Institute for Social Sciences Research (ISSR) newsletter - May 21 2020

Mental Health Awareness Week

Everyone has mental health, some people just know how to deal with it better! Remember to check in with friends and family during these strange times and keep talking! It’s okay to not be okay!

In current times, gardening for some people is an important part in your wellbeing. I am not much a green finger so I am super chuffed my wee orchid is flowering again.

Sending happy positive thoughts on this glorious sunny day and I hope you all enjoy the extra long weekend.

ISSR Seminar Series

We are grateful to Nick Bibby for delivering an insightful discussion on policy engagement this week and to our colleagues who joined in the discussion.

If you missed the opportunity to attend, you can revisit in STREAM. All our recent panels are available to view.

We will continue to keep you updated on the next scheduled panels in due course.

If you have a suggestion for speakers, please send in your recommendations by COMMS channel, email or DM.

Successful Bronze Athena Award Application

Congratulations to two of our member Schools within University of Dundee who achieved Athena SWAN Bronze Awards. Well done to the School of Health Sciences and Social Sciences. Keep up the great work and let’s make equality happen!

Research and Impact

Lynne Duncan, Psychology tells us more about her eLIPS project. eLIPS is a method for observing the language development of young children during play. This research forms a partnership with early years educators to tackle the early language difficulties that are barriers to learning, social inclusion and well-being.

To find out more about the project visit the eLIPS website.

Central policies, national improvement approaches and sustained local change; An exploratory study of access to mental health treatment for children and young people in Scotland

Dr Madalina Toma, Research Fellow, Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre, School of Health Sciences was awarded funding from Carnegie Trust.

This study focused on unpicking on the process of translating government strategies into local services, by exploring the interactions between policy makers (macro) and national organisations(meso) supporting policy implementation within local CAMHS delivery context (micro). Data collection consisted of 16 semi structured individual and four focus group interviews with a purposeful sample of policy makers, national health and social care stakeholders and local outpatient and inpatient CAMHS teams representing three NHS boards. Most participants expressed concerns about the somewhat ambiguous macro-level objectives with overlapping recommendations, the under reliance on scientific evidence and lack of transparent consultation which creates a tunnel vision that runs counter to the policy’s original intentions.

Participants believed that the broad spectrum of meso-level organisations needed to assure a whole system approach made local implementation fragmented, creating gaps in provision or waste as remits overlapped. The language used within policies led to conceptual uncertainties around CAMHS service specifications and it was still unclear which services are best placed to deliver interventions to support the mental illness, mental distress and mental well-being needs of children. At micro-level, there was a transformation fatigue through the constant expectation of delivering improved services and increased tensions between the need for local autonomy to innovate and the limitations created vertically by national directives and horizontally by the proliferation of national organisations which must work together to implement abstract recommendations in a resource-constrained environment. These findings shift the focus of the debate away from how many children and young people access the right service, in the right place, at the right time, to an understanding of the governmental, national and local drivers that need to be co-ordinated in a whole-system approach to ensure services deliver high quality services to meet actual need.

Policing the Pandemic

Dr Megan O'Neill (Geography and Environmental Sciences) has been involved in several areas of activity related to policing the COVID-19 pandemic. She has been invited by the Independent Advisory Group on Police Use of Temporary Powers Related to the Coronavirus Crisis (part of the Scottish Police Authority) to speak to the group’s meeting on 22nd May about police and community relations and international experiences in the pandemic. This contribution will serve as expert external advice for the group’s consideration as it guides Police Scotland on their use of powers in the pandemic. Along with co-authors Dr Helen Wells, Dr Liz Aston and Prof Ben Bradford, Megan has published a blog on the consequences of using technology in the pandemic to maintain social distance between the police and the public.

Megan is also part of the newly formed ‘Policing Pandemia’ academic and practitioner network which is bringing together researchers and law enforcement officers across Europe to share experiences and build future research on policing the pandemic. Finally, Megan is a member of an inter-school team led by Prof Jim Livesey from Humanities on a funding application to the UKRI on how to judge safety and risk in a post-lockdown Dundee. If successful, the research would start in June and take place over the summer and into early autumn.

As Head of Law at Dundee, Dr Sarah Hendry is always busy with activities relating to students and programmes! However her research interests remain in water law, especially water quality and the regulation of water services. She is currently working on a piece of work for the International River Basin Organisation (INBO) on how Scotland manages the balance between public and private interests in water. This is something she has published on before and she intends to develop as a longer publication in the future.

Sarah also teaches human rights law and recently she has been focused on economic and social rights, which would include rights to water and sanitation. More widely, economic and social rights are very relevant to the Covid 19 crisis – for example, rights to healthcare; to food; to housing; and to an adequate standard of living in general. People with good access to a quality supply of these essential services are much better placed to cope with this type of crisis, in Scotland, across Europe and across the globe. Water and human rights are both cross-cutting areas of research in different ways and bring many synergies.

ISSR Engagement

ISSR Channel on Teams

Join the ISSR community on MS Teams where you will have access to information on your research related activities

To join, simply click on 'create or join team' and enter the code e2wv1jf

We can help support, facilitate and arrange online events. Please contact Donna on Teams for a chat and find out how ISSR can support you.

Publishing News

New paper in the American Society of International Law

Check out this article on Investment Facilitation Mechanism & Access to Justice in Brazilian Justice recently published by Dr Sufyan El Droubi, Law.

China’s Energy Diplomacy Towards Central Asia and the Implications on Its "Belt and Road Initiative."

A recent paper published at The Pacific Review by Dr Janet Xuanli Liao (CEPMLP, School of Social Sciences) has investigated China’s energy diplomacy towards Central Asia from the late 1990s. It argued that China’s oil and gas investments in the region were not driven by energy needs or geopolitical ambitions, like many assumed, but by the safety of the country’s western boundary. However, after more than 20 years of engagements in the region, China has become one of the key geopolitical players in Central Asia, against its initial intention.

The article has attempted to answer two questions: 1) Why has Beijing failed to escape the grand games while focusing on energy diplomacy? And, 2) what is the implications of China’s new status in Central Asia on its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? Focusing on China’s dealing with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and also involving the Russia factor, the research has revealed the main reasons that led China into the grand games: the entangling of politics and China’s energy engagements; the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; and the changes of pipeline map in Central Asia.

The launch of the BRI scheme has amplified China’s geopolitical significance in Central Asia, but also triggered various criticisms. Beijing needs to revisit its pragmatic featured diplomacy, and take a more liberal approach to accommodate different political perspectives, if it wishes to see the success of the BRI scheme.

Graduate Community

Tanya Jones is in the first year of her PhD at the University of Dundee, supported by an SGSSS studentship. Her research is interdisciplinary and supervised by Andrew Allan in Law and Simon Cook in Geography, with additional supervisory support from criminologist Ashley Rogers at the University of Abertay.

Tanya is exploring the potential for restorative justice principles to be applied to climate injustice, specifically in relation to the adaptation needs of the majority world. The first part of her research, based in Law, will seek to build frameworks for potential global restorative climate justice processes. She hopes to be able to carry out fieldwork in the second stage, in the form of a case study of how such processes could address the acute adaptation needs of an Andean community affected by glacier shrinkage. Tanya’s interest in climate and justice issues has been informed by her experience as an environmental activist and as former deputy leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland. She came to Dundee in 2018 to study for the LLM in Environmental Law and is delighted to be back for her PhD research. Listen to Tanya talk about the ideas behind her ongoing PhD.

ESRC/SGSSS Studentship Award

Congratulations to Dr Carlo Morelli, UDBS on his recent award of an ESRC/SGSSS studentship for Ruth Bickerton with Dr Beverley Searle from Geography and Environmental Sciences, School of Social Sciences.

The research will focus on funeral poverty. Well done and we look forward to welcoming Ruth on board.

Newly Announced

Research and Innovation Services as part for their DIIF series have two panels scheduled next week.

Monday 25 May 11.30am - Transforming Michelin in Dundee

The Michelin site in Dundee is being transformed into a world-class innovation centre. What's the story of Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc, and how can University of Dundee get involved? RIS are delighted to welcome John Reid, CEO MSIP, for a presentation and Q&A.

Tuesday 26 May 2pm - Management KTP Opportunities and Q&A

Management KTPs aim to enable transformational improvement by identifying key, strategic management-based initiatives to increase business effectiveness. How? Via novel and innovative partnerships with the UK’s world class Business Schools. RIS are delighted to welcome Dr Alison Reith and Dr Lorna Howarth for presentation and Q & A

We are always happy to share and promote information from our research community so don't hesitate to contact ISSR if you think we can help. Send your content by 4pm on Thursdays or upload in the ISSR Comms channel.