Ideas at Work: Exploring the people and places shaped by humanities research
Whether tackling everyday inequalities, disaster recovery or social change, meaningful solutions emerge when research is shaped by the people most affected by these challenges.
Ideas at Work showcases how humanities research is creating real-world change through collaboration. The campaign highlights projects where researchers work alongside communities, recognising lived experience as a vital source of knowledge and insight. Together, they are developing more inclusive research that can deliver lasting impact.
The featured projects address issues that affect us all:
Dr Nimesh Dhungana: Putting communities at the heart of disaster recovery
Working alongside communities affected by earthquakes, floods and COVID-19 in Nepal, Dr Nimesh Dhungana co-developed a just recovery framework for more inclusive disaster recovery. The research has helped amplify community voices in policy discussions and informed advocacy and accountability initiatives across multiple countries.
Dr Wren Radford: Bringing creative reflection to everyday inequalities
Working with Poverty Truth, Dr Wren Radford used creative methods including poetry, reflection and workshops to explore lived experiences of everyday inequality. The project placed community voices at the centre of the research. Creating new insights into social change through the co-produced journal Filled to the Brim.
Dr Sophie Everest and Dr Andy Hardman: Understanding participation through filmmaking
Researchers worked with volunteers involved in a community gardening project at Platt Hall in Fallowfield to explore how people experience and participate in cultural spaces. Through co-produced films, the project used filmmaking as both a research method and evaluation tool, capturing how cultural participation shapes people's relationships with place and belonging.
While each project focuses on different challenges, disciplines and locations, they share a common principle that knowledge cannot be created in isolation. Humanities researchers work with communities as co-partners in the research process, creating opportunities for people to shape the questions being explored and contribute to the knowledge being produced.聽
This collaborative approach requires researchers to adapt and respond to the experiences, priorities and perspectives of the communities they work with. By doing so, research becomes more grounded in lived experience and better placed to drive meaningful change.聽
At its heart, the campaign explores how research creates impact in society. Through a focus on people and lived experience, humanities research helps ensure that knowledge serves a public purpose. Informing policy, shaping practice and strengthening communities.聽
These projects epitomise the importance of the range and breadth of work our researchers are developing and carrying out with partners outside of academia. It also highlights the ongoing achievements of some of our early career researchers and the ways they are challenging more traditional approaches to knowledge production, both inside and outside of the university.
Over the coming weeks, Ideas at Work will showcase stories from across the faculty that demonstrate the difference humanities research is making locally, nationally and internationally. Follow the campaign to discover how researchers and communities are working together to address some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.