Metropolitan areas in the UK have experienced unprecedented demographic changes in the past twenty years. Some places such as Birmingham can be described as 'superdiverse', meaning that their populations have become so diverse that no one group is a clear majority. Religious differences have been seen to produce conflict in these cities, with differences in religious belief and practice being a barrier for communities working together. Although there has been a great deal of research looking at the language use that occurs between people in these communities, no one has specifically examined how religious identity influences how people talk and communicate within these contexts. Because what people believe is a core part of their identity, understanding its specific role in language use in superdiverse contexts is important to helping people from different religious backgrounds work together in their communities. This project, therefore, looks at relationships that exist between language use and religious identity in superdiverse environments. The project will investigate not only what people say about their experiences of religious diversity, but how they interact with each other. The project will be carried out in the superdiverse city of Birmingham and will build on existing collaborative partnerships between the fellow (Dr Pihlaja) and Citizens UK, an alliance of civil society associations. As a member of Citizens UK, Dr Pihlaja will work with associations where religious belief and practice play a significant role in the associations' motivations or among the membership. He will gather primary data through participation in the activities of partner associations and listening to community members' and leaders' experiences in interviews and focus groups. This will produce a novel, rich dataset that represents the language used to describe the diverse lived experiences of people in the city. After gathering the data, he will work with members in these associations to co-produce a resource to help people talk productively about their faith. The findings will provide evidence for community organisers and leaders, teachers, and civil authorities to set priorities based on real data, rather than anecdotal evidence, and provide guidance on how effectively and inclusively talking about religious identity might empower people to understand their own faith and values as a way to connect and organise with those around them. The findings from the research will inform academic publications and presentations, a monograph, and a digital and print resource aimed at religious civil society associations. Through these academic and practical outputs, the Fellowship and proposed leadership development activities will be a vehicle for advancing Dr Pihlaja's leadership in the academic field of language and religion, within Newman University, and within the larger community.

The present project is for a team to spend four months to develop ideas and practical arrangements for a large study of 'social exclusion' and the role of stories in people's lives. The paragraph below describes the project we will be developing. Social exclusion occurs when people fail to take up educational opportunities and employment, and find themselves instead living lives in which anti-social behaviour, crime, and poor health can come to play too large a role. This is a challenge for the communities where social exclusion has come to dominate the social and cultural fabric of life, but it is also a great challenge for society as a whole. "Whose Story?" is a project that aims to make a difference to society's understanding of social exclusion, by placing storytelling and narrative at the centre of its research methods. Our title captures the idea, first, that people living in the grip of social exclusion can feel voiceless and bereft of an identity; and, second, the idea that social exclusion and inclusion can define the same peoples and communities at different times. Our project is alert to communities as places and ways of belonging that have complicated histories. Our emphasis on stories and narratives also works with an important truth: that to tell a story is to share something, and reflect one's self in a network of social and cultural relationships. Storytelling is a form of action that can begin to challenge social exclusion. The data collected from storytelling can tell us a great deal about the terms in which exclusion is felt and understood; it also provides the means of changing behaviours and horizons of expectation. Our project has assembled a team of researchers from diverse geographical locations in the UK, enabling us to construct a representative range of perspectives on exclusion and inclusion in community life; while also, and crucially, providing us with the basis for using action research to connect communities in innovative and beneficial ways. Our team of researchers also comes from diverse academic-disciplinary and practice-led backgrounds: from expertise in medical humanities, the history of psychiatry, community arts organisation, management studies and cultural entrepreneurship; to the more traditional academic disciplines of philosophy, literary criticism and theory, and cultural history. This rich mix of expertise will enable us to develop an innovative range of methods for intervening to improve community connectedness. Our methods will range from quasi-experimental design (a technique widely used in psychological and social scientific experimentation), to critical theories of narrative analysis pioneered by philosophers, theorists and cultural historians such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Paul Ricoeur and Patrick Joyce. They will be brought together to produce critically innovative interdisciplinary methods of working. Our commitment to using narrative to make a difference and achieve positive social impact is grounded in our commitment to storytelling in cognitive behavioural therapies, where the emphasis is on understanding behaviour with a view to changing it, positively. Our ways of working will be grounded in action research, and we will begin by fully involving our third sector partners and community representatives in the discussion and design of our methods, interventions, and strategies for data collection and analysis.

Socio-political frames (perspectives and values embodied in wider society) are an important concept in social research for understanding how social change happens, yet this knowledge is underdeveloped in design theory. This is a relevant area of study because design has shifted from a focus on tangible products and services to intangible and complex social issues, leading to many new sub-disciplines - such as systemic, social and transition design - concerned with shaping sustainable futures. However, knowledge that can support designers in understanding and managing the political/ideological aspects of change in these contexts is lacking, due to limited integration of theories of social change within design research. In this study, we understand social change as a process of interaction between actors in a given field, through negotiation, conflict and contestation from different frame positions. A field is an arena of cultural production where power struggles between actors are played out. Dominant or 'institutionalised' frame positions embodied by the most powerful are challenged by 'counter-frames'- values, beliefs and practices that emerge as societies evolve - constructed to gain power and influence to affect change. Frame positions that perceive and approach issues differently co-exist within the sustainability field, based on different institutional agendas and practices. Limited awareness of what a given frame constitutes may lead to superficial progress on sustainability issues (e.g. technical fixes), meaning designers may reinforce institutionalised frames that have limited capacity for mobilising social change. Knowledge of the relationship between sociopolitical frame positions and strategic action is limited in design theory and as such, understanding of the potential role of design in social change processes is underdeveloped. The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between socio-political framing and strategic action in the field of sustainability, to develop a novel design approach to support design for social change theory and practice. The following research questions will be addressed: RQ1. What frame positions can be identified within the sustainability field discourse? RQ2. In which ways can design practice understand and manage conflict, contestation and negotiation between frames within the field? RQ3. How can integration of socio-political framing and design theories inform design practice for social change? The research focuses on UK-based grassroots community/citizen groups whose initiatives are described as 'new economics' and are relevant to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The study will collaborate and partner with key actors using participatory methods to develop a novel design approach (framework and tools) to facilitate strategic decision-making in these organisations. The design approach will be developed in three stages: Past-Field Mappings, conceptualising a framework informed by field theory and frame creation; Here and Now-Field Interventions, developing and piloting design research tools at three field sites; Future-Field Provocations, validating the approach with design practitioners. This project will develop knowledge of: 1) the role of design practices in tackling complex social issues through empirical design interventions in social change processes; 2) new practical approaches to design research for social change informed by socio-political frame theory; 3) new critical perspectives on social change processes as the object of design. The research outcomes will primarily impact the design academic and practitioners' communities by developing a new strategic design approach to enable designers to engage with social actors on complex issues. By using strategic design to foster community/citizen solutions to social issues, the outcomes will also directly benefit grassroots organisations, corporates and policymakers and indirectly civil society.

This project will address one of the most important issues facing society: the increase in underemployed, vulnerable workers resulting from industrial changes, the 2008 recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. How we work is changing, with potential to deliver greater efficiency and wellbeing, but also greater precarity and inequality (Beck et al, 2020; Schwab, 2016). Short- and longer-term effects of labour market ruptures have seen underemployment spiral upwards (ILO, 2020) as employers seek to protect profits and/or business. At the same time, staff and skills shortages in the wake of Brexit; the precarious nature of work in some sectors; and the effects of furloughing provide further risk and insecurity for workers but also potential for changes in employment and working conditions. The coexistence of underemployment and staff shortages makes this investigation relevant to policy makers and practitioners. We aim to understand impacts of labour market changes on underemployment, the ways that social inequalities affect vulnerability to underemployment and the effect of the latter on inequalities, and, utilising robust results in discussions with policy makers and practitioners, identify how this can be mitigated. In the process, the reoccurring policy mantra that employment is the best way out of poverty and that any job is better than no job is challenged. Developing good quality employment in hours, skill use, and wages (HSW) is crucial because 1 in 7 food bank users are (mainly part time) employed, with problems deepening during the pandemic (Trussell Trust, 2019, 2021). Headline government figures extol record numbers in employment but disguise the complexity of the contemporary labour market. Before the pandemic, nearly a million (2.7%) UK workers were in involuntary part-time jobs, with 5.2% preferring more hours (Bell and Blanchflower, 2013, 2019). At the height of the pandemic, almost a third of men working part-time in the UK said that they were doing so because they could not find a full-time job (Torres et al. 2021). Between 30 and 51% of employees were overqualified and 37% overskilled for their current job (CIPD, 2018). In-work poverty affected 13% of the workforce, with 18% of low-paid workers wanting more hours (JRF, 2019). Low paid workers were hit hardest by the fallout of the pandemic, facing increasing risks of precarious work, rising living costs and financial hardship (Warren et al, 2021). Employment no longer equals full-time, sufficient, secure or good work. The spread and potential upsurge of underemployment raises concerns about limited theoretical and empirical understandings of this concept. Supply-side economic and psychological perspectives (Dooley, 2003; Mousteri et al, 2020) dominate debates and emphasise individual choices and preferences. Our proposed research innovatively shifts understanding towards a sociological perspective focused on lived experiences of underemployment. This shift is important because access to decent, paid employment is not evenly distributed. For example, women (Kamerade and Richardson, 2018; Bond et al, 2009; McQuaid et al., 2010), younger/older workers (Beck, 2015; Beck and Williams, 2015), and the working-class (Warren, 2015) are more vulnerable to underemployment. Exploring the range of lived experiences allows an investigation into the causes and consequences of underemployment. Feldman (1996) and Dooley (2003) warned of risks for underemployed workers' job security, incomes, well-being and social standing. Key knowledge gaps addressed in this project include ways in which social inequalities alter outcomes of underemployment for workers and their families; trends in each indicator of underemployment (hours, wages, skills), their combined effects, and how underemployment affects industrial relations systems, employers and businesses, business models, unions, communities, policymakers and their practices, especially given Covid-19, Brexit and recessions.

Academic and policy interest in productivity rarely captures the experiences of an important segment of the small firm population: micro-businesses (1-9 employees). The informal and opaque management processes in such firms pose challenges for the assessment of productivity and development of practical interventions. This project uses rigorous academic research co-produced with non-academic stakeholders to design and implement policies that support management to boost productivity in such firms. Our context - disadvantaged communities managing and working in the catering, retail and creative sectors in the West Midlands - serve as a critical case to improve knowledge and practice on the relationship between management and engagement practices and performance in micro-businesses. The research is collaborative and comprises three leading applied centres with researchers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds: the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), the Enterprise Research Centre (ERC) and City-REDI (Regional Economic Development Institute). They work alongside non-academic stakeholders that rarely feature in 'mainstream' business support ecosystems (despite their reach in myriad micro-enterprise networks): Ashley Integrates (an award-winning social enterprise with a keen interest in promoting employability of migrants), the Bangladeshi Network (comprising four groups with local and national reach into the sector), Citizens UK (a national civil society alliance) and Punch Records (a business with a strong social mission to promote artists from deprived background). A multi-method is adopted comprising five WPs that aim to develop insights into micro-businesses that can be used to develop interventions to promote productivity. WP 1 locates the project in the context of a recent national study on the characteristics of microbusinesses. Further analysis will highlight challenges facing those micro-businesses that have a desire to improve performance and grow. A granular understanding of management and engagement practices in micro-businesses will be generated in WP2 by in-depth qualitative investigation of 24 case studies of firms over an extended period of time. Manager and worker perspectives on the organization of work are evaluated. This knowledge is shared and utilized in WP 3 with a range of non-academic stakeholders, with the aim of mapping and mobilizing the business support ecosystem. Policy options will be identified, which will then - in WP4 - be tested and evaluated with micro-business owners who have the ambition to participate in bespoke change programmes to boost productivity. An active programme of knowledge exchange and dissemination (WP5) will cross-cut the project and will comprise a series of journey mapping knowledge exchange co-produced workshops, involving micro-business owner/managers and their employees, and external support agencies. These are designed to understand how involvement in the study has influenced any change to initial management style towards introducing new management and engagement practices, and how these have improved productivity. WP5 will also inform dissemination, and the qualitative component of the formative and summative evaluation. The project will produce important practical outcomes for businesses my providing support for evidence-based interventions that will benefit around 30 micro-businesses that participate in customised programmes designed to upgrade leadership and management skills leading to a boost in productivity. Insights from their experiences and will promote greater understanding of 'what works' that can guide practitioners in other contexts. The project will also actively support the development of a more responsive and inclusive business support ecosystem in the West Midlands by mobilising 'mainstream' and non-traditional intermediaries (for example, our non-academic partners) and via multiple pathways of engagement.