WBS building

Fifteen WBS academics have received Policy Support Fund grants from the University of Warwick, totalling £226,618.

The Policy Support Fund grants seek to enable evidence-based policy making, with research projects required to focus on contributing to policy change, whether at a regional or national level, or with an international organisation.

Those receiving funding are:

  • Dr Haley Beer and Professor Jonothan Neelands (Co-Investigator), UK Coventry City of Culture 2021 Data Curation for the Levelling Up Agenda
  • Dr Ila Bharatan, Extending the Coventry Family Hubs Evaluation to the National Centre for Family Hubs
  • Nicholas Solman and Professor Michael Bradshaw (Co-Investigator), StayGreen
  • Dr Vinh Doan, Housing Policy: A Data-Driven Approach
  • Professor Kim Hoque, Developing and leveraging the Disability Employment Charter
  • Professor Marianna Fotaki and Derya Ozdemir Kaya (Co-Investigator), Putting the UK care home sector on a sustainable footing in the wake of Covid-19: Lessons from a financial analysis and workforce research
  • Professor Stephen Roper, Dr Kevin Mole and Serdal Ozusaglam (Co-Investigators), Business Futures Survey 2021
  • Professor Suzy Moat and Professor Tobias Preis (Co-Investigator), The science of scenic beauty: From research to policy
  • Professor Juergen Branke, Data science for social good postgraduate policy internships (Co-Investigator, project led by Professor Colm Connaughton of Warwick Medical School).

Professor Stephen Roper was awarded the maximum £50,000 to support a follow-up survey to the ERC’s Business Futures survey which was conducted in 2020.

The Business Futures 2020 survey focused on how SMEs fared during Covid-19 and how they saw the future, with a particular focus on the progress private businesses were making towards digitisation and net zero carbon emissions.

The follow-up survey will revisit the digital and net zero issues and aim to capture the attitudes and intentions of SMEs as the economy begins to recover.

Funding for Developing and leveraging the Disability Employment Charter, led by Professor Kim Hoque, will support the campaign to secure corporate sign-up for the new Disability Employment Charter.

The founding members of the Charter - which urges the government to end discrimination against disabled people - are the Business Disability Forum, the DFN Charitable Foundation, Disability Rights UK, Disability@Work, Leonard Cheshire, Scope, the Shaw Trust Foundation, UNISON, and the University of Warwick.

In addition to the founding members, more than 50 charities and organisations have signed. However, Professor Hoque now wants to secure mass corporate sign-up to drive change from the UK Government.

Professor Graeme Currie, Impact Lead for the applications from WBS, said: “At WBS, we pride ourselves on being Change Makers. Our ambition to address grand societal challenges, and generate health, social, and economic impact means we continue to work closely with policymaking agencies to do so.

“The support from the Policy Support Fund for eight projects, working with a range of international, national and regional, government and other policy agencies, highlights our research-based societal contribution. Our policy-engaged faculty are to be congratulated on such an impactful effort. Long may it continue.”