Research Projects

AstrobiologyOU

A £6.7m investment from Research England in OU’s Astrobiology research group has enabled transdisciplinary collaborations at the OU and FASS academics from the School of Social Sciences and Global Studies are participating in the International Development and Inclusive Innovation workstream.

Children Caring on the Move

The Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) project explores separated child migrants’ experiences of care, and caring for others, as they navigate the complexities of the immigration-welfare nexus in England. The project sits against the backdrop of rising numbers of children who have been separated from primary carers during migration and conflicting state rhetoric: protecting children on the one hand and immigration control on the other.

Cultural History of Glasgow Research Network

This project will create an interactive network of scholars, without barrier to discipline or research experience, who use the Glasgow City Archives to research any aspect of the city’s cultural history, with a particular slant towards Music. The project is funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh until December 2020. It is a collaborative project between The Open University in Scotland and Glasgow City Archives.

Dreaming Romantic Europe (DREAM)

Dreaming Romantic Europe (DREAM) grows out of ERA (European Romanticisms in Association). It brings together scholars, scholarly associations and museums devoted to the study and presentation of European Romanticisms in an excitingly new, pan-European, cross-disciplinary network. At its core are three workshops that explore Romanticism as a consciously trans-European phenomenon. Discussion will be focussed through the identification and consideration of iconic objects that epitomise or construct these aspects of Romanticism.

Empowering Young Language Brokers for Inclusion in Diversity

EYLBID (2020-2021) is a strategic partnership of 5 higher education institutions and one social enterprise. It focuses on one of the European horizontal priorities: social inclusion. Particularly, it focuses on linguistic and intercultural mediation and interpreting performed by teenagers. In the UK, Professor Crafter will be working with local schools to developing tools and resources to help young child language brokers (young interpreters) and those educators who work with them, through the use of an interactive video game.

EARNEST

EARNEST is Examining the Agroforestry Landscape Resilience in INdia to inform Social- Ecological Sustainability in the Tropics, a research project funded through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Fellowship under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Programme.

Enduring Love?

The Enduring Love? project is a mixed methods study on long-term adult couple relationships. The findings will add an important dimension to understandings of personal and family lives in contemporary society.

Heritage in War

An AHRC-funded project combining aesthetics, value theory and the ethics of war.

Inclusive Societies: Migration for Inclusive African Growth

Migration for Inclusive African Growth (MIAG) is a multi-country interdisciplinary study looking at alternative migration flows to, and within Africa to examine the contribution of migrants to more sustainable and inclusive growth on the continent.
The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) – Inclusive Societies Initiative.

Innovation for Cancer Care in Africa

Innovation for Cancer Care in Africa (ICCA) is an East Africa-India-UK research collaboration led by The Open University, investigating ways to link innovation in the industrial and health sectors to improve access to cancer care in Kenya and Tanzania.
The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (UK) is gratefully acknowledged. ICCA is funded by the ESRC under the Global Challenges Research Fund Inclusive Societies initiative.

Open PAWS

The Open Perinatal Anxiety and Worry Support (Open PAWS) project is an ongoing research project, investigating women’s experiences of anxiety in the perinatal period (i.e. during pregnancy and in the first year post childbirth). The aim is to better understand women’s experiences of anxiety triggers and support; and to use this information (along with other research in this area) to provide evidence-based information and support online.

Picturing Climate

Picturing Climate: Participatory Photography and Narrative Storytelling for Climate Change Education brings together artists, researchers and grassroots arts and culture organisations in Cuba, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan and the UK to explore the potential of arts- and humanities-based methodologies for developing local and international educational capacity on climate change induced food and livelihoods insecurities.

Reading Europe Advanced Data Investigation Tool (READ-IT)

READ-IT is a 3-years (2018-2020) transnational, interdisciplinary R&D project funded by the Joint Programming Initiative for Cultural Heritage that will build a unique large-scale, user-friendly, open access, semantically-enriched investigation tool to identify and share groundbreaking evidence about 18th-21st century Cultural Heritage of reading in Europe.

Recently completed projects

Changing Farming Lives in South India, Past and Present

The project brings an original arts and humanities perspective to the crucial development challenges of food security, biodiversity, and climate adaptation faced by small and marginal farmers. Focussing on South India, it explores the potential of history, film, and sound, to document and support small farmer creativity in developing resilience to these livelihood challenges.

Entrepreneurial Literary Research

This project engages with an emerging area of research: the commercial basis and economic impact of literature and literary scholarship, with contemporary markets in view. This project is funded by a Newton International Mobility Grant and a Santander Mobility Grant, and involves collaboration between colleagues in Brazil and Britain. It is based in The Open University, UK, and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil.

Methods and Voice

The Do participatory visual methods give ‘voice’? project is an evaluative study of a participatory visual method, participatory mapping. The findings will add an important dimension to understandings of the sorts of claims that can accurately be made about participatory visual methods, such as participatory mapping.

Participation Arts and Social Action in Research (PASAR)

This research project addresses the UK social science community's need to gain a better understanding of how participatory action research approaches engage marginalised groups in research as co-producers of knowledge.

Reading Communities

This public impact and engagement project will help to answer questions about reading habits by investigating readers in the past and demonstrating their relevance to us today.

Migrant Mothers

Migrant mothers caring for the future: creative interventions in making new citizens.