Universal Impact

Universal Impact (UI) - subsidiary of The Conversation UK - engages with the ISRF Executive Team, ISRF Fellows and other award recipients to generate accessible, short-form content both for the ISRF website and for wider dissemination.

In addition to keeping abreast of ISRF-funded people and projects, UI-led activities include:

Producing Q&As with ISRF Fellows and other researchers working in similar areas.

24 min

'The Coming Anarchy'

Adam Smith

Alex Prichard and Ruth Kinna are rethinking the meaning and value of anarchy in the 21st century…

14 min

What the Betting Markets Tell Us about the Upcoming US and UK Elections

Adam Smith

Anthropologist and ISRF Fellow Anthony Pickles explains how political gambling is a useful tool for understanding elections.

Ghostwriting blogs for the Fellows about their research

6 min

How Portugal spied on Muslims in colonial Mozambique

Sandra Araújo

At the ISRF’s November Congress, Fellow Sandra Araújo revealed the remarkable hidden history behind her forthcoming book.

Writing blogs and features about ISRF-funded (and related) research projects

5 min

Trump’s tariffs are not the end of globalisation

Adam Smith

For historian Martin Thomas, trade tariffs and foreign aid cuts should be seen within the context of a wider story around decolonisation and the end of empire.

12 min

‘Egg of the serpent’

Adam Smith

Speaking at the October ISRF conference, the Polish auteur also blamed politicians for blocking the international collaboration needed to tackle the climate emergency.

4 min

Empire Was Racist and Had To End but Decolonisation Is Often a ‘Disappointment’

Adam Smith

In his ambitious new book, ISRF Fellow Martin Thomas provides a compelling account of how the decline of empire is inextricably linked to the rise of globalisation.

4 min

Gifts From the Arms Trade

Adam Smith

ISRF Fellow, Jill Gibbon, and photographer, Ricky Adam, are working on a photo book of gifts collected during a decade infiltrating the international arms trade.

6 min

Struggles for the Human

Matt Warren

ISRF Fellow Lara Montesinos Coleman’s new book draws on the experiences of grassroots organisations in Colombia to expose neoliberalism’s damaging privatisation of human rights.

11 min

Seven Photographs That Expose the Stark Reality of Immigration Detention

Matt Warren

Dr Greg Constantine has spent years photographing people in immigration detention. Here, he shares some of their stories.

Using related research to answer popular questions

5 min

How the last 50 years of economic policy can help explain Labour’s latest benefit cuts

Adam Smith

The UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement is consistent with longstanding trends in social security and employment policy, as explored in great detail in Jay Wiggan's recent book.

3 min

How to Apply for ISRF Funding to Turn Your PhD Thesis into a Book

Adam Smith

The ISRF’s First Book Grant Competition is open for applications from recent PhD graduates who want to produce a publishable work.

5 min

How to Unite Heterodox Thinkers From Around the World

Adam Smith

Season IV of the ISRF’s Book Launches highlighted many of the key themes linking its Fellows’ work.

4 min

How Honeybees Can Teach Us How to Live During the Climate Emergency

Adam Smith

By exploring the impact of climate change on the remote mountaintop village she calls home, Larisa Jašarević’s research finds surprising and revelatory connections between beekeeping and Islamic teachings.

8 min

What Newfoundland – and Messy Family Histories – Can Tell Us About the Harms of Colonialism

Matt Warren

ISRF Fellow Julia Laite’s family have been on Newfoundland since the 17th century. Her latest project explores ancestry, empire, exploitation – and Shanawdithit, the Beothuk woman who witnessed the death of her world under colonialism.

9 min

Why Politics Is Failing Disabled People – And What To Do About It

Matt Warren

An eye-opening new book exposes the barriers preventing fairer, more inclusive representation.

Writing profiles of individual ISRF Fellows and Research Groups

5 min

A Year in the Life of the ISRF

Adam Smith

From book launches and lecture series to its annual conference on climate change fatalism, the ISRF has had a busy year supporting independently minded research.

5 min

Mid-Career Fellowships Award Announcement

Adam Smith

The latest round of Mid-Career Fellowships will provide funding for six academics allowing them time away from teaching to focus on their research.

To further increase awareness of the Foundation and the research it supports, UI offers help to all eligible Fellows to pitch suitable articles to The Conversation and/or other media outlets.

5 min

While plastic dominates human consumption, the global economy will remain hooked on fossil fuels

Adam Hanieh

Despite growing awareness around the problems associated with plastic, there is a fundamental flaw in how we tend to think about it as a product.

5 min

Three Memorable Ways the COVID Pandemic Shaped Black Music – Five Years On

Joy White

Allowed outside for a mere one hour per day, for many of us, Black musical forms offered a way to pass the time. In a period of social isolation, it also connected us with each other.

5 min

How refugee entrepreneurs are supplying sustainable energy to the camps they live in

Sarah Rosenberg-Jansen

Refugees are providing energy within camps home to millions of displaced people around the world, establishing shops, phone charging stations, even cinemas.

Where appropriate, UI also help them to communicate their research findings to other potential beneficiaries in an accessible and appropriate way, such as policy briefs or fact sheets for policymakers, charities or NGOs.

Areas of interest

Universal Impact

Cohort

Universal Impact