UEA’s grant and funding success – October 2025

By: Communications

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Precarious mutualities: Agro-ecological relations, family livelihoods, and inequality at the margins of the 'Anthropocene'

UEA project lead: Dr Sam Wilby

Dr Sam Wilby has been awarded an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, worth £108,924. The fellowship began on 1 October 2025 and will run for one year.

His project – based on long-term fieldwork in the highlands of Odisha, India – is a comparative, ethnographic study of how two neighbouring communities negotiate rising inequality, rapid generational change, and the challenges of climate transformation.

The fellowship is based in the School of Global Development, where Sam is mentored by Professor Nitya Rao and Professor Ben Jones.

Missing young people: Pathways through and needs in education, social care, justice and health

UEA project leads: Dr Birgit Larsson, Prof Christine Cocker, Dr Jane Hernon

Dr Birgit Larsson (SWK) has been awarded Research Capability Funding from the Norfolk and Waveney ICB, in the total of £10,577.87.

The funds will support a post doctorate to carry out scoping work for a future NIHR RPSC children’s social care bid. The scoping study establishes a partnership between the School of Social Work and the Rees Centre at Oxford.

Work carried out will include:

1) a scoping review identifying research/knowledge gaps; 2) community engagement, consisting of workshops with parents/carers of children who have gone missing; 3) relationship building with national/regional professional stakeholders; and 4) exploring data access involving linked data on children who go missing on a regional and national level.

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