Set to make a long-term difference during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, 23 coronavirus-related projects have received £218,500 in funding. The funding call was coordinated by the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office on behalf of the Research Communities, with funding generously provided by the Quintin Hogg Trust.
Each research project aligns to one of the University’s Research Communities: Health Innovation and Wellbeing, Diversity and Inclusion, Sustainable Cities and Urban Environments, and Arts, Communication and Culture. The communities bring together Westminster’s key areas of research and the funded projects are ensuring that Westminster’s research expertise is being harnessed to address new issues that are arising as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The wide range of projects tackle a variety of important issues, from the impact of COVID-19 symptoms and ill-health on decision-making biases in key workers, to how COVID-19 will impact on future planning and design of sustainable and healthy cities.
Further examples of the research projects taking place include research from Professor Andrew Groves and Dr Danielle Sprecher part of the Arts, Communication and Culture community, which is documenting the menswear industry’s response to COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the demise of manufacturing in the UK, the adverse consequences of long supply chains and the inability to produce and supply key workers with PPE. In response, many fashion companies including Barbour and Burberry have pivoted their production to address this public health emergency.
Through these PPE artefacts, Professor Groves and Dr Sprecher’s research explores the potential resurgence of British menswear manufacturing. The research questions whether parallels can be drawn with the UK manufacturing response during the First and Second World Wars, when production was realigned to supply military uniforms, which played an important role in the growth of the British Menswear industry.
The project will culminate with an online exhibition in 2021, which will critically examine the response of the UK menswear industry as it navigated the first 12 months of the pandemic.
Dr Enrica Papa, Reader in Transport Planning from the Sustainable Cities and Urban Environments research community was also successful in securing funding for her project investigating post-pandemic commuting and wellbeing. The project investigates the impact of COVID-19 on travel, and whether our experience of changing our travel during the pandemic will have lasting impact on our travel behaviour and wellbeing.
The project will use a cross-disciplinary approach between the disciplines of transport planning and health psychology, and will involve two online workshops with international experts of mobility planning and health psychology. The experts will discuss the various ways commuting can impact wellbeing, how changes in commuting behaviour during and after lockdown influence personal wellbeing over time and how to mitigate lasting impacts of mobility behaviour changes on wellbeing.
Alan Yabsley, Westminster Research Community Facilitator, said: “Congratulations to the successful project leads! We are confident that these projects constitute a distinctive Westminster response to a public health crisis, capitalising on our particular research strengths and expertise.”
Explore the full list of research projects.
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