We are sad to announce that Dr Paula Tibandebage, a long standing and much valued research collaborator, colleague, Visiting Research Fellow in Economics at the OU, and friend of many OU colleagues, has died in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

We were delighted to have Dr Rory Horner from the University of Manchester join us in January to discuss 'Between globalisation and nationalism: India and the search for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines'. The webinar is now available to view again

A new working paper has been published, Food Poverty and urban struggles during COVID-19: the social reproduction of unequal London and the false narrative about the ‘pandemic-led crisis’. Written by Lorena Lombardozzi, Jeanette Copperman and Carolyn I. Auma

Young people are likely to bear much of the economic fall-out from COVID-19. Senior Lecturer in Personal Finances, Rajiv Prabhakar, argues that Child Trust Funds are the ideal avenue in which to channel emergency payments

Rishi Sunak has announced the UK will slash its overseas aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, a reduction in international aid totalling around £3bn. In response, Alan Shipman, a Senior Lecturer in Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at The Open University, discusses why switching aid to defence may not increase UK security.

Research by Senior Lecturer in Finance, Rajiv Prabhakar, has been cited in a new report commissioned by the Welsh Government during the pandemic. "An assessment of the feasibility of a local income tax to replace council tax in Wales" was written by Jennie Bunt

Dr Rajiv Prabhakar is a Senior Lecturer in Personal Finance at the OU. Following his recent reading of the novel Looking Backward 2000-1887, Rajiv explores the novel's link with income and wellbeing, tying it with his own research into universal basic income

A new paper by Professor Smita Srinivas from The Open University, Ramakrishna Prasad and Pritika Rao, explores 'The clinical foreground and industrial background: Customizing national strategy for COVID-19 testing'

Paul Anand, Professor of Economics at The Open University, has had a letter published in The Guardian. Paul responds to the government's 'disappointing' new three-tier system with reference to a recent study he was involved in