Grants
STS Priority Group Grants
The Science, Technology and Society Priority Group award grants to projects which reflect its core themes, are innovative and imaginative. Successful proposals seek to influence in the longer term, to challenge policy or practice, or try to understand perceptions, beliefs or behaviour.
If you are interested applying for a grant, please contact Andrew Gibson for forms.
NB. In 2013/14, the Priority Group will also be providing travel bursaries to postgraduate students attending STS-relevant conferences. For more information on this, contact Andrew Gibson.
Below are examples of current or past projects which have received STS funding.
Recent grants
- Title: Public opinion on shale gas extraction in the UK; Principal Investigator: Professor Sarah O'Hara (Geography). Read case study
- Title: Sustainability Research Network launch event; Principal Investigator: Professor Georgina Endfield (Geography). Read summary
- Title: An assessment of the long term welfare impact of conservation-led displacement in Nepal; Principal Investigator: Professor Saumik Paul (Economics, Malaysia campus). Read summary
- Title: New Technologies in International Security Law workshop; Principal Investigator: Professor Nigel White (Law). Read summary
Title: Measuring landmark saliency in the field: An insight into human spatial cognition; Principal Investigator: Dr Alastair D. Smith (Psychology). Read summary
- Title: Uses and abuses of science: drug policy and its reforms in comparative perspective; Principal Investigator: Dr Gernot Klantschnig (International Studies, Ningbo). Read summary
- Title: Life Cycle Assessments and bioenergy modelling: identifying and overcoming methodological uncertainties; Principal Investigator: Dr Alison Mohr (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) project in Indonesia: political, environmental and socio-economic issues; Principal Investigator: Dr Sarah Jewitt (Geography). Read summary
- Title: Science and Society documentary series at the Broadway Cinema, with the University’s Science Technology Culture Research Group; Principal Investigator: Professor Brigitte Nerlich (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: Urban runoff as an unrealised global water resource for society; Principal Investigator: Dr Simon Gosling (Geography). Read summary
- Title: Developing UoN’s relationship with The Papplewick Pumping Station Trust: promoting water issues, building research capacity; Principal Investigator: Professor Colin Thorne (Geography). Read summary
Past grants
- Title: Sci-fi and nuclear power; Principal Investigator: Professor Brigitte Nerlich (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: Living ecological values; Principal Investigator: Dr Ros Hague (Politics and International Relations). Read summary
- Title: Jatropha policy and sustainable energy in India; Principal Investigator: Dr Sujatha Raman (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: Challenging Care: A play based on ethnographic studies of dementia wards; Principal Investigator: Professor Justine Schneider (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: Protective hand hygiene behaviour; Principal Investigator: Dr Jacqueline Randle (Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy). Read summary
- Title: Human and elephant conflict in agricultural landscapes; Principal Investigator: Dr Vanitha Ponnusamy (Business School, Malaysia campus). Read summary
- Title: Natural hazards and the social sciences; Principal Investigator: Professor Paul Martin (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
- Title: Public engagement: where the social sciences meet STEM; Principal Investigator: Professor Paul Martin (Sociology and Social Policy). Read summary
Grant summaries
Title: Sustainability Research Network launch event; Principal Investigator: Professor Georgina Endfield (Geography).
Principal Investigator: Professor Georgina Endfield
Summary (written by team):
As
an interdisciplinary team of five PhD students, we recognised the need for
early career researchers to move outside their departments to share ideas and
practice. Our aim was to facilitate
knowledge sharing across disciplines and expose researchers to new perspectives
they might not be aware of, by providing a forum for these exchanges to take
place.
With that aim in mind, we used the STS PG funds
obtained to host a workshop to launch and establish a network for PhD students,
post-doctoral staff, and other early career researchers working on – or with an
interest in – sustainability. At the event on May 23rd 2013, titled “Envisioning
Sustainable Futures: An Event for Early Career Researchers,” we launched the
Sustainability Research Network (SRN) to approximately 40 researchers at
Highfield House. The final programme included:
- “Sustainability
Teaching and Research at the University of Nottingham” by Dr Sarah Speigh
- Panel session
on careers in sustainability chaired by Dr Sally Hibbert featuring Dr Chris
Blencowe, Sustainability Consultant at Hilson Moran; Graham Gardiner, Social
Entrepreneur and Co-director of Aspiren; and Professor Brigitte Nerlich,
Professor of Science, Language and Society
- Posters on
display from ‘Perspectives on Sustainability’ NOOC module, open to votes from
participants
- Stalls from
Centre for Careers and Employability Service and Sustainable Nottingham
- Mixed
discipline roundtables discussing key issues in sustainability and connections
across fields
- Sustainability
Futures Scenario game
Title: An assessment of the long term welfare impact of conservation-led displacement in Nepal
Principal Investigator: Professor Saumik Paul (Economics, Malaysia campus)
Summary (written by team):
The goal of this study is to understand the long
term impact of conservation led displacement on food security and informal
safety nets among the villagers affected by the extension of the Shukalpantha
Wildlife reserve, in the Kanchanpur district of Nepal. For this purpose, we
collected quantitative and qualitative data for 830 households in the
Kanchanpur district. Given the caste centric social life prevalent in Nepal, we
categorise households into the four main caste groupings – BCN (Brahman,
Chettri, Newar), Rana, Dangaur/Choudary, and Dalit to identify inter-caste
differences in the effect of the displacement and subsequent coping strategies.Our preliminary findings indicate that the long term
effect of displacement to be heterogeneous. The divergence in the effects is
instrumented by factors such as caste, land and asset holdings and access to
facilities. However,
when additional controls and more robust estimation techniques are employed,
the effects of displacement seem to fade off and do not seem to significantly
alter the social welfare of households.
Title: New Technologies in International Security Law workshop
Principal Investigator: Professor Nigel White (Law)
Summary (written by team)
The funds were of a pump-priming nature to enable a
new research centre in the Law School (Nottingham International Law and
Security Centre - NILSC) to organise an expert workshop on ‘New Technologies in
International Security Law’ in July 2013. This was held successfully with
experts from the RAF, the University of Sheffield, the Australian National University
and University of Nottingham giving papers (on international law and new
technologies, cyber threats, nanotechnology, automated weapons and
biotechnology) to an invited audience of experts from Nottingham (Law and
Politics), other Universities and the Ministry of Defence
The
area of New Technologies and International Security Law covered cyber threats,
automated weapons systems, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and others. Its aim
was to undertake a preliminary investigation into the normative gaps in
international legal regulation. The workshop was of a scoping nature and is
being followed up by a more specific project proposal on peacekeeping and new
technologies, which will be the subject of a major funding bid.
Title: Measuring landmark saliency in the field: An insight into human spatial cognition
Principal Investigator: Dr Alastair D. Smith (Psychology)
Co-Investigator: Dr Gary Priestnall (Geography)
Background:
Navigational technology has become a ubiquitous part of our lives over the last 10 years and is set to become a core component of everyday wayfinding for huge cross-sections of society. Whilst most people are familiar with location based services in the form of an in-car SatNav, such systems are prioritised for use on the road and do not adequately represent the user’s interaction with the world as a pedestrian. So, although there are increasing calls for navigational aids for the pedestrian (e.g. automated city-guides), there has not been sufficient research to ensure that such a system is optimised for the unique demands of off-road exploration, especially when navigational directions might be related to visual landmarks rather than simply following a road or turning at a junction – the rest of the world is simply more complex.
The present project aims to develop a new and innovative approach to in-field testing, representing an exciting synthesis of geographical and psychological approaches. It will test how location-based approaches to pedestrian navigation can be optimised to the user’s everyday experience of the world around them. This will ensure that navigational solutions work within the necessary remit of being intuitive, responsive, and genuinely useful technologies for the widest possible range of users.
A tour around University Park campus (of the style used on Open Days) is the focus, using a simple locative media application on a smartphone to act as the user's guide. Points along that route act as test locations for certain orientation or navigation tasks, using instructional media (delivered on the mobile device) to prompt the user to acknowledge whether they identify something in the real world scene to be of geographic relevance. An innovative aspect of this design will be the use of a second device to log user responses, asking them to ‘zap’ a feature of interest using the camera view augmented with a target crosshair. The images from the campus experiments will then be passed through salience analysis software: models that have been designed to extract the most visually salient features of a scene and predict which of those is most likely to attract attention. Together, these data will provide a powerful and groundbreaking approach to understanding everyday wayfinding behaviour in a dynamic and realistic context.
Aims and objectives:
As well as paving the way for a competitive bid for research council funding, the intended outcomes will include a greater understanding of the factors that influence user orientation in the field and an assessment of the merits of this new methodological approach. This can increase public awareness and understanding of science in a genuinely interactive and practical manner. Beyond navigation, the research findings could impact across a range of Location-Based Services (LBS), including the way media (including maps) are delivered via a mobile device in ways that are genuinely useful and geographically relevant in the field.
Title: Uses and abuses of science: drug policy and its reforms in comparative perspective
Principal Investigator: Dr Gernot Klantschnig (International Studies, Ningbo)
Co-Investigator: Professor Prof Sue Pryce (Politics and International Relations), Jane McGregor (Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy) Jane McGregor (Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy)
Background: A grant has been awarded to help facilitate a one-day, interdisciplinary, international workshop titled ‘Uses and abuses of science: drug policy and its reforms in comparative perspective’ in Nottingham in spring 2013.
Participants at the workshop will present their research and debate how scientific debates, particularly in the medical field, are mobilised, used (or not used) in recent attempts to reform policies on psychoactive substances. For comparative purposes the substances discussed will range from the heavily controlled, such as opiates, cannabis and some drugs used in healthcare settings, to the relatively freely accessible, such as alcohol and tobacco. The papers will also contrast different geographical regions and in that way illustrate the diverse ways how debates about drugs have been adapted and developed locally and globally.
Special attention will be given to recent policy discussions about so-called harm reduction approaches, and their differing effects across countries. For instance, the UK – a country with one of the longest histories of promoting this approach to drug policy and healthcare more broadly - seems to move away from such policies in recent years, whereas countries as diverse as China, the US and Tanzania appear to be interested in learning from the UK experience.
In addition to focusing on the intersections between science and policy, the workshop is also interdisciplinary. It brings together Nottingham’s health and medical scientists with colleagues from the social sciences and the humanities, who have studied the same substances from different perspectives and often in isolation from each other.
Aims and objectives:
The immediate aims and objectives of the workshop are to provide a networking and sandpit event for the sharing of ideas about drug policy from different disciplinary, methodological and geographical perspectives. The workshop pools existing expertise in Nottingham, especially from colleagues of the renowned health and medical field who are interested in broader debates about the impact of science, as well as social scientists working on health. Participants come from diverse academic disciplines, such as Community Health Sciences, Nursing, the Schools of Politics, Education, Business, History, Social Policy, Law, Chinese Studies, the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham and its affiliate body in Shanghai (Shanghai Mental Health Centre, SMHC) as well as the Nottingham-based Centre for Tobacco Control Studies.
Longer-term aims: After this initial meeting and debate among colleagues, the workshop aims to be the basis for future collaboration that will help to sustain academic links on drug and healthcare policy through the STS Priority Group. Objectives for the near future are to bring together like-minded colleagues working across the disciplines who will secure major grant applications in the UK, US and in China.
The strengthening of links with practitioners is another core concern for many of the colleagues interested in this workshop. For instance, members of the Shanghai-based SMHC (a centre at the forefront of Chinese mental health and drug policy) have already inquired about the proceedings of the planned workshop and the possibility to engage more closely with academic counterparts in the UK. This is a field to be informally explored at the workshop and a definite focus for future work in this area.
Title: Life Cycle Assessments and bioenergy modelling: identifying and overcoming methodological uncertainties
Principal Investigator: Dr Alison Mohr (Sociology and Social Policy)
Co-Investigators: Dr Sujatha Raman (Sociology and Social Policy), Dr Marcelle McManus (Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath), Dr Caroline Taylor (Energy Biosciences Institute, University of CA-Berkeley)
Background: Modelling the sustainability impacts of bioenergy technologies has become an increasingly popular tool for improving innovation processes and informing policy. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a modelling technique to assess the cradle-to-grave environmental impacts associated with all stages of a product’s life, from raw material extraction through processing, manufacture, distribution, implementation and disposal or recycling. LCA maps the range of environmental concerns by compiling an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases, and evaluating the potential impacts associated with these. LCA is one component of bioenergy modelling that, depending on the model used, generally aims to determine the most cost effective uses of biomass (often in the context of wider energy choices) subject to constraints including biomass availability, energy demand, technological and infrastructure capabilities, GHG emissions targets and policy targets.
Recent interviews conducted as part of the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre’s (BSBEC) LACE (Lignocellulosic Conversion to Ethanol) programme to explore the social and ethical dimensions of bioenergy reveal the depth to which the LCA, bioenergy modelling and policy communities are concerned about the coherence of the methodologies used in LCA and bioenergy modelling, including issues of data reliability and differences in system boundaries; incorporation of cross-national border transfer of sustainability impacts into LCA; and possible misuse of LCA by policy-makers not recognizing the difference between attributional (measuring past impacts) and consequential (predicting future impacts and uncertainties therein) LCA.
Aims and objectives:
Aims: To identify the major methodological uncertainties embodied in LCA and bioenergy modelling from a scientific/engineering, sociological and policy perspective
Objectives:
- Understand the particular challenges faced by practitioners in the development of LCA and bioenergy modelling
- Understand the particular challenges faced by UK policy-makers in the uptake and utilisation of LCA and bioenergy modelling
- Identify relevant pathways to overcome major uncertainties and challenges
- Scope out and identify purpose and participants for further seminar series and potential research bids
Title: The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) project in Indonesia: political, environmental and socio-economic issues
Principal Investigator: Sarah Jewitt (Geography)
Co-Investigators: Professor Michele Clarke (Geography), Professor Sacha Mooney (Biosciences), Professor Helen West (Biosciences)
Background: In an effort to address climate change and capture potential carbon revenues, Indonesia has made a non-binding commitment to reduce GHG emissions by 26-41% by 2020 (Bappenas et al, 2010). The focus is on reducing deforestation-related emissions through better peatland management and incentives to local governments to maintain and rehabilitate land and forest cover. Central Kalimantan has been selected for the implementation of a pilot ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus’ (REDD+) project and investors are being encouraged to develop peat swamp forest and ecosystem restoration-related projects in the province to enhance carbon stocks.
Although carbon credit mechanisms have potential to conserve and restore tropical peat, combining reduced GHG emissions with pro-poor benefits presents many challenges. The UNFCCC (2009: 14) highlights the importance of alternative livelihood provision and participatory forest management as various REDD demonstration activities have shown that ‘training these communities enables them to manage their forest resources on a more sustainable basis’. REDD also requires sound scientific understandings of how the ecosystems under consideration are affected by different forms of environmental change as well as detailed baseline data on carbon emissions from different land use scenarios against which reduced emissions can be measured.
Aims and objectives:
The key aim of this proposal is to fund travel and subsistence to enable two UoN researchers to visit Central Kalimantan, expand existing interdisciplinary research linkages with the University of Palangka Raya (UNPAR) and undertake scoping work on REDD+ initiatives in the region.
The objectives of the project are to:
- develop research capacity in the political, environmental, socio-economic, livelihood, cultural and governance-related issues surrounding the REDD+ pilot project in Central Kalimantan
- prepare and submit a significant multidisciplinary Research Project Grant application to the Leverhulme Trust to explore how successful small-scale participatory community-based fire fighting and hydrological restoration initiatives set up by the Center for International Cooperation in Sustainable Management of Tropical Peatland (CIMTROP) can be expanded and replicated in other areas under REDD+ or alternative carbon credit schemes in ways that simultaneously improve local livelihoods and promote reduced GHG emissions
- utilise staff exchanges and visits to share class, gender and ethnically sensitive understandings of local livelihood and development priorities amongst peatland communities in Central Kalimantan and explore opportunities to develop joint programmes and co-supervision at doctoral or masters level.
- develop linkages with different stakeholders and community groups to investigate the potential for different REDD+ forest conservation and management initiatives to combine effective sustainable forest management, conservation, carbon sequestration and meet, in a socio-culturally acceptable manner, the heterogeneous livelihood needs of different socio-economic, ethnic and gender groups.
Title: Science and Society documentary series at the Broadway Cinema, with the University’s Science Technology Culture Research Group
Principle Investigator: Professor Brigitte Nerlich (Sociology and Social Policy)
Co-Investigator: Professor Christopher Johnson (Cultures, Languages and Area Studies)
Background:
The Science, Technology and Society Priority Group has two main goals:
- to coordinate and enhance research and teaching in the field of Science and Technology Studies across the University of Nottingham
- to stimulate public debate on the role of science and technology in contemporary societies
In order to engage more closely with the second task, a selection of science documentaries will be shown at Nottingham’s Broadway Cinema in order to stimulate debate about science and society. These documentaries will be sourced from a variety of disciplines, such as history, astronomy/cosmology, physics, neuroscience, biology and geology, and accompanied by invited talks by members of the Science Technology Culture Research Group (such as Chris Johnson, John Marks, Arthur Piper, etc.), as well as one ‘celebrity’ scientist/presenter (such as Kevin Warwick).
Aims and objectives:
The main aims we want to achieve through these activities are:
- to establish closer strategic links between the Science, Technology and Culture Group (headed by Professor Christopher Johnson, School of Culture, Language and Area Studies) and the Science, Technology and Society Priority Group (Academic Champion, Professor Reiner Grundmann, School of Sociology and Social Policy)
- to draw renewed attention to and generate cross-disciplinary support for the STS Priority Group
- to engage the general public in issues around science, technology and culture
To realise these longer-term aims, this strategic project is employing a research assistant, Alan Valdez, to engage in research into the value of science documentaries for science communication and, more importantly, to lay the practical foundations for screening the documentaries in the autumn and spring of 2012-2013.
Title: Urban runoff as an unrealised global water resource for society
Principal Investigator: Simon Gosling (Geography)
Co-Investigators: Chris Walsh (The University of Melbourne), Tim Fletcher (The University of Melbourne)
Background:
Water that flows over the surface of the earth following rainfall events is called runoff. Urban areas typically present a much higher proportion of impervious surfaces than vegetated land. As a result of these impervious surfaces, a proportion of urban runoff that would have otherwise infiltrated the ground surface and flowed into urban waterways instead flows down stormwater drainage networks. Furthermore, another proportion that would have otherwise been taken up by plants and released to the atmosphere, is also essentially ‘lost’ down stormwater drain networks. This has two important implications:
- Urban waterways and their habitats are degraded as a result of increased inputs that have become polluted with sediments and chemicals along the drainage network.
- A proportion of urban runoff that could potentially be used as drinking water by urban society is lost because it is removed and polluted by stormwater drains.
Aims and objectives:
A large proportion of urban runoff could be retained by, for instance, the installation of household rainfall harvesting tanks. The potential retention of urban runoff within urban catchments is an unrealised global water resource but this has not been adequately recognized in the environmental flow literature, and its hydrologic effects are poorly understood by water resource managers and policy makers.
To date, the team of researchers have:
- Produced an advanced version of the MacPDM.09 global hydrological numerical simulation model (Gosling and Arnell, 2011), providing information on daily global rainfall and runoff for the period 1963-2001.
- Post-processed the data from the Mac-PDM.09 simulation so it is now compatible with the urban runoff models that are used at University of Melbourne.
- Developed a numerical model that applies the MacPDM.09 rainfall and runoff simulations to global datasets of urban impervious surfaces.
Future objectives include:
- Analysing simulations from the urban impervious runoff model and Mac-PDM.09 to estimate the proportion of urban runoff that could provide humans with at least their minimum domestic water needs at the global scale.
- Drafting the results and methods into a journal paper.
Title: Developing UoN’s relationship with The Papplewick Pumping Station Trust: promoting water issues, building research capacity
Principal Investigator: Professor Colin Thorne (Geography)
Co-Investigators: Dr Mary Biddulph (Education), Dr Alison Mohr (Sociology and Social Policy), Professor Steve Daniels (Geography), Dr Nick Mount (Geography)
Background:
The huge success of the 2010 Papplewick Lecture demonstrated how effective partnership between the UoN and the Trust can be and hints at unfulfilled potential for success in other activities related to promoting public understanding of water issues. Similarly, the award to UoN of an ESRC CASE studentship, with the Trust and Severn-Trent water as co-sponsors, is further evidence that Research Councils recognise the benefits of research linking the public, private and third sectors. An STS grant awarded in 2011 has allowed Thorne, Biddulph and Mohr to move forward plans for research collaboration between UoN and the Papplewick and Water Education Trusts with the intention of applying for external funding. Following a series of research workshops held in spring 2012, six topics appeared which demonstrated enthusiastic support of researchers from more than one school and had potential for multi-disciplinary research on water across various Nottingham campuses:
- Securing water, crop and flood-alleviation futures (Debbie Sparkes, Paul Wilson, Sacha Mooney)
- Water and farmers' decision making (Nick Mount, Susanne Seymour, Alison Mohr, Paul Wilson, Colin Thorne)
- Conserving water and energy (Saffa Riffat, Rachel Gomes, Sujatha Raman, Alison Mohr)
- Water heritage (Steve Daniels, Georgina Endfield, Colin Thorne, Suzanne McGowan)
- Water education, literacy and citizenship (Mary Biddulph, Sujatha Raman, David Lambert, Graham Butt, Colin Thorne)
- Understanding 'water footprints' (Rachel Gomes, Mary Biddulph, David Lambert, Paul Nathanail, Bob Abrahart)
Aims and objectives:
Aims: The aim is to carry forward multi-disciplinary research ideas identified under the previous STS grant to produce proposals for new research on water-related topics identified through the University’s partnership with The Papplewick Pumping Station Trust.
Objectives:
- Continuing the partnership between The Papplewick Pumping Station Trust and the Schools of Geography, Agriculture and Sociology and Social Policy that has been built under STS funding.
- Further developing plans to make better use of the water records held by the University.
- Taking immediate advantage of the way the previous funding has raised the profile of the UoN-Papplewick partnership with stakeholders in key water sectors including: water supply and use in agriculture, domestic water use, conservation and disposal, water heritage and transitional education.
- Submission of 3 multi-disciplinary research proposals.
Title: Sci-fi and nuclear power
Principal Investigator: Professor Brigitte Nerlich (Sociology and Social Policy)
Summary: Using a mixed methods approach, the research probed the clash between policy aspirations and public perceptions (both factual and fictional) of nuclear power in the East and West. The work gained insight into the social and cultural shaping of public attitudes to issues related to climate change and energy.
Title: Living ecological values
Principle Investigator: Dr Ros Hague (Politics and International Relations)
Summary: The project involved a case study of the Findhorn Foundation, exploring how deep ecological values can be ‘lived’. The Findhorn Foundation comprises a large spiritual and environmentalist community, an eco-village and a centre for holistic education. It has approximately 1,000 members and is home to dozens of ‘ethical’ and ‘environmentally sustainable’ businesses.
Title: Jatropha policy and sustainable energy in India
Principlal Investigator: Dr Sujatha Raman (Sociology and Social Policy)
Summary: Dr Raman produced an overview (with some historical background) of how the twin challenges of sustainability (including climate change) and development (including energy poverty) are being conceptualised in discussions and key policies around energy in India. It helped colleagues tailor later research on sustainable energy technologies.
Title: Challenging Care: A play based on ethnographic studies of dementia wards
Principal Investigator: Professor Justine Schneider (Sociology and Social Policy)
Summary: The project facilitated and documented the translation of research undertaken in the School of Sociology and Social Policy into a play. A five-day theatre workshop was filmed and edited into a 15-20 minute DVD, with twofold purpose: the first being educational, the second to promote the play to potential producers. The play itself was performed by Meeting Ground (a local theatre company), with Stephen Lowe acting as ‘dramaturg’ and was produced by Tanya Myers.
Title: Protective hand hygiene behaviour
Principal Investigator: Dr Jacqueline Randle (Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy)
Summary: This pilot study explored attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, including protective behaviour in relation to hand hygiene. Previous evidence suggests sub-optimal hand hygiene compliance both in healthcare workers and the general public, and recent results suggest that hand hygiene behaviour is primarily self-protective rather than patient safety centred. The researchers suggest that interventions should be targeted for best effect, in order to provide services that are value for money whilst improving the quality of healthcare provision.
Title: Human and elephant conflict in agricultural landscapes
Principal Investigator: Dr Vanitha Ponnusamy (Business School, Malaysia campus)
Summary: This short study, which feeds into longer term research, explored the behaviour of elephants in human-dominated landscapes, as well as the social and physical factors that shape local attitudes towards Malaysian elephants. By exploring both the damage caused by competition for resources (so-called ‘human-elephant conflict’), as well as the importance of elephants in Malaysian conservation efforts, the project sought to gauge the preferred tools or agents for managing human-elephant conflict.
Title: Natural hazards and the social sciences
Principal Investigator: Professor Paul Martin (Sociology and Social Policy)
Summary: A scoping study on natural hazards, government policy and cross-disciplinary research in UK higher education institutions.
Title: Public engagement: where the social sciences meet STEM
Principal Investigator: Professor Paul Martin (Sociology and Social Policy)
Summary: A scoping study on public engagement for science, technology and society issues.
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