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People’s Choice Vote showcases The Open University’s pioneering social impact research

The words 'Research in Action' and the OU logo, with images of the Moon, ladies with swimming hats in a pool, a large group of people and a man standing in front of a blackboard

To tackle today’s biggest societal challenges, The Open University (OU) has committed to focusing all of its research around three core pillars: sustainability, inequality and living well.

To launch the new focus areas, which align with young people’s key concerns, The OU selected four current cutting-edge research projects to put to a public vote. Announced today, the winner of the People’s Choice Award is research into empowering victims of human trafficking, conducted by academics including Dr Margaret Ebubedike and Dr Saraswati Dawadi.

The shortlisted projects are explored further in a new docuseries led by British model and environmentalist Lily Cole. Released today (Tuesday, 11 October 2022), each of the four short films asks a vital question impacting our society:

  1. How can we help sex-trafficking survivors rebuild their lives? Dr Saraswati Dawadi is a Co-Investigator on a project led by Dr Margaret Ebubedike, conducting vital research into improving the lives of human trafficking survivors. This research is already empowering marginalised communities in Nepal and Nigeria and giving victims the support and skills to help themselves and others.
  2. How can we “age well”, and what does that really mean? Dr Jitka Vseteckova has helped more than 30,000 people to learn the theories and practices essential to living longer and healthier lives. She has shared her five pillars for good health and longevity; nutrition, hydration, physical activity, and cognitive and social stimulation through more than 80 public talks and free OpenLearn online learning resources.
  3. How can we improve the education system in India? Dr Simon Cross, Professor Freda Wolfenden and Dr Lina Adinolfi are addressing a critical skills gap in India’s teaching profession by empowering thousands of the country’s teachers to earn digital badges for completing free online courses. They’ve also put the qualifications which demonstrate teachers’ interest in a subject and evidence of their commitment to professional development on the policy agenda across the country.
  4. How does researching water on the Moon improve sustainability of resources and health on Earth? Professor Mahesh Anand, Dr Simeon Barber, and Dr Simon Sheridan’s pioneering work to extract water and its component hydrogen and oxygen molecules from lunar rock paves the way for humans living on the Moon. One day, it could also see our closest satellite become a base for future space exploration. Back on Earth, the technology could provide clean drinking water in drought areas and even extract water and rare metals, such as lithium, from mine waste.

Watch the docuseries now:

As a society we are facing unprecedented challenges that threaten our future. The Open University is refocussing their research efforts to find solution around sustainability, living well and equality.

Lily Cole: I’m here at the campus in Milton Keynes to learn more about the ground-breaking research that happens here.

How can we extract water from the moon?

Professor Mahesh Anand and his team are conduction pioneering research into extracting water from lunar rock. Technology that could have huge implications for dealing with droughts on Earth.

Professor Mahesh Anand: So something that’s quite fascinating about space exploration, that it actually forces you to challenge your comfort zone. So you have to go out of your comfort zone to actually come up with new and innovative solutions. So in this case, we are trying to develop the technology that could one day be extracting water from the actual lunar samples.

Some of that technology that actually we are currently working on for lunar application, the hope is that one day we will find a direct application here on Earth to improve the quality of life for fellow human beings.

Lily Cole: Professor Mahesh‘s work is cosmic and inspiring. His team are working with NASA and some of the top scientists around the word. What really excites me about their research is the way in which it might help solve some of the greatest sustainability challenges we have here on Earth.

How can we age well, and what does that mean?

Lily Cole: With advances in modern medicine, our life expectancy is increasing. Dr Jitka Vseteckova’s research into the ageing process, has led her to develop five pillars of good health and longevity. She shares her research through talks in the community to encourage and empower people to take responsibility for their own ageing process.

Dr. Jitka Vseteckova: I research ageing and I lead ‘Ageing Well’ public talks here at The Open University. The talks are structured around the five pillars for ageing well: nutrition, hydration, physical activity, social and cognitive stimulation. So it’s not one thing that will make us age well, it will be a combination of things that are the right things for us.

How can we empower victims of human trafficking?

Lily Cole: Dr Saraswati Dawadi is conducting vital research into improving the lives of human trafficking survivors.

Dr. Saraswati Dawadi: We are trying to empower the girl victims of human trafficking. Because in Nepal it is estimated that 54 girls are trafficked to India every single day.

We are trying our best to listen to the voices of the girl victims of human trafficking. And then we are trying to provide the right kind of training to them. In the way, we are preparing them for future so that they can contribute to supporting other girls who have become the victim of human trafficking.

Lily Cole: Dr Sarasvati’s research is part of The Open University’s Social Justice mission. It’s having a real impact on these women’s life today and also creating a sustainable change for the future.

How can we improve teacher training in India?

Lily Cole: Simon Cross and a team of academics working with Tata Institute of Social Science in Mumbai are researching how teacher training can be improved at scale.

Dr Simon Cross: In particular, we’ve been interested in using digital badges and seen them as a potential tool to help support teachers. And our research has focused on the ways in which digital badges could be used in that kind of practice setting.

Lily Cole: And what is a digital badge?

Dr Simon Cross: The digital badge is essentially a graphic or a symbol which is hyperlinked to information, which explains what the person did to earn that badge. Not only can we deploy them at scale, but it also means teachers can collect and shared them digitally as well.

Lily Cole: This ground-breaking research is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s going on here at The Open University. All four of these project have been nominated for the People’s Choice Award.

Winning Project: How can we empower victims of human trafficking?

Lily Cole: If you would like to find out more about research projects or courses at The Open University, go to www.open.ac.uk.

Dr Margaret Ebubedike, part of the winning People’s Choice Award research, commented:

“The work I do is so close to my heart and my heritage. Having led rural development projects in the Lake Chad country region, I’ve experienced first-hand how critical empowering girls and young women is in these kinds of communities.

“The human trafficking project is fostering creative spaces for the girls to express themselves, to articulate their daily challenges and concerns about their future aspirations, and to reconstruct their identity in ways which empower them to reintegrate and make meaningful contributions to their communities.

“We hope to not only help these young girls and women in the short term, but to create long lasting, sustainable change.”

Dr Saraswati Dawadi, who also researches improving the lives of trafficking survivors, added:

“After devoting five years of my working life to how we can help trafficking survivors rebuild their lives, it’s an honour to have the importance of these types of projects recognised by the UK public.

“The research we are doing is opening our eyes to the needs of girls in marginalised communities. It’s about empowering victims of sex trafficking by giving them the support and skills to help themselves and others.”

On her involvement in the project, Lily Cole commented:

“I was fascinated to learn about the research underway at The Open University. I knew of the OU as a place for online learning but hadn’t realised how much else it has going on in terms of really exciting academic research.

“The researchers’ passion for their respective areas really shone through when I spoke to them: whether it was helping trafficking victims integrate back into society, discovering how we can live longer, improving India’s education system or how researching water from the Moon could improve sustainability here on Earth.

“Given the different social and environmental crises we collectively face, academic institutions and universities like the OU are in a powerful position to help us find and develop innovative solutions."

Professor Kevin Shakesheff, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Research at The Open University, concluded:

“Our social mission to improve lives through our research is front and centre of all that we do. These exciting projects truly have the power to impact positive change on society and around the world.

“We’re excited to have found a creative way to showcase just a few examples of the important, cutting-edge research underway by the many talented academics we have at The Open University. It was brilliant to see the inspirational human trafficking research crowned winner of the recent People’s Choice Award.”

The poll of 4,300 18–34-year-olds across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland revealed that the top three issues/societal challenges for the UK young people are most concerned by are sustainability and the environment (64%), inequality of opportunity (58%) and health and wellbeing (56%).

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