Call for Papers for the 33rd annual conference of the International Society for the Scientific of Subjectivity is now open. The conference will take place at 200SVS on 7th – 9th September 2017, hosted by Glasgow Caledonian University. On Wednesday 6th September 2017, we will host preconference workshop(s) at Glasgow Caledonian University.
For more information about the conference and to submit an abstract please visit the website.
Yunus Centre staff members Dr Michael Roy and Professor Rachel Baker have recently had a number of articles published, details below:
Journal Articles
The assets-based approach: furthering a neoliberal agenda or rediscovering the old public health? A critical examination of practitioner discourses http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09581596.2016.1249826
Conceptualising the public health role of actors operating outside of formal health systems: The case of social enterprise http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616306189
A novel international research project will use satellite tracking software and ‘walking interviews’ to map the benefits social enterprise has on disadvantaged communities.
Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is one of six universities collaborating on the £180,000 study funded by the Australian Research Council and led by Swinburne University in Melbourne.
The three-year study incorporates geographical information system (GIS) software to enable it to determine the community impact of social enterprises – businesses which trade for a social purpose.
Researchers will focus on the Australian cities of Bendigo, Victoria; Toowoomba, Queensland and Launceston, Tasmania, where more than a quarter of residents live in socio-economic disadvantage.
Walking interviews with people attending five social enterprises across the cities including a laundry and recycled computer enterprise will be tracked and documented, to identify significant locations.
The research team will also interview staff and volunteers at each social enterprise as well as key members of each community, from politicians and police to business representatives.
Professor Jane Farmer, Professor of Health & Social Innovation at Swinburne University, Australia, is leading the research group. She said: “This study is the first robust investigation in the world into how social enterprises realise wellbeing for disadvantaged individuals and build capacity in disadvantaged communities. Using GIS and walking interviews enable us to identifying where individual wellbeing and community capacity are being realised.”
Dr Michael Roy, Senior Lecturer at GCU’s Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health, is an expert in the health and well-being impacts of social enterprise and will contextualise the data, which will be developed into a ‘wellbeing’ navigation app.
“I’m excited to be involved in a project which looks beyond the impact of social enterprises on individuals into the wider community,” said Dr Roy, a former Senior Policy Executive at the Scottish Government. “We have a world-class health service and public health research in Glasgow, and yet profound health inequalities persist.
“Social enterprises play a valuable role in addressing specific vulnerabilities at an individual level. But we think too that such action can have wider benefits on improving the communities in which people work and live. This new study will help us to understand those processes better.”
Social enterprise is a key focus for GCU researchers, who are currently leading a pioneering five-year study co-funded by the Medical Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council evaluating the potential of Scottish social enterprises as a public health intervention.
Yunus Centre staff member Professor Rachel Baker has recently had a number of articles accepted for publication, details below:
Journal Articles
Benedict Rumbold, Rachel Baker, Octavio Ferraz, Sarah Hawkes, Carleigh Krubiner, Peter Littlejohns, Ole Frithjof Norheim, Thomas Pegram, Annette Rid, Sridhar Venkatapuram, Alex Voorhoeve, Daniel Wang, Albert Weale, James Wilson, Alicia Ely Yamin, JD, Paul Hunt, PhD, (2017) Universal Health Coverage, Priority Setting and the Human Right to Health. The Lancet (in press)
Christel Protiere, Rachel Baker ,Dominique Genre, Anthony Goncalves, Patrice Viens (2017) Marketing authorization procedures for advanced cancer drugs: exploring the views of patients, oncologists, healthcare decision makers and citizens in France Medical Decision Making (in press)
Sofie Wouters, Job van Exel, Rachel Baker, Werner Brower (2017) Priority to end of life treatments? Views of the public in the Netherlands Value in Health 20,1: 107–117
Research that Geoff Whittam and colleagues from UWS and Heriot Watt was debated last month in the Scottish Parliament.
“Mr Kidd welcomes the recent report by the Jimmy Reid Foundation entitled ‘Trident and its Successor Programme‘ by Mike Danson, Karen Gilmore and Geoff Whittam.
The SNP MSP says that it makes a strong case for non-renewal of Trident based on employment diversification and the moral, philosophical, economic and defence case.
He says UK Government plans to continue at HMNB Faslane and Coulport is a threat to the majority of Scotland’s population.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38880460
Dr Stephen Sinclair, Dr Michael J Roy and Dr Neil McHugh from Glasgow Caledonian University contributed to the fourth of the fortnightly articles on “SIB-financing NHS and public services”, the New Year debate on the roles Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) can play funding the NHS and public services.
SIBs are said to deliver better, more cost-effective public services by recruiting private investors who gain their returns by achieving pre-agreed outcomes. In January, UK Prime Minister Theresa May promised to fund improved mental health services through this mechanism.
The article from Dr Sinclair and colleagues, published on 1st March 2017, contends: “ SIBs don’t work for complex problems because they are unaccountable to service users.”
Previous contributions to the PIRU debate include:
The fifth contribution, on 16 March 2017, will come from Ben Jupp, a director at Social Finance and former Director of Public Services Strategy at the Cabinet Office.
If you miss any of the blogs, you can read them on PIRU’s website.
Those wishing to read, or comment on, the fortnightly contributions should email Alec Fraser at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: alec.fraser@lshtm.ac.uk
ISIRC 2017 Call for papers: Critical perspectives on social innovation for the 9th International Social Innovation Research Conference
12-14 December 2017 @ Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Call for Papers and Panels for the 9th International Social Innovation Research Conference is now open: http://www.isirconference.com/call-for-papers/
Dates: 12th – 14th December 2017
Location: Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Rachel Baker presented the findings of her MRC-funded research project Using Q methodology to investigate societal viewpoints and the relative value of life extension for patients with terminal illness at the LHEG seminar on Thursday 17th November. https://www.ohe.org/news/eliciting-relative-value-life-extension-end-life
Clementine’s work explored the experiences of women involved in Self Reliant Groups, an emerging phenomena in the UK, based on a model of economic and community development in India. Using an ethnographic approach she found that SRGs are important spaces in which women feel valued and confident. The key characteristics of the groups, productive activity and savings have given members a sense of purpose and control. This contrasts with the experiences of many of their day-to-day roles and interactions with the social security system. As single mothers and unpaid carers, their roles in society are not recognised by welfare to work policies that focus primarily on the duty of citizens to partake in paid work. In successive governments, political rhetoric has derided those who have chosen a so-called ‘lifestyle on benefits’ and pitted them against the hard workers of ‘alarm clock Britain’, whilst policy has placed high levels of conditionality and the threat of sanctions on those who do not, or cannot meet this ideal of a citizen-worker. Using citizenship theory as a conceptual and analytical lens SRGs’ activities can be understood as ways that women are enacting various forms of active citizenship. Developing a continuum of active citizenship Clementine’s work offers an important contribution to understanding the variety of ways in which people perceive and practice their citizenship, and the potential challenges they face.