leaders and intellectuals across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean explored constitutional alternatives to both empire and the nation-state. In this project, I develop the concept of ‘post-imperial unions’ to describe the federal, regional, and transnational constitutional projects proposed in the fifty years following WWI—including the European Economic Community, the failed European Defence Community, the Commonwealth, the French Union, the West Indies Federation, and constitutional debates over post-colonial futures in India and Africa. Through comparative archival research in London, Paris, Florence, Delhi, and Lahore, the project recovers the ideas that animated this global constitutional movement. In doing so, it challenges nation-state-centred models of constitutional order and reopens the question of constitutional alternatives to empire in an age of resurgent imperial geopolitics.
Dr Melita Lazell
Co-applicant(s): Dr Ivica Petrikova
SRG25\251022
Project Title: Aid or Extraction? Examining the Financialisation of UK Development Assistance in Kenya
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £9,980
Funded By: DSIT
UK official development assistance (ODA) is at its lowest level in decades, yet an increasing share is channelled through financialised instruments. This under-explored shift potentially undermines sustainable development objectives. Focusing on British International Investment (BII) in Kenya this project asks whether financialised aid represents new pathways for equitable development or mechanisms for wealth extraction under a development guise. BII, the UK’s vehicle for financialised ODA, has expanded rapidly, but its motivations and operations have received limited scrutiny. In collaboration with researchers at the University of Nairobi and the British Institute in East Africa, we combine qualitative and quantitative data analysis to evaluate BII’s operations. By using qualitative methods to investigate a domain typically dominated by quantitative approaches, this study captures rich, in-depth insights—including local understandings—overlooked in existing studies. Findings will be shared in a stakeholder workshop in Nairobi to foster dialogue, inform policy, and support future collaborative research.
Dr laure Leglise
SRG25\252267
Project Title: Grassroots organizing for a just energy transition: The case of windfarm development projects on Scotland’s Isle of Lewis
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,892.90
Funded By: DSIT
This research will investigate how grassroots movements emerge, navigate, challenge and resist wind farm developments. Specifically, the research will examine how local communities on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, a socially and culturally unique yet demographically and economically challenged area, react, challenge and resist to three multinational-led onshore and offshore wind farm projects at different development stages: Stornoway Wind Farm, Spiorad na Mara and Grimshader Onshore Windfarm. Guided by the extended case study method, the environmental injustices created by these developments will be critically analysed, considering how these injustices trigger opposition from local communities and how grassroots movements organize to resist wind farm developments and address the injustices experienced. This research will contribute to understanding the complexities of a just transition by providing valuable insights into the political and organisational dynamics of energy transitions.
Dr Pouria Liravi
Co-applicant(s): Dr Jumana Ghannam
SRG25\251603
Project Title: Transforming Inclusive Education: Generative AI to Support Personalized Learning for Neurodiverse Students
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,947.76
Funded By: DSIT
This interdisciplinary research explores how generative artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance inclusive, personalised education for neurodiverse students in higher education. Focusing on learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, and Dyslexia, the project addresses the limitations of traditional teaching in accommodating cognitive diversity. AI tools such as adaptive content generation, multimodal instruction, and responsive assessments will be integrated into selected courses at the University of Derby and Nottingham Trent University. Employing a mixed-methods design, the research includes participatory co-design workshops with students, qualitative interviews, and surveys. The study evaluates both academic and emotional impacts, aiming to foster equitable learning environments. Outcomes include open-access digital resources, a scalable pedagogical framework, and journal publications. Dissemination will involve public toolkits, infographics, and a project website. Participant incentives include £10 digital vouchers, refreshments during workshops, and recognition certificates. This research contributes to inclusive pedagogy, educational technology, and digital equity in UK higher education.
Dr Yuqing Liu
SRG25\251705
Project Title: Saltwater Poetics: Pidgin English in Chinese Literature
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £9,950
Funded By: DSIT
What is pidgin? How has it influenced Chinese and English literatures? And how should we understand languages that are co-created and received in an age of globalisation? Driven by these questions, Saltwater Poetics is the first extended study of the literary practices of pidgin English in 18th- to early 20th-century China. It challenges the prevailing perception of pidgin as a substandard, linguistically deficient form, devoid of literary significance. Instead, it theorises the aesthetics of pidgin, highlighting its various roles in Sino- European interactions. Drawing on the concept of "saltwater," a Cantonese term for this hybrid language, my research breaks away from Eurocentric narratives and reveals that pidgin has its own poetics. This poetics embraces ambiguity, misinterpretation, and mistranslation, promoting a pluralistic approach to meaning- making. Looking beyond China, this project aims to crystalise a new framework for understanding the dynamism and adaptability of languages in transcultural communication.
Dr Shuchang Liu
SRG25\252260
Project Title: Investigating the Usage and Adherence of Maternal Nutrition Smartphone Apps Among Pregnant and Lactating Women in the UK
Liverpool Hope University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This study examines the use and effectiveness of maternal nutrition smartphone apps among pregnant and lactating women. Many pregnant women lack essential nutrition knowledge, which can negatively impact their health and that of their infants. The research aims to determine if these apps can be a reliable source of nutrition information. An original developed questionnaire will assess participants' dietary habits, nutrition knowledge, and app usage experiences. Data analysis will identify trends, gaps, and areas for improvement in the apps. The goal is to enhance nutrition knowledge through better-designed apps, provide recommendations to developers, and ultimately improve maternal and infant health outcomes by promoting better nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.
Professor Muireann Maguire
SRG25\252160
Project Title: From Other Shores: Writing Russophone Resistance in Real Time
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,832
Funded By: DSIT
‘Since the beginning of the twentieth century,' writes Maxim Osipov on the website of the journal of Russophone émigré literature which he founded in 2023, 'every generation of native Russian speakers has lived through their own catastrophe’. This project analyses how two Russian-language journals published abroad - Osipov's Amsterdam-based The Fifth Wave (2023 - present) and The New Review, founded in New York in 1942 by two leading émigré authors, Mark Aldanov and Mikhail Tsetlin - have mediated the survival of dissident Russophone literature during times of political and humanitarian catastrophe, respectively the Second World War and Russia's invasion of Ukraine today. By combining academic research with a nuanced historical perspective and constructive engagement with the literary translation industry (including the production of an Open Access anthology of contemporary Russophone writing), 'From Other Shores' disentangles the creative identities of exiled Russian-speaking authors from the toxic politics of their homeland.
Aparna Mahiyaria
Co-applicant(s): Dr Swastee Ranjan
SRG25\250906
Project Title: (un)lawful acts: theatre and law in India
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,960
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines how law and performance interact in theatre practices in India. It explores how performers embody or experience legality, how they withstand law in its many forms and contend with it within their practice, contributing to as well as extending discussions on performance censorship and legal scrutiny. Legal experiences remain under researched in performance research as much as experiences from contemporary theatre practitioners are sparce in the discussions in legal studies. This project addresses that gap. It engages with recent debates in critical legal studies and theatre studies and offers a practitioner-centred understanding of law’s affective and procedural relationship with performance. Through a research-driven discussion with and among experts, the project will advance scholarly knowledge on how performance emerges as a site of collision between articulated dissent and legal authority. The project’s public-facing outputs in addition to academic ones, will enable wider dissemination of research.
Dr Sharon Mallon
SRG25\251811
Project Title: Death Practices in Transition: Meaning, Ritual, and Change in Northern Ireland
Staffordshire University
Value Awarded: £9,616
Funded By: DSIT
This research examines contemporary death, wake, and burial customs in Northern Ireland, aiming to map current practices across communities and explore how a ‘proper burial’ is understood in a region where death practices have traditionally held significant cultural meaning. The study will explore how practices have evolved in recent history, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. A qualitative research design will draw on: 1) interviews with undertakers and relevant professionals (e.g. church officials and celebrants); 2) interviews with the bereaved; 3) images or material items resonant with participant experiences. Dissemination from this research will extend to public engagement activities to promote social cohesion and cultural understanding through shared interpretations of the meaning and significance of death practices. It will also be relevant to policymakers responsible for managing public needs and expectations around body disposal, and to those working to support the bereaved. the bereaved.
Dr Jesse Matheson
SRG25\250018
Project Title: Do housing policies shape local labour markets and economic growth?
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,503
Funded By: DSIT
The funding requested in this proposal will facilitate the planning and development of a programme of study which has the potential to transform housing policy. It will reshape the way we think about, and quantify, the costs and benefits of housing policy and how we design policies which work with local labour markets. This research programme is also expected to make methodological contributions to a recent literature in economics focusing on quantitative spatial analysis. The funds will be used to meet three primary objectives: 1) Development of an application for competitive funding based on the larger research programme; 2) An initial study of low-paid employment and affordable housing in London; 3) Building on collaborative ties with non-academic partners at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This research agenda will consider key housing policy objectives in a way that aligns with the broader UK government’s growth objective.
Dr Rusten Menard
Co-applicant(s): Dr Joseph Burridge and Dr Satu Venäläinen
SRG25\251253
Project Title: Doing Meritocracy and Free Speech in the War on Woke
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £9,995.80
Funded By: DSIT
With explicit aims of identifying ‘threats’ to freedom of speech and meritocracy, the ‘war on woke’ is at the forefront of efforts to disempower social movements targeting subjugation and social inequalities. Anti-woke discourses provide a legitimising backdrop for discriminatory and prejudiced social practices. Our aim in this study is to examine the ways in which meaning-making around ‘woke’ and ‘cancel culture’ (re)produce inequalities, privileges and disadvantages that become relevant in online discursive contexts. Using critical discursive approaches, we focus on how anti-woke discourses are drawn upon in X (previously Twitter) posts to construct meanings of normative social values, such as meritocracy and free speech, in ways that may work to protect the ‘right’ to discriminate. We also seek to analyse how those meanings are used in materialisations of, and in resistance to, subjugating social positionings.
Dr Afrasiab Mirza
SRG25\252082
Project Title: Leveraging machine learning in policy design without commitment.
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,960
Funded By: DSIT
Policymakers must often wrestle with competing explanations for recent events that predict vastly different outcomes, requiring radically different policy responses. Moreover, as circumstances change, particularly as uncertainty surrounding these various explanations increases, policymakers may be unable to commit to any policy path. The purpose of this research proposal is to devise a new methodology to help guide policymakers when faced with these circumstances. For example, should the Bank of England maintain current interest rates to continue to bring down down inflation, or should rates be reduced now to boost growth given that the economy will likely slow from recent tariffs imposed by the United States? The novelty in my approach lies in leveraging recent advances in machine learning to improve upon how many different models (and their predictions) may be leveraged effectively, despite all of them being wrong, and applying this to the context where the policymaker cannot commit.
Dr Magda Mogilnicka
Co-applicant(s): Professor Małgorzata Anna Bieńkowska
SRG25\250696
Project Title: Supporting migrants against the backdrop of hostility - the role of civil society in the ‘border crisis’ in Poland.
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,819.50
Funded By: DSIT
This study investigates civil society’s response to the ‘border crisis’ in Poland. Since 2021, thousands of people from North Africa and the Middle East attempting to cross the border from Belarus have experienced violent pushbacks, been detained, or refused the legal right to asylum by the Polish authorities. Civil society has played a critical role in supporting migrants navigate this dangerous and precarious situation, whilst advocating for a more humanitarian policy response.
Using social media research and qualitative interviews with civil society actors, this is the first study examining their role in the ‘border crisis’. It offers unique insights into civil society’s bottom-up initiatives to shift hostile migration policies and practices. Using concepts of everyday bordering and migrantisation, it contributes to academic critiques of civil society’s engagement in borderwork and provides valuable knowledge of challenges to civil society’s work in the context of increasing securitisation of the EU borderlands.
Professor Raphaële Mouren
SRG25\251325
Project Title: The Turrettini library : theology and knowledge in early modern Geneva
British School at Rome
Value Awarded: £9,700
Funded By: DSIT
The Turrettini library project aims to digitally reconstruct the library of an influential family of Genevan Calvinist theologians. Amassed over two centuries, this collection of 8,500 titles is known through a handwritten catalogue from 1772. The project will utilise advances in Digital Humanities to create a reusable AI model and automatically transcribe the catalogue. The reconstruction will be enriched with comprehensive bibliographical descriptions and information on the provenance of part of the collection now housed at the Méjanes library in Aix-en-Provence. This digital resource will offer researchers a unique insight into the theological sources used by the Turrettini family, thus illuminating Calvinist intellectual practices in the 17th and 18th centuries. A case study in the history of early modern libraries, this project will provide an in-depth understanding of this fascinating historical library. It will also demonstrate the application of digital humanities to the sector in path-breaking ways.
Dr Ray Norbury
Co-applicant(s): Mr Peter Lin
SRG25\250406
Project Title: Finding a route to creativity
Brunel University London
Value Awarded: £9,895.75
Funded By: DSIT
Creativity drives innovation and this research will explore how activities requiring more flexible problem-solving strategies inspire greater creativity. Participants will engage in a virtual spatial search, exploring dynamic virtual reality environments to locate items at spatially disparate locations (disperse condition) or locate items from a single location (focused condition). Following the search tasks, participants will complete tests measuring key facets of creative behaviour, namely, divergent and convergent thinking. It is predicted that participants in the disperse condition will demonstrate enhanced divergent creativity (i.e. better ability to find multiple solutions), as they will have been required to search through space for multiple locations. Conversely, the focused condition group is expected to excel in convergent thinking tasks, reflecting a focused approach to problem-solving. Future work could translate this approach to educational settings (to improve teaching methods that foster creativity) and the workplace (to foster innovation and productivity).
Dr Will Norman
SRG25\251446
Project Title: Agency Work: Literature, Pyschological Warfare and the National Security State
University of Kent
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project investigates the role of literary writing in the formation of the national security apparatus in the mid-twentieth-century United States. It focuses on two literary writers, Paul Linebarger and Robert Sherwood, who were recruited into the new US national security agencies established in World War Two. They went on to develop influential practices within what I call "agency work," including covert operations and psychological warfare programmes. Using unstudied archival materials documenting their agency work, the project will show how their literary and agency careers were intertwined, generating a new conceptualization of the role of the imagination in the creation of the post-war national security state. The project will lead to two peer-reviewed articles and a public facing essay that will change our understanding of agency work. It will also launch an interdisciplinary network dedicated to studying the many cultural figures who helped to shape the modern national security state.
Dr Pippa Oldfield
SRG25\252390
Project Title: Ungentle Camera: War and Women's Photography
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,942
Funded By: DSIT
I am seeking funds to support research and picture permissions for the scholarly monograph Ungentle Camera: War and Women’s Photography, contracted to University of Texas. Ungentle Camera offers the first in-depth study of women’s photographic activities in wartime, arguing that attention to gender can enrich understanding of the entwined relations between photography and war. An expansive history is revealed through three epoch-defining conflicts: American Civil War, Mexican Revolution, and Second World War. Rejecting the limits of the masculinist genre of ‘war photography’, the book examines wider activities, from taking snapshots of battles at the Mexican border to viewing images of war crimes in fashion magazines. Through these activities, women asserted agency in the spheres of war and politics, challenging assumptions of woman’s ‘gentle’ nature. The themes explored—women in combat roles, mass media technology, the witnessing of atrocities, and identity politics, among others—remain acutely pertinent to today’s world.
Dr Freeman Brobbey Owusu
Co-applicant(s): Dr Albert Acheampong and Professor Hafez Abdo
SRG25\251655
Project Title: Transitioning to a Low-Carbon Economy: An Assessment of Low-Carbon Lifestyles among Households in Developing Countries
Loughborough University
Value Awarded: £9,896.98
Funded By: DSIT
This study investigates how households in Nigeria and Ghana are adopting low-carbon lifestyles amid global climate action. Despite the growing urgency of addressing climate change, household-level transitions in developing countries remain underexplored, even though their unique socio-economic and cultural factors may hinder climate action. The study adopts Pettifor et al. (2023)’s Analytical Framework for Low-Carbon Lifestyles and Norm Activation Theory to examine perceptions, risk awareness, willingness, and barriers to Low-Carbon Lifestyles. Nigeria and Ghana present an interesting context for this research. While both countries rely heavily on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, energy, and forestry, Nigeria, a major oil producer, has submitted its long-term low-emission development strategies, whereas Ghana has not. Using surveys, interviews, and machine-learning-based document analysis, the project will collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Findings will inform context-specific policies to promote pro-environmental lifestyles and support equitable low-carbon transitions in developing economies, thereby contributing to climate change mitigations.
Dr Oluyinka Oyeniji
SRG25\252258
Project Title: Pilot study investigating the efficacy of open access neuroethics governance repository in African neuroscience research
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
Diseases associated with the human brain have been considered as a global scourge plaguing humans all over the world. Since the start of the 21st century, several largescale brain research projects have been instituted to diagnose occurrences and offer treatment. International brain research collaborations have been established and promoted for data sharing towards a concerted effort in addressing brain diseases. Ethical concerns, risks and challenges arising from brain research endeavours are prioritised by stakeholders through the neuroethics discourse, a term used to describe safe measures and protocols guiding brain research within such research projects. Ethical perspectives from African neuroscience research projects conducted in academic research institutions, communities and hospitals are however left out of the global discussion on neuroethics. This pilot study aims to promote awareness of neuroethics on the continent by investigating proposed impact of establishing an open access repository for neuroethics governance protocols in African neuroscience research.
Dr Ceren Ozgen
Co-applicant(s): Professor Tommaso Frattini and Dr Hiromi Yumoto
SRG25\251467
Project Title: The Long-Term Impact of Citizenship: A Case for Intergenerational Economic Effects
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,983
Funded By: DSIT
Citizenship is more than a legal status, it can be a powerful catalyst for economic opportunity. A growing body of research shows that naturalisation boosts immigrants' earnings/job prospects, and its benefits ripple across generations. Yet, we know little about how parental citizenship affects children's long-term economic futures. This project addresses that gap using comprehensive administrative data on 9 million immigrants who arrived in the Netherlands since 1988 and their children. Exploiting a 1997 Dutch reform that restricted dual-citizenship, we use a pseudo-natural experiment to uncover the causal impact of citizenship on labour market outcomes across two generations. By linking parents and children, we can examine whether access to citizenship shapes not just immediate integration, but also the life chances of the next generation. The findings will offer vital insights for policymakers, especially in light of proposed UK reforms and inform governments, immigrant communities, and integration advocates alike on citizenship policy.
Dr Ibrahim Ozturk
Co-applicant(s): Dr Chen Peng and Dr Ruth Madigan
SRG25\250979
Project Title: Humans meet technology behind the wheel: Understanding Drivers’ Feelings and Behaviours Around Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems
University of Leeds
Value Awarded: £9,975
Funded By: DSIT
Advanced driver-assistance systems, such as lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control, have become standard features in most new vehicles and have been shown to reduce crash risk. However, the adoption and consistent, correct use of these systems in everyday driving remains inconsistent. Data reveal a paradox: many drivers deactivate, disengage from, or actively distrust features that have the potential to save lives. This project addresses a simple yet often overlooked question: how do users interact with in-vehicle technologies, and what strategies can be implemented to mitigate difficulties observed? To explore user interaction while ensuring inclusivity, we will conduct comprehensive interviews with people of different ages and gender groups and collaborate with stakeholders to develop practical recommendations. The results will inform the design of more intuitive interfaces, enhance driver education, and improve regulatory frameworks. The project will therefore facilitate the harmonious integration of technology and human interaction for safer travel experiences.
Dr Pedro Perfeito da Silva
Co-applicant(s): Dr Daniel Kovarek
SRG25\250659
Project Title: Voter responses to financial nationalism: assessing the impact of populist framing
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,978
Funded By: DSIT
The project will examine how issue framing shapes the electoral support for different financial policy choices. It argues that populist frames increase the appeal of financial nationalism, contributing to turning financial policymaking into an issue of mass politics. This provides a new angle to approach the electoral implications of financial nationalism, assessing its broader relevance for coalition-building and moving away from the focus on the co-option of native business owners. The project will field two survey experiments in Hungary, a crucial case for understanding the global rise of populism. Following a conjoint design, the first experiment will ask voters to assess policy proposals varying across six attributes: political party, policy towards foreign banks, issue framing, targeted beneficiaries, reaction of critics, and European Union’s response. The second experiment will expose participants to a vignette based on stylised news, assessing the relevance of distinct political and economic mechanisms for respondents’ preferences.
Dr Jennifer Phillimore
Co-applicant(s): Professor Sin Yi Cheung
SRG25\251753
Project Title: Refugee Integration in Scholarship: Conceptual Ambiguity, Geographic Gaps and AI-Assisted Scoping Review
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,925
Funded By: DSIT
This project comprises a systematic scoping review of refugee integration research, with a dual focus on improving conceptual clarity and advancing methodological innovation. It critically examines how key terms — such as integration, assimilation, acculturation, belonging and inclusion — are defined and operationalised across academic disciplines and geographic contexts. Building on a pilot review, which revealed inconsistencies in terminology, geographical concentration and methodological attribution, this project will conduct a full-text analysis to explore how relevant framings are shaped by geographic location, disciplinary norms and funding patterns. It will explore the efficacy of NVivo’s AI-assisted features through comparison with manual coding to evaluate their reliability, transparency and interpretive depth in large-scale conceptual analysis. Outputs will include a typology of conceptual usage, a structural map of the field’s development, an open-access dataset and a methodological protocol—advancing both conceptual coherence and responsible use of AI in qualitative research.
Professor Roberta Piazza
Co-applicant(s): Mr Philip Morgan
SRG25\251351
Project Title: Creating a positive future home out of homelessness: mind and materiality for an art installation
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,990
Funded By: DSIT
The project investigates ‘home’ in the context of homelessness to respond to the issues emerging during the temporary placement/accommodation of people who live on the street by relevant agencies. Starting from the distinction between ‘space’ (material) and ‘place’ (emotional), the project views home as encoding human ability to transform space into ‘a humanized landscape’ (Sacks 2001:232) and a forum for self-reflection (Tuan 1980). Home is usually the ‘past’ place where our habitus (learned set of preferences or dispositions, Bourdieu 1977) is developed. While this may be good in many cases, it is a problem for people who have lost that home and whose memory of it is associated with trauma and grief. In consideration of a need not to deny the past but put it on hold, the project wants to encourage homeless people’s reflection on home as a ‘future’ positive projection both material (with scents and textures) and emotional.
Dr Mark Pogson
Co-applicant(s): Dr Hannah Little
SRG25\251608
Project Title: Social norm change in physical and virtual social networks: experiment and simulation
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,984.45
Funded By: DSIT
The proposed study will focus on two underexplored issues which are increasingly relevant to social norm change, due to the growth of social media: (1) differences between physical and virtual social networks, and (2) differences between simple and complex decision-making tasks. Understanding social norm change has the potential to address major human challenges like the climate emergency by making constructive behaviours more commonplace. Agent-based models (ABMs) are a powerful way to provide large-scale predictions of norm change based on small-scale data. There is major scope to improve such predictions by using experiments in closer combination with models. The proposed experiments will provide parameter values for an existing ABM, incorporating game theory to represent complex socially influenced decision making. The findings will not only improve predictions of norm change but also support future funding applications to investigate other important factors, including the centrality and diversity of individuals and relationships between them.
Dr Veronica Posada
SRG25\250898
Project Title: Beyond Gentrification: Latin American market tales in London. The Seven Sister’s Indoor Market.
University of Derby
Value Awarded: £9,970
Funded By: DSIT
This project provides a timely response to narratives beyond gentrification and offers a guide for reparative urban practices that can be mobilised across collaborations between stakeholders and beneficiaries. Centrally, it investigates narratives of the re-making of place, and relocation of the Latin American community in and around the Seven Sisters Indoor Market (North London), the reconstruction of a diasporic place of gathering and belonging, after decades of displacement threats, by urban developers and local authorities. This project will work with practice-based methodologies to conceptualise the impact of mobilising identities (García-Bedolla, 2005) on diasporic territorial healing (Ortiz & Gómez, 2024), via several creative workshops challenging contemporary notions of urban displacement (Cooper, Hubbard & Lees, 2020). This is part of an ongoing research on pedagogies for reparative urban planning.
Dr Stephanie Postar
SRG25\251376
Project Title: Nuclear Knowledge Exchanges: Namibia, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the politics of nuclear energy science and regulation
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This study examines how supranational organizations relate to southern African regulators of commodities, energy, and technology. This pilot project aims to expand on previous research on nuclear energy regulation in sub-Saharan Africa by engaging first with the cooperation work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA implements technical cooperation programmes and fosters links with African member states that have (ambitions of) nuclear power, want to expand nuclear medicine, and host uranium mines. As such, this project interrogates how international agency bureaucrats interact with their African counterparts, addressing long-held, pejorative assumptions that scientific and technical knowledge is wholly imported into Africa. The second part of the project shifts to Namibia, which hosts a longstanding and ongoing uranium mining industry. In Namibia, the project investigates how the government and other entities promoting and critiquing the uranium mining industry understand and contest the country’s current and future nuclear regulatory structure.
Professor Ricardo Praca Cavaco Nunes
Co-applicant(s): Dr Roshni Tara and Dr Vedanta Dhamija
SRG25\250937
Project Title: From rooflines to headlines: the role of house prices in shaping perceptions
University of Surrey
Value Awarded: £9,702.20
Funded By: DSIT
Expectations play a pivotal role in shaping individual behaviour and perceptions of well-being. Given its impact on financial security and daily life, housing occupies a central place in this framework. This project investigates how expectations about house prices affect broader perceptions of living standards, inflation, and welfare. We propose a Randomised Controlled Trial to establish causal evidence of this relationship. Participants in the treatment group will receive credible expert forecasts about future house price growth, allowing us to assess whether shifts in expectations translate into changes in perceived economic conditions and welfare. The findings will offer insight into how individuals interpret house prices in ways that shape economic decisions and social attitudes. The results will help inform the design of more effective communication strategies and policy responses to current cost-of-living pressures and housing affordability challenges.
Dr Piyush Pushkar
SRG25\252019
Project Title: Guilt, shame and responsibilisation: Political emotions in medicolegal reports
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,876.80
Funded By: DSIT
This project explores guilt and shame amongst mentally unwell offenders. I focus on clinicians’ and legal representatives’ assessment of these emotions in medicolegal reports.
Clinicians base judgements regarding diagnosis, personality and risk on assessments of guilt and shame, thus influencing medicolegal reports and, consequently, the legal process. Clinical research has focused on these emotions as markers of risk of recidivism or violence. This clinical focus on an individual’s emotions correlates with sociological critique, which observes the propensity of psychiatric practice to ascribe responsibility for societal problems to the individual patient. Anthropological work has illustrated the more nuanced ways competing responsibilities shape social processes. This project will investigate whether and how psychiatric practice in relation to guilt and shame fits into these processes of responsibilisation.
I will use interviews with psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers and judges to investigate how professionals investigate, conceptualise and interpret these emotions, with what consequences for patients.
Professor Dave Putwain
SRG25\250489
Project Title: Recovering from setbacks and overcoming hurdles: How do students sucessfully navigate the challenges of 6th form study?
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £9,690.02
Funded By: DSIT
It is typical for students to face challenges and setbacks (e.g., hard work, difficulties with peers or teachers, exam pressures) during their 6th form study. How students deal with such challenges and setbacks determines whether they subsequently thrive or continue to struggle and ultimately fail to achieve their potential. The proposed study examines how academic buoyancy, an ‘everyday’ resilience, assists students in resisting and/or recovering from educational challenges and setbacks in 6th form study, and links to engagement and achievement. Traditional survey and time-intensive diary designs are combined to address: (1) whether effects are short or long term, (2) if buoyancy comprises resistance and/or recovery from challenges and setbacks, and (3) if typical, or daily variation in, buoyancy is most important in thriving. Findings will broaden understanding of reasons that may contribute to or ameliorate poor academic achievement and directly contribute to support, advice, and intervention for students.
Dr Argenis Ramirez Gomez
SRG25\251923
Project Title: Designing Creepy Futures: Exploring Creepiness and Speculative Research-through-Design to Rethink Future Emerging Technologies
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £9,757
Funded By: DSIT
The increasing adoption of emerging technologies in many contexts of our daily activity (from homes to workplaces) raises critical questions about their impact towards designing responsible futures. Although computing systems might seem desirable in many contexts as they meet human needs, emerging technologies are often perceived as unwanted, intrusive, or even creepy. These negative qualities highlight undesirable traits that are often avoided in the design of interactive systems. The proposed project aims to explore leveraging creepiness as a canvas for interaction design. The main objective is to create fictional creepy futures introducing speculative scenarios and mixed media prototypes with unwanted design qualities to reflect on what makes responsible and ethical design. Ultimately, the project challenges traditional user-centred design by intentionally designing “creepy” prototypes to uncover new insights about the role of technology in society and their ethical implications, and facilitate discourses that critically rethink our relationship with sensing devices.
Dr Mark Rawlinson
SRG25\250868
Project Title: The Darkroom and the Classroom: Education and Experiment in 1960s and 1970s Californian Photography
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,430
Funded By: DSIT
This project explores how experimental photography flourished in California during the 1960s and 1970s, particularly within university campuses and overlooked regional communities. It investigates how educators, students, and artists shaped a new photographic culture from the darkroom to the classroom, often outside the traditional centres of the art world. The project will bring together publishers, curators, and educators in a series of workshops to develop new ways of researching, designing, and sharing histories of photography. The research will result in two book chapters and the foundations for a major touring exhibition, co-developed with the Center for Creative Photography. It will also explore how archival materials can be used in teaching settings, with the goal of expanding how photography’s past is understood, taught, and experienced. Ultimately, the project seeks to reframe American photographic history through the creative energies of regional and educational spaces.
Dr Lucrezia Rizzelli
SRG25\251429
Project Title: Why Don’t They Offend? Exploring the Impact of Perceived Agency and Inequality on the Decision to Stay Crime-Free in Southeast Asia.
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,900
Funded By: DSIT
This project will research how personal belief systems result in the decision not to commit crime, by investigating how the locus of control (LOC) and personal relative deprivation (PRD) operate among non-offending individuals in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. LOC is the level of agency people perceive over their own lives, while PRD captures feelings of being disadvantaged relative to others. These concepts have been studied in relation to Western offending behaviours, but little is known about their prevalence in non-offending populations in the Global South. By establishing a baseline for LOC and PRD, this study will enable comparative analysis with data on offending populations. The findings will contribute to understanding how psychological attitudes towards the self influence risk perception, decision-making, and engagement in or resistance to criminal behaviour. It has broader implications for criminological theory, social policy, and culturally sensitive mental health and criminal justice interventions in Southeast Asia.
Professor Stephen Roberts
Co-applicant(s): Professor Adam Sharman and Professor Hugo Aznar
SRG25\250762
Project Title: The Limits of Liberalism: Lessons from Spain.
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,545
Funded By: DSIT
Our international, multidisciplinary project will test the proposition that Spain developed a distinct form of liberalism that may offer models for future practice. Interviews with politicians from Spain’s major national and regional parties and an analysis of press articles and party-political websites will provide data on how liberalism is understood in contemporary political discourse. An experienced team of British and Spanish political, economic and intellectual historians will draw on this data to explore the hypothesis that analysis of decisive moments from Spain’s recent past can help explain the development of the country’s forms of liberalism. These historical reviews will cover both political and economic thought and local, popular collective practice over issues such as land reform. The results of our contemporary and historical analyses will be the basis for subsequent work with leading political figures in exploring responses to the contemporary crisis of liberalism in Spain and beyond.
Dr Assunta Ruocco
SRG25\252256
Project Title: Documenting and archiving artists social media artworks: a new approach to the preservation of follower experiences
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £9,848.10
Funded By: DSIT
Social media is being used by a generation of women artists active since the 1970s and 80s to finally bring attention to their previously neglected work. However, these new forms of dissemination, and the intergenerational dialogues they foster, are at risk of disappearing. This project pioneers a methodology for preserving artists’ social media followers’ experiences through recorded interviews and ‘vodcasts’: short videos combining screen navigation, interviews and documentary footage. Drawing on feminist creative interventions in the art historical archive, this methodology will record the impact of artists’ social media work in their audiences’ experience and disseminate them via publicly available videos that become a repository of both social media artworks and followers’ experiences. The project includes input from Rhizome, leaders in digital art preservation, to support accurate documentation. The ‘vodcast’ model offers a valuable tool for researchers engaging with social media art conservation and feminist intervention in securing digital legacies.
Dr Nathan Salvidge
SRG25\250690
Project Title: An investigation into the role of smartphone technologies and digital platforms in (re)shaping young informal vendors’ complex and diverse livelihoods in urban Tanzania
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,989.16
Funded By: DSIT
Mobile phones have become integral to the lives and livelihoods of informal vendors across sub-Saharan Africa. However, limited geographical research has explored how smartphone technologies and digital social media platforms shape the everyday livelihood mobilities and possibilities of youth. This project investigates how youth in Bukoba and Iringa, Tanzania, use smartphones and digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to engage in informal work traditionally reliant on physical movement across city spaces. Using an innovative qualitative methodology, it examines how digital technologies are (re)shaping the spatial and temporal dimensions of informal work. The project advances empirical and conceptual understandings of how smartphones influence not only livelihood practices but also the lifecourse trajectories of young vendors operating in medium-sized cities, which remain under-researched compared to large urban centres. In doing so, it will foreground more geographically diverse insights into digital informal economies and youth livelihood strategies in urban African contexts.
Dr Carsten-Andreas Schulz
Co-applicant(s): Professor Tom Long
SRG25\251551
Project Title: Waves of Imperialism: “Effective Occupation” in Chile’s Annexation of Rapa Nui in 1888
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines Chile's annexation of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in 1888 within the broader context of European imperialism. We argue that Chile's expansion into the Pacific was influenced by the doctrine of 'effective occupation', which colonial powers established at the Berlin Conference (1884–1885) to legitimise territorial claims in Africa. We are seeking funding to conduct original research in continental Chile and Rapa Nui, aiming to explore the role of 'effective occupation' in Chile's decision to annex the island and the extent to which this decision was contested. Through this research, the study will enhance our understanding of how imperial 'repertoires of power'—the ideas, practices, and institutions used by one polity to control another—circulated across the Atlantic. The research builds on recent work in historical international relations, contributing to debates on the global implications of the Berlin Conference, settler colonialism in the Americas, and the politics of international law.
Dr James Scott
Co-applicant(s): Professor Erin Hannah
SRG25\251391
Project Title: Navigating Institutional Crisis: WTO Secretariat Strategy in an Era of Trade Contestation
King's College London
Value Awarded: £9,942.48
Funded By: DSIT
The World Trade Organization faces an unprecedented existential crisis, with sustained attacks from major powers threatening the liberal international trade order. This research investigates how the WTO Secretariat exercises agency to navigate institutional threats and preserve organizational relevance. Drawing on elite interviews with senior WTO officials and external stakeholders, the study examines three key questions: how the Secretariat responds to legitimacy crises, how it defends liberal economic principles, and how it manages tensions with other international organizations. The theoretical framework combines neo-Gramscian approaches with open-system organizational analysis to understand both internal dynamics and external relationships. The research contributes to debates on international organization autonomy, institutional survival strategies, and WTO reform by shifting analytical focus from member state preferences to secretariat agency. Through qualitative analysis of a rare case of rapid institutional decline, this study advances understanding of how international organizations adapt and respond to existential challenges in contemporary global governance.
Dr Emilia Simison
Co-applicant(s): Professor Candelaria Garay
SRG25\252288
Project Title: The Informal Sources of Robust Participation: Evidence from Slum Upgrading Projects
Queen Mary University of London
Value Awarded: £9,884
Funded By: DSIT
How do residents’ political attitudes and the design of participatory processes shape support for slum upgrading projects? To answer this question, our project studies the case of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where in 2016 the local government launched an ambitious plan to upgrade and integrate informal settlements, incorporating a significant participatory component to support its implementation. This research analyses the perceptions of those affected by the plan (both residents and non-residents) through two separate surveys with embedded experimental components. The first survey focuses on the attitudes and political engagement of the residents in the settlements targeted by the plan. The second survey focuses on the perceptions of the citywide population on the slum upgrading initiative and its participatory implementation. The survey experiments will assess the effect of different participatory designs and expectations about access to housing solutions on individual support for and participation in slum upgrading plans.
Professor Lindsay Stirton
Co-applicant(s): Professor Fabio Waltenberg and Dr Jurgen De Wispelaere
SRG25\250818
Project Title: Inside the Solidarity Economy: Comparing the policy trajectories of municipal basic income in Maricá and Niterói, Brazil
University of Sussex
Value Awarded: £9,992
Funded By: DSIT
This project offers the first comparative case study analysis of Rio de Janeiro's municipal basic income (UBI) schemes, focusing on the pioneering cases of Maricá and Niterói. We will examine how administrative capabilities shape responses to implementation challenges and thus influence the design, diffusion and adaptation of these schemes. By analysing each programme’s evolution across five core implementation tasks – eligibility definition, beneficiary identification, compliance monitoring, payment modality and error correction – we will show the variety and viability of particular scheme designs under different local conditions and circumstances. The resulting insights will illuminate the distinctive challenges of implementing UBI in Brazil’s decentralised policy context and will also inform current international UBI debates that are increasingly moving away from the national scale to exploring the role of regional and municipal initiatives.
Professor Gijsbert Stoet
Co-applicant(s): Dr Dominic Guitard
SRG25\252009
Project Title: Why We Cannot Count Three Things at Once
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project investigates a novel and deceptively simple counting task that reveals severe limits in people’s ability to update multiple representations in short term memory. Participants view sequences of common objects and are asked to count how many targets appear from different categories (starting with just one category). Despite clear instructions, low memory load, and relatively slow presentation, performance collapses when tracking three or more streams. Pilot data suggest that the difficulty arises not from capacity limits but from an inability to simultaneously encode a new item while updating a previous count.
The paradigm’s simplicity and robustness make it well suited to isolating core processing limits. We will run a series of in-person lab experiments to determine whether the breakdown results from attentional switching costs, difficulties of binding categories with counts, or verbal rehearsal difficulties. Results will be submitted for publication and made publicly available.
Dr Danica Summerlin
SRG25\251207
Project Title: The Breviarium Extravagantium: the Biography of a Canon Law Collection
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,895.70
Funded By: DSIT
This project as a whole aims to better understand the role played by the Brevarium Extravagantium of Bernard of Pavia in the medieval legal world. The 20-month Small Grant project has more modest goals: to undertake a scoping project, testing two different approaches to understanding the collection, the role it played, and its use. The first is a traditional canon law approach, using manuscripts to evaluate the collection's contents and spread; the updated manuscript list will be made available in print and online via the Clavis Canonum Wiki. The second approach rials borrowing from object biography as a methodology, to investigate not just the contents but also the collection’s societal role, reception and use in the decades and even centuries after its compilation.
Dr Abigail Taylor
SRG25\251341
Project Title: Learning from Europe: how university research institutes and their local partners can better create and mobilise knowledge to benefit their regions
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £9,605
Funded By: DSIT
Limited understanding exists of how university research institutes and local partners can best structure collaboration to create/mobilise knowledge to benefit universities and their regions.
Through comparative case studies of European research institutes’ collaboration with local partners, this study will:
1) Review models of collaboration internationally between universities and their partners.
2) Identify good practices/‘what works’ insights on structures for collaborating (e.g. funding, governance, leadership).
3) Advance theory by translating maturity model approaches for UK/international university-based policy institutes through creating a typology of collaborative institutes.
4) Inform the development of business models to improve university research institute-local partner collaboration.
The research will offer valuable insights to help universities, and their partners respond to the government’s higher education reforms to increase universities’ economic growth contribution and civic role in communities. Findings and recommendations will be disseminated via a journal article, a policy briefing, a podcast, conference presentations, and an academic seminar.
Dr Diana Toimbek
Co-applicant(s): Dr Fariza Tolesh
SRG25\252162
Project Title: Sentiments in Transition: Public Perceptions of Socio-Economic Change in Kazakhstan Amid the Russia-Ukraine War
University of Ulster
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This project explores how public sentiment in Kazakhstan perceives and responds to the socio-economic spill-over effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In a politically constrained environment where traditional civic participation is limited, digital platforms have become critical spaces for political expression and civic engagement. The research uses a novel multidisciplinary methodology that integrates political science and data mining, to explore sentiment analysis in social media to reveal public attitudes that are often overlooked in official narratives. The study aims to provide recommendations for policymakers and international actors for promoting more transparent communication strategies, aligning governance and public policy with public sentiment, and supporting democratic development. The approach also offers a transferable framework for understanding political expression in other conflict-affected hybrid regions, where conventional forms of participation are often limited or suppressed.
Dr Serena Trucchi
SRG25\251118
Project Title: Income Risk and Household Portfolio
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £9,983.36
Funded By: DSIT
According to economic theory, when people become more exposed to income uncertainty, they are predictedto adjust their financial portfolio by reducing the share invested in risky assets, thus mitigating their overall risk exposure.
However, the empirical literature is inconclusive about the magnitude of this relationship, mostly due to data challenges. Existing research suffers from the difficulty of assessing individuals’ perceptions of income risk and accurately capturing household portfolio data.
To alleviate this issue, our project links the Dutch DHS longitudinal survey data with the Statistics Netherlands—CBS administrative records on household financial portfolios. The survey collects information on perceived income uncertainty, and the administrative records provide an accurate measure of household portfolios.
Using this unique data source, we will examine the relationship between income and financial risk. This will enable us to evaluate how income risk affects the composition of household financial portfolios and identify key factors influencing household portfolio management.
Dr Martina Uccioli
SRG25\251246
Project Title: Gender Norms and the Inefficient Reallocation of Resources
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,991.44
Funded By: DSIT
Do gender norms lead to an inefficient reallocation of resources? This study investigates the role of gender norms in household reactions to major economic shocks, and their implications for broader economic resilience. By leveraging rich longitudinal data on couples' employment, time use, and self-reported gender norms, I examine how employment shocks – both positive and negative – affect household resource allocation; in particular, testing whether gender norms impede changes towards income-maximising arrangements. Using these estimates to inform a macroeconomic model, I quantify the role of gender norms-induced frictions in the speed of recovery after economic downturns and evaluate alternative policies to mitigate such frictions.
Dr Matthijs van den Bos
SRG25\250650
Project Title: Shiite Geopolitics: A Study of Mutual Constitution in Centre-Periphery Relations
Birkbeck, University of London
Value Awarded: £9,947.43
Funded By: DSIT
This study examines the interface of Shiite diaspora formation and identitarian outreach by religious and state establishments. Scholarship has tended to either privilege external projection in accounting for local community formation or to minimise its impact, emphasizing local integration. Two important dynamics are thereby overlooked, which this research focuses on. Firstly, where identitarian outreach is indirect (as in the case of Iraqi religious authorities), distant actors gain leverage in mediating identity locally. Secondly, states’ entanglements with constituencies abroad (as with Tehran’s Shiite sponsorships) create dependencies limiting their leverage. Thus, Shiite migrants abroad have an outsized impact on Iranian state identity. Through this new focus, the study aims to reach a more realistic understanding of Shiite centre-periphery relations. The project builds on archives documenting outreach, interviews with community leaders, and re-examination of secondary literature. It organises a workshop featuring the new perspective and reports findings in journal articles and a monograph.
Dr Christa van Raalte
Co-applicant(s): Dr Parisa Gilani
SRG25\251374
Project Title: Understanding the impact of management training in the UK television industry
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,990.65
Funded By: DSIT
Poor management practices are a serious concern for the UK Screen Industries and contribute to a range of poor working conditions that are implicated in such problems as poor mental health outcomes, poor skills and career development and poor retention of experienced staff. Very few managers in these industries have any form of formal training – something to which the industry has only recently begun to turn its attention.
This study will seek to determine the longitudinal impact of one, well-regarded management training programme on its ‘graduates’, the productions they go on to manage, and their co-workers on those productions. The findings will inform the design and implementation of future management training programmes, the understanding and decision making of employers and of industry professionals currently undertaking or seeking to undertake management roles, thus positively impacting on management practices and working conditions in the wider industry.
Dr Marc Vander Linden
Co-applicant(s): Dr Aitor Ruiz-Redondo and Dr Virginia Barciela González
SRG25\252317
Project Title: Cova Fosca: excavations in a Pleisocene - Holocene cave
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £9,683
Funded By: DSIT
The cave site of Cova Fosca (Vall d’Ebo, Alicante, Spain), part of the UNESCO World Heritage Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, boasts an exceptional archaeological record, with a unique combination of stratigraphic sequence covering the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene, and Final Palaeolithic engravings. This research proposal seeks funding for two field seasons of archaeological fieldwork focusing on the excavations of the Neolithic levels, as well as corresponding analytical work (e.g. 14C, stable isotopes). By contextualising our new empirical data with the regional rich landscape, we will be shedding new light on the varied economic strategies and corresponding networks established the Early Neolithic pioneering farming communities.
Dr Anna Ventouratou
SRG25\250331
Project Title: From WTO to What? Reimagining Global Trade
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,968
Funded By: DSIT
This project brings together scholars from across disciplines to critically examine the deepening crisis in the global trade regime. Amid rising economic nationalism, geopolitical tensions, and the erosion of trust in multilateral institutions like the WTO, the project explores the structural and ideological roots of this crisis and its uneven social consequences. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue between law, political economy, development, gender studies, and history, the project seeks to move beyond traditional narratives of trade liberalisation versus protectionism. Instead, it interrogates whose interests the system has historically served and imagines alternative frameworks rooted in justice, sustainability, and solidarity. The project’s main output will be a special issue of short, accessible scholarly reflections published in ESIL Reflections, laying the groundwork for a future edited volume. Together, these contributions aim to spark critical public and academic debate on how international trade governance might be reimagined in the face of growing systemic discontent.
Dr Xiaona Wang
SRG25\251770
Project Title: Academic Politics Across Eurasia: Jesuit Astronomy and the Uses of Chinese Evidence in the Newton Wars
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £9,620
Funded By: DSIT
This project challenges the conventional understanding of the ‘Newton Wars’—the intense debates following Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking cosmological theories—by uncovering their unexplored Eurasian dimensions. While historians have long viewed these controversies as exclusively European affairs, my research demonstrates how evidence from China (‘La preuve par la Chine’) became a powerful weapon in these Newtonian controversies over the shape of the Earth, comets, tides, and chronology. Through an analysis of Jesuit networks connecting Europe and China, I reveal how astronomical observations from China were strategically generated, transmitted and weaponised as valid evidence to serve various stakeholders’ interests. By contextualising all these deployments within academic politics across Eurasia and emphasising the intricate dynamics between Jesuit networks and Franco-British scientific institutions, my research establishes that early modern European scientific development occurred through active engagement with non-European knowledge systems. This finding contributes significantly to the current ‘global turn’ in the history of science.
Dr Robin Watson
Co-applicant(s): Dr Thomas Morgan and Dr Bruce Rawlings
SRG25\251526
Project Title: Designing and validating a novel measure of innovation in adults
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £9,875
Funded By: DSIT
Innovation, defined as the exploration of novel solutions, is a key driver of human cultural evolution and the success of human societies. However, as previous research has almost exclusively focused on young children, we know very little about the predictors of innovation in adults. Partly, this is due to a lack of established measures for measuring innovation. This project will address these two important gaps. We will develop and validate a novel simplified measure of innovation that can be easily administered online. Instructions and resources for researchers to use the measure will then be disseminated open access. Once validated, we will use the measure to explore several predictors of innovation in adults. This research addresses several critical gaps in knowledge surrounding innovation and will stimulate future research using the measure. The empirical results are also applicable to applied settings seeking to encourage or promote innovative behaviour.
Professor Annika Werner
Co-applicant(s): Dr Lala Muradova Huseynova
SRG25\250966
Project Title: Understanding Democratic Support Via A Game
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,960
Funded By: DSIT
Democracy is under duress. Many citizens in democracies worldwide turn away from democratic ideals and embrace authoritarian alternatives, e.g. by voting for antidemocratic leaders. Does this tendency reflect citizens’ real preferences or are individuals unaware of the consequences of their undemocratic choices for governance and themselves? This project is the first of its kind to systematically study the question of whether being informed about the consequences of individual political choices raises people’s democratic awareness and support. Instead of relying on conventional methods of enquiry, we innovate by developing a cutting-edge, interactive, choose-your-own-adventure game (embedded in a large-scale survey) that allows citizens to build their own (un)democratic UK governance system. As citizens make institutional choices, they experience the consequences, learn, and can adjust their decisions accordingly. The project’s findings have the potential to transform the academic literature on democratic backsliding and provide important insights for stakeholders working in civic education.
Dr Andrea Wessendorf
SRG25\252271
Project Title: Navigating the Risk Management Cycle: An Ethnographic Study of Risk Management Transitions in Professional Lifeguarding
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This study explores how experts manage risks in real time, focusing on transitions between prevention, incident response, and recovery. These transitions are critical, because delays or failures endanger people’s lives and health. Yet, current research on risk management focus on distinct risk management phases, which undermines our understanding of how experts navigate these shifts (Hardy et al., 2020). To address this gap, I propose an ethnographic study of professional lifeguards, who regularly shift between all risk management phases. While other emergency services typically respond post-incident, lifeguards continuously transition between prevention, response, and recovery, making them an ideal case for studying these processes. I have secured access to a professional lifeguarding team in Australia. I apply for funding for two field trips, covering data collection and validation. Theoretically, the study advances a more processual and practice-based approach to risk management. Practically, my findings inform training, decision-making, and policies in high-reliability settings.
Dr Bastian Westbrock
Co-applicant(s): Dr Sarah Rezaei and Dr Hendrik Sonnabend
SRG25\250768
Project Title: Using Incentives to Counter Overconfidence in Goal-Setting
Swansea University
Value Awarded: £9,661
Funded By: DSIT
Personal goal-setting is widely used to overcome self-control problems, yet it often yields underwhelming results. One likely explanation is that many individuals tend to set overly ambitious goals in an effort to maintain a positive self-image. To counter this tendency, this project compares standard goal-setting with modified practices designed to offset the self-image cost of choosing a lower, more realistic goal. Building on earlier field experiments conducted by the applicant—where a modified practice led to more realistic goals, greater study effort, and improved exam performance—the proposed online experiment will:
1) validate the hypothesized self-image mechanism through which modified goal-setting influences goal realism, effort, and performance.
2) investigate the source of the backlash effect observed in the field under standard goal-setting.
By isolating the drivers of goal-setting behaviour under controlled conditions, this project aims to advance our understanding of how tailored goal‐setting interventions can enhance self‐regulation and outcomes.
Dr Nicola Wilson
SRG25\252080
Project Title: Modernist Writers for Peace: Exploring literary and publishing networks at the Peace Pledge Union (1934-46)
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,885.47
Funded By: DSIT
This project aims to uncover the contributions of the writers and literary celebrities involved with the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) from its origins in 1934 to the end of WWII. Building on the lead applicant’s previous research at the PPU Library and Archive focussing on WWI poet Edmund Blunden (1896-1974), the project explores the literary and publishing networks underpinning the early Peace Pledge movement, investigating how established writers contributed to international pacifism in the 1930s and 1940s by publishing, lecturing, and organising with the PPU. Through digitising early Peace Pledge postcards and co-producing a bibliographic database itemising the work of the PPU’s famous writers, the project will shine new light on the organisation’s history and impact, enhancing understandings of the literary and publishing networks embedded in the peace movement interwar, as well as supporting an under-resourced archive to provide new tools and resources for its members, stakeholders, and future scholarship.
Dr Christina Wolf
Co-applicant(s): Dr Aleksandra Peeroo
SRG25\250731
Project Title: Unpacking Green Discontent: Precarious Homeowners and Progressive Renters in the German Domestic Energy Transition
University of Hertfordshire
Value Awarded: £9,918.06
Funded By: DSIT
The green transition depends on public support, yet growing green discontent particularly in peripheral regions is fuelling opposition to environmental policies and bolstering right-wing populist agendas. While existing research largely focuses on job losses in coal-dependent areas, this study highlights a less-explored but equally significant source of discontent: the unequal impacts of the domestic energy transition. Decarbonising the building sector, accounting for 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions, requires households to invest into renewable heating systems and energy-efficiency upgrades. It therefore directly intersects with regional wealth inequalities: wealthier households are not only better positioned to make these investments, but also stand to benefit from rising property values, further widening existing inequalities. Using the case of Germany’s Heating Law, which faced significant backlash especially in East Germany, we explore the drivers behind this resistance. We employ a mixed-methods approach, beginning with attitudinal segmentation using national survey data, followed by qualitative interviews.
Dr Peng Xu
Co-applicant(s): Professor Tri Mikael Tran
SRG25\251577
Project Title: AI is not Everything: The Enduring Role of Human Intelligence in Humanitarian Supply Chain Decision Support
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,995.54
Funded By: DSIT
In an era of rising geopolitical instability, humanitarian supply chains face unprecedented uncertainty, demanding fast, effective decision-making under pressure. This research challenges the dominance of probabilistic, data-driven models in crisis response, proposing that non-probabilistic, instinctual decision-making—though often overlooked—can offer superior performance when data is scarce or unreliable. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines Bayesian modelling, simulations, and expert interviews, the study demonstrates the contextual advantages of intuitive strategies in humanitarian logistics. The findings have broad practical implications for sectors like defence and emergency healthcare, and call for a balanced, hybrid approach to decision-making that values both data and human judgment. Policy recommendations highlight the need for centralized command structures in scenarios requiring rapid instinctual responses, refining existing calls for flexibility in humanitarian operations. This work contributes to theory, practice, and policy by rethinking how decisions are made under extreme uncertainty.
Dr Yung Chiang Yang
SRG25\250942
Project Title: Sustainable Government Customers and Their Suppliers’ ESG Performance
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £9,662
Funded By: DSIT
This research investigates how governments’ commitments to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) influence the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance of their global suppliers. While prior research has shown that corporate customers can shape their suppliers’ ESG practices, the role of governments—often large, influential buyers—remains underexplored. This study proposes two competing hypotheses: the co-responsibility hypothesis, where sustainable governments promote higher ESG performance among suppliers through supportive procurement policies, and the cost-saving hypothesis, where governments externalize sustainability costs, leading to negative ESG impacts on suppliers. Using global supply chain data, the study aims to provide empirical insights into how public procurement practices affect sustainability within and across borders. It contributes to the literature on ESG transmission and offers policy implications for aligning procurement strategies with national and global sustainability goals.
Dr Maximilien Zahnd
SRG25\251189
Project Title: All Hail King Salmon: Colonial Tax, Corporate Capitalism, and the Rise of the Territory of Alaska, 1912–1939
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £9,930.50
Funded By: DSIT
This project proposes to examine the tax relationship between colonial governments and resource-extractive corporations. Based on qualitative and quantitative archival research in Alaska and the contiguous United States, the project focuses on early territorial Alaska and salmon canneries and fisheries from circa 1912 to circa 1939. As the primary employer and economic force in the area, the salmon industry held significant political clout over the then-young Territory of Alaska and often resisted taxation. This fiscal relationship, built on US colonialism and imperialism, also impacted Indigenous peoples. Canneries and fisheries relied on Native labor and reshaped most of southern Alaska’s coastline and beyond, disturbing Natives’ way of life and facilitating their assimilation into US mainstream society. The tax history of the salmon industry, therefore, provides important insight into the complex relationship between colonial governments and corporate capitalism, as well as the latter's impact on Indigenous peoples and their environment.
Dr Amalina Zakariah
SRG25\251414
Project Title: Voices from the margins: exploring care and parenthood with self-tracking technologies
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT
This research project builds on my doctoral thesis to explore how self-tracking technologies (STT) impact parenting and care practices, particularly for marginalised individuals. As these devices become increasingly prevalent, I reflect on my personal struggles during childbirth and early parenthood, especially within the context of self-responsibility in care practices. I aim to explore the sense of responsibility, lack of, or its intensification, in their most vulnerable moments and, if so, how self-tracking technologies—such as devices, apps, and diaries—are used for reassurance and support. By focusing on the hidden voices and experiences of parents in the UK, this study seeks to identify gaps in care infrastructure and understand how "self-responsibilisation" is experienced and mobilised through technologies. It aims to illuminate the complex dynamics of parenting and care practices and the role of technology in shaping the way we experience care on a personal level, institutional level, and in the marketplace.
Dr Dongna Zhang
Co-applicant(s): Professor Chuanwang Sun
SRG25\250830
Project Title: Unravelling the Drivers of Green Innovation in SMEs: A Comparative Study of the UK and China
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £9,998
Funded By: DSIT
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key contributors to employment and economic growth but lack the resources and market power of larger corporations, leaving them more vulnerable in the transition to a low-carbon economy. Given the urgency of combating climate change, enabling green innovation among SMEs is essential to enhance their competitiveness and resilience. The UK’s market-driven incentives and China’s targeted financial strategies offer complementary approaches to fostering green innovation in SMEs. With both countries committed to ambitious climate targets, a cross-cultural comparative study of the UK and China is essential to identify shared and unique drivers of SME green innovation across different economic contexts. This project will conduct a novel comparative study to examine the barriers and drivers influencing green innovation among SMEs in the UK and China. The findings will provide actionable policy recommendations to strengthen SMEs’ capacity to engage in green innovation and advance climate goals.
Dr Xiaoyu Zhou
Co-applicant(s): Professor Sebastian Goerg
SRG25\250860
Project Title: Motivated Beliefs and the Use of Irrelevant Information: Experimental Evidence on Confidence Formation
University of Nottingham
Value Awarded: £9,998.91
Funded By: DSIT
This project examines whether individuals develop optimistic beliefs about their abilities when facing novel tasks for which prior experience offers limited or uninformative feedback. Examples include business leaders entering politics or individuals without financial backgrounds entering the stock market. Prior research shows that when individuals perform ego-relevant tasks and receive noisy feedback, they update their beliefs in a self-serving way—overweighting positive signals and underweighting negative ones. However, it remains unclear whether similar motivated reasoning occurs when the feedback comes from less relevant tasks. This study addresses that gap by testing an extreme case: whether feedback from an independent task can influence how individuals update their beliefs about performance on an ego-relevant task. We also examine whether such feedback affects subsequent behaviour. The findings will shed light on how overconfidence is sustained across contexts and inform how managers, employees, and voters make decisions from based on limited or noisy information.
Dr Hengameh Ziai
SRG25\252221
Project Title: Endangered Archives in Sudan: Rethinking Capitalism and Islam through the Merchant Archive of Abdallah Bey Hamza
SOAS University of London
Value Awarded: £9,998.66
Funded By: DSIT
This project interrogates a rare, endangered archive belonging to a northern Sudanese trader. Found in plastic bags showing clear signs of deterioration, I was able to digitise the documents only days before the war in Sudan broke out in April 2023. Today, the condition and whereabouts of the original documents is no longer known. The archive covers almost 100 years (1840-1940) and relates to the commercial and legal worlds of Sudan. This project seeks to collaborate with scholars with expertise in different time periods/countries to present a major theoretical contribution regarding ‘capitalist’ transformation in Sudan and the Sudanic Africa region. While it has been argued that Islamic law inhibited capitalist transformation in the nineteenth century, this archive potentially shows that its legal instruments were flexible and creatively used, allowing for accumulation and large-scale dispossession. This argument has rarely been made regarding the African context and never for Sudan.
Leverhulme Trust
Dr Jennifer Badham
SRG25\251436
Project Title: Influence of guardianship on patterns of crime
Durham University
Value Awarded: £6,420
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The criminological concept of guardianship relates to the way in which the presence of guardians (such as bystanders) can deter certain types of crime. More guardians increases the perceived risk for the offender and discourages the crime, particularly if the guardians are paying attention or are familiar with the local patterns of people and activities. But more people around also means there are more distractions and more opportunities to take advantage of any lack of attention, such as pickpocket or opportunistic theft. Agent-based modelling (ABM) is a computer method to simulate people and their behaviour. We propose to use ABM to understand how these competing influences of numbers of guardians, familiarity and attention play out in patterns of crime.
Dr Lewis Ball
Co-applicant(s): Professor Gareth Gaskell
SRG25\250891
Project Title: Retrieval Practice and Word Learning
University of York
Value Awarded: £7,250
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Retrieval practice (recalling learned information compared to restudying information) improves memory retention and is specifically recommended as a learning technique in clinical and educational settings. However, the mechanisms of retrieval practice are not fully understood. A recent account, the Rapid Consolidation Hypothesis (RCH), claims that retrieval practice helps to integrate new information with existing knowledge in the brain. However, this prediction remains largely untested. We will investigate this using word learning, an important life skill that is associated with several socio-cognitive outcomes. The RCH would predict that words taught under retrieval practice, but not restudy conditions, should influence how other words are processed due to the integration of information following retrieval, which we will explore. This project will provide important theoretical implications into the mechanisms of retrieval practice, and important education implications for word learning practices.
Dr Thomas Bishop
Co-applicant(s): Dr Jon Coburn and Dr Adam Page
SRG25\251403
Project Title: Radioactive Lincolnshire: Community Heritage, Environmental Justice, and the Legacy of Nuclear Waste Siting
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £5,696
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Successive UK governments have reiterated their commitment to expanding nuclear energy, yet the question of how and where to manage radioactive waste remains unresolved, politically charged, and increasingly urgent. This project investigates two moments of rural resistance to nuclear waste disposal in Lincolnshire—at Fulbeck in the 1980s and Theddlethorpe in the 2020s— examining how communities mobilise in response to being designated as potential nuclear waste sites.
Radioactive Lincolnshire centres the lived experiences of those directly impacted, using oral histories, participatory workshops, and archival research to explore how protest is shaped by place, memory, and regional identity. Although separated by four decades, the campaigns share striking continuities in their language, tactics, and appeals to local heritage.
Linking past and present, Radioactive Lincolnshire offers an original, people-centred intervention into the histories of energy, environmental justice, and democratic accountability—showing how rural communities play a vital role in challenging the politics of radioactive waste.
Dr Alison Bisset
SRG25\251796
Project Title: Inter-State Cooperation in Prosecuting International Crimes: Lessons from the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC)
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £8,849
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This study will be the first to explore why the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) is under-used as a basis for inter-state cooperation on organised crime and whether and how those issues can be mitigated in the context of the Ljubljana-The Hague Convention.
The Ljubljana-The Hague Convention 2023 is a key development in the fight against impunity for international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression). It creates a previously lacking global framework for inter-state cooperation on international crimes, enabling states to share evidence, access victims, witnesses and assets, and extradite suspects, all of which are necessary to bring successful prosecutions. Its cooperation regime replicates that of UNTOC – an instrument designed to facilitate cooperation on organised crime. However, in practice, UNTOC is seldom used by states to request or provide judicial cooperation, particularly in extradition proceedings.
Dr Tobias Boehmelt
Co-applicant(s): Dr Zorzeta Bakaki
SRG25\250220
Project Title: Integrating minorities successfully? The case of the Orthodox Church and Roma in Greece
University of Essex
Value Awarded: £8,578.45
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This study explores the determinants of successful minority integration through a focused examination of the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the Roma community in Greece. While the Roma have traditionally experienced marginalization, this projectexamines how religious institutions can serve as potential facilitators of social inclusion. Central to the project is a micro-level survey that will be conducted in Agia Varvara (one of the largest Romani communities in Greece) and a macro-level analysis using the European Social Survey. These analyses are designed to assess Roma attitudes toward the Orthodox Church and their perceptions of social integration. We expect the analyses to reveal that localized church initiatives and Romani engagement with the Church’s institutions can play a meaningful role in promoting minority inclusion. By focusing on a specific case combined with a large-N analysis, we contribute to broader discussions on religion, minority rights, and integration strategies in contemporary European societies.
Dr Donatella Bonansinga
SRG25\250660
Project Title: The mainstreaming of populism and the role of TikTok
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £8,948.40
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Populist radical right actors are associated with aggressive and toxic rhetoric, but on platforms like TikTok their (visual) communication is positive, inspirational and ‘funny’. For scholars this may be a ‘rebranding’ strategy targeting young people on these platforms, as they form their political opinions. Understanding whether and how this is successfully contributing to the growing popularity of the radical right, is timely and important for tackling the populist threat. The project carries out a pilot study on young users’ reactions to populist visual communication on TikTok, by means of in-depth interviews. It focuses on the cases of France and Spain, which provide crucial variance, to (a) explore the role of positive emotions as mediating mechanisms and (b) develop informed hypotheses for a systematic study. The project takes an innovative perspective on the mainstreaming of populism, introducing a visual perspective and an interdisciplinary take that explores the psychology of prospective young.
Dr Amy Brookes
Co-applicant(s): Dr Megen de Bruin-Molé
SRG25\250355
Project Title: The Speculative Space of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,985
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The ‘Speculative Space’ project will formalise a nascent creative-critical network for speculative fiction (sf) and Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) spaces and collections in the UK. This project uses sf as a creative practice for critical reflection, supporting GLAM institutions and individuals engaged in decolonisation and decarbonisation in ways that respond to the demands of social and climate justice, including re-evaluation of curation, collection and exhibition processes and content. This project will build on the significant success of seven pilot workshops which established an original and impactful method of creative networking events, focusing on small-scale collective making to prompt sustained and meaningful engagement, and create the space needed to address issues of significant complexity and nuance. This funding is required to establish ‘Speculative Space’ as the Speculative Space Research Group, to disseminate knowledge and methods, reinforce and extend participation, and foster long term opportunities for collaboration.
Dr Matt Buckley
Co-applicant(s): Professor Anthony McGregor
SRG25\250994
Project Title: Episodic determinants of cognitive mapping and wayfinding performance
Aston University
Value Awarded: £6,280
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Episodic memory and cognitive mapping processes share common cognitive mechanisms. Accordingly, manipulations to the spatial properties of an environment have been demonstrated to influence memories for events. However, evidence for the complementary effect is sparse. There is an established relationship between the fidelity of cognitive maps and novel navigational behaviours (i.e., taking shortcuts). Moreover, episodic memories that represent the sequence in which stimuli were encountered or the episodic binding of objects and locations have been shown to correlate with measures of cognitive mapping. But it is unclear from this data if (and how) episodic memory processes mechanistically contribute to navigational ability. In two experiments, we will employ mediation analyses to assess if learning about the sequence in which landmarks are encountered along a route (Experiment 1), and object-location binding (Experiment 2), contribute to the fidelity of cognitive maps, which in turn contributes to novel wayfinding behaviour (i.e., shortcutting).
Dr Kate Carruthers Thomas
SRG25\250198
Project Title: Playing The Career Game: Using game-based methodology to critically consider the effectiveness of targeted career initiatives.
Birmingham City University
Value Awarded: £9,325
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The proposed project uses game-based methodology in the form of a research-informed board game, The Career Game, to generate new data relating to targeted career development interventions for women. It engages higher education (HE) workforce development and gender equality professionals and stakeholders in a series of workshops aimed at surfacing implicit and normative assumptions about the benefits of targeted career initiatives in the sector. Through playful, embodied activity and structured facilitated discussions, workshop participants will be encouraged to identify relevant future actions which acknowledge structural as well as individual factors in gendered career progression. These can include gendered social roles, career interruption and organisational change. The project aims to catalyse focused mitigations through engendering greater organisational awareness of the way such factors impact women’s lived experience of career progression. Findings will be of relevance to other groups in the HE workforce and to other sectors.
Dr Frances Clemente
Co-applicant(s): Dr Greta Colombani
SRG25\250713
Project Title: Mapping Italian Literary Cafés (1720-present)
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £9,162.22
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
"Mapping Italian Literary Cafés (1720-present)" is an interdisciplinary project which seeks to investigate the historical, cultural, artistic, and literary heritage of café culture in Italy from 1720 to today. It aims at 'mapping' Italian cafés as significant sites of cultural and markedly transnational exchange, retracing the networks of writers, intellectuals, and artists who have gathered there from different parts of the country as well as from all over Europe and the rest of the world, from Goethe, Dickens, and Sartre to Dario Fo, Marìa Zambrano, and Yoko Ono. This project will enable field trips to visit selected literary cafés in Italy and interview their directors, producing audiovisual recording of these interviews which will be made available through a dedicated web presence. Envisioned as a pump-priming opportunity, this grant will lay the foundations for a larger more ambitious project, which will result in a comprehensive ‘mapping’ of literary cafés in Italy.
Dr Bennett Collins
SRG25\251108
Project Title: River Restoration as Decolonial Transition: Critically Examining Politics of Local Opposition to Dam Removal in Central Maine
University of Aberdeen
Value Awarded: £9,207
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Globally, there are increasing calls for the removal of dams to mitigate the ecological damage they cause and begin processes of decolonisation for communities who never wanted their construction. At the same time, for river restoration ecologists and advocates, local opposition remains a primary barrier to dam removal, even when the benefits of removal outweigh costs. This project looks to add to the scant literature on the subject, while looking into whether there are settler colonial logics behind dam removal opposition in the US when Indigenous peoples are involved. As case studies, this project will use three towns in the state of Maine - Yarmouth, Camden, and Dover-Foxcroft - whose citizens are voting in 2025 on dam removal and where Wabanaki peoples are supporting removal. The research will use critical discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews to qualify the main reasons for opposition and whether these stem from settler colonial prejudice.
Dr Ben Dew
SRG25\251230
Project Title: Russian Serfdom and its Abolition: British and American Debates, 1850-1865
Coventry University
Value Awarded: £7,868
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The Emancipation Manifesto of 1861 brought serfdom to an end in the Russian Empire. This project investigates how emancipation, and the events leading up to it, were represented by contemporary observers in Britain and the USA. The research will focus on the deployment of two broad approaches: first, a conception of serfdom as a type of slavery with broad similarities to the unfree labour of the Atlantic World; second, a vision of eastern European serfdom as a unique product of Slavic culture and history. Through tracing the development and deployment of these ideas, the research will generate new knowledge of the ways British and American debates concerning slavery were shaped by their global, political and intellectual contexts. The dissemination of the project’s findings will be used to promote public conversation concerning the history of comparative approaches to slavery and the ideas regarding progress, nation and race on which they rely.
Dr Giovanna Di Martino
Co-applicant(s): Dr Anne Morvan and Dr Alexia Dedieu
SRG25\251971
Project Title: Greek Tragedy in Strasbourg (1540-1609): Performance, Pedagogy, and Translation
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,080
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project surveys and analyses a largely unexplored corpus of early modern translations of Greek tragedy produced at the Strasbourg Gymnasium between 1540 and 1609. Designed for performance, these texts offer critical insights into the civic, educational, and performative role of classical drama in Reformation Europe. Combining archival research, philological analysis, and performance practice, the project treats these translations as both textual artefacts and performative scripts. It examines paratexts, marginalia, musical scores, and performance cues to uncover translation and staging strategies. The research culminates in a co-authored article, a monograph proposal, and a digital platform hosted by Oxford’s Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, featuring annotated translations, performance footage, and archival materials. This interdisciplinary collaboration sheds new light on classical reception and establishes a replicable model for investigating early modern translation through embodied, collaborative, and pedagogically driven performance-based research.
Dr Kajsa Dinesson
SRG25\251876
Project Title: In the eyes of the jury: mock jury deliberations and mind-set material in terrorism cases
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,340
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project examines the role of, and jurors’ interaction with, mind-set material in mock jury deliberations in terrorism cases. Mind-set material is a broad category of evidence, including the accused’s internet search history, social media activity, or the possession of propaganda. It is presented at trial to imply that the accused is terrorist affiliated or aligned. Mind-set is central in almost all prosecutions of terrorism offences in the UK, but little work to date has explored its use and impact. Practitioners have raised important concerns regarding the effect of such evidence on jury deliberations, but these remain untested (Dinesson, 2024). This project will examine these concerns by studying mock jury deliberations in fictional terrorism cases, generating important novel insight. It will also bring together a community of academics, policy makers and practitioners interested in the use of mindset evidence and establish a research agenda for further examination of the topic.
Dr Sofya Dmitrieva
SRG25\251057
Project Title: Voltaire Iconography Database
University of Oxford
Value Awarded: £5,088.90
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project will create the first open-access digital archive of visual representations of François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), better known as Voltaire — Enlightenment writer, intellectual, and one of the first European celebrities. The archive will feature high-resolution reproductions of portraits produced between 1724 and 1830, ranging from canonical works by Largillière, La Tour, Huber, Houdon, and Pigalle to lesser-known objects such as caricatures, playing cards, snuff boxes, and porcelain figurines. These images will be organised into curated thematic collections, each offering iconographic analysis of the artworks brought together under a shared theme. By consolidating this dispersed visual material for the first time, the project offers an innovative tool for tracing how Voltaire’s image evolved across media and time. Designed to support research in literature, history, and art history, the database will also engage broader audiences, fostering engagement with Voltaire’s visual legacy and the early modern dynamics of fame and image-making.
Dr Rawand Elhour
SRG25\252462
Project Title: Scholarship as Survival: Rethinking Academic Mobility, Exile, and Education from Gaza
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £7,500
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This research project aims to explore how academic scholarships are transformed into urgent survival strategies/mechanisms for Palestinian scholars fleeing the ongoing war and collapse in Gaza. While scholarships are often framed as empowering opportunities for educational development and mobility, this study critically examines how they operate as selective lifelines under conditions of siege, displacement, and institutional destruction. Through in-depth narrative interviews with evacuated Gazan academics, the research will investigate how individuals experience academic evacuation, reframe exile, and negotiate the tension between rescue and erasure. It also interrogates the role of host universities and international protection frameworks in shaping access to these pathways, raising pressing questions about who gets to survive and at what cost. By situating academic mobility within a context of death and loss, the project rethinks dominant narratives around academic mobility and offers new insights into the ethics and politics of scholarly displacement in times of collective crisis.
Dr Alistair Fair
SRG25\250254
Project Title: Urbanity: the history of an idea in British architecture and planning, c. 1937-97
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £5,145.10
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
'Urbanity' was an often-discussed idea in post-war British architecture and planning. This project investigates how the term was understood, by architects and planners as well as a broader constellation of people interested in the built environment such as policymakers, and considers its impacts on practice. It looks in particular at the post-war new towns, the replanned town and city centres of the 1960s, and public-sector housing design. The project considers the roots of the term in the 1930s and 1940s, and also looks at the idea's afterlife in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The project innovates not only in its focus but also its method, involving the rigorous use of the archive as well as published sources. Setting British practice in international context, it will provide a new urban history of modern Britain, using 'urbanity' as a lens, and will also intervene in wider social, urban and political history.
Dr Cesar Luis Garro Marin
Co-applicant(s): Dr Masyhur Hilmy
SRG25\252295
Project Title: Conflict, gender and labour markets
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £6,082
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Exposure to violence has well-documented damaging effects, yet we still know little about how these impacts may differ for men and women. Understanding these gender-specific effects is crucial for designing well-targeted policies that address these harms effectively. In this project, we study how exposure to violence affects the work and family choices of men and women and their beliefs about gender roles using data from Mexico and Colombia. To identify the effects of exposure, we take advantage of rich administrative and survey data and use a Difference-in-Difference strategy that exploits within-country differences in exposure, driven by both Mexico’s large increase and Colombia’s decline in violence during the 2000s and early 2010s. Besides uncovering potential gender-specific responses to violence, the contrast between the two settings will allow us to study response differences to increases and declines in violence.
Dr Martha Geiger
Co-applicant(s): Professor Kendra Coulter
SRG25\250088
Project Title: Animals are part of these places: Multispecies storying in the resource frontiers of the western United States
London School of Economics and Political Science
Value Awarded: £9,097
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This proposed pilot project focuses on wild burros (donkeys) and humans who collectively reside in two small socio-economically disadvantaged desert towns in the western US where mining extraction and exploration pose unexplored vulnerabilities and challenges for human-animal cohabitation, particularly in the context of climate change. We posit that burros are agentic beings who co-create understandings of the past, present, and future of these places through their ecological activities and intra-and inter-species social behaviours. To explore this thesis, we apply van Dooren and Rose’s (2012) framework of multispecies storytelling to examine how places are understood and why. Empirically, we explore how burros behave and how people write and talk about and interact with them in the long shadow of mining. The research will contribute to animal studies and geography literatures on understanding coexistence in fraught and challenging times and allow us to pilot a new interdisciplinary and multispecies social science methodology.
Dr Teri-Lisa Griffiths
Co-applicant(s): Dr Anne Eason and Dr Jill Dealey
SRG25\250129
Project Title: The path to professionalisation: the impact of pracademics on criminal justice professional learning.
Sheffield Hallam University
Value Awarded: £7,907
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This research explores the topic of pracademics—academics with practitioner experience—within higher education criminal justice professional programmes in England. Previous research demonstrates how pracademics can enhance university teaching by linking academia to industry and creating applied teaching programmes. The increased recruitment of pracademics more broadly is driven by a political focus on graduate outcomes and the rise of degree apprenticeships. Focussing on the Policing degree/degree apprenticeship and the Professional Qualification in Probation (PQiP), where students are also employed as trainee practitioners, these courses offer legitimacy to these highly scrutinised professions. Subsequently, this study aims to advance understanding of how pracademics contribute to the ‘professionalisation’ of criminal justice occupations. Objectives for this project include examining pracademics' perspectives on professional practice, their engagement with academic networks, the creation of communities of practice, and their role in transforming practice through promoting evidenced-based practice and professional values within the specified courses.
Dr Clare Horrocks
SRG25\250782
Project Title: 160 Years of Punch's Linley Sambourne: Building Social and Professional Networks Across Victorian Popular Culture
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £5,837.90
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Linley Sambourne was a pioneering Victorian illustrator and cartoonist. Best known for illustrating Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, 1885 edition, this grant will enable a transcription of his correspondence and demonstrate the range of social and professional networks that he was actually part of. His first contribution to the satirical magazine Punch was an illustrated letter ‘T’, April 1867; he was to become “one of the greatest masters of pure line of his time” (Spielmann, 1895). The culmination of this project will be an Exhibition at Sambourne House and Museum, commemorating 160 years of Sambourne and the artist he truly was. Sambourne’s use of photography to stage scenes to sketch from was innovative and radical. They brought a realism to his cartoons unlike any other. This project will enable people to understand how the social and professional networks in which Sambourne circulated facilitated an original contribution to cartooning previously unrecognised.
Dr Mary Ikoniadou
SRG25\251647
Project Title: Picturing ‘Home’: How Greek-American Illustrated Periodicals Imagined Greece in the 1960s
Leeds Beckett University
Value Awarded: £6,140
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
In an era of rising nationalism, diasporas negotiate overlapping claims of homeland nostalgia and integration. This tension was particularly complex for Greek Americans during the turbulent 1960s, as they navigated questions of loyalty and belonging while Greece underwent rapid modernisation, political upheaval, and growing anti-Americanism. While Modern Greek studies have explored this diaspora, the role of print and visual cultures in negotiating cultural belonging remains unexplored. This project examines how Greek-American illustrated periodicals (1958-1974) served as spaces where competing loyalties were negotiated, and new forms of transnational identity emerged. Through archival research and iconotextual analysis of images, texts, and layout, this study reveals how diaspora periodicals actively created new aesthetic and political possibilities rather than merely reflecting political tensions, enabling readers to maintain multiple overlapping loyalties. This research pioneers diaspora aesthetics as an analytical framework, offering fresh perspectives on Cold War cultural history and contemporary questions of migration and belonging.
Dr Samuel Jarvis
SRG25\250368
Project Title: The United Nations Security Council in a Contested Global Order: Examining the Impact of Informal Diplomatic Practice
York St John University
Value Awarded: £8,840
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The rules and norms that govern the current global order are becoming increasingly contested by both rising and established powers. From the right to territorial integrity to the defence of human rights, growing political divisions are significantly disrupting the key functions of multilateral institutions. In response, this project theorises the role of contestation as a distinct social process, through which states both challenge and reimagine the application and remit of shared international norms. Focusing on the United Nations, it highlights the influence of contestation in driving the development of new informal practices, from the rise of informal diplomatic groupings to new informal meeting practices. By combining insights from constructivism and practice theory, the project will focus on the evolution of daily practices, performances and internal dynamics that can help to explain the direct impact of rising tensions on the effectiveness and functioning of multilateral diplomacy in the UN Security Council.
Dr Sunghwan Kim
SRG25\250192
Project Title: Culturally Sensitive Interviewing: The Impact of Motivational Interviewing Skills in Korean Police Witness Interviews.
Staffordshire University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This research proposal investigates how rapport-building, using Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques, impacts investigative interviews in South Korea, a high-context culture. Sexual offenses against vulnerable individuals are a global concern, requiring intelligence gathering across diverse populations. Effective interviewing, particularly for witness testimony, relies on strong interviewer-interviewee rapport. Building upon existing research demonstrating MI's effectiveness in investigative contexts (Alison et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2020), this project aims to address the current knowledge gap regarding its application in Asian settings. The applicant possesses expertise in rapport-based communication and police interviewing, and the Korean Police Investigation Academy (KPIA) will provide support, facilitating the translation of research findings into practical criminal investigation strategies.
Dr Chavan Kissoon
SRG25\250671
Project Title: Academic freedom for research in times of financial turbulence: Perceptions of research leaders at financially-constrained universities
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £7,965
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The UK higher education (HE) sector is currently experiencing significant financial challenges, with nearly 100 universities engaging or having recently engaged in cost-saving exercises, including job cuts. With REF2029 just four years away, this timely sector-wide study explores the impact of the current financial crisis in English HE and how it is shaping institutional approaches to research both strategically and operationally.
Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with research leaders at financially-constrained English universities, the study aims to gain insight into institutional and sectoral research priorities in order to conceptualise the impact of financial turbulence on institutional commitments to academic freedom for research.
The study’s envisaged contributions are to provide insight into how research leaders and institutions (i) see academic freedom for research evolving in the period to REF2029 and beyond and (ii) deliver on their research priorities in the context of internal financial constraints and the sector’s financial turbulence.
Dr Andrea Kocsis
SRG25\252303
Project Title: Digital Ghosts - Exploring Scotland’s Heritage on the Web
University of Edinburgh
Value Awarded: £6,500
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project explores how we can better connect communities with their digital heritage by making web archives more accessible, engaging, and meaningful. Web archives preserve snapshots of websites, offering insights into how people and organisations represent themselves online. Yet, these archives are often hard to navigate for the wider public. Focusing on the “Scotland on the Internet” collection, we use creative methods—like data visualisation and interactive exhibition—to help the public explore their digital footprint. The project bridges the gap between online data and real-world experience by involving local artists, students, and community members in designing artworks and prototype interfaces. These will be tested with exhibition visitors through surveys and focus groups to better understand public needs and improve the usability of web archives. By combining technology, art, and humanities research, the project shows how web archives can reflect Scotland’s diverse identities and become more relevant, inclusive, and usable for everyone.
Dr Yuliia Kremenska
SRG25\252383
Project Title: Invisible toxins, visible harm: Microplastic exposure and social vulnerability in urban populations
Aston University
Value Awarded: £7,750
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Plastic pollution has become a global concern, with microscopic particles that now detected in drinking water sources, including urban groundwater. This project investigates the social and environmental scope of nanoplastic exposure in Lagos, Nigeria, one of the world's fastest growing megacities. Field data from 20 sites identified widespread contamination linked to informal waste management practices, disproportionately affecting low income communities. To understand the potential health implications, we develop lab based models using consumer produced plastics to simulate environmental nanoplastics and assess their biological effects on human cells. This interdisciplinary research bridges environmental science, public health, and urban social policy to address how structural inequalities and pollution intersect. Findings will adress future risk assessments, environmental guidance, and international concerns around environmental justice and urban sustainability in the Global South.
Dr Barbara Lebrun
SRG25\250887
Project Title: Diversity in French Popular Music, 1955-1988
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £8,065
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Scholarship on French popular music has focused on white ‘chanson’ songwriters and post-colonial rap artists, producing the assumption that racial diversity is confined to the latter genre. This project seeks to challenge this bias by analysing cultural diversity in ‘variété’, the family-friendly, chart-topping music that was broadcast on France’s state-run TV until the 1980s. Popular and commercial, ‘variété’ falls outside the academic canon, yet its literal promise of diversity fostered the careers of artists of colour (Henri Salvador, Surfs, Compagnie Créole…).
This project will examine the ways in which non-white artists contributed to the popularity of 'variété', determining the extent to which their race – a taboo topic in republican France – shaped their participation in French mass music culture. Analysing the televised music archives held at Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (Paris), the project will proceed collaboratively to excavate this racialized history responsibly, producing a special issue and a blog.
Professor Adam Ledger
SRG25\251980
Project Title: Refiguring Anne Bogart: rehearsal, fieldwork and observation towards new understanding of a directing practice
University of Birmingham
Value Awarded: £7,210
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Despite her status as an internationally acclaimed theatre and opera director, Anne Bogart and her work and influence remain under researched.
This research seeks to expose Bogart’s current (and future) work, especially since the closure of her permanent company (SITI Company) and moves on from a scholarly over-emphasis on her movement-based staging and training method ‘The Viewpoints’. Since Bogart herself no longer uses the term, how can her contemporary directing and pedagogy be understood? There is also a need to re-articulate assumptions of Bogart as a collaborative, ensemble director. Further, there has been no research on Bogart’s directing pedagogy, little elaboration of her very early work, and little on her burgeoning direction of opera and musical theatre internationally.
Through unprecedented, first-hand participant-observation of Bogart’s work, including of her teaching, as well as access to the rehearsal room internationally, and personal archive, this project will support foundational fieldwork and initial publications.
Dr Linda Lidborg
SRG25\251309
Project Title: Investigating facial shape development, parent-child resemblance, and face perception across puberty
Durham University
Value Awarded: £8,580.49
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Facial appearance influences many areas of life, shaping our relationships, opportunities, and even how we are treated by others. It is also the subject of considerable public and academic interest, particularly regarding facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism (masculinity in men and femininity in women). Some researchers suggest that facial preferences have evolutionary origins - for example, that facial attractiveness/dimorphism signal health or fertility, or that people are attracted to traits resembling their preferred-sex parent due to ‘sexual imprinting’. Others propose that fathers favour children who physically resemble them due to ‘paternity uncertainty’. However, extant literature shows methodological limitations, with longitudinal evidence lacking. This project addresses these gaps by combining objectively and subjectively measured facial shape data from a unique, longitudinal parent-child cohort. It will test: (1) how facial traits and parent-child resemblance develop through puberty; (2) whether facial traits predict parent-resembling preferences; and (3) whether facial resemblance predicts parent-child bonds.
Professor Michael Lister
SRG25\250636
Project Title: Martyn’s Law, Vernacular Security and Counterterrorism: Lessons from Manchester
Oxford Brookes University
Value Awarded: £6,810
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The Terrorism (Protection of premises) Act, also known as Martyn’s Law, was passed in 2025. Costing £2.7 billion and affecting millions of workers, it dramatically extends the UK’s counterterrorism framework, imposing new statutory requirements on over 300,000 public and private premises take steps to mitigate the impact of terrorism. Nationally, Martyn’s Law will be rolled out over the next two years, impacting UK counterterrorism policy, business and beyond. It raises profound questions about security, citizenship, and the relationship between (private) business and (public) security. This study uses Manchester City Council's early implementation elements of Martyn's Law since 2020 as a pilot study. It will examine, via qualitative and quantitative data, the experiences and views of policymakers businesses, workers and citizens in Manchester. It will generate policy relevant findings which will shape Martyn’s Law’s national formulation, implementation, communication, and reception, as well as new academic understandings about non-elites' involvement in security.
Dr Xiaojun Luo
Co-applicant(s): Dr Jingxi Liu
SRG25\252018
Project Title: Bridging the Gap Between Legal and Statistical Fairness in AI Systems
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £5,170
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly used in critical domains such as recruitment, credit scoring, and healthcare, raising urgent concerns about fairness. While AI engineers have developed technical approaches to mitigate bias and enhance statistical fairness, these methods often fail to align with legal frameworks. This project examines whether current fairness audits, which focus on statistical metrics, adequately meet standards in UK law for AI models. Combining a systematic review of technical research with legal analysis and empirical testing, the study identifies gaps between statistical fairness metrics and legal fairness principles. By bridging AI engineering and law, particularly UK data protection and anti-discrimination law, the project aims to develop legally sound fairness metrics and practical guidance to help organisations design AI systems that uphold legal and ethical fairness standards. The outcomes will contribute to responsible AI development while promoting broader societal goals of trust, inclusion, and accountability in automated decision-making.
Dr Alexander Maine
SRG25\250476
Project Title: Queer Families and the Law after ‘I do’: a socio-legal analysis of LGBTQ people’s relationship with marriage and law in England and Wales
City, University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Since 2014, an estimated 50,000 LGBTQ couples have married in England and Wales, having taken the chance to benefit from the highest form of legal recognition available, and the symbolic and emotional ties of marriage. This socio-legal project will build on existing literature in LGBTQ people’s rights and families, to investigate the long-term effects of this change and the lived experiences of LGBTQ people in their interactions with family law. It will gather data from 250 LGBTQ people in England and Wales who have gone through the processes of family law, to discover whether, and if so, how marriage is relevant to their lives, imagination, and culture. The project will explain how LGBTQ people navigate the complex world of legal relationship recognition when approaching their familial, sexual, and emotional relationships. Through embedded engagement with family law practitioners, this research will support and promote LGBTQ inclusivity in legal practice.
Professor Jodie Matthews
SRG25\250873
Project Title: Literary Canal Encounters: Uncomfortable Histories of the Waterways, A Pilot Study
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £9,238.93
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
English waterways are layered with social, cultural, economic, and technological histories. This project uses literature to produce encounters with one aspect: the relationship between industrial canals and transatlantic slavery. No academic project has hitherto used literature to explore this history in the canal space. Canals were built with the proceeds of the slave trade, transported commodities produced by enslaved people, and transported coal and wood for trades integral to the system of slavery. In this pilot study, encounters between a community group located near or on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and literary representations of a) Black subjectivities under, in resistance to, and after enslavement and b) histories of the canal are co-designed, produced, recorded and evaluated. My research uses historical and contemporary literature to produce affective encounters with the canal’s underexplored connection to slavery; the methodology must therefore be thoughtfully and ethically designed and managed via small-scale testing of the waters.
Dr Anna McKeever
Co-applicant(s): Dr Elodie Fabre
SRG25\251174
Project Title: Crisis of representative democracy? Decline, challenges and survival of mainstream parties in France
University of the West of Scotland
Value Awarded: £9,180
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project investigates how traditional mainstream parties adapt to changes in voting patterns and the rise of new parties and how this impacts the stability of contemporary democracies through the example of France. France exemplifies a case where broad social changes led to the steady rise of radical right parties, centrist and radical-left competitors. The decline of mainstream parties on the national level in France is puzzling, as it has been produced by a majoritarian electoral system, which usually favours the dominance of such parties. By focusing on how mainstream parties organise and engage with members and citizens at different levels, the project aims to explain differential success of mainstream parties on national and subnational (regional and local) levels. It will explain sub-national party resilience in the context of increasing societal fragmentation.
Mr Gilbert McLaughlin
Co-applicant(s): Dr Christian Robitaille and Dr Christian Robitaille
SRG25\250145
Project Title: Toolkit for Radicalisation Models Evaluation
Liverpool Hope University
Value Awarded: £8,263.48
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The term "radicalisation" has gained prominence across academic, political, and societal spheres, evolving into a key concept in understanding violent extremism. Departing from traditional inquiries into the causes of terrorism, scholars now focus on comprehending the process of radicalisation itself, leading to the development of several radicalisation models. However, the proliferation of these models is done without a formal tool to evaluate efficiently their relevance.
This project seeks to address this gap by developing an objective evaluation tool for radicalisation models. Through a comprehensive review of existing models and literature and interviews with stakeholders in the field, the tool aims to be efficient and easy to use to evaluate models of radicalisation. By offering a systematic approach to compare and measure radicalisation models, this initiative aims to enhance policymaking, strengthen prevention programmes, and foster advancements in the understanding and prevention of political violence.
Dr Irina Merkurieva
Co-applicant(s): Dr Sapnoti Eswar
SRG25\251301
Project Title: Innovation Teams Under Mergers: Exploring the Human Capital Dimension
University of St Andrews
Value Awarded: £9,120
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) play a crucial role in the growth and development of companies by strengthening their competitive position and enhancing efficiency and innovation. However, M&A can also have negative consequences, such as reducing competition in product markets and leading to higher prices for consumers. We examine the social impact of M&A – specifically, their effects on human capital within firms, with a focus on the careers of innovative workers. Central to our analysis is understanding of how M&A affects research personnel and teams. Do acquirers retain key research personnel and enhance their innovative potential? Or are they using M&A to disrupt the research and development efforts of future competitors? A clear answer to these questions will have important implications for regulators and policymakers seeking to strike the right balance between regulation and growth.
Dr Gaspard Pelurson
SRG25\251932
Project Title: Distraction Or Drive: Assessing The Role Of Video Games In University Learning
King's College London
Value Awarded: £6,263.80
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project evaluates the role of video games in university learning, with a focus on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, renowned for its state-of-the-art gaming lab facilities, which are primarily used as teaching spaces in the humanities department. By collaborating with students enrolled in courses that integrate weekly game-playing as a pedagogical tool, the research aims to assess the impact of games on student engagement, learning outcomes, and classroom dynamics. Through focus groups and data collection, the project will investigate whether games act as a catalyst for active learning or as a distraction, providing fresh insights into the effectiveness of ludic pedagogy in higher education.
Dr Diego Andrés Pérez Ruiz
Co-applicant(s): Professor Arkadiusz Wisniowski
SRG25\252216
Project Title: Bayesian Integration of Probability and Non-Probability Samples via Entropy-Based Stopping Rules
University of Manchester
Value Awarded: £9,383.32
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Carefully designed probability-based surveys remain the gold standard for population inference in the social sciences. However, these methods face increasing financial and operational constraints, leading to growing interest in incorporating cheaper but potentially biased non-probability samples. This project investigates a novel Bayesian framework for integrating probability and non-probability samples using entropy as a criterion to guide when to stop collecting additional non-probability data. The approach utilises entropy-based measures of information gain to determine whether further non-probability sampling materially improves inference. Our goal is to balance efficiency gains and the risk of introducing bias, thereby providing a principled approach for reducing both survey errors and data collection costs. The methodology will be evaluated through simulation studies and applied to real-world social survey data, offering insights into optimal sample design in resource-constrained settings.
Dr Jeff Powell
Co-applicant(s): Dr Ben Ferrett and Dr Adrian Gourlay
SRG25\251896
Project Title: Putting history back in for the future of economics
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £8,942
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
Economics is a powerful discipline. Recent experience has shown that, in order to adequately anticipate and respond to economic and social challenges/crises, economists must have both an understanding of history and be able to reflect on how their discipline - its ideas, methodologies, and practitioners - have been shaped by historical context. While the need to include the history of economics (HE) and economic history (EH) in the curriculum has been formally recognised, there has been no attempt made to assess whether it is being adequately provided. This research project will first survey and map the provision of HE/EH in the UK, and then document challenges and best practice in pedagogy. This is essential to, first, identify and respond to gaps in provision; and, second, develop a culture of reflexive teaching to ensure that HE/EH is compelling and relevant for the economists that will be responding to the next crisis.
Dr Samuel Ridout
SRG25\252029
Project Title: Electronic Music in France after 1968
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £1,825
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
In France in the years after 1968, experimentation with electronic sound was linked discursively and practically with a host of social transformations associated imaginatively with a spirit of May 1968, ranging from cultural democratization to the emergence of the counterculture. Where existing histories tend to focus on institutions such as the Groupe de Recherches Musicales or IRCAM, the proposed research will attend to musicians largely working outside of such settings, complicating the divisions between high and low culture that implicitly frame the conventional historiography.
The project will produce an account of a musical conjuncture that has received little sustained attention in musicological literature, focussing on music at the fringes of electroacoustic music, free jazz, minimalist composition and experimental rock. Several case studies will serve as windows onto the social and aesthetic characteristics of electronic music in France at this time, pointing to continuities between worlds often thought unrelated.
Professor Kay Schiller
SRG25\251306
Project Title: Promoting, Documenting and Memorializing the Maccabi Sports Movement in the Twentieth Century: Felix Simmenauer and the Creation of Belonging and Difference
Durham University
Value Awarded: £7,100
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
This project makes an original contribution to the historiography of German sport in the first half of the twentieth century and to the literature on sport, propaganda, politics, and Zionism. It provides a scholarly biography of the German-Jewish athlete and émigré Felix Simmenauer (1903-90) and critically analyses his efforts to promote, document and memorialize the Maccabi sports movement. While Simmenauer was not the only participant, propagandist, and historian of the Maccabi during the interwar years, I argue that his role was crucial in advocating Zionist goals and in creating a sense of belonging and difference. As a filmmaker and sports photographer, organizer of a choreographed mass sports spectacle and instigator of a large-scale exhibition, he employed paradigmatically modern propaganda techniques which combined verbal and visual mass communication.
Dr Brian Sneeden
SRG25\252289
Project Title: Faithful Originals: Research-Informed Creative Translation Workshops in Multilingual Migrant Communities
Manchester Metropolitan University
Value Awarded: £7,143
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The proposed study entails arts-based research utilising creative translation workshops in migrant communities in Greater Manchester, for the purpose of developing a research-based model for collaborative creative translation pathways for multilingual participants. This work—involving data collection, analysis and dissemination of results—will expand on existing arts-based research frameworks that explore creative pathways for understanding how migrant experiences are constituted and negotiated through the lens of language and identity. The three key interventions of the proposed programme include: 1) the development of a dynamic intergenerational collaborative model for participatory research, 2) experimentation with a generative multilingual model of co-creation that combines creative writing and translation, and 3) application of recent developments in the field of translation studies in data analysis, offering unique insights in multilingual associations.
Dr Duncan Wright
SRG25\250821
Project Title: Before the Bridge: Revealing the Medieval Heritage of Clifton, Bristol
Newcastle University
Value Awarded: £7,676.60
Funded By: Leverhulme Trust
The suburb of Clifton, Bristol, is one of the most recognisable urban spaces in south-west Britain, famous for its Georgian architecture and iconic suspension bridge. While this heritage is celebrated, less appreciated is Clifton’s significant earlier history. A range of evidence suggests two medieval chapels are located in the area, one of which may be associated with a hill-figure. While the location of one chapel is known, the position of the second church and its hill figure has yet to be determined. Foundational scoping work by the Lead Applicant, however, strongly suggests that these features are sited on Clifton Down, in close proximity to an Iron Age hillfort. This project will deliver an original programme of archival and archaeological research allowing this complex of features to be fully characterised, a scheme that will contribute to the story of Clifton as a suburb and enhance its sense of place in time.
Wellcome
Dr Gizem Arabaci
Co-applicant(s): Professor Benjamin Parris
SRG25\250089
Project Title: The Relationship Between Mind wandering & ADHD Traits During Lectures
Bournemouth University
Value Awarded: £7,663
Funded By: Wellcome
Lecturing is a traditional method of knowledge transfer serving as the primary method of learning in higher education settings (Bligh, 2000; Schmidt et al., 2010; Schmidt et al., 2015). Despite the importance of attending lectures on academic performance (Deslauriers, Schelew & Wieman, 2011), individuals struggle to stay engaged with the lecture as the duration increases (e.g., Lindquist & McLean, 2011; Pachai et al., 2016) leading to off-task activities such as mind wandering (Wammes & Smilek, 2017; Forrin et al., 2020). Increased tendency to mind wander during lectures could be even higher in some conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) where increased symptomology is linked to excessive mind wandering in other contexts (Franklin et al., 2017). This project aims to explore if mind wandering frequency during in-person, lectures are related to ADHD traits among university students. Findings will contribute towards further understanding of educational difficulties related to ADHD symptoms.
Dr Obasanjo Bolarinwa
SRG25\250853
Project Title: Displaced and disabled: Assessing policy and service gaps in maternal, sexual and reproductive health access for women with disabilities in conflict-affected zones in Nigeria
York St John University
Value Awarded: £9,970
Funded By: Wellcome
Women with disabilities in conflict-affected regions face compounded barriers in accessing maternal, sexual, and reproductive health (MSRH) services, yet their needs remain under-researched and poorly addressed in policy and practice. This study responds to this gap by examining how conflict and disability intersect to influence MSRH access in Northeast Nigeria. It will begin with a scoping review of national and sub-national health and disability-related policies to assess their inclusion of disability within post-conflict health responses. This will be followed by qualitative research involving 40 in-depth interviews with displaced women aged 18 to 49 with physical and sensory disabilities, including mobility, visual, hearing, and speech impairments, across Borno and Adamawa states. Participants will be selected based on their previous attempts to access MSRH services such as antenatal care, childbirth support, contraception, and STI treatment. Findings will inform inclusive, context-responsive interventions and strengthen disability-focused policy recommendations in humanitarian health system planning.
Dr Jessica Bradley
Co-applicant(s): Professor Jennifer Rowsell and Dr Laura Tommaso
SRG25\250201
Project Title: Creative journaling at the intersections of art, motherhood and health: practitioner identities and entanglements
University of Sheffield
Value Awarded: £9,996
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates creative journaling practice in perinatal health and wellbeing contexts by critically examining practitioner perspectives and experiences. It focuses on ‘Maternal Journal’ - an international, interdisciplinary arts and health movement established in 2017 -which provides spaces for mothers and birthing parents for creativity and connection, addressing a urgent need for those with mild to moderate mental health problems. Maternal Journal practitioners come from a diverse range of professional backgrounds, including, but not limited to, midwifery, community health, creative practice and early years practice. Maternal Journal groups and workshops take place globally, in diverse contexts and with diverse participant groups. Through narrative interviews and arts-based research methods, including collaging and visual arts, the project addresses a significant gap in knowledge about the scope and scale of global Maternal Journal practice by exploring and examining the diversity of experiences and identities as entangled within practice in arts and health contexts.
Dr Alison Chand
SRG25\251134
Project Title: Beyond the Rainbow: Oral Histories of Teenagers and Young Adults in Scotland During the Covid-19 Pandemic
University of the Highlands and Islands
Value Awarded: £7,260
Funded By: Wellcome
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic represented unprecedented change in the lives of many. One group particularly affected incorporated teenagers and young adults. Periods of lockdown and restrictions on meeting in person fundamentally affected the lives and educational experiences of many in this group. This study will involve undertaking oral history interviews to develop an understanding of how teenagers and young adults navigated the period from March 2020 to early 2022, including changes to their education and social lives and the effects of the period on their health. Collecting oral testimony from this group relating to their experiences of this important juncture in history and exploring this testimony in the context of British cultural and social history and the history of the emotions is particularly important at this time, as I hope to continue this research beyond this two-year study and trace the effects of the pandemic on this group over time.
Dr Maria Cheshire-Allen
Co-applicant(s): Dr Aelwyn Williams and Ms Katherine Cullen
SRG25\251619
Project Title: INVALUABLE - Valuing the contribution of unpaid carers within economic evaluation
Swansea University
Value Awarded: £9,981.87
Funded By: Wellcome
When new treatments are developed, economic evaluations assess their value by examining costs and benefits in managing conditions. Although including unpaid care in these evaluations is considered important, no consensus exists on methodology, undermining evidence-based resource allocation decisions across Europe.
This innovative pilot study compares approaches between Wales and the Basque Country through structured focus groups with dementia caregivers to evaluate three quality-of-life/wellbeing measures. By directly incorporating the perspectives of unpaid carers themselves, our approach ensures that valuation methods reflect the lived experiences of those providing essential care.
The research will establish a foundation for future collaboration to develop standardised methodologies that respect regional contexts while enabling European-wide application. This initial grant will support subsequent funding applications to advance the economic evaluation of unpaid care. By enhancing how care labour is recognised within economic evaluations, our research will support accurate resource allocation decisions that reflect true societal costs, addressing inequities.
Dr James Choy
Co-applicant(s): Dr Thilo Rene Huning
SRG25\250340
Project Title: Religious institutions and fertility: Theory and evidence from the Amish
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,880.26
Funded By: Wellcome
It is well known that religiosity is associated with high fertility, but the reason for this association is unknown. One possibility is that religion induces preferences for high fertility. Another possibility is that religious institutions - the rules and restrictions imposed by religious communities - affect fertility independently of preferences. We argue that some religious institutions are deliberately designed to increase fertility, in a case study of one high fertility religious community, the Amish.
We develop a novel theory of religion that explains how and why religious institutions can increase fertility. Using novel, newly digitized data, we then present empirical evidence that Amish institutions increase fertility by comparing the fertility of Amish community members to the fertility of people who grow up in the Amish church and then leave. We use two separate empirical strategies to identify the causal effect of Amish institutions on fertility independent of preferences.
Dr Sanne Elbrink
SRG25\250444
Project Title: Insight, intervention, impact: co-designing mental health support with small business owners
Durham University
Value Awarded: £9,996.19
Funded By: Wellcome
Many founders and small business owners experience severe mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and suicide, due to high personal risks, heavy workloads and limited support. Current interventions often fail to support this group, as these are not tailored to business owners’ strengths, needs and preferences, which limits access, understanding and use of mental health resources. This project provides in-depth insights into these mental health strengths, needs and preferences, and presents them in a novel way as short narrative videos. We combine interdisciplinary co-design approaches to develop targeted interventions aiming to improve access, understanding and use of mental health resources. By generating ways to sustain these interventions in practice, we seek to achieve long-term impact. Operating at the intersection of mental health and entrepreneurship research, this project advances theoretical understanding and directly applies it to develop interventions promoting the mental health of founders and small business owners.
Mr Guy Eyre
SRG25\251402
Project Title: Emotions and the Repression Effect: Islamist Mobilisation in North Africa
Independent Scholar
Value Awarded: £9,270
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates the effect of state repression on the political mobilisation of two Islamic movements in Moroccosince 2013, showing how it is shaped by Islamic activists’ emotions. By drawing on social psychology research that theorises emotions as a mode of thinking and decision-making, the project will challenge the macro-level, structural, and rational-choice analysis within existing scholarship on the repression effect. Employing a novel mixed-methods approach, including open interviews, participant observation, and emotions diaries, the research proposes a more dynamic and agent-centred understanding of repression, resistance, and state-society relations within and beyond the Middle East and North Africa.
Dr Giovanna Frisso
SRG25\251637
Project Title: Examining motherhood narratives in Sierra Leone post-conflict justice mechanisms through computer assisted analysis
University of Lincoln
Value Awarded: £6,869.57
Funded By: Wellcome
There has been widespread and systematic sexual violence against women and girls during the armed conflict in Sierra Leone. Although comprehensive data is lacking on the exact number of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who give birth to children as a result, it is estimated that 20,000 children were born from such violence during the conflict. Nonetheless, the experience of these children as well as those of their mothers did not gain
visibility in the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This research proposal uses computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software to examine how gender bias influenced the application of international law condemning sexual violence, silencing experiences of motherhood during the conflict. Bringing to attention the silences surrounding the long-term consequences of sexual violence, this proposal opens the way for a more nuanced understanding of motherhood.
Dr Wing Kai Fung
Co-applicant(s): Dr Pinar Oztop
SRG25\250769
Project Title: The Longitudinal Relationships of Digital and Non-digital Play with Children's Executive Functions and Creativity Development
Liverpool Hope University
Value Awarded: £9,940
Funded By: Wellcome
Digital play is becoming increasingly prevalent and children nowadays are using various information and communication technology for entertainment and gaming in early years. Although play is widely regarded as an important mean enabling children's learning and development, the impact of digital play is often less considered and the existing findings are limited and inconclusive. The proposed study aims to understand how children's digital and non-digital play styles and experiences in the family context would predict their upcoming levels of executive functions and creative potential in early childhood. Theoretically, findings from this study can extend the existing frameworks by investigating how different play styles collectively predict children's development. Considering the importance of executive functions and creativity in long term academic competence, this study can also bring significant implications by informing the early childhood education and care policies and practice about the unique role of digital play in children's early functioning.
Dr Suzanne Gage
Co-applicant(s): Professor Praveetha Patalay
SRG25\250774
Project Title: Understanding the relationship between health and wellbeing related behaviours and mental health - a cross-contextual longitudinal study in Brazil, India and the UK
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £9,990
Funded By: Wellcome
Many studies have shown associations between health and wellbeing related behaviours, such as substance use, sleep, BMI and exercise, and subsequent mental health difficulties. However, it is unclear whether any of these associations are likely to be causal and therefore could be potential targets for interventions. At present it’s also unclear to what extent these associations are seen across different cultural contexts, as most research to date has taken place in very similar samples.
Using regional longitudinal datasets based in Brazil, India and the UK, we intend to explore these associations across different contexts, in order to describe global differences or similarities in how these factors are related in adolescence and young adulthood. Findings will also help understand the likelihood that any associations are causal. If similar associations are seen in different cultural contexts where underlying confounding structures are likely to be different, this is stronger evidence of causality.
Dr Richard Gibson
Co-applicant(s): Dr Bonnie Venter and Dr Daniel Hurst
SRG25\250693
Project Title: Divine Boundaries: Exploring UK Religious Leaders and Congregations’ Attitudes Toward Xenotransplantation
Aston University
Value Awarded: £9,978
Funded By: Wellcome
Xenotransplantation (XTx), using non-human animal materials in human organ replacement, is gaining attention due to recent scientific advances and high-profile “compassionate use” surgeries. With the US Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of the first porcine kidney XTx clinical trials, the field is rapidly moving closer to clinical reality. However, XTx raises important socio-ethical questions, particularly regarding presumed religious objections—especially among faiths prohibiting pork. Despite assumptions, there is little empirical evidence supporting these objections, and existing studies are mostly US-focused. This project addresses this gap through focus groups with UK-based religious leaders and non-clerical faith holders. Through eight focus groups, this project will bring together UK-based religious leaders and non-clerical faith-holders to survey their perspectives on the practice. The data collected will help map whether faith-based objections to XTx exist, what doctrines underpin such misgivings (if existent), and what role religious leaders can play in educating their congregations on XTx.
Dr Dion Glass
SRG25\251298
Project Title: AI-Driven Mental Health Profiling: A Feasibility Study of Storyboard-Based Diagnostic Tools for Scalable Psychological Screening in the UK
University of Portsmouth
Value Awarded: £9,968.87
Funded By: Wellcome
This project aims to develop an AI-driven mental health screening tool for early identification of common disorders, including Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Unlike traditional checklists, this tool will use branching storyboards to guide users through interactive, context-rich decision pathways, integrating case files, DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 criteria for clinical accuracy. It will also include trauma-informed design and adaptive features for neurodiverse users, supported by an audio AI bot for improved accessibility.
The pilot study will evaluate the tool’s feasibility, usability, and diagnostic potential through stakeholder feedback from the NHS, clinicians and people with lived experience. The ultimate goal is to develop a scalable, user-friendly platform that empowers individuals to engage with their mental health, supporting NHS and relevant providers in delivering more responsive, personalised care.
Dr Ashley Gluchowski
Co-applicant(s): Dr Gabrielle Humphreys
SRG25\250336
Project Title: Healthcare Practitioners having Health Promoting Conversations: Changing Practice through Experience
University of Salford
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Wellcome
Physical inactivity is a complex challenge that requires an interdisciplinary approach to potential solutions.
Robust evidence shows that physical activity is by far the best intervention for the promotion of health and the prevention of disease. As a result, healthcare practitioners are expected to provide physical activity and behaviour change advice to their patients. However, many practitioners themselves do not engage in physical activity and, in fact, may partake in prolonged bouts of sedentary behaviour. This may result in a psychological discomfort between their personal and professional selves resulting in a reluctance to encourage the desired behaviours in others.
This project will explore whether healthcare practitioners' cognitive dissonance is responsive to an innovation designed to bring the personal- and professional-self closer together for the benefit of practitioners' personal health and the health of their patients in primary care settings.
Professor Richard Harris
Co-applicant(s): Dr Ann Wilson-Daily
SRG25\250433
Project Title: Examining the relationship between a positive LGBTQ+ school climate and a LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,982.71
Funded By: Wellcome
Research consistently shows LGBTQ+ youth in schools disproportionately suffer victimisation, poor mental health and lower academic outcomes. Developing a LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum, thereby promoting visibility and addressing ignorance and prejudice is regarded as a potential protective factor in creating a safe school environment for LGBTQ+ students. Yet little is known about what LGBTQ+ topics are taught, what shapes their in/exclusion and the impact this has on school climate. Using surveys, interviews and focus groups with teachers and students in four to six secondary schools, the project examines the relationship between the curriculum and school climate aiming to identify helpful practices and challenges.
Dr Matthew Hudson
Co-applicant(s): Dr Giorgio Ganis
SRG25\250626
Project Title: On Similar Wave Lengths: The neurocognitive mechanisms of social interactions in autistic dyads
University of Plymouth
Value Awarded: £9,896.80
Funded By: Wellcome
This research proposes a novel investigation into the Double Empathy hypothesis. Accordingly, social difficulties in autism do not arise from individual deficits in social cognition, but from different cognitive and behavioural styles between autistic and non-autistic individuals that cause mutual misunderstanding. Building on predictive coding theories of perception, the project tests whether interactions between and within neurotypes influence the behavioural and neural mechanisms underlying action perception, which should be easier when the neurotypes of the actor and observer align. Two experiments will assess whether perceptual biases and corresponding EEG markers—mu-suppression, LRP, and ERN—differ across neuro-convergent and neuro-divergent dyads, and whether these effects depend on the observer’s knowledge about the person’s neurotype. The project will deepen understanding of autistic social experiences, and promise academic, social, and clinical impact by reframing autism through a social environmental lens, challenging deficit-based models, and informing interventions that target inclusive and neurodiverse social environments.
Dr Stephanie Hughes
Co-applicant(s): Dr Skaiste Linceviciute and Dr Rebecca Band
SRG25\250446
Project Title: Alcohol research? No thanks!
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,640
Funded By: Wellcome
Alcohol is the leading risk factor for death, ill-health, and disability among 15–49-year-olds in the UK, yet engaging people with alcohol problems in research remains difficult due to shame, stigma, and mistrust. This project will explore these barriers from the perspective of those with lived experience, using a trust-based recruitment approach via 5–8 charities. We aim to recruit 25–40 participants to record short video messages about their views on alcohol research. This participant-led method seeks to include individuals often excluded by traditional strategies. The videos will be compiled into a short film to highlight lived experiences and suggest ways to make research more inclusive. Findings will be shared through academic and community platforms, including conferences, journals, and charity networks. By amplifying the voices of under-represented groups, the project aims to improve equity and inform future practices in alcohol research participation.
Dr Muhammad Zahid Iqbal
SRG25\251232
Project Title: Development of Educational Resources for Fostering Empathy and Psychological Well-being Through Interactive Virtual Reality and Integrated GenAI in the Context of Military Conflicts
Teesside University
Value Awarded: £9,985.99
Funded By: Wellcome
As of now, approximately two billion people are living in conflict-affected areas globally. In response to the complex emotional and psychological needs arising from military conflicts, the development of educational resources merging interactive virtual reality (VR) and integrated Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) aims to present a promising opportunity for fostering empathy and psychological well-being. This innovative approach aims to provide immersive experiences that advance traditional educational methods, offering the opportunity to embody diverse perspectives within conflict scenarios. By applying VR technology, individuals can engage in simulated environments that can develop empathetic responses and deepen their understanding of the human experience amid conflict. Integrated GenAI further enhances these experiences through contextual queries, interactions, and emotional sensitivities. Through this integration of VR and GenAI, this proposed research investigates how educational resources can facilitate cognitive empathy and promote emotional resilience, aiming to empower individuals to navigate the complexities of conflict.
Dr Mohsen Jafari Songhori
SRG25\252177
Project Title: Analysing UK Drug Shortages through Supply Network Modelling and Data Analytics
Queen's University Belfast
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Wellcome
This research proposal aims to address the growing crisis of drug shortages in the UK healthcare system through an integrated analytical approach grounded in operations and technology management. Using public datasets from the NHS, MHRA, EMA, the study will construct a comprehensive UK pharmaceutical supply network. It will incorporate supplier information, shortage alerts, and media reports to analyse the structural and dynamic causes of medicine shortages. Key methodologies include: (i) social network analysis to assess the resilience and vulnerability of the drug supply chain, (ii) machine learning to predict and classify shortages based on structured and unstructured data, and (iii) system dynamics simulation to evaluate the long-term impact of policy interventions like transparency mandates. The project will generate actionable insights for academic theory and public policy by identifying high-risk medicines and effective mitigation strategies. Ultimately, it contributes to building a more resilient pharmaceutical supply system for the UK.
Dr Christian Jones
Co-applicant(s): Dr David Oakey
SRG25\251544
Project Title: Phraseology, imagery and effectiveness of type 2 diabetes public health messaging in a sample British/South Asian community
University of Liverpool
Value Awarded: £8,820.30
Funded By: Wellcome
This project will study the effectiveness of health messaging in relation to type 2 diabetes for British/South Asian communities, who are particularly susceptible to this condition. We will create a digital corpus of text and images of official public health social media posts, websites and digital versions of posters and leaflets. We will then analyse this data to understand the most common forms and functions of the phrases used and how these interact with images. Samples of this common phraseology and imagery will then be discussed in focus groups with adult participants from the British/South Asian community in a Lancashire city. We aim to understand a) how well the messaging is understood/related to; b) the extent to which participants suggest they would act upon it; and c) how they believe the language and images could be improved to be more effective at increasing understanding of self-management/prevention or initiating changes.
Dr Tinashe Kanosvamhira
Co-applicant(s): Dr Martin Magidi and Mr Tatenda Musasa
SRG25\251703
Project Title: Green Havens, Inner Harmony: A Tale of Two Cities and the Psychology of Urban Agriculture
University of Leeds
Value Awarded: £9,900
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates how participation in urban agriculture shapes psychological well-being in two Southern African cities with divergent policy contexts: Cape Town, where urban agriculture is formally supported, and Gweru, where it remains largely informal. Drawing on Corey Keyes’ Mental Health Continuum, we employ a convergent mixed methods design. Quantitative surveys (n=200 per city) will assess emotional, psychological, and social well-being, while semi structured interviews with 20 urban farmers in each city will explore lived experiences of stress relief, self-efficacy, social integration, and life satisfaction. To contextualise these experiences, the research includes interviews with municipal officers, urban planners, and civil society actors advocating for farming, alongside a comparative analysis of policy documents that shape urban agriculture. Indigenous concepts of well-being such as Ubuntu and “ukuphila” (to live well) will inform the interpretive framework. The project adopts a decolonial and participatory ethos, positioning farmers as co-analysts in the research process.
Dr Meiko Makita
Co-applicant(s): Dr Francisco Paz-Rodriguez
SRG25\252128
Project Title: Evaluating Palliative Care Models For Neurodegenerative Conditions affecting Older Adults: Global Insights For Mexico
University of Dundee
Value Awarded: £9,999.74
Funded By: Wellcome
Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, are rising globally, with over 60% of new dementia cases diagnosed annually in low-and middle-income countries. In Mexico, these conditions pose a significant challenge that requires culturally sensitive palliative care interventions. Despite progress in integrating palliative care, services remain fragmented, limiting equitable access across regions and for conditions like neurodegenerative diseases. This project aims to evaluate and adapt best-practice palliative care models to address Mexico's unique challenges. We will use a transdisciplinary approach, involving Mexico and UK-based researchers and key stakeholders. Using a realist review, we will examine global palliative care models to understand what works, for whom, and in which contexts. The findings will guide two stakeholder workshops to co-create an adapted palliative care model for Mexico. This project is the start of a broader, long-term research agenda to establish sustainable international collaboration in palliative care for older adults with neurodegenerative conditions.
Dr Madeline Petrillo
Co-applicant(s): Dr Alexandra Fanghanel
SRG25\251493
Project Title: Building Hope: The potential of architecture to support trauma-informed practice with criminalised women
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £5,732
Funded By: Wellcome
The 'Building Hope' project will explore women’s responses to the spatial design of Hope Street; a new, purpose-built, residential community for justice-involved women and their children in Southampton, UK. By offering a community alternative to custody based on a model of trauma-informed care, Hope Street aims to reduce the number of women who are imprisoned and separated from their children. The primary goal of the project is to explore the women’s emotional, experiential, and embodied responses to the space to evaluate whether the Hope Street meets its goals of being a trauma-informed environment. In consultation with Hope Street residents and staff, the research will use creative qualitative methods to evaluate the extent to which the design of Hope Street succeeds as a trauma-informed space and the potentiality it offers to redefine the design of institutional spaces as places of sanctuary and healing as opposed to places of punishment.
Dr Katharine Precious
SRG25\252542
Project Title: Reframing Autism? Towards a typology of autism-specific national policies.
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £3,847.04
Funded By: Wellcome
Autism is often framed as a disability, and yet statistics show that autistic people are significantly more marginalised than the disabled community in general. Western Europe has seen a reframing of autistic people as a policy target group over the past twenty years, which has resulted in the creation of autism-specific national policies (Precious, 2020). This research aims to assess the extent towards this trend towards autism-specific national policies can be seen elsewhere in the world, and in particular in the Global South, and to understand how and why these policies differ. A screening process will identify those countries with autism-specific national policies, while fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) will be used to assess the content of those policies, and specifically the framing of autistic people within them, with the aim of producing a typology of autism policies.
Dr Shenaz Rangwala
Co-applicant(s): Professor Chanaka Jayawardhena
SRG25\250419
Project Title: Bridging the Digital Divide: Empowering women through Digital Health Hubs
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £9,750
Funded By: Wellcome
This research aims to enhance the effectiveness of Digital Health Hubs by exploring community engagement strategies and adaptive measures to ensure they remain accessible to ethnic women and aligned with evolving health and technological needs. Despite the increased adoption of digital technologies in healthcare services, significant barriers persist for ethnic women, exacerbating digital exclusion and health inequalities. This study will use qualitative approach to investigate the current community engagement strategies of Digital Health Hubs, focusing on their role in creating Hubs’ accessibility and impact on ethnic women. By identifying barriers and facilitators to successful community engagement strategies and fostering partnerships with healthcare providers and community members, this research seeks to improve digital health services’ reach and relevance. The outcomes will provide valuable insights into reducing digital exclusion and health disparities, ultimately empowering ethnic women by building better community support in accessing digital health resources.
Dr Avril Rowley
Co-applicant(s): Dr Amanda Mason and Dr Diahann Gallard
SRG25\250896
Project Title: Raised Beds, Raised Spirits: Connecting University Students to Nature for Enhanced Wellbeing
Liverpool John Moores University
Value Awarded: £9,939.51
Funded By: Wellcome
This project investigates the impact of student-led raised bed gardening initiatives on university students’ connection to nature and psychological wellbeing. Situated within the emerging field of environmental and ecological humanities, the research addresses pressing concerns around student mental health, social isolation and disconnection from nature. Using a mixed-methods design, we will establish a network of raised beds across campus and, where feasible, student accommodation sites, inviting diverse participation from across academic disciplines. We will assess changes in students’ wellbeing, sense of belonging and environmental identity through a combination of surveys, semi-structured interviews, PhotoVoice and reflective journals. The project aims to generate new empirical evidence on the role of nature-based interventions in fostering inclusive, health-promoting educational environments. It will contribute to interdisciplinary debates on ecological engagement in higher education and produce practical resources and policy recommendations for universities seeking to embed wellbeing, sustainability and student voice into campus life.
Dr Marco Sandrini
SRG25\250945
Project Title: The role of left inferior frontal cortex in reducing intrusive memories induced by a trauma-film paradigm: an rTMS study
Roehampton University
Value Awarded: £9,994.53
Funded By: Wellcome
Following traumatic and aversive events, people commonly experience spontaneous intrusive recollections of the distressing incident (intrusive memories), a core feature of patients with PTSD. However, understanding emotional and intrusive memory has broader relevance beyond trauma— involuntary images of various emotional autobiographical events are common in daily life. Studies have used the trauma film paradigm to study intrusive memories in a more controlled laboratory environment. Using this paradigm, neuroimaging studies have shown brain activation in the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC) during the formation of intrusive memories. We will investigate the contribution of the left IFC in reducing the frequency of intrusive memories induced by a trauma-film in young adults using inhibitory Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, a safe non-invasive brain stimulation technique. This research will shed light on the causal role of left IFC in intrusive memories and a potential novel intervention designed to reduce these memories in PTSD.
Dr Peter Simcock
SRG25\250975
Project Title: Wellbeing in Wales, is it for all? An exploration of the social care experiences of deafblind adults in Wales, post implementation of the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act 2014
Birmingham City University
Value Awarded: £9,854
Funded By: Wellcome
Social care for deafblind people is in crisis. Deafblind people across England and Wales experience significant challenges accessing social care and are underserved by a system struggling to meet demand and provide appropriate support. While in England, legislation is considered fundamental to improved social care for deafblind people, nothing is known about the experiences of deafblind adults living in Wales since the Social Services and Well-Being (Wales) Act 2014, the legal framework for social care in Wales, came into force. Research is urgently needed to understand deafblind adults’ experiences to better inform social care policy and practice. This study will determine how social services in Wales are delivered to deafblind adults and illuminate their experiences of using social care. It will identify barriers in the social care system and offer insight into how it can better meet the needs of the 29,000+ deafblind people in Wales, ultimately promoting their well-being.
Dr David Smailes
Co-applicant(s): Dr Peter Moseley
SRG25\251590
Project Title: 'Break-Up' Hallucinations - Reliability, Phenomenology, and Distinctiveness
Northumbria University
Value Awarded: £7,571.67
Funded By: Wellcome
Hallucinations are commonly reported in non-clinical contexts (e.g., felt presence experiences in life-threatening situations, bereavement hallucinations after the loss of a spouse), and the study of these experiences has provided us with novel insights into human cognition. In this project, we will examine a novel form of non-clinical hallucination – ‘break-up’ hallucinations, where a person has hallucinations of their former romantic partner. In recent research project, we established that people do report having these experiences, and so in the proposed project, we aim to investigate (a) how reliable these reports are, (b) what the phenomenology of these experiences are, and (c) whether there is something distinct about break-up hallucinations – that is, whether hallucinations of a former romantic partner are more common than hallucinations of a current romantic partner. The findings of this project will help us determine if break-up hallucinations warrant further, detailed study in a larger-scale project.
Dr Calvin Wan
Co-applicant(s): Dr Daisy Lee
SRG25\251453
Project Title: Designing AI-powered Interventions for Digital Well-being: A Co-Design Approach to Support Digital Detox
University of Reading
Value Awarded: £9,963
Funded By: Wellcome
This project explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can support healthier digital habits by encouraging intentional breaks from device use, known as digital detox. It adopts a user-centred approach, combining a systematic literature review, co-design sessions, and online experimental studies. The literature review will identify existing digital detox interventions and users’ motivations and challenges. Co-design sessions will engage users in generating ideas, which the research team will map onto both current and emerging AI capabilities, to explore how AI might be used to design, enhance, or deliver support. Selected concepts will be tested in online experimental studies to assess their appeal, feasibility, and acceptability. The project aims to develop ethically grounded and practical insights into how AI can contribute to digital well-being by supporting reduced screen use in ways that are both meaningful and acceptable to users.
Dr Lauren Ward
SRG25\250014
Project Title: Adapting deliberative dialogue methods on AI ethical research for British Sign Language users
Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID)
Value Awarded: £9,980
Funded By: Wellcome
Deliberative methods, such as citizen juries, have endeavoured to widen the range of lived experience reflected in public-policy research. However, they have consistently excluded sign language users, who already face significant barriers accessing public sectors services.
This project will work closely with British Sign Language (BSL) users to adapt existing deliberative methodologies to the unique linguistic and cultural requirements of the BSL community.
This is a standalone project which is part of a larger Sciencewise public dialogue on the ethical and appropriate use of AI in signed language applications. This is a topic incredibly well suited for public dialogue, involving a complicate technology not well understood by the lay public but which has significant potential impact on their lives.
This project will also work with technology experts and sign language linguists to develop the appropriate lexicon of signs for conducting public dialogues on AI related topics.
Dr Alexandra Witte
SRG25\250213
Project Title: Hiking on Uneven Ground: Women’s Negotiations of Access and Inclusion in Scotland
Edinburgh Napier University
Value Awarded: £9,810
Funded By: Wellcome
Nature-based leisure supports mental and physical wellbeing and personal commitments to environmental sustainability, as recognised by Scotland’s Natural Health Service Programme and its commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. One of the most common nature activities is hiking, yet access remains unequal. Reports show women are less likely to participate and often report decreased enjoyment due to constraints, yet research on constraints women experience within hiking is limited. A historical focus on constraints has also left gaps in understanding what conversely enables women to participate. Moreover, context-driven insights into how constraints and enablers affect women’s hiking experience quality are missing. This project investigates the constraints and enablers women in Scotland experience within hiking. It explores distinct barriers and supports, how women negotiate these, and their effects on women’s hiking experiences.
British Accounting and Finance Association
Dr Lloyd Brown
SRG25\250023
Project Title: Pensions in a Warming World: An Empirical Study of the Opportunities and Challenges
Swansea University
Value Awarded: £9,240.78
Funded By: British Accounting and Finance Association
Pension funds face increasing pressure to integrate climate-related financial risks into their investment strategies while upholding fiduciary duties to prioritise the financial interests of beneficiaries. Traditional legal precedents and frameworks, such as Cowan v Scargill [1985] Ch 270 and the Trustee Act 2000, emphasise financial returns, yet the evolving regulatory landscape, including the Pensions Schemes Act 2021, now mandates climate risk assessments and ESG disclosures. This research explores the challenges and opportunities pension fund managers encounter in navigating the tension between their fiduciary obligations and the need for sustainable investment practices. It will investigate how legal and regulatory developments influence decision-making in pension funds and examine whether these frameworks allow for the integration of climate risks without compromising financial objectives. By conducting interviews with pension fund managers, the project aims to fill a critical empirical gap in the literature and provide practical insights into balancing fiduciary duties with sustainability goals.
EY
Dr Ahmet Onur Agca
Co-applicant(s): Dr Nikolai Kazantsev
SRG25\252481
Project Title: Redesign of Post-Growth for Apparel Ecosystem: An Integrated Intelligence Approach
Aston University
Value Awarded: £9,974
Funded By: DSIT and EY
This proposal addresses the unsustainability of fast fashion by advocating for a post-growth philosophy to redesign the apparel ecosystem. It argues that current circular economy initiatives fall short due to a persistent growth imperative, technical complexities, and resulting rebound effects. The project introduces an Integrated Intelligence approach, combining Artificial and Cognitive Intelligence, to tackle challenges like lower profitability, consumer ownership mindsets, and insufficient infrastructure that hinder the adoption of post-growth business models such as rental and repair.
Key objectives include understanding consumer behavior towards AI-supported models, investigating perceptions across the supply chain, assessing feasibility, and developing a systemic adoption roadmap. The research will employ a mixed-methods approach, including a comprehensive literature review, behavioral lab experiments, and workshops in Sri Lanka and the UK with diverse stakeholders. This holistic study aims to provide a clear pathway for systemic change, fostering a more sustainable and equitable apparel industry.
Dr Fernando Duran-Palma
Co-applicant(s): Dr Abdullahi Saka
SRG25\251615
Project Title: Advanced Technologies, Worker Voice and the Future of Work - A Comparative Study of the Scaffolding Sector in the UK and Denmark
University of Westminster
Value Awarded: £9,960
Funded By: DSIT and EY
The Fifth Industrial Revolution envisions a human-centric future where advanced technologies ‘work for people’ making jobs smarter, safer, healthier, and inclusive. This is critical for occupations such as scaffolding, notorious for its intense physical demands, hazardous working conditions, and heavily gendered environment. However, these ideas often reveal a limited understanding of technological innovation, work, and worker voice, narrowly conceived as ‘having-a-say’ on human-machine interaction, neglecting its potential to contest technological innovation and meaningfully shape the future of work. This project examines the tensions and contradictions between advanced technologies, work, and worker voice in the scaffolding sector in the UK and Denmark, countries with contrasting scaffolding technologies and industrial relations institutions. Employing participatory action-research methods, it investigates how technological innovation challenges scaffolding work and existing voice mechanisms; and how, in turn, worker voice shapes technological innovation and voice mechanisms, stimulating the co-creation of genuinely human-centric work and innovative voice paradigms.
Dr Livio Robaldo
Co-applicant(s): Dr Davide Liga
SRG25\250402
Project Title: Teaching AI to contextualize the Law: AI-generated definitions from statutes and case law
Swansea University
Value Awarded: £8,644
Funded By: DSIT and EY
This project explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can support legal interpretation by generating contextualized definitions of legal terms based on past case law. Building on results from the Innovate UK project Odyssey, which links UK legislation to relevant judicial decisions, this research will develop a system that automatically extracts legal terms from statutes, identifies how they are interpreted in case law, and generates definitions linked to the case law used to generate them. These definitions will be compiled into an expandable repository, enabling legal professionals to quickly understand how key terms have been judicially applied. Unlike most existing LegalTech tools, which focus on document-level retrieval or keyword matches, this project targets the *semantic* connection between statutory language and its evolving interpretation. The resulting resource could aid judges, lawyers, and lawmakers by making legal reasoning more transparent and accessible, and supporting legislative drafting through data-driven analysis of contested legal terms.
Honor Frost Foundation
Dr David Petts
SRG25\250543
Project Title: Holy Island Fishscapes
Durham University
Value Awarded: £9,864.72
Funded By: Honor Frost Foundation
Sea fishing has been central to the economy and cultural identity of the islanders of Holy Island for centuries. Over the years the industry has shifted from long-lining white fish to a thriving herring fishery to small-scale crab/lobster fishing, as well as shore-netting salmon and collecting shellfish. Each iteration of the industry has left its own imprint on the historic landscape of the Island in the form of harbour installations, storage and processing buildings, as well as a wider cultural landscape of social interaction and memorialisation. However, this important taskscape is now threatened by natural processes (climate change) and socio-economic shifts in the fishing industry. This project aims to capture and record the 'fishscapes' of Holy Island in their tangible and intangible dimensions through desk-based assessment, archaeological mapping and oral history.
Journal of Moral Education
Professor Sophie von Stumm
Co-applicant(s): Professor Franck Ramus and Professor Franzis Preckel
SRG25\250726
Project Title: Public views on DNA tests for educational achievement
University of York
Value Awarded: £9,995
Funded By: Journal of Moral Education
Recent research claims that how well children will do in school can be predicted from their DNA. DNA tests could be used to help identify children’s strengths and weaknesses in learning and thus, to personalise children's education according to their individual learning needs. Whether such claims are well-founded or not, they have sparked significant commercial interests: Direct-to-consumer genetic testing – a largely unregulated market – has become available for parents who can afford and want to personalise their children’s education. DNA testing for education is hotly debated by researchers and policymakers, but little is known about the wider public’s views. Yet, the public has major influence on the acceptance and uses of DNA testing. Our project will quantify the public’s moral acceptance of and willingness to use DNA tests for improving children’s educational achievement. We will collect population representative survey data from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Mr Paul Gray
Co-applicant(s): Dr Qiao Li
SRG25\252209
Project Title: Cross-Cultural Adaptation and AI Integration in Filmmaking: A Collaborative Project Between Edinburgh Napier University and Qingdao Film Academy
Edinburgh Napier University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
This research project is a cross-cultural collaboration between Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland and Qingdao Film Academy in China, exploring how artificial intelligence and virtual production technologies can reshape storytelling across cultural contexts. The project centres on adapting a Scottish short film, about a grieving woman who uses AI to recreate her deceased partner, into a Chinese version using advanced motion capture and AI tools. The original film deals with themes of grief, identity and the ethical implications of AI, and the adaptation reimagines the narrative through a Chinese cultural perspective, emphasising collective values and familial connections. Drawing on theories of cultural difference, AI aesthetics, and digital media, the project investigates how AI can act as a creative collaborator in filmmaking. It also raises broader questions about how technology influences emotional expression, narrative authenticity, and the shared human experience across cultures.
Dr Pingli Li
Co-applicant(s): Dr Bai Xue
SRG25\250839
Project Title: The Rise of JiXiao – (Re)Framing Healthcare Performance in China’s Reform Eras
University of Southampton
Value Awarded: £9,870
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
This project investigates how healthcare performance is conceptualized and institutionalized in China through the development of healthcare performance measurement systems (HPMS) amid ongoing healthcare reforms. Focusing on the evolving meanings of JiXiao—a term reflects both healthcare effectiveness and economic efficiency—the study explores how healthcare performance frames are negotiated through cross-level interactions among government, hospital management, and frontline practitioners. Grounded in institutional theory and adopting an interactional framing perspective, the project intends to unpack the bottom-up and top-down processes shaping performance conceptions. Methodologically, it combines ethnographic participative observation, archival research, and semi-structured interviews, centred around long-term engagement with the Beijing Health Economics Association. The study seeks to contribute to the literature theoretically by revealing how meanings of performance evolve and may become institutionalized via cross-level interactions. The findings aim to inform policy and practices for improving healthcare performance in China and across the globe, especially in the post-COVID-19 context.
Dr Tian Ma
Co-applicant(s): Professor Guang Ma
SRG25\251513
Project Title: Negotiating Penal Modernity: Colonialism, Sovereignty, and the Contested Birth of Prisons in early 20th century China
De Montfort University
Value Awarded: £8,189
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
This research investigates the origins of modern penal institutions in early 20th-century China through a comparative study of three key cases: Beijing’s First Model Prison (1912), the Qingdao German Prison (1900), and Macau Central Prison (1909). Challenging conventional narratives that frame China’s prison reform as either Western imposition or passive imitation, this project argues that modernization was a multifaceted process shaped by both domestic imperatives and transnational influences. By analyzing these three prisons—each representing distinct political and colonial contexts—the study seeks to redefine the discourse on the "birth of the modern prison" in China, emphasizing hybridity, adaptation, and localised agency. It applies a multidisciplinary approach that combines legal history, cultural criminology and archival research. Ultimately, this project enriches the historiography of prison, informs lessons relevant to current debates on penal practices in China, and advances understanding of global prison practices in a post-colonial context.
Dr Yu Sun
Co-applicant(s): Dr Yeheng Pan
SRG25\251854
Project Title: Fostering a collective approach to climate justice through big data: data activism to accelerate climate action in China
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,990
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
International civil society, grassroots organisations, and local communities play an increasing role in driving forward climate justice progress as the impacts of climate change become more severe. Existing research has explored how civil society groups work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Euro-American nations, but little attention has been paid to the situation in the Global South. This project explores data activism by civil society actors that aims to engage the public in climate action in China, a major powerhouse in the global economy that contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions. Focusing on the data practices of environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in China, it examines the opportunities and challenges of using big data as a means of grassroots activism and public advocacy in advancing climate justice. This project will contribute to an in-depth understanding of the transformative potentials of data for environmental sustainability purposes in the Global South.
Dr Rui Ye
Co-applicant(s): Dr Julia Mundy and Dr Jin Jiang
SRG25\250592
Project Title: A mixed method study of the impact of data resources reporting on firm valuation by financial analysts
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
Corporate data has become a crucial intangible asset in today's business world. However, there are concerns that its value is not fully reflected in financial reports, potentially biasing firm valuation. A recent initiative in China encourages companies to capitalize and disclose data-related information. Leveraging this setting, we employ textual analysis, regression analysis, and interviews to examine whether and how data-related reporting influences analyst earnings forecast bias, accuracy, and dispersion. Interviews with Chinese financial analysts aim to explore their perceptions of the usefulness of specific disclosures. Interviews with UK analysts will provide insights into how foreign investors view the usefulness of China’s innovative approach to data asset reporting and whether such practices should be adopted internationally. This project seeks to assist international accounting standard setters and policymakers in understanding how capital market participants use data resource information and in evaluating potential changes to intangible asset accounting standards to enhance market efficiency.
Dr Tietie Zhang
Co-applicant(s): Professor Mauro Barelli
SRG25\250471
Project Title: Behind China’s Economic Growth and Slowdown: Law and Development in a Global Context
City, University of London
Value Awarded: £9,911.20
Funded By: DSIT and Sino-British Fellowship Trust
China’s impressive economic growth over the past four decades, together with its recent slowdown, present an ideal case for testing and potentially refining the classic law and development theories, which regard the rule of law as a cornerstone of economic development. This project will analyse the distinctive elements of the Chinese legal system with a particular focus on how legal structures have supported the country’s economic rise since the late 1970s. It will further assess the economic challenges that China faces today as well as the need to readjust its policy on the rule of law, both domestically and internationally, in order to maintain its prosperity. This project will also foster academic collaboration between Chinese and Western scholars at a time when dialogue between the two sides is more essential than ever.
Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
Professor Laura Empson
Co-applicant(s): Dr Stefanie Gustafsson
SRG25\250895
Project Title: Changing nature of professional space: Significance and symbolism for professionals’ work and their identity
City, University of London
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: DSIT and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
We explore how changing organisational space shapes and reshapes professional work and identity in elite professional service firms. Drawing on a socio-spatial lens and process methodology, we have secured access to investigate the relocation of a leading global firm’s headquarters and its move to open-plan, hot-desking arrangements. This unprecedented shift disrupts longstanding spatial hierarchies and symbolic markers of status and identity. Using a processual multi-method design - including interviews, walking interviews, and observations over three phases - we examine how professionals across levels interpret, navigate, and adapt to spatial changes over time. Our study addresses critical questions about the role of space in professional work and identities, and contributes to emerging literature on the entanglement of space, identity, and professional work, exploring how the relationship between them may be changing, and offering timely insights for scholars and practitioners interested in hybrid work and spatial reconfigurations in professional contexts.
Dr William Fleming
Co-applicant(s): Dr Mark Fabian
SRG25\252254
Project Title: Institutionalising coproduction in the third sector
Independent Researcher
Value Awarded: £9,978
Funded By: DSIT and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
Coproduction is the collaborative efforts of practitioners and citizens with lived experience in the design and delivery of policies, services and products. For several decades coproduction has been advocated across sectors, with a thriving scholarship debating the promise and pitfalls. The latter is especially emphasised with respect to possible social transformation. Instead, the third sector emerges as fertile ground for coproduction practices because of mission-oriented organisations, comfort with conflicting agendas (e.g. financial and moral), and a history of involving people with lived experience. The research team previously led two fruitful coproduction projects on poverty action in the UK alongside several charities. In doing so, several research questions emerged on how and why coproduction becomes effective in the third sector. Our proposed project interviews third sector professionals across organisations in the UK in an effort to understand how coproduction becomes a successful, everyday, organisational practice committed to improving lives.
Dr Widya Nandini
Co-applicant(s): Professor Christian Harrison and Professor Aurik Gustomo
SRG25\251969
Project Title: Enhancing Knowledge and Skill Acquisition for Innovation in Digital Labour Ecosystem: A Comparative Case Study of Indonesia and The UK
University of Bolton
Value Awarded: £9,590
Funded By: DSIT and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
The rapid advancement of digital technologies has created opportunities for developing countries, such as Indonesia, to enhance their economic growth through the global digital market. To capitalise on these opportunities, enhancing the effectiveness of the digital labour ecosystem is pivotal. Therefore, our research aims to identify the mechanisms of knowledge and skill acquisition for innovation processes and outcomes. Furthermore, it supports the enhancement of the maturity of the digital labour ecosystem in developing countries, such as Indonesia.
To achieve these objectives, we will conduct a qualitative comparative case study of the digital labour markets in Indonesia and the United Kingdom. This comparative case study will develop a comprehensive framework for optimising knowledge and skill acquisition, providing insights from developed nations, such as the UK. Additionally, our research objectives align with SDG 8, which aims to create decent work and promote economic growth, especially for developing countries.
Dr Sadiye Sadanoglu
Co-applicant(s): Professor Jin Chan
SRG25\251061
Project Title: Community Repair and Behavioural Change: Understanding Citizen Engagement and Policy Enablers in Local Circular Economy Initiatives (CEBC-UP)
University of Greenwich
Value Awarded: £6,710
Funded By: Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
This project addresses the persistent gap between the ambitions and implementation of community-based climate and circular economy (CE) initiatives. Building on discussions with Tower Hamlets Council, ReLondon, and other borough representatives, the study investigates citizen engagement, behavioural drivers, and institutional governance supporting carbon reduction and repair schemes in London. CEBC-UP draws on behavioural theory, specifically the Theory of Planned Behaviour, to examine how attitudes, perceived control, and social norms shape engagement with local carbon reduction and repair initiatives. Using a mixed-method design, including five focus groups with approximately fifty participants from small businesses, residents, and community organisations, alongside two co-creation workshops and a short online survey, the study will identify key enablers and barriers to participation. Early insights highlight challenges such as unclear communication of schemes, policy fragmentation, and under-resourcing for behaviour change initiatives. The project will deliver evidence-based recommendations, a behavioural engagement framework, and two peer-reviewed publications.
Professor Fabio Tufano
Co-applicant(s): Dr Esat Doruk Cetemen and Dr Deepti Bhatia
SRG25\251477
Project Title: Diversity in Teams: Theory and Experiment
University of Leicester
Value Awarded: £9,761.20
Funded By: DSIT and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies
This study aims to investigate how beliefs mediate the effects of team diversity on productivity by employing a novel theoretical model, complemented by a lab-in-the-field experiment. We consider a simple two period, two task type model in which two agents engage in a joint production game. The probability of success in this game depends on the effort level chosen by both the agents in each period. The agents have incomplete information about the project type (i.e., good or bad), which creates incentives for providing different effort levels and allows us to examine how diversity in beliefs among team members impacts productivity. Through an incentivized lab- in-the-field experiment in India, we will manipulate the diversity of beliefs by varying the sources of information, the salience of agents’ identities, and the task type across different treatments to assess their impact on team productivity.
Endowed Funds
Professor Andrew Bevan
Co-applicant(s): Dr Sergios Menelaou and Dr Brenna Hassett
SRG25\251395
Project Title: The Form and Fabric of a Deep Mediterranean Cultural Tradition: Chios Storage Jars from Prehistory to the Present
University College London (UCL)
Value Awarded: £9,900.66
Funded By: Albert Reckitt Fund
This project considers an unusually-deep cultural tradition of large clay storage jars from the Mediterranean island of Chios. Known as a ‘pithos’ in Greek, this jar type was an effective pre-industrial solution to food storage in a relatively vermin-resistant and temperature-controlled container. So successful was the pithos that it gets caught up in wider historical shifts in Mediterranean social complexity and landscape investment, whilst also playing a prominent symbolic role in Mediterranean social life. This project takes advantage of a large, multi-period sample of pithoi from Chios that has recently been recovered during intensive survey. We aim to provide the most systematic, longitudinal petrographic characterisation of storage jar fabrics and technology anywhere in the Mediterranean, complemented by typological study, volumetric assessment and spatial analysis across the Chios landscape. One broader impact, amongst many, will be a distinctive island history, written in the form and fabric of a single pottery type.
Professor Andy Byford
SRG25\250480
Project Title: Spaces of Knowledge: Juvenile Criminology and Penology in the Russian Empire and Early Soviet Union (1860s-1930s)
Durham University
Value Awarded: £3,550
Funded By: Elisabeth Barker Fund
The project will result in the first systematic history of how the ‘socially dangerous’ behaviour of minors emerged and evolved as a special domain of scientific knowledge, professional expertise, and occupational technique in the late Russian empire and the early Soviet Union. The study entwines the history of the human and social sciences with the history of juvenile justice, correction, and resocialisation. It offers an innovative analysis of how juvenile crime and delinquency became the subjects of both institutionalised knowledge and disciplinary power. Its focus is on the period of turbulent modernisation that Russia and the USSR experienced between the 1860s and the 1930s. The project's broader aim is to develop an understanding of the distinctive ways in which minors, as developing social beings, were incorporated into constructions of social normativity, the conceptualisation of criminality, the management of social transgression, and the development of methods of social disciplining and control.
Dr Alexander Cairncross
SRG25\251759
Project Title: What really lingers along the garden path?: Exploiting pseudorelatives to disentangle syntactic and semantic explanations for good-enough parsing effects.
University of Cambridge
Value Awarded: £4,952.20
Funded By: Marc Fitch Fund
When encountering language, we are often faced with ambiguities at multiple levels. To resolve these ambiguities, it is often assumed that we rely on principles that reduce processing load. While generally facilitatory, these principles can lead us astray. In those instances, we are not always successful at re-analysing sentence structure, resulting in systematic misinterpretations of locally ambiguous but globally unambiguous sentences. As the cause of these misinterpretations is still debated (and would directly inform models of language comprehension), the present study will conduct experiments investigating a recently discovered example of this phenomenon in Italian. Unlike the examples that have been investigated in English, the Italian version allows us to straightforwardly disentangle competing accounts with a relatively simple manipulation. In the process, the project will additionally provide the most direct test yet of the Pseudorelative-First Hypothesis, currently our best account for crosslinguistic variation in ‘relative clause’ attachment.
Dr Doina Anca Cretu
SRG25\252380
Project Title: Humanitarian Containment: Central Europe and The Making of the Modern Refugee Camp (1914-1921)
University of Warwick
Value Awarded: £8,450
Funded By: Elisabeth Barker Fund
This project is an investigation of the birth of the modern refugee camp. It seeks to conceptualize, as well as geographically and chronologically problematize the genesis of refugee encampment in Central Europe in the era of First World War. This study thus contributes to the overall understanding of meanings of “the refugee” and processual logic of displacement management in modern Europe. The Funded research in archives and libraries in Austria, Czech Republic, and Poland will contribute to the empirical strengthening of three analytical frameworks of this study: (1) State policymaking and formal agendas of refugee camps; (2) Local, national, and transnational forms of humanitarian mobilization for refugees; (3) Refugees’ experiences and subjectivities.
Dr Josiane Fernandes
SRG25\250704
Project Title: Exploring Social Practices and the Organization Of food Networks (SPOON) for sustainable and healthy diets
Lancaster University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Marc Fitch Fund
SPOON will explore the relationship between food infrastructures (e.g., what is available where, how), social practice (e.g. people’s practices and routines) and diets. While studies across disciplines have explored the causes of poor diets, they have done so from either a structuralist (e.g. economic influences on dietary choice such as price of food) or an individualistic approach (e.g., consumer knowledge about healthy diets). SPOON will provide fresh insights by understanding dietary choices as “neither a cause or a consequence of changing political, economic and technological systems” but “as outcomes of practices and the ways that practices are arranged” (Blue, 2017, p. 289-290) across space and time. SPOON will focus on Northwest England, where the lack of access to adequate nutrition is particularly accentuated (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2021). SPOON will provide valuable knowledge of how (poor) diets are organised and stabilised, and as such, how they might be destabilised for change.
Professor Michael Given
Co-applicant(s): Dr Gareth Beale
SRG25\250560
Project Title: Glencoe Landscape and Archaeology Project: analysis and publication
University of Glasgow
Value Awarded: £9,885
Funded By: Browning Fund
The Glencoe Landscape and Archaeology Project has uncovered extensive evidence for daily life, agriculture, transhumance, and travel in and around Glencoe in the 16th–20th centuries. We have carried out two seasons of excavation, survey and creative media production in 2023 and 2024, and will do a third and last in summer 2025. This application is to support the analysis of the survey, excavation and artefact data, and to prepare three major articles, plus a short book for a wider audience. These publications will examine the structure of daily life in the small settlements running up the glen, investigate people’s relationships with rivers, mountains and soil, and explore connections across Scotland and Europe. We will use them to develop and disseminate creative and experimental approaches to investigating and communicating the landscape, and compare the archaeological and historical information for life and death before, during and after the Massacre of Glencoe.
Dr Susan Greaney
Co-applicant(s): Dr Alexander Pryor
SRG25\252509
Project Title: Wilsford G1: understanding an early Beaker community near Stonehenge
University of Exeter
Value Awarded: £9,914
Funded By: Albert Reckitt Fund
The centuries around 2400 BC were a time of great change in Britain, when new people arrived from Europe, bringing with them Beaker pottery and the first metals. Some of the earliest individuals buried with Beaker pottery, such as the Amesbury Archer and Boscombe Bowmen, have been found not far from Stonehenge. Another important cemetery of 16 Beaker burials, including many children, is located even closer to the monument around the barrow Wilsford G1, that remains unpublished. Both radiocarbon dates and pottery forms indicate that these are early Beaker-accompanied burials, and some may well be individuals who travelled to Britain from Europe. This project aims to test this and understand this community by conducting a thorough osteological study of the burials, obtaining more precise radiocarbon dates and investigating the lifetime mobility of these individuals through stable isotope analysis, as well discovering biological relationships from associated ancient DNA analysis.
Dr Patrick Quinn
Co-applicant(s): Professor Iain Borden and Dr Kris Lockyear
SRG25\250857
Project Title: Revealing a Hidden Sporting Legacy – Documenting the UK’s rich late 1970s Skatepark Heritage
University College London (UCL)
Value Awarded: £9,820
Funded By: Albert Reckitt Fund
The proposed project will undertake the first detailed assessment of the UK’s rich legacy of original concrete skateboard parks from the late 1970s. Two examples of these curved subterranean facilities, built during the rapid global spread of skateboarding, are now heritage listed. However, a surprising number of other less well-known structures still exist, many of which are neglected and threatened by development. Using printed and digital media, satellite imagery and site visits, the project will detail the full extent of the UK’s skatepark heritage, including all extant parks big and small, assessing their state of preservation, history and legal status. It will also explore via field survey and geophysics a single ‘dormant’ skatepark that was infilled as the 1970s skateboarding boom ended. The project builds upon a recent global assessment of skatepark heritage which identified the UK as a key area for this unique late 20th century architectural structure.
Dr Yongdeng Xu
SRG25\251229
Project Title: Bootstrap-Based Inference for Weak Instruments in IV Regression in Finance
Cardiff University
Value Awarded: £10,000
Funded By: Marc Fitch Fund
Two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression is a common tool for identifying cause-and-effect relationships in finance, accounting, and law. Yet when the “instruments” used are only weakly correlated with the variables of interest, estimates become biased and hypothesis tests unreliable. Whereas most research concentrates on extreme, high-endogeneity cases, this project tackles the more typical situation of moderate endogeneity found in real-world financial data. In such settings, standard statistical tests are often overly conservative and fail to detect genuine effects. We will develop bootstrap-based methods that correct these distortions and deliver clearer, more accurate inference. We will back the method with clear lookup tables, step-by-step guidance, and point-and-click add-ins for Stata and MATLAB, letting economists, accountants and legal scholars apply the safeguards without wrestling with advanced theory. By improving the reliability of statistical inference, the project will support better decision-making in areas such as investment, regulation, and corporate strategy.