IMPACT ACCELERATION FUNDED PROJECTS 2021-2022
Sarah Armstrong (£11735)
"‘Here’s the Takeaway’, a podcast and support project for people in prison during Covid-19"
Through the provision of tailored podcasts, the aim is to give prisoners purposeful activity, a sense that others outside the prison care about their wellbeing and interesting content to keep them thinking when they cannot access education.
Bishakha Chaudhury (£5000)
"Robots as Reading Companions"
This project aims to use social robots as learning companions for primary school-aged pupils in order to explore the potential educational benefits that may emerge from “Reading with robots.” The project will test, evaluate and explore how social robots may be used in schools for a range of learning outcomes in the classroom (e.g., to increase confidence and engagement with literacy and STEM-related activities); and seek to consolidate the partnership with the school that will serve as a model for scaling up the pedagogical approach that we co-develop in this project.
John Crawford (£15000)
"Global Soil Health Programme"
The objectives of this nine month project are to:
Formalise a Collaboration Agreement for the programme, agree a methodological approach and begin initial piloting of investment partnerships,
Publicise the programme through a launch at COP26.
Maria Fletcher (£12260)
"Creative Expression and Cultures of Progressive Change in Scotland: 100 years of Women in Law."
The aim is to increase popular knowledge of women’s experiences in law at a crucial time in Scottish legal history through a range of accessible and creative outputs, produced collaboratively with non-academic partners.
Chris Gill (£15000)
"Developing a caseworker forum with the Scottish Parliament."
The aim is to create a forum for caseworkers, providing opportunities for learning, best practice, and knowledge exchange. The project will involve the secondment of a staff member from the Scottish Parliament to work with Dr Gill.
Julie McAdam (£2510)
"Experiencing picturebooks in 3D environments"
Picturebooks help make meaning through a wide range of modes (visual, gestural, aural, etc.) While we have researched the huge potential of picturebooks to create new imaginative worlds, in practice, we have asked children/students to imagine these worlds rather than experience them outside the format of a book. The project aims to develop a prototype that could be used for developing multimodal literacies in different educational contexts. This project proposes the creation of a 3D picturebook prototype that will provide proof of concept and enable us to develop partnerships that will further explore and develop this method as an innovative teaching and publishing approach.
Ian Paterson (£3793)
"From Hostile to Hospitable? Enhancing Efficacy in the Asylum/Refugee Sector in Scotland: Strategic Coordination, Cooperation and Practice."
Research has indicated that there is limited capacity and infrastructure for longer-term strategic coordination, cooperation and practice resulting in the undermining of sectoral efficacy. The proposed event initiates the process of developing a ‘Strategic Forum’ to address these needs, providing space for dialogue to discuss and co-produce a concrete roadmap to realise these goals and ultimately improve outcomes for asylum-seeking and refugee communities in Scotland.
Dot Reid (£14975)
"Inheritance Calculator"
This project is part of a wider programme to reform inheritance law and make it more accessible. The inheritance calculator will make the rules of inheritance clear and accessible to Scottish citizens when planning their own estates or dealing with the death of family members.
Ros Searle(£15000)
"Developing a serious game to enhance understanding of employee & business impacts of living wages."
This project will develop a state-of-the-art evidence-based experiential game-based learning resource, or serious game. This serious game will enable players to gain an understanding of the employee and business impacts of earning a living wage.
Amy Thomas (£2935)
"Scottish Games Network"
The project aims to improve communications between game creators and users through User-generated content (UGC) policies by 1) creating a digital resource that clearly communicates what users are permitted to do with game content, providing them with security and confidence to be creative and 2) to improve UGC policies of indie (‘independent’) game creators., do not have the resources to consider the legal implications of UGC.
Mark Wong (£5000)
"“What Data Means to You”: a short film project on public imaginings and lived realities of data futures."
Recent research highlights the clashes between promises of data-driven innovations and everyday realities of what data-technology can deliver. This short film willillustrate the public’s perspectives on the meaning of data in people’s lives. It will highlight public imaginings and aspirations of what data can do, and contrast this with the lived realities of data at present, including negotiations, frustrations, and concerns in data innovation.
A dedicated Sway page was created at https://sway.office.com/WbWDOtAu25di7JMo.
Helen Yaffe (£14755)
"Cuba’s Life Task (Tarea Vida): a new development model for tackling climate change?"
Providing evidence of Cuba’s unique approach to climate change adaptation could facilitate other small island developing states (SIDS), particularly in the Caribbean, to utilise element of the Cuban toolkit in their own climate change adaptation strategies.
Cuba's Life Task: Combatting Climate Change - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APN6N45Q6iU
Naomi Richards (£1000)
"Exploring the language of poverty and inequality at the end of life, with a frontline engagement network."
The objective of this project is to engage a core group of frontline workers with an interest in poverty and the end of life in three structured conversations to work together to start establishing a consensus on a common language around poverty and its impact at the end of life from the perspective of frontline staff.
Luca Anceschi (£3,610)
“Re-engaging with stakeholders shaping EU-Turkmen relations: Towards PCA ratification”
This project seeks to: (1) re-engage with EU policymakers; (2) establish new pathways for impact with human rights activists, who are keen to contribute to the debate on how recent evolutions in Turkmen governance may influence future.
Jane Cullingworth (£11,495)
“From knowledge to action: strengthening democratic governance”
PhD research highlighted the challenges for a third sector intermediary body of participating in democratic governance structures and processes at the local level. Its closeness to state actors undermined its legitimacy with the broader third sector and raised questions about its autonomy. Working with the Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council and the Third Sector Interface Network, this project aims to share and build on the research findings through knowledge exchange events and consultations with third sector and state actors, developing collective learning and workable strategies to strengthen the third sector’s involvement in local democratic governance.
John Finlay (£4,500)
“George Craig (1783-1843) and the Scottish Borders”
Seven surviving volumes of unpublished letter books plus a cash book of George Craig, baron bailie of Galashiels, have recently been discovered and will be deposited in Scottish Borders Archives. They encompass hundreds of correspondents and illustrate Borders life in the period 1821-1840. The project aims to work with Scottish Borders Archive to develop a resource for enhancing the public understanding of the development of Borders industry, agriculture and infrastructure.
Caitlin Gormley, Phillipa Wiseman & Nughmana Mirza (£10,605)
“Illustrating Life in Lockdown: Stories from marginalised communities during the Covid-19 pandemic in Scotland”
This project builds on a CSO (Scotland) funded study ‘Scotland in Lockdown’ which explored the social and health impacts of Covid-19 suppression among marginalised groups in Scotland. This project will produce usable, accessible outputs through digitally-hosted (and printed) illustrated stories that capture life in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic among four of the most marginalised communities in Scotland (disabled people and people with long-term health conditions; people affected by refugee and asylum seeking processes; people under criminal justice control; and victim/survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence).
Naomi Head (£10,679)
““Let’s talk about race”: Tackling racism in the University community.”
The project aims to support anti-racist awareness and training within the UK’s higher education sector, via co-development and piloting of an empathy-led facilitated dialogue process at the University of Glasgow.
Beatrice Heuser (£2,000)
“Designing a strategy module for the Bundeswehr's command academy”
The Bundeswehr’s equivalent of the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College (Führungsakademie). The aim is to introduce staff officers of the Bundeswehr to key concepts of strategy and the methodology of strategy making, by introducing a module on Strategy into their advanced staff course curriculum.
Alena Kostyk & Jaylan Azer (£14,980)
“Advancing engagement with a ‘digital tourist’ for the Scottish Tourism and
Hospitality Sectors”
Building on the success of a previously funded ESRC project. This project addresses the negative impact of Covid-19 on tourism/hospitality industry. It focuses on (1) improving engagement with the ‘digital tourist’ for industry partners, (2) training professional organisations to maintain and scale up project operations, (3) developing and (4) testing engagement-improving techniques. Resulting guidelines will be available to other industry players and via KE workshops to ensure project scalability.
Marian Krawczyk (£4,600)
“End-of-life doulas during COVID-19: Best practices and innovation for a post-pandemic world”
Concerns for person-centred, equitable, and compassionate end-of-life care have new urgency during the COVID-19 pandemic. End-of-life doulas (EOLD) have emerged as important sources of innovative community care, support, and education during this time. This project will bring together world leaders in the EOLD movement to map innovations and best practices through a two-day international virtual conference.
Joanne Neary (£12,500)
“Supporting learning of collaborative action research”
NSEE (Network for Social and Educational Equity) focuses on closing the poverty related attainment gap through building research capacity of teachers to analyse their own contexts to identify ways of addressing and adapting pedagogy and practice to support pupils most in need.
Using prototype resource developed with support from the user engagement fund, we seek to develop additional resources for the purpose of knowledge mobilisation, improved research capacity and knowledge in teachers, and offer these to a wider audience.
Asli Ozcelik Olcay & Yulia Nesterova (£12,300)
“Meaningful youth engagement for peace and security”
The United Nations’ (UN) Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda recognises “the important and positive contribution of youth in efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security” and provides a global framework for action to engage, protect, and partner with youth. This project aims to make a significant contribution to the operationalisation of YPS by developing guidelines for the capacity building of youth and youth partners in the context of youth inclusive peace processes and in partnership with a key UN youth actor.
Charlotte Pearson & Nick Watson (£11,532)
“Why has the policy of self-directed support not secured transformative change in social care in Scotland? Establishing a dialogue for policy reform at a time of change”
This project builds on over 20 years of working with the third sector in Scotland on the delivery of social care, in particular our work on the implementation of Self-Directed Support (SDS). We will work with disabled peoples’ organisations and other third sector organisations to examine why SDS has not produced the transformative change it promised and develop these findings to contribute to ongoing debates in Scotland on the provision of social care and the establishment of a National Care Service.
Melea Press (£15,000)
“Understanding the patient experience in accessing information and services in the blood borne virus/HIV (BBV/HIV) space“
This project will explore user (patient) experience in accessing services in the blood borne virus/HIV (BBV/HIV) space, across the NHS, clinical and third sector. It will identify barriers and constraints to accessing health care information and services, with the aim of increasing access, ease of service delivery, and outcomes across delivery ecosystems.
Federica Prina (£11,936)
“Integration through Minority Participation: Addressing Challenges to Social Cohesion in Post-Covid Europe”
This project builds upon and expands upon work involving engagement with international organisations, particularly the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM). It proposes new comprehensive approaches on how to address current challenges to societal cohesion posed by the rise of xenophobia, securitisation of minority communities and the re-emergence of polarising majority/minority dynamics in Europe’s multi-ethnic states, including post-Brexit UK.
Marguerite Schinkel (£10,433)
“Developing the Coalition Against Punishment”
This grant will support the further development of the Coalition Against Punishment (CAP), the group that has emerged through an initial round of ESRC-IAA funding. CAP will facilitate engagement between academics across disciplinary areas, community organisations, people with lived experience of criminal justice, and individuals concerned about the current state of the penal system. Its purpose is to support action through knowledge exchange to influence radical change of the punishment system in Scotland.
Anna Gawlewicz, Paulina Trevena & Sharon Wright (£15,000)
”Migrant essential workers in the UK - Portable multi-arts exhibition;
The proposed work involves co-production with community partners of a multi-arts exhibition inspired by the ongoing ESRC/UKRI-funded project exploring the health, social, economic and cultural impacts of COVID-19 on migrant essential workers in the UK to inform public and policy attitudes towards immigration and the pandemic.
Amol Deshmukh (£5000)
“WallBo - the handwashing robotic Buddy”
This impact project is aimed at transforming population health by deploying our social robot (WallBo) to drive regular and appropriate handwashing to reduce the transmission of infection via germs. Especially in the context of COVID-19 where children can be asymptotic carriers infecting vulnerable populations. WallBo is social robot that can teach, monitor and encourage handwashing for children in schools.