Prof Michael Roy offered Fellowship at Princeton

A Professor from GCU has been offered a prestigious Fellowship from a research institute based at Princeton University.

Professor Michael Roy, who holds a joint appointment at the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health and Glasgow School for Business and Society, will spend a semester at The Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI), in New Jersey, from January 2020.

CTI’s model, based on the world-famous Institute for Advanced Study, brings together academics from around the world to provoke dialogue between the humanities and social sciences on issues of global concern.

During his time in the US, Professor Roy plans to build upon his previous work, and that of colleagues, on the role that social enterprises play in tackling poverty and inequality.

Professor Roy will work on his research project entitled Economic Organising for the Common Good? Karl Polanyi, Catholic Social Thought and the Grand Challenge of Economic Inequality, at CTI.

He said: “I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded this Fellowship.

“The process was really involved and competitive. The proposal I submitted is designed to draw upon the theoretical and philosophical thinking for which scholarship at CTI is globally renowned.

“I’m keen to use this amazing opportunity to use this to advance understanding of practical, community-oriented responses to economic inequality, and of the policy frameworks that need to be in place to effectively support such activities.”

Professor Cam Donaldson, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Vice-Principal (Research), said: “The award of this Fellowship from an Ivy League university is a great honour and represents the stature now attributed to Michael’s work, as well as recognising the international reputation of our Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health.

“Michael’s work on the social economy is a model of the research contribution of Glasgow School for Business and Society to our Common Good mission. Working with colleagues at Princeton will also further establish Glasgow Caledonian’s base in the US HEI landscape.”

Last year, Professor Roy won the coveted Helen Potter Award from the Association for Social Economics, also based in the United States, for his social enterprise research.

The annual prize recognises outstanding work that challenges mainstream economic thinking. It is presented to the author of the best article in the academic journal Review of Social Economy.

CommonHealth Research on Impact of Rural Social Enterprises on Social Isolation and Loneliness

Dr Danielle Kelly has had an article published in the Journal of Rural Studies titled ‘Filling a void? The role of social enterprise in addressing social isolation and loneliness in rural communities’.  To view the article, please click on the link below:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016718315122?via%3Dihub

The Cost of Health

How do you put a price on health? That is a question Professor Helen Mason will attempt to answer during her inaugural professorial lecture.

A Professor of Health Economics at the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health, Helen works primarily in the area of economic evaluation, focusing on the development and application of practices to measure the benefits of healthcare. She gathers the views and values of both patients and the public on healthcare resource allocation.

She said: “In all healthcare systems, decisions have to be made about how to best allocate scarce resources, including funding, staff and equipment, to improve health.

“Decisions about the allocation of these resources should be informed by the value for money that they provide, but how do we know the value of health?”

This lecture will appeal to anyone with an interest in healthcare provision, including members of the public, clinicians and those working in healthcare decision making.

Register for the event on Tuesday, 12th February at 5.30pm, Glasgow Caledonian University.

Find out more about Professor Mason’s inaugural professorial lecture

Find out more about Professor Mason

 

New publications by staff and students

Below is a list of publications that staff and students at the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health has published within the last few months:

Estimating excess length of stay due to healthcare-associated infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis of statistical methodology
S. Manoukian, S. Stewart, S. Dancer, N. Graves, H. Mason, A. McFarland, C. Robertson, J. Reilly, 2018. Estimating excess length of stay due to healthcare-associated infections: a systematic review and meta-analysis of statistical methodology, Journal of Hospital Infection, 100(2), pp 222-235.

Who knows best? A Q methodology study to explore perspectives of professional stakeholders and community participants on health in low-income communities
N. McHugh, R. Baker, O. Biosca, F. Ibrahim, C. Donaldson, 2019. Who knows best? A Q methodology study to explore perspectives of professional stakeholders and community participants on health in low-income communities, BMC Health Services Research, 19:35.

Do community empowerment and enabling state policies work in practice? Insights from a community development intervention in rural Scotland
Markantoni, M., Steiner, A., Meador, E. and Farmer, J. (2018) Do community empowerment and enabling state policies work in practice? Insights from a community development intervention in rural Scotland. Geoforum, 97, 142-154.

Can community interventions change resilience? Fostering perceptions of individual and community resilience in rural places
Markantoni, M., Steiner, A. and Meador, E. (2019) Can community interventions change resilience? Fostering perceptions of individual and community resilience in rural places. Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society (in press).

Researchers celebrate landmark social enterprise research

Researchers have marked the completion of one of the largest ever research programmes on social enterprise with a celebration event at Glasgow Caledonian University.

CommonHealth was a collaborative five-year study, led by GCU, aimed at addressing health inequalities and establishing new ways to help vulnerable communities across Scotland.

The programme, funded by the Medical Research Council and the Economic & Social Research Council, was made up of eight research projects delivered in partnership with over 30 social enterprises across Scotland and academics from Stirling, Glasgow, Highlands and Islands and Robert Gordon Universities. Glasgow Centre for Population Health was also a research partner and the programme received endorsement from Social Enterprise Scotland the ScotSEN (Scottish Social Enterprise Networks).

Subjects included the history of social enterprise in Scotland since the 1970s, how social enterprises operate at a local level, and the health and wellbeing effects of rural social enterprise activity in the Highlands and Islands.

Academics also looked at how skills development and training helps build confidence in hard-to-reach groups, what impact social enterprise had on participants aged 50 and over, how information and data can be used to improve service levels, and how social enterprises operating in the housing sector can have a significant positive impact on tenants.

The outcomes stressed the need for organisations to balance their successful relationships with local and national government with community links, and for there to be a better understanding of the impact of small, but transformative actions.

This week GCU hosted an exhibition of project findings and a presentation from Professor Cam Donaldson, the programme’s principal investigator, to celebrate the end of the project.

Social enterprise and public health experts including Leona McDermid, Chief Executive of Aberdeen Foyer, Aidan Pia, CEO of ScotSEN, and Carol Tannahill, Chief Social Policy Advisor to the Scottish Government, also delivered speeches.

Professor Donaldson, GCU’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Research and Enterprise, said: “We have pulled off one the largest ever research programmes on social enterprise and managed to conceptualise and evidence a new idea for public policy; that any social enterprise, even without mentioning health in its mission, can be portrayed as acting on social determinants of health.

“This is because the various contexts in which social enterprises operate almost always involve addressing some aspect of social vulnerability that will likely be associated with health.

“As well as completing and publishing the results of our projects, CommonHealth has produced a cadre of talented researchers across Scotland, which is much needed for this important area of social and economic activity in which Scotland leads the way. ”

Figures show there are now more than 5000 social enterprises operating in Scotland, with 64 per cent being led by women.

GCU is to host a national archive capturing Scotland’s social enterprise story after securing £90,000 of government funding.

Scotland’s Social Enterprise Collection will be open to all members of the public and will chronicle the history of the thriving sector. Alongside it, the papers and other outputs from CommonHealth will be archived, so making the work of the research permanently available to public audiences.

For more information on the project, please visit http://www.commonhealth.uk/

Digital Storytelling Kit, Ashoka Collaboration Fund

Julie Adair, part of the Yunus Centre, has been awarded to lead the work on creating a Digital Storytelling Toolkit as part of the Ashoka Changemaker Collaboration Fund. From the Collaboration Fund documentation:

Storytelling and listening are superb means of promoting empathy and resilience, and shared understanding between individuals and communities. Our collaborative immersion will bring together leaders from three Changemaker Campuses (Georgian College in Canada, Northeastern University in the United States and Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland) to explore and transfer knowledge through digital storytelling as a social innovation. This project will address areas such as diversity, equity and inclusion, faculty/research engagement, community engagement/partnerships and extra-curricular student programming. As storytelling is a means of engaging community, breaking down barriers, encouraging empathy and demonstrating resilience, the intention of this project is to help institutions incorporate digital storytelling practices into their campus culture and curricula. The goal of this collaboration will be to deliver a replicable and adaptable toolkit for Change Leaders to put into practice on their own campuses, to facilitate digital storytelling methodology amongst faculty, students and community partners.

Creating a replicable digital storytelling toolkit

Julie Adair, Director of Digital Collaboration at Glasgow Caledonian has been successful in a bid for funding to AshokaU.  The project is ‘Creating a replicable digital storytelling toolkit’ and is a collaboration with Dan Jackson, Northeastern University and Tracy Mitchell-Ashley, Georgian College.

Project Summary
Storytelling and listening are superb means of promoting empathy and resilience, and shared understanding between individuals and communities. Our collaborative immersion will bring together leaders from three Changemaker Campuses (Georgian College in Canada, Northeastern University in the United States and Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland) to explore and transfer knowledge through digital storytelling as a social innovation. This project will address areas such as diversity, equity and inclusion, faculty/research engagement, community engagement/partnerships and extra-curricular student programming. As storytelling is a means of engaging community, breaking down barriers, encouraging empathy and demonstrating resilience, the intention of this project is to help institutions incorporate digital storytelling practices into their campus culture and curricula. The goal of this collaboration will be to deliver a replicable and adaptable toolkit for Change Leaders to put into practice on their own campuses, to facilitate digital storytelling

For further details about the project, please contact Julie.Adair@gcu.ac.uk

Social Innovation as a Tool for Inclusion

Professor Simone Baglioni spoke about social innovation in public policies at a European event last week in Bordeaux, France. The workshop entitled “Social Innovation As a Tool for Inclusion” was organized by Eurodir, a transnational network of academics and social workers interested in innovations in social and public services in the health and care sectors. Professor Baglioni delivered a key-note discussing the diffusion of social innovation as a policy idea at the EU level and its implications for national and local policy making.

This week, Simone is speaking again in France, at an international conference in Brest entitled ‘Participation in social and health policies: which autonomy for social actors?’ where he’s addressing the issue of civil society role in policy making in a cross-country perspective.