5 years on: Reflections on COVID Research across the Faculty of Social Sciences

On 23 March 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The Faculty of Social Sciences four Schools – Education, Law, Politics and International Studies, and Sociology and Social Policy – has seen various, research projects that address the numerous social science impacts of the pandemic.

Five years on from the first UK lockdown, this extended story reflects on some of these projects, some of which have reached their respective completions, and others which remain ongoing.

‘Feeding the Nation’

Between October 2020 and May 2022, Dr Roxana Barbulescu from the School of Sociology and Social Policy led the research project Feeding the Nation: seasonal migrant workers and food security during COVID-19 pandemic. It was funded by the Economic and Social research Council (ESRC).

The project team working with Dr Barbulescu consisted of Professor Carlos Vargas-Silva from the University of Oxford and Dr Bethany Robertson, also from the School of Sociology and Social Policy. Further project support was provided by Rosaleen Cunningham as Communications Manager, by Sarah Hannis as Artistic Illustrator, and by Researchers Drs Olena Podolian and Aline Badescu.

The project examined the recruitment and experiences of seasonal agricultural migrant workers throughout harvest seasons in 2020 and 2021 – workers who were essential to ensure food security in the UK throughout the pandemic.

The project had impact through various outputs including producing and publishing ‘Working in the UK: a guide for seasonal workers visa holder & seasonal worker with granted Pre-Settled status’ in 2021 with the charity New Europeans, a series of online art exhibitions in 2022 in collaboration with The Museum of English Rural Life, and a report published by the Food Standard Agency called ‘The impact of labour shortages on UK food availability and safety’.

'Feeding the Nation' illustrations by Sarah Hannis

In 2024, Drs Barbulescu and Robertson authored a report for the Low Pay Commission on Accommodation Offset, National Minimum Wage and Seasonal Migrant Workers. This report, as well as building on original data for its study, also drew upon findings collected as part of the ‘Feeding the Nation’ project.

‘Reducing the unanticipated crime harms of Covid-19 policies’

Between June 2020 and December 2021, the School of Law’s Professor Graham Farrell as Principal Investigator, Professor Daniel Birks, and the School of Geography’s Professor Nick Malleson, as Co-investigators, led the ESRC-funded project, Reducing the unanticipated crime harms of Covid-19 policies. The project’s external co-investigators were Professor Shane D. Johnson, Professor Kate J. Bowers, and Professor Nick Tilley from University College London.

The context for this research was the altered landscape of crime in the UK during lockdowns. Reduced outdoor in-person movement of people led the most dramatic short-term reductions in many crimes ever recorded, particularly in inner-city areas. Other crime types, particularly those facilitated by increased online activities for work, shopping and entertainment, increased. Many but not all crime types returned gradually back towards their previous levels as the pandemic waned and in the post-pandemic period.

The research was guided by close links with the national agencies responsible including the Home Office, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and the College of Policing, as well as collaborations with regional police forces and other practitioners. The research produced a series of policy and practice briefs for practitioners that were widely used and a wide-range of outputs in peer-reviewed academic journals.

The outputs of this project included Professor Farrell’s public lecture hosted by the Policing Institute for the Eastern Region at Anglia Ruskin University, the publication of a special collection on Covid-19 and Crime: consequences for incidence, public safety, security, and prevention, and the submission of written evidence to the UK parliamentary inquiry into government actions to combat waste in relation to their study of waste crime fly-tipping during the pandemic.

Opening Slide of Prof. Farrell's public lecture 'Reducing the crime harms of the coronavirus pandemic'.

The project’s written outputs were quoted in news items published by the BBC, The Guardian, and The Economist, while members of the investigating team appeared on BBC News and Radio 4’s Today Programme.

‘Re-Evaluating the Pandemic Preparedness And REsponse agenda (REPPARE)’

The project Re-Evaluating the Pandemic Preparedness And REsponse agenda (REPPARE) is funded by the Brownstone Institute. It began in August 2023 and will come to completion at the end of July 2026.

The Primary Investigator is Professor Garrett Wallace Brown in the School of Politics and International Studies, while Dr Blagovesta Tacheva, Dr David Bell (external, joint PI), Jean von Agris (PhD student), Dr Margo Ketels, and Professor Lieven Annemans are Co-investigators.

REPPARE states that public health services require a holistic approach that recognise the interconnection between humans and their environment, and the broad scope of ‘health’ - internationally defined as spanning “physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

Dealing with pandemics and other health emergencies is an important aspect of public health. Interventions must be weighed against known risks, relative disease burdens, potential direct and indirect benefits, the probability that interventions can be realized, and the direct and indirect costs that will be accrued.

The project’s intent is to facilitate rational and evidence-based approaches to pandemic and outbreak preparedness, enabling the health community, policy makers, and the public to make informed assessments, with an aim to develop good policy.

Publication outputs from this project include an open access correspondence piece in The Lancet, open access articles in Global Policy, a featured article published by International Health Policies, three REPPARE reports, and two REPARRE policy briefs. There is also an article in Globalization and Health due to be published in 2025.

The REPPARE team is currently consulting with national governments and international organisations involved in pandemic preparedness and response.

‘The Impact of Covid-19 on Key Learning and Education (ICKLE)’

The School of Education’s Drs Paula Clarke, Peter Hart and Matt Homer were Co-investigators on the ESRC-funded project The Impact of Covid-19 on Key Learning and Education (ICKLE) which ran from September 2020 to August 2021.

The Primary Investigator was the School of Psychology’s Dr Hannah Nash, while Drs Cat Davies (Languages, Cultures and Societies), Rachel Matheison (Education) were also Co-investigators.

The sudden and prolonged disruption to education for primary school children between Spring and Autumn 2020 meant that most missed more than a term of school provision. This disruption may have exacerbated existing inequalities in academic attainment while potentially also creating new ones.

The ICKLE project examined the impact of disruption to normal teaching on pupils at the transition between Reception and Year 1 in the Leeds region. This transition from Reception to Year 1 – which sees children learn literacy, maths and language skills – is crucial to educational development as these skills form the foundation for later academic success.

The research findings were of immediate benefit to schools in helping them decide how to allocate catch-up support to pupils. The project recommendations, conveyed directly to policy makers and third sector organisations, were intended to inform national strategies aimed at remediating the negative impacts of lockdown post-COVID, and address inequalities in the event of future disruption to schools.

As well as the publication of three interim reports and two final reports, March 2021 saw the project contribute written evidence to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee Inquiry into support for children’s education during COVID-19.

ICKLE’s work and findings have also been quoted in articles by the Yorkshire Post in August 2021 and October 2022, and by Leeds Live in February 2022. In October 2022, Drs Clarke and Nash supported a mini-festival held by Reception Reading Stars at the Leeds Central Library.

Photograph of Reception Reading Stars mini-festival event.

The project also partnered with Leeds Libraries and Leeds City Council to promote a new guide for parents and carers on how to best support young children through shared reading. This partnership continues with the work of postgraduate researcher Katy Grainger who is supervised by Drs Nash and Clarke and Rachel Ingle-Terre (Leeds Libraries).

‘Vital Circulations’

Between July 2021 and June 2023, the School of Law’s Professor Marie-Andrée Jacob Co-investigated the research project Vital Circulations: A framework for understanding social dynamics in and beyond a pandemic.

The project was funded by the White Rose University Consortium Collaboration Fund and was led by Lead Primary Investigator Dr Jieun Kim (Languages, Cultures and Societies). Dr Ros Williams (University of Sheffield), and Professor Nik Brown (University of York) were Co-primary Investigators.

The pandemic brought into relief the porousness of our bodies, and the importance of pathogenic substances passed between them every day. Meanwhile the global quest for vaccines and treatments relied on further circulations of vital matter, from DNA samples to convalescent plasma.

In short, both the disease’s spread and its cure depended on how we manage and monitor global circulations of vital (and potentially viral) matter. And yet, these vital substances do not circulate in a vacuum: as the pandemic laid bare, the socially marginalised were more susceptible to viral infections and ensuing deaths, a pattern exacerbated in the Global South with limited infrastructural capacity for testing and utilising vital matter.   

The project put forward a systematic cross-disciplinary effort to understand how ‘vital circulations’ intersected with social boundaries and hierarchies. It developed ‘vital circulations’ as a new conceptual framework to advance understanding of the social dynamics surrounding vital matter.

The project led a series of symposia throughout the course of the research, with a final workshop taking place in 2023. Each event organised by the project-team is reported in blog form on the project blog page.

An infographic by Nifty Fox of a recap of 'Vital Circulations' symposia and takeaways.

An open access publication in Somatosphere, Vital Circulations and Circuits: Reflections around vitality and the biopolitical regulation of its flows, was published in June 2024 out of the project’s findings.

‘The lived experiences of prison for individuals with autism’

The research conducted across the Faculty of Social Sciences on COVID-19 is not limited to its academic staff. PhD researcher Danielle Tomkins’ research project ‘The lived experiences of prison for individuals with autism, detained on a specialist wing’ addresses a gap in data and research that engages autistic prisoners directly as informants and even less research that asks them about their lived experiences of prison life.