College of Social Sciences

The Addressing Inequalities IRT was dedicated to promoting research to tackle the complex drivers of inequalities, both globally and locally. Its work focused on four main pillars: health, gender, education and poverty, which reflected the expertise of its leadership team.  

Sucesses 

GSIN 

One of the key successes of the Addressing Inequalities IRT was the establishment of the Gender and Sexualities Interdisciplinary Network (GSIN). GSIN is a network with members from across the College of Social Sciences and the University of Glasgow. The GSIN has rapidly established itself as a point of reference in the CoSS by setting up institutional partnerships, implementing knowledge exchange projects, leading cross-college grant applications, and creating a culture of interdisciplinary research on the field of gender and sexualities. The aim of GSIN is to facilitate meaningful connections and collaborations between academics, PGR students, and community stakeholders with an interest in gender studies, feminism, LGBTQ+ studies and social justice. 

Events and networking 

Over the last four years, the Addressing Inequalities IRT has run a series of events and workshops that promoted interdisciplinary research across a range of topics. These included ideation workshops held in response to major funding calls which led to the development of some collaborative grant applications. 

One of the theme’s main achievements was a week-long international Erasmus+/ARUA research meeting. Over 60 delegates from Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and the West Indies came to Glasgow to showcase their research and build new interdisciplinary, cross-national collaborations to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular diseases, stroke, chronic inflammatory disorders, diabetes and cancer, in African contexts. The Glasgow Centre for International Development also ran a series of research capacity building workshops for delegates. This event, which benefitted hugely by being supported by the IRT Fellow, has led to multiple north-south and south-south collaborative interdisciplinary grant applications and continuing capacity building in social science research in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

In collaboration with CR&DALL, the Inequalities IRT also hosted two events on the topic of ethnicity and race. These included an event Radical Knowledge Formations from Anti-Racist Perspectives encouraging delegates to engage is discussions of anti-racist education and pedagogical approaches, and a roundtable on the topic of persistent underrepresentation of diverse academic staff in STEM disciplines. In keeping with the wider themes of the IRT, the roundtable discussed the intersectionality of gender, race and ethnicity and how these constrain career aspirations.  

GSIN also ran a series of successful workshops. These included hosting a workshop with LATESIS, a Chilean feminist collective which provided women and members of the LGBTQ+ community with the opportunity to explore feminist theory and activism through collective creative practices (collage, movement and dance). GSIN also organised an annual programme of work surrounding  International Women’s Day, exploring a range of issues from a feminist lens, including immigration, low- and middle-income countries, engaging with community groups, and the role of strike action within feminism.  In addition to individual events, GSIN ran a series of successful Feminist Cafes, an informal meetup for colleagues to socialise and share ideas on feminist teaching and research.  

Finally , the Addressing Inequalities IRT has also run different events to specifically support ECRs and PGR students, including methods and funding seminars, and has highlighted their research projects on the IRT website 

Lessons learned 

Initial events, held online in 2021 (due to Covid restrictions), were designed to support networking and collaboration around specific topics, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Poverty, Stigma and Aspirations, and the Capabilities Approach. These events were important in building networks, and, as such, would have benefitted further if they had been able to be held face-to-face. Ideation workshops held in response to major funding calls led to the development of some collaborative grant applications. However, although attendance was good at these events, it was sometimes hard to identify someone to lead proposals. It was felt that future events might be more productive if potential leads were identified in advance. 

Similar to other IRTs, the Inequalities IRT has experienced changes in the leadership of the group. This has meant that, while the interest in inequalities remained strong, the disciplinary background and research interests of the leadership team shifted. This offered challenges, but also new opportunities to explore inequalities from different perspectives. 

While the Inequalities IRT has proven to have strong successes in running interdisciplinary events and conferences, we experienced the broader challenge of tracking impact after events. We provided collaborative space for discussions and were key players in initial collaborative discussions between researchers, however we were limited in our ability to track “what happened next”. We believe the next round of IRTs should consider how to track these developments prior to events, so there is a strong framework in place to follow up on the impact of events. 

Reflections of an IRT Fellow 

My experience as the Inequalities IRT Fellow was perhaps different from the Fellows from the other four IRTs. My first year in post I was on maternity leave, so I faced returning to University life one year into a two year contract with a brand new team and a new set of responsibilities.  

The IRT fellowship offered me a lot of flexibility, which was great as a postdoc researcher with 10 years-experience, as I had lot of things on my “to do” and “to be finished” lists post-maternity leave. This flexibility enabled me to be a PI on a Public Health Scotland grant exploring inequalities of parental consent in vaccinations of school aged-pupils, and the potential impact of moving to a digital platform may have on these inequalities.  

I was encouraged to create my own networking event based on my own interests in Inequalities. In June, I launched the Inequalities in Health and Education interdisciplinary network, which was attended by researchers from Health and Wellbeing, Education, Sociology and Social Policy, Medicine and One Health, and Adam Smith Business School. My line manager also encouraged me to seek lecturing and student supervision experience, and supported my application to the Solutions for Change leadership programme. My work in the Solutions for Change group was closely related to the themes of inequalities and interdisciplinarity. Leading a interdisciplinary team of PhD students, we focused on issues of food waste, and the environmental sustainability and social justice mission of the university in tackling this issue.  

In terms of my direct learning from the IRT fellowship programme, my role as the Inequalities IRT fellow enabled an improved understanding of funding landscape as it relates to interdisciplinary research. This understanding was enriched by my attendance at Social Science Research Development meetings, my authorship of monthly funding alert newsletters, and where I was requested to deliver support for research teams, either through scoping reviews or providing a ‘critical friend’ role for application writing.  

The IRT fellowship also provided opportunity to become involved in other networks such as Social Scientists in Health, and the Gender and Sexualities Interdisciplinary Network. Through this involvement, I supported the development and organisation of events, and gained a useful understanding of the interdisciplinary connections that are woven through the University.