Comics in the time of COVID-19: Tracking data on web-based comics and evaluating their potential for communicating public health messages

About the project Our pandemic lives are deeply entwined with visual, web-based public health messages, from instructional hand-washing pictograms to infographics about R numbers. Alongside these official public health communications, people have created thousands of web-based comics conveying public health messages. In 2021 this Bournemouth University-based research team collected a sample of over 15,000 ‘COVID […]

Governance: Ethics, Data and Procurement

During the pandemic, AHRC-funded research has examined questions relating to legal and ethical preparedness and responsiveness within health and social care and in government. Studies cover public sector procurement, COVID-19 related fraud, the use and management of data by the public sector, and vaccine development, uptake and delivery. They have identified a need for cross-departmental […]

The Observatory for Monitoring Data-Driven Responses to COVID-19 (OMDDAC)

About the project The Observatory for Monitoring Data-Driven Approaches to COVID-19 (OMDDAC) is a collaboration between Northumbria University & the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). OMDDAC researches data-driven approaches to COVID-19, with a focus on legal, ethical, policy and operational challenges. Studies have analysed key data-driven responses to Covid-19 and collated lessons learned throughout the pandemic […]

Combatting Gendered, Sexual and Online Harms and Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Developing Resources for Young People, Parents and Schools

Case Study Sexual and gender-based violence has emerged as a key issue during the pandemic – at home, in schools, on the streets, and online. While digital technologies have helped young people feel connected, they also opened them up to risks and harms such as grooming, harassment, and non-consensual image sharing. Our research responded to […]

Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19

Case Study The AHRC funded Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19 research project, part of the Shame and Medicine project, identifies and investigates the sites and circumstances of shame, shaming, stigma and discrimination during the first 12 months (January-December 2020) of the COVID-19 public health crisis in the UK. The research looks at how […]

Documentation of Life during COVID-19: Understanding (Lack of) Touch from a Deafblind Perspective

Case Study Covid-19 has acutely heightened our awareness of, and need for touch, simply because we were told not to touch. For deafblind communities, who rely on haptic experiences to navigate the world, the fear of touch and intimacy in a post-Covid-19 society has imposed new challenges and further increased social isolation. It has simultaneously […]

Infodemic: Combatting COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories

Case Study At the outset of the pandemic the World Health Organisation warned that misinformation related to Covid-19 could lead to an “infodemic” as dangerous the virus itself. This project studied how and why conspiracy theories spread online, and what can be done about them. The team used data-scraping technology to extract millions of conspiracy […]

Culture in Crisis: Centre for Cultural Value’s COVID-19 research

Case Study In March 2020, it quickly became apparent that to realise the Centre of Cultural Value’s aim of developing a shared understanding of the differences that arts, culture, heritage and screen make to people’s lives and to society, we would need to carefully track the rapidly evolving impacts of the pandemic on the sector. […]

Case Studies

Combatting Gendered, Sexual and Online Harms and Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic Developing Resources for Young People, Parents and Schools Professor Kaitlynn Mendes(University of Leicester) COVID-19 CARE Culture and the Arts, from Restriction to Enhancement: Protecting Mental Health in the Liverpool City Region Professor Josie Billington(University of Liverpool) Cultural Translation and Interpreting of COVID-19 Risks […]

Publications

Final Pandemic & Beyond Project Report published 8 December 2022 SETTING AN ETHICAL DIRECTION: how the UK COVID-19 Public Inquiry can learn from research in the arts and humanities Report co-commissioned with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator; published 8 December 2022