With the ever more pervasive emphasis today on results, benefits and profits, research and science are under increasing pressure to show an impact. Investments made out of the public purse are expected to pay back. Although funding for research has increased considerably, competition for that funding has increased even more. This is seen both within the field of science and in the interaction and exchange between science and other spheres of life. Whenever questions are asked about the allocation
Teenage boys have feelings, too, and when it comes to matters of the heart, they may not be so fleeting after all. Not far beneath the bravado often on display is an unsure adolescent who finds it hard to express emotions that, while new, are nonetheless often sincerely felt.
Boys are more vulnerable and emotionally engaged in romantic relationships than previously thought, according to the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study led by Drs. Peggy Giordano, Monica Longmore and We
A group of researchers at the University of Kent has been awarded £156,000 by the Government’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to investigate the range of identity choices potentially available to mixed-race young people in Britain.
Conducted by Peter Aspinall (Centre for Health Services Studies), Miri Song (School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research) and Ferhana Hashem (Centre for Health Services Studies), this two year study will be the largest and mos
Despite research efforts to find modern factors that would explain the different life expectancies of men and women, the gap is actually ancient and universal, according to University of Michigan researchers.
“Women live longer in almost every country, and the sex difference in lifespan has been recognized since at least the mid-18th century,” said Daniel J. Kruger, a research scientist in the U-M School of Public Health and the Institute for Social Research. “It isn’t a recent t
Research investigating attention in infancy has revealed that, at just four months old, babies are able to organise visual information in at least three different ways, according to brightness, shape, and how close the visual elements are together (proximity). These new findings mean that very young infants are much more capable of organising their visual world than psychologists had previously thought. The study also has implications for understanding certain developmental disorders such as Williams
For more than two hundred years, Christians, Jews and Muslims have lived and worked in close proximity in Spitalfields, east London. Dr Anne Kershen, of Queen Mary, University of London’s Department of Politics, will chair a panel discussion next week with representatives of the three religions to discuss notions of identity and cultural and religious difference in the community.
Dr Kershen will chair the discussion on interfaith and tolerance between Rev Dr Kenneth Leech, Priest, writer
New research by Dr John Aggergaard Larsen, Research Fellow at the European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey suggests that overseas-trained nurses working in the UK experience racist or xenophobic discrimination that often works through subtle ‘little things’ occurring in everyday interaction. The research, which is based on in-depth interviews across England and Wales, and was presented at the BSA Conference 2006 on 22 April 2006, reveals that this can have severe co
A new small business that helps public sector bodies and charities engage with disadvantaged young people is being given a cash boost by the University of Bradford (Thursday 27 April 2006).
The University’s graduate enterprise unit, Think Business@Bradford, will award £1,000 in cash and support to ‘Maximum Impact’ – a new company that aims to help charities and public sector bodies (such as social services, education, health and the probation service) communicate more effecti
Health professionals need to use more than tape measures and scales to define and tackle obesity, according to a paper in the British-based Journal of Advanced Nursing.
A research review carried out by Maryanne Davidson from Yale University has discovered that many women don’t make the link between high weight and poor health and that culture plays a big role in how positively they see themselves.
She reviewed key papers published over a 10-year period to see how health pr
Research news from the European Journal of Social Psychology
Recent studies investigating individuals’ perception of themselves as becoming better looking across time have found that we think we really do get more attractive each day. This research is revealed today in the European Journal of Social Psychology.
In an amusing and popular country and western song from 1980, Mac Davis commented how he couldn’t wait to look in the mirror, because he seemed to get better looki
Five proposals have been honoured in the subsidy programme ’Urbanisation and Urban Culture’. A total of 2.5 million euros has been awarded. From different perspectives all five projects are searching for an answer to the question: Which forces and phenomena are responsible for a town’s ongoing capacity for innovation and public services?
The programme ’Urbanisation & Urban Culture’ is divided into three thematic clusters: urban patterns of economic dynamics and so
Self-employed male Britons have been found to work longer hours for lower wages than those of their employee counterparts. This is attributed to them facing greater uncertainty and so working harder as a way to insure their future livelihoods. In addition, according to the research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, there was no evidence of growing female self-employment, or the anticipated greater labour flexibility resulting from self-employment during the 1990s.
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When asked, both consumers and advertisers agree that conspicuous white space around a word or image – epitomized by the design of Real Simple magazine – associate a product with refined taste and upscale qualities. However, in the first paper to trace the history of white space in advertising, researchers from University of Alberta and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana argue that the meaning of this design element comes not from its inherent features, but from relatively recent art h
We like to believe that all the thinking about development and all the assistance we give is helping the poorest people in the world. In a new dissertation, Bent Jörgensen, at Göteborg University in Sweden, maintains that assistance and economic growth in certain circumstances aggravates the situation for the poorest of the poor. The problem is primarily that the concept of development takes on another meaning.
Over the last two decades Vietnam has undergone strong economic development as
With World Health Day being celebrated today (7th April), significant opportunities to help bring lasting peace to countries previously torn by civil war – through re-building and improving their local health systems – are largely being missed by the world’s major aid donors, according to important new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Health is increasingly an international matter, with foreign policy and security implications. But issues are
The Grand National spurs over a third of the adult population of the United Kingdom into having a flutter making it the country’s single biggest gambling event. However, even with the recent boom in internet gambling, problems with gambling are often overlooked.
Problem gambling is the subject of a new research venture funded by Economic and Social Research Council in partnership with the Responsibility in Gambling Trust (RIGT). Funding worth around £920,000 over a three year peri
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