Over four years, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have made more than 300 awards under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Newton portfolios. These awards aim to support research connected to the many global challenges we face today. Climate change, inequality, poverty and lack of access to basic necessities are only a few of the overarching themes explored by many of these projects. However, currently AHRC GCRF and Newton projects face significant challenges as well as new-found opportunities due to COVID-19. For example, the travel restrictions in place because of the pandemic hinder traditional field work research practices and some partnerships, but have also given a rise to other methods of communication and interconnectivity.

This PRAXIS project proposes a new strand of work on COVID-19, led by Dr Luba Pirgova-Morgan, to run in parallel with its four existing ‘thematic' strands of Heritage and Culture, Conflict and Displacement, Youth Engagement, and Policy Engagement. PRAXIS Project: COVID-19 Strand focuses in particular on how the AHRC GCRF projects are impacted, adapting and responding to the challenges posed by the global pandemic known as COVID-19. There is a secondary focus of the project that seeks to examine what are the challenges and solutions that can be identified from the projects’ experiences of COVID-19 that can contribute towards a climate-resilient, zero-carbon economy.

For this project, we are conducting a survey, qualitative interviews as well as a series of engagement events during the year 2021. Some of these events will be thematically linked to the existing PRAXIS Strands, while others will engage with cross cutting themes that span across the portfolios as for example, Youth Engagement, Equality, Climate Change, and Decolonizing Knowledge. The data gathered as part of this project will be written up as a report to be submitted to the AHRC, further publications as well as presentations to a wide range of audiences.

For more information on the project, please contact L.Pirgova-Morgan@leeds.ac.uk

Resource Archive

Search or browse the resource archive for films, reports, toolkits and other resources produced by the Changing the Story and its commissioned projects.