The UK didn’t need the EU to enjoy multiculturalism – quite the reverse
Category Archives: Research
Targeted support is needed to protect the wellbeing of researchers working with emotionally challenging material
Authors:
Jessica Hammett, Senior Research Associate, University of Bristol
Claire Nunan, Senior Accredited Counsellor, School of Applied Mental Health
People around us do not see the huge emotional impact that our research has on us. Our peers and line managers do not know about the emotional toll of the work we do, so it is practically invisible for them. Most of them think that it is just a matter of being positive, or just taking a break.
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
For early career researchers working with sensitive and challenging material there are many barriers to good wellbeing. Over a six-month period, we worked with a small group of researchers from the arts, humanities and social sciences to better understand how emotionally challenging material impacts their wellbeing, what strategies they have in place to mitigate these risks, and to test out peer-support as a new method to promote wellbeing. The results of our findings have been published as a policy briefing, and in this article we explore the thoughts and feelings of our project participants in more depth.
Disabled people are already cutting back on costs more than others – for many, the £150 cost of living payment won’t do much to help
Authors:
Sharon Collard, Professor of Personal Finance, University of Bristol
Jamie Evans, Senior Research Associate in Personal Finance, University of Bristol
Even before the current cost of living crisis, disabled people were much more likely than non-disabled people to be in poverty and living on inadequate incomes. Now, spiralling living costs are adding to years of financial disadvantage. Our new analysis of YouGov survey data starkly illustrates the situation, showing that three in ten disabled households are in serious financial difficulty.
The UK government has announced several measures that will provide some relief for many, including an energy price freeze and payments totalling £650 for people on means-tested benefits. All households will also receive a £400 reduction in energy bills via instalments spread over six months, and 8 million pensioner households are receiving a separate one-off payment of £300.
Sending in the Royal Navy is not the answer to small boat migration in the Channel
This blog post was written by Timothy Edmunds, Professor of International Security, University of Bristol and Dr Scott Edwards, Research Associate, Translational Organised Crime at Sea, University of Bristol.
The Home Office has announced a plan to bring in the Royal Navy to take charge of policing the English Channel after the number of migrants attempting the crossing in small boats tripled in 2021. Full details of the plan have not been revealed, but appear to involve the navy taking a leadership and planning role, as well as possibly providing additional vessels to augment the Border Force cutters already at sea.
Certainly, at first glance, the navy has the potential to bring more resources to the problem. Border Force currently operates five cutters and six coastal patrol vessels, whereas the navy has many more ships suited to maritime security tasks. These include 16 Archer class patrol vessels and eight of the larger and more capable River class offshore patrol vessels.
Yet numbers can be deceiving. The Archers and Rivers are already in high demand. Two of the Rivers, HMS Tamar and HMS Spey, are forward deployed to the Indo-Pacific. Others are assigned to areas of longstanding UK interest, such as the Caribbean and the Falklands, or now patrol the UK’s fishing waters following Brexit. Likewise, two of the Archers are deployed to the Gibraltar Squadron, another two assigned to security duties at the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland, while the others play important roles with University Royal Naval Units.
With so many vessels already in use elsewhere, it seems unlikely that the Admiralty will welcome new deployments to the Channel -– especially so soon after an announcement that Border Force is receiving money for an upgraded fleet of cutters.
P2000 Archer Class Patrol Vessel HMS Raider, LA(Phot) Martin Carney, Flickr
Understanding how COVID-19 impacted on people who use drugs
Authors
Dr Joanna Kesten, Research Fellow, Bristol Medical School, Bristol Population Health Science Institute, Health Protection Research Unit.
Professor Catriona Matheson, Professor at the University of Stirling, and Chair of the Ministerial Drug Death Task Force for Scotland.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK in early 2020, there was concern about its impact on vulnerable groups in society. In this blog, Jo Kesten, Research Fellow at the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Behavioural Science and Evaluation at University of Bristol and Catriona Matheson, Professor at the University of Stirling and Chair of the Ministerial Drug Death Task Force for Scotland, discuss the findings and wider policy implications of two independent research projects to investigate how people who inject drugs were affected. Both studies interviewed people who use drugs in the first national lockdown in 2020 to understand how the pandemic impacted on them. In Scotland, data from online forums, surveys and the police were also used to examine changes in the drugs market.
Key points
- Service innovation can happen quickly in a crisis
- Digital inclusion is important if services are to continue with remote contact
- Many people struggled with the loss of connection with others
- There were fewer infections among interviewees than may have been predicted
- Drug markets were more resilient than we had thought
- More research needs to be carried out on changes to drug treatment medication policies as our studies recorded slightly different experiences
Creative Industry Paradoxes: New business models and spaces of change
This blog was written by Malu Villela Garcia & Alice Willatt, researchers at the University of Bristol working on an IEI Bristol+Bath Creative R&D project.
The creative industries are not short of paradoxes. A culture of flexibility, self-management and creativity exists alongside precarious working conditions, excessive working hours, and a lack of inclusion and diversity. In the past months we’ve spoken with ten representatives from alternative organisations in the Bristol and Bath region to explore whether their business models are more effectively tackling the challenges faced by the industry. Here we discuss our main findings and propose some solutions.
‘Alternative’ business models
What do we mean by ‘alternative’ business models? These are businesses which put social and environmental goals alongside or before profit through democratic ownership and governance structures. They are referred to as ‘alternative’ because of how they seek to distinguish themselves from traditional shareholder-led, profit-driven, mainstream types of business. But the extent to which they manage to move away from this traditional model lies in a spectrum. Towards the more democratic and socially-oriented end, we see cooperative and employee-owned models, whereas towards the more commercial end we can find social enterprises and mission-led businesses (such as B Corps). Continue reading
Levelling-up: using the language of the government to maximise policy engagement opportunities
This blog was written by PolicyBristol’s Nathalie Goodsir and Simon Russell who both work for PolicyBristol. Nat is the PolicyBristol coordinator, and Simon is the Associate for Science and Engineering.
Though it began as yet another snappy campaign slogan, it is clear that ‘levelling-up’ remains a central theme of the current government’s policy agenda. In a speech in July, the Prime Minister once again reiterated his ‘mission’ to level-up the country. While the keynote address had promised to define and refine this somewhat amorphous vision, talk of ‘magic sauce’, ‘the ketchup of catch-up’ and ‘jam-spreading operations’ may not have provided the desired clarity. However, researchers and policy engagement experts can, and should, respond to the situation at hand – even a large-scale governmental vision still short on substance can present opportunities.
The freedom to love: Mixed-immigration status couples and the immigration system
This blog post was written by Dr Candice Morgan-Glendinning, University of Exeter & Dr Melanie Griffiths, University of Birmingham. Their report from the Deportability and the Family project was launched in June 2021. You can download the project report, Policy Bristol policy briefings and other outputs from the webpage.
“If you are a British citizen then falling in love with someone who is not British isn’t allowed to happen basically.”
In the last decade, a series of changes to immigration policy have significantly affected the family lives of people living in and coming to the UK. These have restricted not only the private lives of immigrants but also thousands of British citizens, with implications for their wellbeing, prosperity and sense of national identity.
Shifting policy
A wide spectrum of changes to family migration rules were introduced in July 2012. This included dramatic increases to the minimum income required by Britons seeking to bring a foreign spouse to the UK, to a figure well above the minimum wage. There were also changes to the entry requirements for family members and lengthened probationary periods, as well as increased – but unevidenced – suspicion over so-called ‘sham marriages’.
As well as affecting the arrival and settlement of foreign family members, concurrent policy changes have curtailed the relationships of people already in the UK. In particular, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for one’s private and family life) became considered increasingly controversial and suspect. The response has been to make drastic changes to the interpretation of Article 8 and the threshold needing to be met by families, particularly in removal and deportation cases.
How scientists and policymakers collaborate towards sustainable Bristol
This blog post was written by Dr Ola Michalec, a social scientist based at the University of Bristol, researching regulation in the domain of digital innovations for sustainable energy. Ola also serves as a member of the Bristol Advisory Committee for Climate Change and is a member of the Cabot Institute for the Environment.
In the world facing increasingly complex and interdisciplinary challenges, our job descriptions expand to account for new collaborations, duties, and types of knowledge to engage with. Civil servants are now expected to ground their policies in evidence, while scientists are required to translate their findings so that they’re useful to the citizens, industry practitioners or politicians.
Climate action is no different. It comes to life at the curious intersection of activism, political will, market incentives, democratic mandate and, of course, scientific knowledge. As a university researcher, I am on a mission to ensure academic knowledge serves Bristol’s transition to the sustainable city.
An effective collaboration across the worlds of science and policy requires some professional unlearning. Convoluted and jargon-filled academic writing style is not going to cut it if we’re serious about influencing ‘the real world’ (sorry). Similarly, our traditional output formats are simply too long to be accessible for policymakers. I also firmly believe that we ought to advance public debates, rather than solely our respective disciplinary conversations; for that matter we need to invite a broader set of discussants to the table.
Modernising the Mental Health Act: Will more rights lead to less wrongs?
This blog post was written by Judy Laing, Professor of Mental Health Law, Rights and Policy, University of Bristol Law School.
The government published a White Paper in January 2021 outlining proposals to reform the Mental Health Act in England and Wales. The government has consulted on these proposals and the consultation period closed a few weeks ago on 21st April 2021. We now await further announcements on the government’s plans following this consultation process. I am currently engaged in a parliamentary academic fellowship, working with Lizzie Parkin (a University of Bristol alumna) in the House of Commons Library Social Policy section. The Library offers an impartial research and information service for MPs and their staff. Part of my role involves working on research briefings to inform Members of Parliament on business in the House of Commons. Mental health law reform will no doubt be debated in parliament in the coming months and I have developed a detailed research briefing on the proposals in the White Paper to assist parliamentarians with that process.