The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic threatens the wellbeing of individuals, families, communities, cities, regions and nations.
It has created two crises: the medical and public health emergency, and the economic and social challenges that have already led to a precipitous decline into widespread recession and that potentially threaten longer-term deep depression and social disruption.
As well as immediate work to attenuate and then reverse the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), there are urgent demands to understand the implications of the sudden economic and social changes.
Policy Scotland will support the rapid mobilisation of knowledge in this unprecedented situation.
“Social scientists can’t sit on their hands and wait for the crises to bottom out. There are immediate imperatives to help policymakers understand and mitigate effects, both in the short and longer-term.
Policy Scotland will serve as a rapid conduit of contacts and networking to connect colleagues in Glasgow University and other institutions to local and national policymakers, to mobilise insights and evidence about what might work to deal effectively with the public health, economic and social crises we face.”
Professor Chris Chapman, Director of Policy Scotland
Over the forthcoming six months we’ll work with others to develop and share insights into the policy issues, not only in this emergency response phase, but also in longer term as the world adjusts to operating under continuing restrictions.
We’ll focus on these policy areas:
- Community Resilience and Addressing Disadvantage
- Economics and Finance
- Education, Children and Families
- Housing and Infrastructure
- Jobs, Labour Market and Innovation
Policy Scotland will work with a network of academics and practitioners to accumulate expert evidence and commentary, and get this to policymakers at local, Scottish, UK and international levels. We’ll also seek to share insights with the wider public through the Policy Scotland website and networks.
“Just now, the extraordinary is the new normal. Many people will be looking forward to getting back to their lives before the pandemic. But is that really possible? In the long term, Policy Scotland will support social scientists and practitioners to collaborate on investigating the multitudes of questions arising from coronavirus (COVID-19) and the responses to the pandemic.
“In the meantime, all our focus will be on the immediate analysis and delivering those urgently needed insights.”
Professor Chris Chapman, Director of Policy Scotland
If you’re interested in participating in this work, either from a researcher or practitioner perspective, please contact Sarah Weakley, Research and Impact Acceleration Officer: sarah.weakley@glasgow.ac.uk
Image credit: Boarded up shop in Sheffield Tim Dennell on Flickr | CC BY 2.0
