Open Research Central

Discretionary Award - Open research

Open Research Central The open access movement has demonstrated that "openness" is a benefit to the creation, dissemination, and reuse of knowledge. Through a variety of policies and initiatives, there is renewed momentum for sharing research outputs as part of a more connected and collaborative open research ecosystem.  However, there remains a need for consensus around how best to deliver a research dissemination system that maximises the benefits for both science and society, and the researchers upon which such a system depends.

Open Research Central (ORC) is a not-for-profit organization that aims to change the paradigm for primary research dissemination by bringing together key representatives across the scholarly ecosystem to define standards, build a movement to expand adoption of these standards, encourage the community to provide researchers with services that meet these standards and promote these standards.

To build further momentum and adoption globally of open research publishing approaches, the ORC Board wish to secure resource for 18 months to underpin more significant fund raising efforts to enable ORC to deliver on its mission, to develop and start to put into place a sustainability plan, and to support the Board in the day-to-day running and management of ORC.


Discretionary Award - Policy

Advancing the global health agenda with the Paris Peace Forum The Paris Peace Forum will host a series of discussions to maintain the partnership developed by ACT-A  (Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator) and the governance of global health at the top of the political agenda and further deliver concrete solutions while contributing to the construction of an overall governance framework in the sector. The proposal includes hosting discussions taking place in the framework of a pilot, year-long partnership between the Forum and Wellcome Trust. These discussions would mobilize stakeholders of the Forum’s community and beyond. The Forum would naturally seek Wellcome’s guidance and advice on the scope, topics, invitees, and outputs of these discussions. Stakeholders would be invited to participate in each discussion based on their institutional focus and expertise and on the basis of their capacity to contribute to and implement the desired outcomes. With the support provided by the Wellcome Trust, the Forum could convene two roundtables in 2021, to provide for sufficient time for preparation, eventually for follow-up actions in between and potentially to leverage to key moments in the annual Forum cycle: the Spring meetings of the Paris Peace Forum (May 2021) and the fourth edition of the annual event (11-13 November, 2021).

Grants awarded from 1 October 2005 to 30 June 2021

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)


Discretionary Award - Policy

Panel on Financing for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response A new high-level panel, led by co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Lawrence H. Summers, has been mandated by the Italian presidency of the G20 to propose reforms and other measures that will lead to more reliable and sustainable financing of pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. To support the panel's deliberations and decision-making, CGD and Bruegel propose establishing a team to lead the analysis and content development of the proposals, with logistical, outreach, engagement, and coordination support from a secretariat at Wellcome and the US National Academies of Medicine. The team will develop a short scoping note on the economic rationale behind prioritizing public investment in prevention, preparedness, and response, an outline of the final report for discussion and feedback from the co-chairs, background analyses (on landscaping current financing and issues, existing asks and proposals; setting a financing goal and assessing its value for money; and governance, organization, and incentives), a long list of 10-15 proposals for governance reform and/or new or existing financing sources and mechanisms (with pros and cons for the panel's consideration), and a final report reflecting the panel’s views and the teams’ own analyses.


Discretionary Award - Vaccines

THE ARM RACE: HOW WE CONQUERED COVID (WORKING TITLE) "THE ARM RACE: HOW WE CONQUERED COVID" (working title) is a documentary film that will be the dispositive chronicle of the global race to research, develop, manufacture and distribute COVID-19 vaccines in the most enormous coordinated effort ever undertaken. In this unprecedented moment in history, the film will celebrate the herculean efforts of the scientific, research and immunization community during a complex time of mistrust, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation - when trust in science itself has come under fire.

The stories track development of vaccines, (including research built on previous work fighting outbreaks including Ebola and HIV/AIDS,) and how public health agencies from hospitals to the WHO are responding to the crisis. Our narrative goes beyond the lab, delving into the complexities of underserved populations, equitable access and inclusion. We see opportunities in additional content, leveraging existing assets, foregrounding the making of the film and our collaboration with the global public health community. This project will spark interest in science’s potential to solve global health challenges by documenting the largest public health effort in human history, while also offering insights into our successes and failures to help prepare the next generation to better respond to future pandemics.


Discretionary Award - Mental Health

Can we develop a "cognitive vaccine" for intrusive memories of traumatic events from working in the COVID-19 pandemic? A novel and brief intervention to support ICU staff Intensive care unit (ICU) staff face repeated exposure to traumatic work-related events and have reported high levels of posttraumatic symptoms during the pandemic. Novel, scalable and preventative interventions are required.

We are developing a "cognitive vaccine" approach for ICU staff against one key symptom – intrusive memories of traumatic events. These are unwanted, distressing and disrupt functioning.

Our novel, brief gameplay intervention is repeatable, flexible, non-stigmatising, scalable, and driven by mental health science.

This digital intervention is guided by an initial session of psychologist support, then self-administered; delivered same day or months post-trauma, suitable for repeated trauma exposure, fits with busy lives of ICU staff, without discussing trauma detail.

Part 1 uses a Bayesian design to optimise and co-develop procedures with ICU professionals and move at speed under pandemic conditions, allowing limited rollout (guided-version) in these unprecedented times.

Part 2 uses a pragmatic RCT (three arms: guided/non-guided/attention-control) testing clinical effectiveness and acceptability to inform clinical practice. If the non-guided intervention is effective (i.e. no psychologist support) it will accelerate the speed of rollout.

Meanwhile through global mental health workshops with stakeholder communities we seek to understand the views of various communities worldwide regarding implementation of this novel intervention form.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Combining computational structural biology methods to visualise the dynamics of cell-virus interactions at molecular resolution Archaea are single-celled organisms distinct from bacteria, but that share a number of traits. Like some bacteria, many archaea have a surface layer (S-layer) surrounding the cell, which is a proteinaceous lattice that helps protect the cell from attack from viruses. Understanding how the viruses bind to the S-layer will help us to understand how they infect the cells.

Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), an increasingly popular technique for obtaining structural information about proteins, we will study a variety of archaeal S-layers and some of the viruses that infect them. This data will then be combined with molecular dynamics (MD) for a multiscale investigation of how these S-layer proteins move and interact over time.  By solving the structures of the S-layers using cryo-EM, then simulating the interaction of the proteins in the lattice using MD, we push method development to lead the way in cellular structural biology.

With this work we will develop the understanding of viral entry in archaea, and the structure-function relationship of S-layers which has implications on the evolution of life. Tomography will provide cellular context to structures, and direct the large-scale MD simulations, built up from smaller simulations of atomic structures solved by cryo-EM.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Novel allosteric modulators of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors implicated in cognitive dysfunction  Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subtypes such as alpha7 and alpha4beta2 have been implicated in a range of psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. During the past two decades, the identification of multiple nAChR allosteric modulators (drugs that alter the response of a receptor to its natural agonists) have attracted significant interest. A recent study conducted in this laboratory reported an in silico screening of the DrugBank database against a predicted alpha7 nAChR allosteric site. Amongst the compounds identified in this study, the Na-K-Cl cotransporter inhibitor furosemide was found to be a potent positive allosteric modulator (PAM) of the alpha7 nAChR in electrophysiological assays. The objective of the present project is to expand on our understanding of how the chemical composition of allosteric modulators such as furosemide and its structural analogues influences their allosteric modulatory properties at nAChRs subtypes such as alpha7 and alpha4beta2. I will attempt this via the synthesis of a library of novel compounds (including furosemide analogues). Subsequent electrophysiological and computational (e.g. computer docking) studies of these compounds with respect to their allosteric modulatory activity at the alpha7 and alpha4beta2 nAChRs will be undertaken with the aim of developing a clearer understanding of their structure-activity relationship.


iGEM competition 2021

Strategic Support: Science

iGEM competition 2021 This grant will support the 2021 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition (iGEM), by supporting UK undergraduate students from the synthetic biology community to take part in it.
The provided funding will be used to support the students’ stipends, some consumable and travel support for the teams that have successfully applied to the competition.
Wellcome has funded the iGEM programme for several years as this is an interesting model to develop interdisciplinary thinking and skills for students. Funding is provided in partnership with BBSRC who also make available a £50k contribution.
Wellcome (Luigi Martino) will be involved at the selection stage and receive a brief report about the respective activities at the end of the year.

COVID-19 effect on the competition. The hope is that this year’s teams will have the ability to undertake wet-lab-work. If this is made impossible by the potential restricted access to lab spaces, the selected teams will be asked to submit a written proposal reporting the design and strategy to build their chosen genetically engineered machine.


Discretionary Award - Policy

Emergency Efforts to Sustain UK Government Support for ODA In the 2020 Spending Review HMG signaled its intent to renege on a manifesto commitment and cut ODA form 0.7 to 0.5% of GNI (on top of the budget cut that happened automatically due to economic contraction). To do this, HMG wishes to repeal the relevant in coming months.

Work to sustain the Government’s support for ODA is already delivering results with an increasingly credible threat of a government rebellion and sustained media interest. However, increasingly our political intel says we may be at risk of winning the vote and losing the argument. Put simply, ‘hard whipping’ of a rebellion, combined with some horse-trading between different groups, might be enough to carry a vote but it won’t stop the debate flaring back up. This grant would allow us to scale the emergency effort around the legislation while also creating a more enabling environment for the longer team:

 by bolstering our public affairs capability in Qs 1/ 2,
 by expanding our local organising effort to an additional ten constituencies from Q1-4 and
 by expanding our comms plans from Q1-4.

A key part of this partnership would be Wellcome’s inclusion in regular political updates, intel and learning sessions.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Targeting individual bromodomain and extra terminal domain (BET) proteins (BRD2-4) to modulate breast cancer angiogenesis Tumour cells requires oxygen and nutrient to grow. As tumours outgrow their existing blood supply they develop regions that have low oxygen (hypoxia) and nutrient levels. These regions are often found in breast cancer and they are associated with resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Cancer cells exposed to low oxygen release chemical signals that stimulate the growth of new blood vessels which can then deliver the required oxygen and nutrients. There are four Bromodomain and extra terminal (BET) proteins that bind to sections of the DNA that has been chemically modified to indicate if a gene should be active or inactive. The BET proteins then recruit other proteins which are important for transcribing genes. It has been shown that drugs that inhibit the BET proteins change how the cells respond to hypoxia and reduce the growth of new blood vessels.
I will investigate how the BET proteins regulate the growth of new blood vessels and identify which of the four BET proteins is the best target for new therapies. Regulating blood vessel growth can lead to the reperfusion of tumours and allow radiotherapy and chemotherapy to effectively treat patients with solid tumours.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

A GWAS of the progression of abdominal aortic aneurysms and simultaneous use of genetic and non-genetic information in the evaluation of screening and diagnostic testing pathways In the UK, men aged 65 are invited to screening to check for an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA).  Untreated aneurysms may rupture, which is usually fatal, although many aneurysms do not progress to this stage.  There are known risk factors for AAA such as smoking and family history.  Evidence of genetic association with AAA has been found which means that some people are more at risk from birth of having an aneurysm.

I plan to investigate the role of genetics in both the presence and progression of disease, utilising data from UKBiobank, the UK Aneurysm Growth Study and AAA-Express.  These findings will be adopted into a hypothetical computer model.  I will investigate the possibility of targeted screening for AAA. This involves identification of risk factors that will also consider the benefit of genetic data to identify individuals at high risk of AAA for screening invitation. I will then investigate an adapted clinical pathway after detection of aneurysm based on the risk of rupture. Incorporating genetic information may improve patient outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of the screening program by limiting screening to those most at risk and by ensuring that those diagnosed with an aneurysm have the most appropriate clinical intervention.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Assessing the contribution of common and rare short tandem repeats (STRs) to the risk of developing idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) affects around five people in every 100,000 in the UK and is amongst the most devastating of lung diseases, with a median survival time of 3 years and variable progression. Comparable disease prevalence (6.8 per 100,000 persons) has also been reported in other countries such as the USA, Italy, and Canada. About 5000 cases are detected annually in the UK, and there is rising disease prevalence globally. Despite the substantial disease burden, there is little understanding of the disease etiology, and it has a poor prognosis. Other than a lung transplant, the available drugs are not curative. The majority of cases are diagnosed in patients  > 50 years and males are disproportionately affected than females. Both genetic and environmental factors have been associated with IPF. The genetic mutations described so far only account for about 19% of genetic risk associated with IPF. Therefore, the analysis of other types of genetic variations is pertinent. In particular, our study will use whole-genome sequences in case-control cohorts to identify other genetic mutations associated with IPF susceptibility. Identifying risky mutations can help understand disease etiology and develop more targeted therapies.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Understanding the genetic basis of radiotherapy toxicity Patients differ in the way they respond to radiation treatment.  Approximately 5% of patients are sensitive to radiotherapy and at risk of suffering long-term side-effects (1). However, there is no effective way to identify these patients. The REQUITE trial was established with the aim of reducing long-term side-effects from radiation (2). A total of 4438 cancer patients were enrolled in the study. Before receiving radiotherapy, patients completed a questionnaire and provided a blood sample which was analysed for genetic variants.
The researchers tested for other biomarkers that might predict sensitivity to radiation. One example includes the radiation-induced cell death assay called RILA. This is a measure of the percentage of white blood cells that are killed by radiation (3). The researchers found that a low RILA score is associated with long-term side-effects.
My research aims include finding possible genetic associations with the RILA assay. In addition to finding possible genetic associations to predict late side-effects in breast cancer patients and a genetic study on patient reported outcome measures such as quality of life scores. The overall long-term goal of this project is to integrate biomarkers, genetic and clinical data to help predict which patients will suffer from worse side-effects.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

The genetic epidemiology of lung scarring Idiopathic Lung Fibrosis (IPF) is a disease which leads to death three years after diagnosis in half of cases. IPF is a complex genetic disease - variants of DNA that contribute to disease risk have been identified, though we have yet to fully understand how these risk factors lead to lung scarring.

A Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) can be used to determine which regions of DNA are associated with disease.  GWAS can be used to look at individual variant sites in the DNA called Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs).  By comparing the entire DNAs (Genomes) of people with and without IPF, we can narrow down the suspected sequences that may contribute to the development of the disease to very fine resolution.

Once SNPs associated with IPF are identified, we then need to understand why they are associated. Determining which SNP leads to IPF requires 1) Linking SNPs to genes, 2) finding biochemical pathways associated with these genes, and 3) finding drugs that can be used to target the biochemical pathways. These steps enable us to understand the pathology of IPF and could lead to the identification of potential drug treatments for this currently incurable disease.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Must the relatives be told? Legal and ethical issues in relation to the non-disclosure of genetic information by healthcare professionals to relatives Genetic information is becoming increasingly utilised by healthcare professionals in order to provide patients with more precise diagnosis and treatments. An individual's genetic information may show their risk of inheriting a genetic disorder, and although most individuals would consent to healthcare professionals sharing their genetic information with relatives who may also be at risk, some individuals refuse. It can be argued that a failure to disclose the risks of inheriting genetic disorders to relatives is ethically wrong, because it restricts the autonomy of individuals to make life choices. Alternatively, it can be contended that it is legally wrong for a healthcare professional to not adhere to the duty of confidentiality that they owe to patients.

This debate demonstrates the conflict of duties that healthcare professionals face as the use of genetic information in medicine develops, and highlights the need to develop a new legal  framework which takes into account the needs of patients, relatives, and healthcare professionals. In order to create an appropriate legal framework, I aim to assess academic commentary, examine case law, and conduct qualitative interviews with healthcare professionals in order to assess scientific opinion, and potentially inform new policy guidance.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Synthesis and evaluation of novel antagonists and fluorescent ligands for the human P2Y2 receptor The human P2Y2 receptor is one of a large and diverse family of disease-relevant drug targets called G protein-coupled receptors. The P2Y2 receptor is a promising therapeutic target for important conditions, including metastatic cancer. However, no drugs which block the P2Y2 receptor have ever entered clinical trials.

The research group recently published an initial study where novel P2Y2 receptor inhibitors, that prevent the action of the receptor, with good biological activity were produced. The project will build on this previous work to design, synthesise and evaluate further inhibitors with improved biological activity and drug-like properties to make them more clinically viable. The design of these inhibitors will be driven by visualisation of key interactions with the P2Y2 receptor in computational models. Another subsequent part of the project will involve equipping these novel inhibitors with a light emitting fluorescent dye that can be used to investigate their interaction with the P2Y2 receptor in cell and tissue-based experiments with state of the art imaging equipment.

Novel, high affinity and drug-like P2Y2 receptor inhibitors and their fluorescently-labelled counterparts would provide a vital tool to further validate the role of P2Y2 in disease and aid in the development of clinically viable drugs.


Discretionary Award – DSH

Learning Data Driven Medical Checklists For Multi-Disciplinary Consult Scheduling Checklists are simple tools that are often used to promote safety in clinical applications, because they can easily be integrated into a clinical workflow deployment without the need for extensive training or additional technology. Currently, machine learning in health focuses on large, complex deep neural networks. In comparison with deep neural networks, checklists are far easier to use, understand, and scrutinize. In practice, checklists are difficult to develop, and the vast majority of real-world checklists are hand-crafted by panels of experts.

Given the widespread integration of electronic health data over the past decade, our goal is to learn checklists from data for clinical tasks. The main application of our method, in partnership with Dr. Leo Celi at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, is to predict mortality in patients eligible for Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT).

A generated checklist for CRRT is clinically desirable in the intensive care unit as a mechanism to trigger a multidisciplinary discussion with the patient’s family, to consider the value of the treatment weighed against the physical burden and cost. Thus we include operational considerations such as number of items in the checklist, the false negative/positive rate tradeoff, and fairness across protected groups.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Liquid-phase Transmission Electron microscopy of RNA polymerase dynamics Proteins control most cellular functions, made possible by their unique and diverse range of 3D structures and the dynamics within them. Methods to determine protein structure have revolutionised the understanding of cell function and dysfunction on the molecular level as well as drug design, however, these methods generally require static molecules. One rapidly developing method to probe protein structure uses transmission electron microscopy to take highly magnified images of cryogenically frozen proteins which can be computationally combined into a 3D model, however, freezing the sample prevents any real-time dynamics. We aim to optimise this method with new liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy technology, to film and understand structural dynamics of proteins in real-time in solution. This will require the development of electron microscopy techniques to image the protein clearly, image processing techniques to analyse the movies taken and molecular dynamics to understand and verify the results seen. We, therefore, aim to develop liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy as a technique to probe protein dynamics in solution, allowing the study of protein function, dysfunction and dynamic responses to stimuli, for example, drug binding. This will focus on RNA polymerase as a model system with physiologically relevant dynamics.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Structural and mechanistic investigations of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeller Packaging the two metres of chromosomal DNA found in every human cell is achieved by wrapping DNA around histone proteins in complexes called nucleosomes. Generally, DNA wrapped within nucleosomes is rendered inaccessible to enzymes and DNA-binding factors involved in normal DNA processes such as gene expression, DNA damage repair and chromosome replication. Chromatin remodellers are large molecular machines that disrupt the interaction between DNA and histones, exposing the DNA and therefore making it accessible for fundamental biological processes. I will be focussing on a particular chromatin remodeller called SWI/SNF that uses chemical energy to move, modify and eject nucleosomes. Around 20% of human tumours have been shown to have mutated SWI/SNF, highlighting the complex as one of the most commonly affected targets in cancer. The aim of my project is to use structural (cryo-EM) and single molecule (FRET) analysis to probe the molecular details of the interaction of SWI/SNF with the nucleosome. Moreover, we will visualise SWI/SNF in action, in an attempt to understand how the machine remodels nucleosomes and leading to further understanding of its role in cancer. Our results will provide a platform for the future development of drugs that specifically target mutated SWI/SNF complexes in numerous cancers.

Grants awarded from 1 October 2005 to 30 June 2021


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Structural Investigations of Sodium Channel Mutations Associated with Neurological Diseases Sodium channels (Navs) are proteins which are found in cells around the body, including the central and peripheral nervous system and heart muscles. These proteins span the cell membrane and form channels which specifically allows sodium ions to cross the membrane under certain conditions. This influx of sodium ions in neurons is responsible for information processing and is critical for nervous system function. Genetic mutations in Navs can cause multiple diseases including epilepsy, chronic pain and cardiac arrhythmias. Generally, these mutations reduce the function of Navs, disrupting the balance of information, for example in the brain sometimes resulting in epilepsy. Specific drugs therefore need to be developed in order to re-establish this balance either by adding to Navs’ functionality or reducing it. We aim to use structural biology techniques, including x-ray crystallography and potentially cryo-EM to visualise potential drug binding sites. We will also look at common disease-causing mutations allowing us to identify drugs which will not only target a specific subtype of Nav but also a specific mutation. In particular we will be looking at repurposing already commercially available drugs. This work has the potential to identify drugs for Nav related diseases and provide new treatment options for patients.


PhD Studentship (Basic)

Generative models for biological methods of control Behavioural phenotypes are highly relevant to many diseases, particularly those involving neurodegeneration, such as Friedreich’s Ataxia or Parkinson’s disease. While these behavioural phenotypes arise from low-level molecular and cellular processes, they are highly complex. As a result, identifying structure within behavioural data can be challenging. Generative models are a type of model which are able to generate new instances of data, unlike discriminative models which can only discriminate between existing instances. As a result, these models must solve the more complex problem of whether a given data instance is likely, as opposed to what classification it most likely belongs to. This means they must learn the underlying distributions of the data itself, often capturing more meaningful correlations as a result. Building generative models of behaviour can therefore offer deeper insight into the structure of behaviour, as well as a means of analysis through synthesis, where the ability of a model to successfully reproduce naturally observed behaviour provides further validation of the model. These models can also be used to investigate the impact of disease on behaviour through attempts to ‘corrupt’ the model’s underlying processes and compare the output to experimental data obtained from individuals with a particular disease.


UCH photography exhibition

Discretionary Award – Directorate

UCH photography exhibition Produce, print and install an exhibition of photographs by Tom Pilston documenting University College Hospital (UCH) staff working on the Covid pandemic.  Exhibtion to be in UCH lobby in Euston Road


Innovations AIGH Enterics Flagship

Advancing product development and use of monoclonal antibodies for infectious disease in low and middle income countries (LMICs)’ The project supports activities in the Immunization, Vaccines and biologicals
department of the WHO that aim to advance the product development and use of
monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for infectious diseases, with a focus on meeting the
needs of Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). Three specific activities will be
carried out. First, a stakeholder consultation on monoclonal antibody technologies will
be held to discuss which would best support affordability and accessibility in LMICs.
Second, an application to establish rabies mAbs on the WHO model list of essential
medicines (EML) would set the precedent for inclusion of additional infectious diseases
mAbs in the future. Thirdly, an assessment of diphtheria immunoglobulin supply and
potential demand for mAb-based products will be carried out which could serve as a
methodology to be used to assess other mAb based products."


Research Development Award in H&SS

Doing natality: making babies, making kin in Africa Africa has the fastest growing population in the world. At the same time the continent has some of the highest rates of infertility. Most people long to have children for diverse reasons. Those unable to have children seek ways to improve their chances of conceiving. These may include biomedical interventions, vernacular healing practices, changing or adding partners or making kin through adoption and child circulation. Yet despite the diversity of lived experiences and practices of reproduction across the continent, most research and interventions into reproductive health in Africa frame it primarily in terms of risk, pathology, mortality, and irresponsibility. Doing Natality engages a team from four African countries, working across demography, social sciences, medical humanities and science and technology studies, to develop a research agenda that centers the notion of "doing natality". We aim to explore practices of doing natality as articulation of love, care, beginning something new and securing better futures in raising children. We thereby open up a new space to interrogate and explore the usefulness of the notion of "doing natality" as heuristic, theoretical and methodological tool by asking what it means for African women, men and couples to have (or not have) children.


Research Development Award in H&SS

Setting an Emancipatory Agenda: Disabled People's Research Network Social science research has long been criticised for failing to improve the life chances of disabled people. Current research agendas are determined ‘top down’ by policy makers, and researchers risk objectifying disabled participants by conducting research ‘on’ them (as opposed to ‘with’ them). Our radical and exciting proposal challenges the status quo by developing an inclusive agenda and establishing a Disabled People’s Research Network. Our vision is to place academic and non-academic disabled people at the heart of research development, and our entire project will be co-produced by working with disabled people’s organisations. Our activities will identify new salient questions and reinvent social science methodology by exploring how the arts and humanities can enable disabled people to evidence and share their lived experiences. We will develop more inclusive forms of knowledge exchange between universities and disabled people, and we will work with policy makers to maximise disabled people’s research impact. We will empower disabled people as agents of change and our activities will include a range of fellowships for disabled people and a highly innovative research training course led by disabled people. Our network will reinvent how universities work with disabled people, in addition to methodological and epistemological development.


Research Development Award in H&SS

Dr Clare Barker, Mrs Faye Robinson, Dr Amelia DeFalco, Dr Tom Jackson, Prof James Stark

LivingBodiesObjects: Technology and the Spaces of Health LivingBodiesObjects is an experiment in the making and understanding of interactions between bodies, technologies, objects and health, designed to test and extend the boundaries of Medical Humanities research. Working with a range of partners, it will take place in the context of multi-purpose/use laboratory spaces (both physical and virtual) that invite differing conceptions and practices of health experiences, and responses to them. The ambition of the project lies in the imaginative creation of these spaces and not in any pre-emption of the materials they might produce. The laboratories will be specifically designed to figure ideas and creativity, making spaces that provoke, facilitate and respond to the ideas and questions raised by bodies as they encounter different forms of technology.  Centring on the ways in which individuals and communities collaborate to produce work within dynamic and generative locations, the laboratories will also link to more traditional laboratory activities such as equipment, testing and use. As a specific research development initiative, the project will further extend interdisciplinary health research practice at the University of Leeds, where its work will inform and further develop a research culture through the foregrounding of innovation in professional research management, career development and equality, diversity and inclusion.