Research & Impact Academic Year in Review 2019-20

Posted on: 16 July 2020 by Nick Jones in 2018 Posts

This academic year has seen so many great achievements across the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences in terms of research and impact success that there’s no way we can capture them all here. We can, however, share some selected highlights…

There have been funding wins galore across all Schools. You can read up on some recent wins and the new Leverhulme Early Career Fellows joining us here, and there have also been several important projects funded in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. These include Professors Sandra Walklate and Barry Godfrey highlighting the impact of lockdown on domestic abuse victims and Dr Elena Musi leading the ever-increasingly vital battle against fake news. The Heseltine Institute is publishing a wide-ranging set of briefing notes on how the region can best respond to the current crisis, and SLSJ colleagues have published insights into the impact of Covid-19 on the lives and rights of children.

We have welcomed a host of new Fellows to the Faculty, including our Derby Fellows and our first UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Dr Ruth Nugent. One of our Derby Fellows, Dr Leona Vaughn also led on the new guidance documents for UKCDR on best practice to tackle harm across international development research activities. To help foster and support all this talent, our ECR Network carried out a range of events, training and information sharing throughout the year.

As part of the Phase 4 recommissioning of the UK’s ESRC funded National Centre for Research Methods, the University has become a Centre partner for the four years of the current grant, until Dec 2024. Working with the lead NCRM institutions, the Universities of Southampton, Manchester and Edinburgh, we will contribute to the NCRM’s annual programmes, along with UCL, NatCen, WISERD, Bristol, Exeter, Essex, Leeds and Glasgow, to deliver a comprehensive programme of cutting-edge research methods training across the UK.  Our partnership is being led by Dr Michael Mair in SSPC

The Faculty Research Themes continued to see amazing work. Highlights included the alignment of the Visiting International Fellowships scheme to the Heritage theme, a comprehensive survey of the 2019 Northern Ireland General Election, and the digital scanning of Frank Sidebottom’s head. Fantastic! There has also been some great work done by colleagues reflecting the current research focuses of tackling the Covid-19 pandemic and responding to the climate & environment crises.

The Faculty also reached out to our wider audiences with some engaging and entertaining initiatives, including the Culture Unconfined online Festival (led by the Institute of Irish Studies), the Tales from the Square podcasts and our ever-popular Twitter and Instagram accounts.

And finally, REF2021 might be delayed, but is still on its way, so of course we must thank all staff, academic and professional services, who have been working so hard on preparing us for our submission next year. Your valiant efforts are truly appreciated.