The New Real: Trust and Acceptance in Networked Online Experience to Enable and Support Post-COVID-19 Recovery

About the project This research sought to experiment with new experiences for everyday living and for new practices, infrastructures and business models for the cultural sector in response to the challenges of COVID-19. Methods employed included a blend of futures design processes and collaborative co-creation. Projects have particular implications for understandings around the digital pivot […]

Redesigning PPE: Enhancing the comfort and safety of healthcare workers wearing isolation gowns to treat patients with COVID-19

Case Study During the pandemic surveys of nursing staff highlighted issues relating to the poor comfort, fit and durability of oversized, isolation gowns. The rudimentary design and fabrication of this personal protective equipment (PPE) was the result of a crisis-managed situation whereby the PPE industry, including new companies, adopted an unsustainable, ‘non-circular’ approach to meet […]

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 […]

Cultural Translation and Interpreting of COVID-19 Risks among London’s Migrant Communities

Case Study This research addresses the often-noted disproportionate impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on migrant communities and the difficulty of reaching those communities with Public Health messages. To address this problem, we studied how different and diverse cultural communities receive information about COVID-19, interpreted/translated it according to their language conventions and acted upon it. We […]

Co-design and implement a COVID-19 vaccine uptake intervention within Chinese Communities in England

About the project This project investigated the determinants of Chinese communities’ COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, as well as the facilitators of vaccination uptake. The cross-disciplinary project team, including specialists in community-based research, communicative intervention design, health and strategic communication, who worked in partnership with Chinese communities in Greater Manchester and Leicester to co-design research that informed […]

Mutual Aid Groups and Their Lessons for Post-crisis Community Care

About the project COVID-19 and accompanying restrictions on social and economic life has led to increased food poverty and vulnerability. This project examined how mutual aid was enacted during the pandemic, investigating who organised mutual aid initiatives and asking what helped or hindered their enactment of mutual aid. The project team consisted of academics from […]

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Pandemic & Beyond Response to Draft Terms of Reference for the UK COVID-19 Inquiry

Submitted 7 April 2022. This response to the COVID-19 inquiry draft terms of reference consultation is based on evidence drawn from a meta-analysis and ethics review of pandemic impact research, which has been jointly commissioned by the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator and Pandemic & Beyond, two UKRI/AHRC funded initiatives. The review is intended for submission […]

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The Digital Beyond. Has COVID-19 transformed digital memorialisation?

Dr Eleanor O’Keeffe worked as Post Doctoral Research Associate on the AHRC funded project British Ritual Innovation under COVID-19. Here, she discusses some of her research into digital adoption in response to the pandemic. Sequoia Nagamatsu’s 2022 novel How High We Go in the Dark, which was started before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, offers us […]

Nursing Narratives: Racism & the Pandemic

About the project Nursing Narratives has taken a ground level approach to understand the experiences of Black and Asian healthcare staff in the pandemic. Through surveying and interviewing workers, it has found that racism is prevalent in the health and social care sector, and structural racism impacted healthcare workers. A mix of social science and […]

UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator

About the project This initiative brings UK ethics research expertise to bear on the multiple ongoing ethical challenges arising during pandemics. A partnership between the Universities of Oxford, Bristol, Edinburgh, University College London, and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, it seeks to provide rapid evidence, guidance and critical analysis to decision-makers and to support public […]