Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

The pandemic has highlighted systemic inequalities across society. An interest in exploring and addressing these has been explicit in or threaded through many of the AHRC-funded COVID-19 studies.  Researchers have explored how public health messaging might better reach different communities. They have also shone a spotlight on experiences of racism for people working in the […]

Cultural and Creative Industries

Arts and Humanities research during the pandemic has shown how the crisis is galvanising practitioners and stakeholders in the cultural sector to find new models for producing work and for reaching audiences. However, it has also exposed structural inequalities and exclusions for audiences and for the sector’s workforce.   Technological innovations, including hybrid modes of digital and […]

Stay Home Stories: Rethinking the Domestic During the COVID-19 Pandemic

About the project This research recognised the intrinsic domestic dimension of the personal, political and public health response to the pandemic. Researchers documented and analysed the ‘stay home stories’ of adults, young people and children living in diverse homes and households in the UK. They investigated the politics discourse and media coverage of home, as […]

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

About the project This project addressed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on migrant communities and the difficulty of reaching those communities with public health messages. It studied how different and diverse language and cultural communities receive information about COVID-19, interpreted/translated it according to their conventions and acted upon it through an online survey of 14 […]

Ethics, Law, and Governance

An Urgent Review of Single Source Procurement During the Pandemic Recommendations for Best Practice and Reform Dr Luke Butler(University of Nottingham) Children, acceptable health risks and COVID-19 Ethical guidance for a fair policy response Dr Sapfo Lignou(University of Oxford) Combatting Gendered, Sexual and Online Harms and Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic Developing Resources for Young […]

Knowing the Pandemic: Communication, Information and Experience

Communication & data analysis This group of projects focuses on tracking and understanding how information about the pandemic has been spread and understood by diverse communities. Design These projects have made strong interventions in understanding and improving design for healthcare settings and other public services. Experience These research projects have used creative methodologies to investigate […]

Routes of Infection, Routes to Safety: Creative Mapping of Human-Viral Behaviours on the Bus to Understand Infection Prevention Practices

About the project Public transport use dropped during the pandemic, after government guidance advised against non-essential travel. This added to existing stigma about the dirtiness of buses. SARS-CoV-2’s invisibility to the naked eye, and inconsistencies in public scientific understanding, create challenges in how stakeholders communicate infection prevention and how bus users respond. Research for this […]

Scenes of Shame and Stigma in COVID-19

About the project This research examined the way in which the COVID-19 pandemic has led to scenes and experiences of shame: around catching and transmitting the virus, and behaving in ways deemed to be irresponsible, stupid, or selfish. Findings showed that some interventions during the pandemic caused or heightened shame, when public health (both viral […]

Grassroots Visual Storytelling About Community Food Growing

About the project In this project, participants in community food-growing initiatives made short films about their experiences during COVID-19. They learned methods for visual storytelling, filming and editing. Their films show that the pandemic created difficulties for food initiatives but stimulated co-operative efforts to sustain or expand them. Activities had helped provide benefits for health […]

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Masking emotions & sterilising care: ‘reset’ ethics and the unintended consequences of COVID-19

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused far-reaching consequences for health systems worldwide. In responding to the pandemic, decision-makers have to balance competing interests and difficult trade-offs have to be made. We are told that Government guidance continues to ‘follow the science’, but such guidance must also be values-based. Transparency in the values that underpin those […]