Until now, the textile heritage of minorities has often been the object of abusive cultural appropriation practices undertaken by fashion brands or has been systematically obscured or undervalued as 'non-fashion' produced by 'the other'. With the mass displacement of people on the rise (due to global and local political, economic, and environmental issues), it is clear that we need to rethink and address the needs and aspirations of migrant minority communities and find ways to honour their diverse cultures. Furthermore, to avoid the current situation where designers are 'parachuted' into marginalised or disadvantaged communities with the assumption that bringing their knowledge and expertise is the answer, there is a need to 'decolonise' such dominant approaches, liberating design from its legacies of colonial thought, whilst leveraging the values of diversity, inclusivity and sustainability. This research aims to provide an in-depth understanding of decolonised fashion and textile design practices through the lens of cultural sustainability. Besides the three commonly recognised pillars of sustainability (i.e. environmental, economic, and social), this research argues for a need to consider also a cultural dimension, meaning diverse cultural systems, values, behaviours, and norms. Adopting a holistic approach, this research will focus on textile and fashion artisanal practice carried out by communities of 'diverse locals', meaning refugees who, despite their traumatic journeys, retain their culture, customs and faiths, as well as a variety of invaluable craft heritage skills. This research intends to fill a gap in knowledge through its focus on what refugee communities can teach us, in terms of cultural sustainability, community resilience, and social entrepreneurship. Adopting an embedded and situated approach to designing, participatory action research will be undertaken with communities of refugees living in East London. The research participants will be selected from a variety of cultural backgrounds in light of their past experience working in the textile and fashion industry in their home countries, to leverage their untapped skills and knowledge and facilitate their potential integration in the local economy and society. Oral histories will be collected in relation to the communities' material culture, in order to make sense of their cultural heritage, conduct co-creation workshops aimed at developing social entrepreneurship models to enhance the resilience of the refugees, and outline policy recommendations for sustainable regeneration. It is expected that the research will contribute to raising project participants, design practitioners and researchers' awareness of issues of cultural sustainability, promoting decolonised fashion practice, and recognising diverse forms of entrepreneurship that go beyond traditional standards from the Global North. The research will also benefit the participating communities through amplifying their voice and agency, enhancing their fashion and textile making skills as well as entrepreneurial capabilities, and informing the development of sustainable regeneration policies. Moreover, a collection of fashion and textile artefacts embedding the cultural heritage of the participating communities will be co-created and sold in order to raise funding to support on-going community-led fashion-related entrepreneurial activities. Finally, although the field work will be undertaken with communities in east London, findings from the research will inform the development of a framework for designing for cultural sustainability, social entrepreneurship and sustainable regeneration that is apt to have broader applicability and replicability across the UK.

As people spend up to 90% of their time indoor; exposure to poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) may negatively affect their health. Moreover, the COVID19 pandemic has revealed the profound social vulnerability of certain groups in society, particularly those struggling with poor health conditions. Additionally, the external air temperatures in the UK are expected to rise by over 5°C by 2070, as a result of climate change, with the frequency and intensity of heat waves also expected to increase. Rising external temperatures increase significantly the risk of overheating, cooling load, energy consumption in buildings and associated carbon emissions, with the problem being particularly affecting health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations including children and older occupants of buildings. There is therefore an urgent need to address this multi-faceted knowledge gap by developing effective interventions that improve health and living conditions in homes occupied by vulnerable populations. The project aims to fill a knowledge gap in evaluating and improving indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort in council homes. The purpose is to ultimately develop technical-behavioural interventions that improves people's health, indoor environmental conditions, and reduces energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. We anticipate the project will have a positive impact on housing design policies, as well as increase public awareness on the necessity for behaviour change to achieve net zero carbon targets, whilst improving occupants' health and wellbeing.

The proposed research will examine the performance of rap in English social and penal institutions. The origins of rap can be traced back from the first commercial recordings of hip-hop in the 1970s, through slavery, to precolonial Africa. The performed character of rap is of significance to understanding the origins of poetry and the role of oral-poetic forms in maintaining the structure of preliterate societies. Rap is now the most popular poetic form in the world. With artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Roll Deep, Wretch 32, Tinie Tempah, Chipmunk and the So Solid Crew reaching the top of the UK charts, rap music has also entered into the mainstream of British life. UK hip-hop and grime are also politically significant subcultures, through which working-class youths use rap to represent their conditions of urban dwelling. However, there is little scholarship on rap in the United Kingdom. The development of hip-hop over the last 35 years into a mainstream pop music genre and the production of grime as a distinctively British vernacular culture, highlight the importance of examining how the identities of British youths are shaped through rap. As a generation of Britons have grown up with rap as an ordinary part of their everyday lives, the proposed research will examine urgent questions regarding the impact that rap culture has on the identities of English youths and how state funded organisations influence the articulation of alternative English identities through rap in the wider hip-hop and grime scenes. Through this focus on the performance of rap in these institutions the project will examine the rhetorical and performative techniques used by rap artists to solicit identity from their audience members; to analyse how audience members produce identification in response to rap performances; to investigate the circulation of rap culture within and between different state funded institutions; and the impact of this cultural form on the communities from which young rap artists emerge. Studies of rap songs have predominantly employed textual analysis in a manner that obscures the significance of performance in this oral culture. Attempts to develop a hip-hop poetics and highlight rap's literary qualities are significant contributions to making rap amenable to incorporation within English studies. However, the textual analysis of rap lyrics fails to account for the mutually constitutive relations between the formal qualities of rap as a performed oral-poetic genre and the social forms produced within rap subcultures. By attending to the interaction between performers, audience members, and the performance context, the research will provide a fuller account of the social, cultural and aesthetic significance of rap. The project will investigate the impact that rap performances have on the identities of children and young adults and analyse how the rhetorical and performative techniques employed by rappers produce identities and identification between and within communities. Through a critical engagement with rap performances in one youth centre, a community centre, a young offenders institution and a prison, the team of researchers, with expertise in literary studies, cultural sociology, performance studies and prisons research, will investigate the impact that rap has on these organisations and analyse how rappers' performances, in institutions funded by national and local governments, produce alternative British identities. The research will address the following questions: What are the relations between between the rapper, dj, audience members and performance context in rap performances? How are alternative British identities produced through rap performances in state funded institutions? How does rap contribute to the culture and ethos within youth clubs, community centres, young offenders institutions and prisons in England? How are prison rap cultures interconnected with those in mainstream society?

The proposed research will examine the performance of rap in English social and penal institutions. The origins of rap can be traced back from the first commercial recordings of hip-hop in the 1970s, through slavery, to precolonial Africa. The performed character of rap is of significance to understanding the origins of poetry and the role of oral-poetic forms in maintaining the structure of preliterate societies. Rap is now the most popular poetic form in the world. With artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Roll Deep, Wretch 32, Tinie Tempah, Chipmunk and the So Solid Crew reaching the top of the UK charts, rap music has also entered into the mainstream of British life. UK hip-hop and grime are also politically significant subcultures, through which working-class youths use rap to represent their conditions of urban dwelling. However, there is little scholarship on rap in the United Kingdom. The development of hip-hop over the last 35 years into a mainstream pop music genre and the production of grime as a distinctively British vernacular culture, highlight the importance of examining how the identities of British youths are shaped through rap. As a generation of Britons have grown up with rap as an ordinary part of their everyday lives, the proposed research will examine urgent questions regarding the impact that rap culture has on the identities of English youths and how state funded organisations influence the articulation of alternative English identities through rap in the wider hip-hop and grime scenes. Through this focus on the performance of rap in these institutions the project will examine the rhetorical and performative techniques used by rap artists to solicit identity from their audience members; to analyse how audience members produce identification in response to rap performances; to investigate the circulation of rap culture within and between different state funded institutions; and the impact of this cultural form on the communities from which young rap artists emerge. Studies of rap songs have predominantly employed textual analysis in a manner that obscures the significance of performance in this oral culture. Attempts to develop a hip-hop poetics and highlight rap's literary qualities are significant contributions to making rap amenable to incorporation within English studies. However, the textual analysis of rap lyrics fails to account for the mutually constitutive relations between the formal qualities of rap as a performed oral-poetic genre and the social forms produced within rap subcultures. By attending to the interaction between performers, audience members, and the performance context, the research will provide a fuller account of the social, cultural and aesthetic significance of rap. The project will investigate the impact that rap performances have on the identities of children and young adults and analyse how the rhetorical and performative techniques employed by rappers produce identities and identification between and within communities. Through a critical engagement with rap performances in one youth centre, a community centre, a young offenders institution and a prison, the team of researchers, with expertise in literary studies, cultural sociology, performance studies and prisons research, will investigate the impact that rap has on these organisations and analyse how rappers' performances, in institutions funded by national and local governments, produce alternative British identities. The research will address the following questions: What are the relations between between the rapper, dj, audience members and performance context in rap performances? How are alternative British identities produced through rap performances in state funded institutions? How does rap contribute to the culture and ethos within youth clubs, community centres, young offenders institutions and prisons in England? How are prison rap cultures interconnected with those in mainstream society?

Caring for ageing or sick friends or relatives is an increasing demand on the resources of those in middle and older age, particularly as life expectancy increases but years of healthy life does not. 48% of 55 year olds have reported having a caring responsibility for an older relative and 21% of women and 14% of men spend more than 10 hours a week caring for relatives other than their children. This project will seek to better understand who cares, and the potential impact of caring on the health and wellbeing of carers. This project aims to investigate, firstly, how roles and activities across adult life, such as partnership, parenthood and work histories, might lead to having a caring responsibility in mid-life. Secondly, it will explore how members of households share responsibility for caring and working. Finally, the project will assess the consequences of caregiving for health and well-being of carers. All aspects of the project will also investigate whether relationships differ for men and women, and for more and less advantaged people. To address the objectives of the project we will use data from two ESRC-funded sources: the National Child Development Study (NCDS), which is a cohort of people who were born in Great Britain in 1958, more than 9100 of whom have been followed up to age 55 years; and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which has interviewed the same people, living in about 40,000 households across the UK, every year since 2009. We will use novel and complex statistical techniques to make the most of the data available and to address the aims of our project. The project will have a number of outputs, with which we aim to reach our five key audiences: local and national government, the charitable sector, our academic peers, our user community of carers, and the general public. We will produce four peer reviewed journal articles, give conference presentations, and present our work at seminars and lectures for all audiences. We will prepare briefing notes summarising our findings for non-academic audiences, press release our findings and write posts for relevant online publications. The project has two non-academic partners who have been involved in the development of our plans, will continue their involvement throughout the duration of the project, and will help to ensure that the research undertaken and findings produced are most useful to their user audiences. The partners are Sam Schwab, who is the Commissioning Team Manager for Adult Social Care at the London Borough of Newham, where he is seconded from Department of Health, and Sue Arthur, who is a Policy and Research Manager at Independent Age, a charity which specialises in offering advice to older people and their carers on issues such as accessing benefits and care. We also plan to collaborate with Carers UK, a membership organisation for carers with which we have been in conversation. One of the major objectives of the project is to provide opportunities to strengthen the skills of the research team, and in particular those of our early career researcher Rebecca Lacey. This project will help her to develop her skills in methods of analysis of longitudinal data, including using a new dataset. It will also provide her with her first opportunity to be co-investigator on a grant, a key step in developing an academic career, and will extend her experience of disseminating findings to both academic and policy audiences.