MetroPolis and the response to COVID-19 – a quick summary

As the scale of the COVID-19 crisis became apparent and this University as with all others in the UK went into lockdown we felt it was important that the University was able to utilise its knowledge and expertise for the public good. So we were determined to publish a series of short blogs over the first few days that responded to policy issues emerging from the crisis.

We contacted academics across the University whose policy-relevant research made them well-placed to provide policy-analysis at short notice. It is a testament to this University that, with everything that was going in that first week of lockdown everyone we contacted agreed to produce a blog within a few days.

The blogs cover a range of policy areas, which in itself gives a sense of the scale of the current policy challenge.

The welfare response to COVID-19 has been unprecedented and at Manchester Met Ashwin Kumar has asked whether a universal basic income might be helpful and whether we can afford to pay for it and Chris O’Leary has looked at how the homeless face a triple whammy as alongside homelessness the lockdown potentially leaves the homeless more isolated and struggling to practice social distancing. 

Changing the way we all behave in the lockdown has dominated much policy debate over the last couple of weeks with Richard Whittle exploring the limits of behavioural economics and Nudge theory and Rob Lowe considering how policy-makers can apply social psychology to enforce requirements to self-isolate.

The University trains more nurses, physio-therapists and other allied health professionals than any other organisation in the North West and Eleanor Bull has blogged on how the psychology of changing behaviour in big organisations can be applied to the NHS while Deirdre Duffy, Natalie Hammond and Monique Huysamen have asked what lessons we can learn from HIV self-testing as we design home-testing kits for COVID-19.

Manchester Metropolitan also has the largest Education Faculty in the North West and our researchers have applied their research findings to the current crisis to provide practical ideas for adapting the education system to home-schooling. Carrie Birkett argues that policy-makers can learn from what works in existing home schooling environments to support parents grappling with home education, while Cathy Lewin looks at what works in on-line teaching for children to make recommendation for how policy-makers can better support schools and parents. Meanwhile, Charlotte Bagnall highlights how transition year from primary to secondary school is particularly crucial and how policy-makers can support children’s emotional resilience at this difficult time.

As the crisis has unfolded the true impact on social care has become ever clearer. Samantha Baron asks what the impact of the crisis will be on social care and what can policy-makers do to support the sector, while Stefan White asks how can we care for the isolated when we are all in isolation?

The University is an acknowledged hub for research on crime, justice and substance misuse in the UK and Kirstine Szifris and Kevin Wong from the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit have blogged on how prisons can cope with the crisis and how police can maintain public trust as they police the lockdown, while Sarah Fox and Sarah Galvani from SUAB have looked at alcohol and domestic abuse in the context of COVID-19.

The role of sport in our lives shouldn’t be underestimated, especially in an Olympic year. As Jonathan Grix argues, sport is not just a distraction, but also part of our social identity and an important part of the economy. He suggests the roles that sport can play in a pandemic.

Finally, the crisis is raising lots of important questions about policy-making itself and Bruce Edmonds looks at the challenges of basing policy decisions on complex models.

All of this work is important and part of a wider University effort to be relevant, supportive and to make a positive civic contribution to our communities. We’re also fielding contributions from organisations we partner with, and will be returning to many of these themes.

Professor Chris Fox is director of the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit at Manchester Metropolitan University and a co-convenor of MetroPolis.