Dr Sumedh Rao

I am an academic and policy researcher focused on intergroup relations, conflict and governance. As a policy-engaged social and political psychologist, I currently look at how people from different social groups, especially from different ethnic and racial groups, interact with each other. This includes how they perceive, think about, feel about, and act towards each other. My policy work contributes towards the conflict and governance programmes of governmental and international organisations. 

Currently, as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Open University, I research attitudes towards (Roman) Catholics, Catholicism and the Catholic Church in the UK, since the end of the Second World War. The interdisciplinary project I work on is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and draws on theoretical and methodological insights from psychology and history. We are interested in whether – and if so why – certain attitudes have persisted or even revived; in the similarities and differences between England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; and in how they have impacted on the relations between Catholics and non-Catholics. We hope that by developing a better understanding of why people think, feel and act as they do, we can contribute to improving respect and good relations between different groups and communities. 

My work on intergroup relations began at the University of Oxford, where I was a Postdoctoral Researcher, working with Prof Shelley McKeown Jones on the Shared Spaces Project. This project examined the interplay between the individual and contextual factors that influence whether adolescents in Belfast and Bradford choose to, or choose not to, engage in intergroup interactions with people from other ethno-religious groups. Prior to this, my doctoral research at the University of Birmingham explored experiences and conceptualisations of identity, threat and trust in post-accord Northern Ireland and was supervised by Prof Paul Jackson and Prof Stefan Wolff.

As a policy researcher and practitioner, I collaborate primarily with international organisations, such as the UNDP and the World Bank, and national government departments, such as the UK FCDO and DFAT Australia. Recent topics include conflict de-escalation, public service delivery, public sector reform, and electoral assistance.