The University of Liverpool has awarded £123,258 to pump-prime 14 projects for research on challenges arising from Covid-19 in 15 low and middle income countries.
The projects address the short-term and longer-term consequences of Covid-19 including:
- mental health of front-line nurses;
- food security and livestock systems;
- public health and the lives of older people;
- integration of Covid-19 guidance into hospital care,
- screening in public places;
- truth in social media;
- race, patriarchy and power structures in society
Projects span all three Faculties – seven in Humanities and Life Sciences, four in Humanities and Social Sciences and three in Science & Engineering.
Professor Anthony Hollander, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact said “The Covid-19 crisis is a global one which is affecting countries across the world. We are proud to be collaborating with low and middle income countries on research which is tackling the many challenges they face arising from Covid-19. This will help in some small way in ensuring that these countries stay on course to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.”
The Covid-19 research forms part of the university’s Global Challenges strategy which sets out how we deliver research to benefit low and middle income countries and meet the UN SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). Funding is provided through the annual quality-related (QR) GCRF grant from Research England. This grant enables us to internationalise our research environment and research base through pump priming schemes, awareness raising and capability building events, hosting international visiting fellows and supporting the costs of large-scale research projects.
Professor Claire Taylor, Chair of the university’s Global Challenges Strategy Group said, “we were tremendously impressed by the level of interest and innovative thinking shown by our researchers from right across the university. A particular thanks to the professional services and finance colleagues who are helping to set these projects up in difficult circumstances.”
“The next pump-priming call for researchers will be in early June when the next round of the ODA Research Seed Fund opens. The call will be open to the full range of global challenges research (health, poverty, hunger, climate, clean water and the other Sustainable Development Goals) as well as Covid-19 proposals.”
Details of the fifteen projects are as follows:
| Atif Rahman (Department of Primary Care and Mental Health, HLS) | £10,000 | A mental health intervention for frontline nurses in China |
| Mark Green (Geography & Planning, FSE) | £5,000 | Understanding public perception, misinformation and fake news in Venezuela |
| Siobhan Mor (Epidemiology and Population Health, HLS) | £9,903 | Compliance with and feasibility of health authority recommended Covid-19 prevention practices in Ethiopian communities |
| Supriya Garikipati (Management School, HSS) | £6,500 | Pandemic, Patriarchy and Productivity (India) |
| Clarissa Giebel (Health Services Research, HLS) | £2,300 | The impact of Covid-19 related public health strategies on the lives of older people living in Uganda |
| Richard Koeck (Architecture, HSS) | £10,000 | Digital -9 Visualisations and impact: design implications and applications that reduce the concentration of airborne droplets and aerosols (India) |
| Steve Taylor (Electrical Engineering & Electronics, FSE) | £9,996 | Covid-19 screening in public places using thermal imaging coupled with AI (Uganda) |
| Patricia Rossini (Communication & Media, HSS) | £9,800 | ‘It’s on WhatsApp, so it must be true!’: Social media and news use as pathways to explain (mis)perceptions and behaviours about Covid-19 (Brazil) |
| Usman Hamdani (Department of Psychological Sciences, HLS) | £10,000 | Impact of online Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) services on mental health and psychosocial well-being of quarantined individuals infected by or recovering from Covid-19 in Pakistan |
| Levi Gahman (Geography & Planning, FSE) | £10,000 | Resilience-driven action research in the face of crisis: Securing (sustainable) food, shaping policy and building solidarity in a Small Island State (Grenada) |
| Peers Davies (Epidemiology and Population Health, HLS) | £9,990 | Pandemic resilience of LMIC livestock production systems (Argentina) |
| Leona Vaughn (Politics, HSS) | £10,000 | Covid-19 and racialized risk narratives in South Africa, Ghana and Kenya |
| Bridget Freyne (Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, HLS) | £10,000 | Descriptive real-time operational research of COVID-19 in a tertiary paediatric department in Malawi |
| Dan Pope (Public Health & Policy, HLS) | £9,769 | Impacts of Covid-19 epidemic and response on cooking practices, fuel use, food security and health in rural and peri-urban communities from MBalmayo, Cameroon for CLEAN-Air (Africa) |
For further information, weekly funding bulletin and other channels, plus all the latest international and ODA opportunities please visit: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/intranet/research-support-office/