PolicyBristol and Covid-19
Written by Lindsey Pike
These are uncertain times. Both research and policymaking has been thrown into unknown territory, and anxiety is running high. The coronavirus situation is dynamic and is likely to change how we live and work for the foreseeable future. At PolicyBristol we are looking at how we can reprioritise how we work and what we do, to ensure we’re making the most of the resources we have within the team.
The team are working from home, but are available to discuss policy engagement and related issues – related to COVID, or any other topic – over the phone or videoconferencing.
We understand that both researchers and policy colleagues that we work with are under pressure to adapt to working from home, often while coordinating and managing childcare and other responsibilities. However, we’ll continue to signpost you to relevant opportunities and information to make sure that, especially in times such as these, policy decisions are informed by a robust evidence base.
We’re also aware that other policy priorities, while currently overshadowed, have not gone away. We’d like to reiterate that regardless of your area of research or policy, we’re here to support you.
Many colleagues in our research community are already forging links with public health, clinical, social and third sector services to offer the resources we have. If you are a researcher whose work is relevant to Covid-19, we have listed some relevant engagement opportunities below: please get in touch with one of the team (emails below) if we can support you in any way; for example with support to edit or structure scientific summaries into policy/ lay friendly ones, horizon scanning, or any other task related to getting findings out there and used.
Contact your faculty’s PolicyBristol Associate
Meet the team and contact us here.
We hope you stay safe and well during this time.
Resources from the University of Bristol
Guidance for researchers during the COVID-19 outbreak (internal).
The University is keen to hear about the circumstances our partners and communities are facing, how they are responding and how we might work together to meet these unparalleled new challenges. Please contact us if you have suggestions for how the University, our staff and students can support your organisational or community activities in response to COVID-19.
The University of Bristol’s researchers, staff and students are working together and with partners from across society to understand coronavirus (COVID-19) and its far-reaching impact on our lives. Find out more here.
National consultations and inquiries related to COVID19
Impact of Covid-19 on the charity sector
(Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee)
Deadline: 16th April 2020
- This is a short inquiry into the impact on the charity sector. Find out more here.
Home Office preparedness for Covid-19
(Home Affairs Committee)
Deadline: 21 April 2020
- The Home Affairs Committee is undertaking a short inquiry into the Home Office’s preparations for and response to Covid-19 (Coronavirus). Find out more here.
The Covid-19 pandemic and international trade
(International Trade Committee)
Deadline: 24th April 2020
- This wide-ranging inquiry seeks views on impact on UK businesses, supply chains, and access to essential goods. Find out more here
The impact of coronavirus on business and workers
(Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee)
Deadline: 30th April 2020
- The BEIS Select Committee has launched an inquiry into the impact of coronavirus on businesses and workers. Find out more here.
Unequal impact: Covid-19 & people with protected characteristics
(Women and Equalities Committee)
Deadline: 30th April 2020
- The committee wants to hear about the different and disproportionate impact that the Coronavirus – and measures to tackle it – is having on people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act. Find out more here.
Humanitarian crises monitoring: impact of coronavirus
(International Development Committee)
Deadline: 17 April/ 8th May 2020
- This inquiry is seeking evidence in two waves; current situation and immediate risks (17 April) and longer-term issues and implications (8 May). Find out more here.
The impact of Covid-19 on education and children’s services
(Education Committee)
Deadline: 31 May 2020
- The inquiry will examine both short term impacts, such as the effects of school closures and exam cancellations, as well as longer-term implications particularly for the most vulnerable children. Find out more here.
The Government’s response to Covid-19: human rights implications
(Human Rights Joint Committee)
Deadline: 22 July 2020
- The Committee is seeking evidence on how the Government is ensuring measures are human-rights compliant, the impact of these measures on human rights in the UK, and the groups who will be disproportionately affected. Find out more here
UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks
(Science and Technology Committee)
Deadline: 31 July 2020
- Once the COVID-19 pandemic has passed its peak, the Committee will inquire formally into the place of UK research, science and technology in the national and global response, and what lessons should be learned for the future. Find out more here
Covid-19 and the food supply
(Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee)
Deadline: tbc
- This new inquiry is not yet accepting written evidence. Find out more here
British Somalis and FGM: ‘everybody is a suspect – you are guilty until proven innocent’
Saffron Karlsen, Senior Lecturer in Social Research, University of Bristol
Christina Pantazis, Professor of Zemiology, University of Bristol
Magda Mogilnicka, Research Associate in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol
Natasha Carver, Lecturer in International Criminology, University of Bristol
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), whereby the female genitals are deliberately injured or changed for non-medical reasons, is considered by the UN to be a “global concern”.
International organisations often report statistical evidence that 98% of women and girls in Somalia/Somaliland have undergone FGM.
Because of this international evidence, girls born to Somali parents living in the UK are considered to be at high risk of experiencing FGM. Yet research shows that attitudes towards FGM change dramatically following migration and therefore girls in the UK are unlikely to be put through this procedure.
A Moment of Opportunity? Britain and the Maritime Security Challenge
Dr Scott A Edwards Research Associate for the Transnational Organised Crime at Sea project.
On 28 February 2020, SafeSeas hosted an IdeasLab in Bristol on UK maritime security after Brexit, with the kind support of PolicyBristol, Migration Mobilities Bristol, and the Bristol Global Insecurities Centre. Titled ‘Securing Britain’s Seas’, the goal of the day was to ask how maritime insecurities and blue crimes impact on UK interests, explore how current governance arrangements work in response to these, and consider how these may be challenged and transformed both by a rapidly changing security environment and the challenges of Brexit.
The Future of ‘Citizenship Policy’ in the UK
The article was originally published in the Border Criminologies Blog at the University of Oxford. This guest post, written by Katherine Tonkiss, Agnes Czajka, Tendayi Bloom, Eleni Andreouli, Devyani Prabhat, Cynthia Orchard, Nira Yuval-Davis, Kelly Staples and Georgie Wemyss,* considers the future of citizenship policy in the UK in response to a recent inquiry into citizenship policy in the UK.
As the Windrush scandal has shown, when a person is unable to show evidence of their citizenship, the results can be devastating. In August 2019, the think tank British Future launched an independent inquiry into UK citizenship policy, chaired by Alberto Costa MP, inviting experts to submit evidence. In response, one group of academics and NGOs came together to map an agenda for citizenship policy in the UK. This blog summarises some of their recommendations. Continue reading
Do development indicators underlie global variation in the number of young people injecting drugs?
Dr Lindsey Hines, Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow in The Centre for Academic Mental Health & the Integrative Epidemiology Unit, University of Bristol
Dr Adam Trickey, Senior Research Associate in Population Health Sciences, University of Bristol
Injecting drug use is a global issue: around the world an estimated 15.6 million people inject psychoactive drugs. People who inject drugs tend to begin doing so in adolescence, and countries that have larger numbers of adolescents who inject drugs may be at risk of emerging epidemic s of blood borne viruses unless they take urgent action. We mapped the global differences in the proportion of adolescents who inject drugs, but found that we may be missing the vital data we need to protect the lives of vulnerable young people. If we want to prevent HIV, hepatitis C, and overdose from sweeping through a new generation of adolescents we urgently need many countries to scale up harm reduction interventions, and to collect accurate which can inform public health and policy. Continue reading
Baby box: child welfare experts say use of sleep boxes could potentially put infants’ lives at risk
Authors:
Debbie Watson, Professor in Child and Family Welfare, University of Bristol
Helen Ball, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Parent-Infant Sleep Lab, Durham University
Jim Reid, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education and Community Studies, University of Huddersfield
Pete Blair, Professor of Epidemiology and Statistics, University of Bristol
The baby box in Finland is embedded as part of the maternity system. Kela
Having a baby can be expensive. So it’s maybe not surprising that many retailers around the world have cottoned on to the success of Finland’s baby boxes – a package aimed to set up new parents and their bundle of joy. The Finnish boxes include baby clothing, sleep items, hygiene products and a parenting guide –- as well as a “sleep space” for the baby.
Many retailers around the world are now offering similar boxes for expectant parents. Indeed, research conducted at the University of Tampere in Finland suggests there are variants in over 60 countries. This includes Scotland’s baby box scheme – with all newborn babies getting a free baby box from the Scottish government.
But as a group of child welfare experts, we believe imitations of the Finnish boxes could be placing babies at risk. This is because it has become common to believe that if babies sleep in these boxes, it will help protect them from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Unfortunately, the research does not back this up. Continue reading
Universities need to do more to support impactful researchers
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Universities need to do more to support impactful researchers
For anyone who has worked in or on policy engagement, the image of the furiously busy policymaker will be all too familiar.
In training, case studies and even in the academic literature, this image persists: a policymaker, inundated with different priorities, brain saturated with information, inbox filled to the brim, running frantically from one meeting to the next, trying to get as much as possible done in difficult circumstances, and with limited resources.
Although I suspect it is less common, there is also an image of the academic: busy with research and teaching, they meet multitudes of students and they mark piles of essays. The academic has also has limited resources, (unless they have a handy grant), but great depth of expertise.
Much of the thinking about engaging with policymakers focuses – rightly, I think – on how to make life easy for our “furiously busy policymaker”. We write differently, more concisely, more simply, and more in stories than in facts. In short, we tailor what we do to the concerns and priorities of policymakers. There is nothing wrong with that – indeed, it seems a sensible thing.
CEOs make more in first week of January than average salary – pay ratios are the solution
Dr Tobore Okah-Avae, Assistant Teacher, University of Bristol
The typical FTSE 100 CEO will have earned as much as the average UK worker earns in a year by 5pm on January 6 2020 – £29,559 for 33 hours of work, according to data compiled by the High Pay Centre think tank. By the close of the year, the same CEO would have earned £3.46 million – roughly 117 times the average wage in the UK. This is a staggering differential.
If you believe that excessive executive pay is a problem, this statistic illustrates the point perfectly. These figures even represent a reduction from previous years, although this is due more to shrinkage in overall CEO pay than increases at the bottom. And UK CEO pay actually pales in comparison to their counterparts in the US, where levels topped US$14.5m (£11.5m), representing a 287-1 differential with the average worker. Continue reading
Using evidence to advise public health decision makers: an insider’s view
This blog post reviews a recent seminar hosted by the MRC IEU, PolicyBristol and the Bristol Population Health Science Institute.
Public health is one of the most contested policy areas. It brings together ethical and political issues and evidence on what works, and affects us all as citizens.
Researchers produce evidence and decision-makers receive advice – but how does evidence become advice and who are the players who take research findings and present advice to politicians and budget-holders?
We were pleased to welcome a diverse audience of around 75 multidisciplinary academics, policymakers and practitioners to hear our seminar speakers give a range of insider perspectives on linking academic research with national and local decisions on what to choose, fund and implement.
In this blog post we summarise the seminar, including links to the slides and event recording. Continue reading
General Election 2019: a commentary
The Conservative party won an historic election victory last night, winning a majority at the expense of Labour. But what does this election result mean? Some of the University of Bristol’s politics scholars comment below.
Professor Mark Wickham-Jones 
Professor of Political Science
“More than anything else, this election is a decisive refutation of the Labour Party. In 2015 it lost its base in Scotland; in 2019 voters across its traditional heartlands in England rejected the party resulting a catastrophic loss of seats. How will the party’s left-wing membership react to such a reversal?
“It is hard to see how Labour can rebuild a winning coalition amongst the electorate in the short term. The outcome gives Boris Johnson’s Conservatives the opportunity to forge a decisive base amongst voters. The task for Labour over the next decade, not just the next general election, is Herculean.”