Following on from his last blog, Les Levidow shares details of a community garden event hosted by the Calthorpe Community Garden, London. This was the September Spotlight Garden of Urban Harvest 2021, organised by the Capital Growth programme.

Dr Les Levidow is a Senior Research Fellow at The Open University. In this blog, he discusses the benefits of community food growing and the comfort it brought to many during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way of overcoming social isolation.

This moving blog is written by Helen Hintjens, Assistant Professor in Development and Social Justice at the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands. Helen is a member of the Cov19: Chronicles from the Margins project, a joint collaboration with The Open University.

Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at The Open University joins Ahmad Al-Rashid and Kelly Wearing to highlight that while there has been a surge in mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains a taboo subject for many asylum seekers and refugees.

Daniel McCulloch, a Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy at The Open University and Laura Kelly-Corless from the University of Central Lancashire highlight the devastating impact of the pandemic on prisoners who are d/Deaf

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

Umut Erel, Professor of Sociology at The Open University, chaired a webinar this week which explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 'Politics of Social Reproduction, Migration and the Hostile Environment'. You can now watch it back in full here.

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.