Current Research
List viewEconomists from around the world are using real time data collection to better understand the impact the Covid-19 crisis is having on families, workers, firms and society, and how policies can help the recovery out of the crisis. Find out more about how these research teams are carrying out their projects, and what their findings are below.
How is the Covid-19 accidental experiment around working from home changing the way the UK will work after lockdown?
This research is designed to support economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, providing timely, actionable insight and recommendations about Working from Home (WfH), and the long-term implications of crisis-driven adaptations for organisational pr...
Primary Topic: Recession & recovery
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Jane Parry
Countries
RELIEF centre
The Future Education team of the RELIEF Centre have started a collaboration with the Lebanese University (LU) to develop a massive online open course (MOOC) focused on remote learning, framed within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic but also appli...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Secondary Topic: Science, technology & innovation
Lead investigator: Diana Laurillard
British election study
Wave 20 of the BES internet panel will ask questions on Covid-19 and its impact on political opinion including exposure (individual and family), evaluations/handling and impact on issue position and salience.
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Edward Fieldhouse
Countries
Trust and trustworthiness in national and global governance
An online national survey in the UK, US and Italy which includes questions 9 on Covid-19 and political trust. Focus groups exploring political trust in towns and cities relating to Covid-19.
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Will Jennings
ESRC mental health research network
The Covid-19 Social Study is a panel study of the psychological and social experiences of adults in the UK during the outbreak of the novel coronavirus run by University College London. Over 75,000 people are currently participating in the study, com...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Dr Daisy Fancourt
Countries
Covid -19; cancer attitudes and behaviour study
Background: the impact of Covid-19 on UK public attitudes towards cancer is likely to be considerable, translating in to impact on the NHS from delayed referrals, missed screening and later-stage cancer diagnosis. Aim: to generate rapid evidence base...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Kate Brain
Countries
Identity, inequality, and the media in Brexit-Covid-19-Britain
Covid-19 and Brexit are extraordinary social and political processes that are occurring simultaneously. These events are exposing the major inequalities that underpin British society across class, ethnic, national, migrant, generational and geographi...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Katharine Tyler
Countries
Covid-19: The local as a site of food security resilience in the times of pandemic: opportunities, challenges and ways forward.
The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly impacted on the UK’s food systems, and disruptions are likely to continue. There is emerging evidence that the local food sector (local food producers and their supply chains) can significantly contribute to ...
Primary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Anna Krzywoszynska
Countries
Covid-19: safety and personalisation for UK maternity care provision during and after a pandemic.
Annually, over 1,200,000 UK residents (pregnant women and neonates) need maternity care. All relevant authorities emphasise the critical importance of antenatal, intrapartum, postnatal and neonatal services, birth companionship, keeping mother/baby t...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Soo Downe
Countries
The effects of social distancing policies on children’s language development, sleep and executive functions.
The environments children grow up in heavily influence key elements of cognitive development such as language and executive functions, which in turn associate with later educational and occupational attainment as well as health and wellbeing (1–8)....
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez
Countries
Understanding Society Covid-19 study
Understanding Society has launched a new monthly survey to look at the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the UK population. This has been funded by ESRC though the study’s discretionary budget and a £200k award from the Health Foundation. The ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Michaela Benzeval
Countries
A duty of care and a duty to teach: educational priorities in response to the Covid-19 lockdown
This research explores the challenges the Covid-19 crisis sets primary schools, using surveys and telephone interviews to analyse how teachers weigh a duty of care (for their pupils’ well-being and welfare) and a duty to teach (given their responsi...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Gemma Moss
Countries
Food system impacts of Covid-19
This research will examine the extent of continuity and dislocation in the supply chain across dairy products, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, and fish. They will look at instances of radical changes in routes to markets and the barriers to change;...
Primary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: D. Michael Winter
Countries
Covid-19: supporting parents, adolescents and children during epidemics (Co-SPACE)
Covid-19 and the related public health measures have led to major disruptions to families’ lives, with different pressures arising for children, young people and their families over time. There is some indication from research during epidemics in o...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Polly Waite
Welfare at a (social) distance: accessing social security and employment support during the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath
The benefits system is crucial to supporting people during, and after, the Covid-19 crisis but is under extraordinary pressure from an unprecedented wave of new Universal Credit (UC) applications. The benefits system therefore faces two significant c...
Primary Topic: Public spending, taxes & debt
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Lisa Scullion
Countries
Building resilience during the pandemic: evidence from a cash transfer program in Bolivia
Exploiting the context of a large-scale, untargeted, non- contributory pension program in bolivia, we study the short-term effects of cash transfers on household resilience during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. We compare households that became ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Nicolas Bottan
Countries
The impact of lockdowns on socio-economic attitudes
We examine the immediate impact of the nationwide lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic on the socio-economic attitudes of our societies. Before and after the enforcement of lockdowns, we conducted large-scale surveys with 20,000 individuals in four...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Kerim Peren Arin
Habit formation from corona lockdown
To prevent the spread of Covid-19, many countries have implemented different degrees of lockdowns, which has profoundly changed the way people live their lives. In our study, we investigate how habits change during and after the Corona lockdowns. We ...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Nora Szech
Social response to early-stage government control measures of Covid-19 in Colombia: population survey, April 8-20 2020
On Monday, March 16, 2020, the government of Colombia announced actions to control Covid-19. These recommendations directly affected the entire population and included: reducing physical contact; reducing mobility and cancelling unnecessary travel; w...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Juan Carlos Rivillas-García
Countries
Moral suasion and the private provision of public goods: evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic
We study how moral suasion that appeals to two major ethical theories, Consequentialism and Deontology, affects individual intentions to contribute to a public good. We use the Covid-19 pandemic as an exemplary case where there is a large gap between...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Moritz A. Drupp
Countries
