🎓 Next Generation Lecture Series | 30 Apr–21 May
Join online talks by The Open University PhD students (FASS).
30-min sessions + Q&A, open to all.
🗓️ 30 Apr – Hilary Forbes
🗓️ 7 May – Chris Smith
🗓️ 14 May – Kirsteen Merrilees
🗓️ 21 May – Zohreh Moghfeli
🔗 Register: fass.open.ac.uk/events/next-...
🚀 Dr Alessandra Marino joined the UK delegation at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (14–16 April), delivering two talks on science preservation on the Moon 🌕
With remarks from Sonia Farrey & Aarti Holla-Maini at United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
#COPUOS
Our upcoming GCSJ seminar "Care-full lunar exploration" on 🗓️ 15 May will be chaired by Nick Bingham.
The seminar also relates to a new MoonRISE project project (Dr Alessandra Marino (PI) and Nick Bingham (Co-I))🖇️ tinyurl.com/26tmwdx3
Event link: tinyurl.com/5ffznkxy
📘 Religion, Spirituality & Public Health: How do people really make health decisions?
In a time of vaccine scepticism & rising alternative medicine, this book shows decisions aren’t science vs belief—they’re shaped by multiple knowledge systems, trust & lived experience.
🔗 tinyurl.com/bdcp3mje
It was a pleasure as @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social Honorary Secretary to present these prizes, including to my @ou-gcsj.bsky.social @openuniversity.bsky.social colleagues @simonusherwood.bsky.social and @filippoboni.bsky.social, plus Emma Connolly.
🌕 GCSJ Seminar | Care-full lunar exploration
🗓 15 May 2026 | ⏰ 12:00–13:00 (UK) | 💻 Online
Explore how growing lunar activity raises urgent questions about protecting scientific, cultural & environmental sites.
🔗 fass.open.ac.uk/events/gcsj-...
@astrobiologyou.bsky.social
Join tomorrow's OPRC lecture with Prof. Sarah Crafter for her talk on "Mistrust, Care & Child Development: Listening to Unaccompanied Minors and Social Care Professionals"
#Psychology #ChildDevelopment #Migration #SocialCare #Research
📖 New publication | Dr Marion Ernwein
Co-authored intro chapter in: 📘 La ville verte au pied du mur (Presses de Sciences Po, 2026)
Explores how austerity & local finance reshape urban environmental policy in France.
#EnvironmentalGeography #UrbanStudies #Sustainability
@gunjans.bsky.social
📖 New book | Radicals: The Working Classes and the Making of Modern Britain (out April) by Dr Geoff Andrews
Explores how working-class movements shaped modern Britain—activism, resistance & social change.
#Politics #History #NewBook
📖 New publications | Prof. Theo Papaioannou
Two new papers on health innovation & welfare state futures:
🔹 India: role of industry associations in health innovation
🔗 academic.oup.com/spp/article/...
🔹 Entrepreneurial welfare state (with V. Takala)
🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
📖 New open access publication on global regulation of nurse recruitment & migration | Prof. Nicola Yeates
European Journal for Nursing History and Ethics (with Jane Pillinger)
🔗 www.enhe.eu/enhe/issue/v...
#GlobalHealth #Migration #nursing
🔔 Taking place soon! Our next GCSJ seminar on 10th April on Decolonisation as a Contested Practice 👇
📖 New publications | Two forthcoming papers on medical device industries & innovation systems
🔹 East Africa: links between local manufacturing & healthcare systems
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...
🔹 India: role & politics of industry associations
🔗 academic.oup.com/spp/article/...
📬 GCSJ March Newsletter is out now!
Catch up on the latest papers, publications & events from the Centre for Global Challenges and Social Justice 🌍
🔗 www.linkedin.com/pulse/gcsj-m...
Follow GCSJ on LinkedIn + subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
#SocialJustice #Research
Core programme includes:
☑️ Seminar Series
☑️ TESS Talks
☑️ Research Cafés
☑️ Book Launches
☑️ Roundtables
☑️ Annual Research Festival
+ Expanded PhD (PGR) engagement across SSGS
📅 Next highlight:
GCSJ Research Festival (2–4 June 2026)
Theme this year: Shifting global power relations.
↗️ Momentum is building:
• ~30 events in 2024–25
• 23 events already (Oct–Feb 2025–26) +20 more coming
GCSJ advances critical, interdisciplinary research on:
• Inequality & power structures
• Social justice & resistance
• Policy impact & real-world change
🔗 fass.open.ac.uk/research/cen...
Research, dialogue & collaboration on #SocialJustice are growing fast at @OpenUniversity’s GCSJ 🌐
Since 2021, the Centre for Global Challenges & Social Justice has become a hub for interdisciplinary research tackling today’s biggest global issues.
@gunjans.bsky.social
📢 Join tomorrow's TESS Talk on Whiteness as a Spectre in Space? The Case of Post-Apartheid Cape Town | Fri 20 March | 12:00–13:30 (online)
👥 Speaker: Danielle Isler
🖇️ www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whiteness-...
🎥 TESS Talk Recording Now Available | Black Studies in Babylon
Dr Rita Gayle (University of Birmingham) reflects on Black Studies in Britain, drawing on her research on millennial Black women’s creative collectives (2013–2020).
▶️ youtu.be/aAfVozrnEMc
@gunjans.bsky.social @openarc.bsky.social
...and provide the impetus for extra-parliamentary political and social movements. We search for ‘tribes’ and groups with which we can identify or feel affinity, but doing so can only be simultaneously exclusionary.
So, what might a world without borders look like?
@gunjans.bsky.social
We live in a world which is obsessed with borders. As Gracie Mae Bradley has observed in her book, Against Borders (co-authored with Dr Luke de Noronha), 'Borders divide workers and families, fuel racial division, and reinforce global disparities.' But it seems that they also win votes...
🌍 What would a world beyond borders look like? Join Gracie Mae Bradley in conversation with Gunjan Sondhi @ MK Literary Festival.
A discussion on #borders, #migration, and #globaljustice inspired by Against Borders.
🗓 23 Mar | 7–8 PM
🎟️ www.tickettailor.com/events/milto...
@mklitfest.bsky.social
🎙️ BBC Radio 4 | Jamie Gaskarth on The Moral Maze: What role should morality play in foreign policy?
Exploring ethical dilemmas in international relations, including UK–US tensions over the Iran crisis:🎧 Listen: www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...
@jamiegaskarth.bsky.social
@gunjans.bsky.social
📚 Happening tonight! Author Kit de Waal in conversation with Dan Taylor on literature, identity & borders.
🗓 16 Mar
⏰ 7–8 PM GMT
💻 Online
Part of the Borders: Routes and Roots series.
🔗 www.tickettailor.com/events/milto...
@ifmkfest.bsky.social @kitdewaal.com @oupolitics.bsky.social
🚨 April GCSJ Seminar: Decolonisation as a Contested Practice: Evidence from The Open University
📅 10 Apr 2026 | ⏰ 12–1 PM
🎙️ Dr Shannon Martin
Opening: Allan Laville | Respondent: Darren Gray
🪢 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1982763523...
⏰Next week, Friday, learn more about Partnering for Equitable Research at the launch of the PEERS Gallery & OpenLearn course.
Explore how we build fairer research partnerships across institutions & communities
📅 Friday, 20 March 2026 | 2:00 PM
Register via 👉 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-of-...
Image of author Kit de Waal in a red jumper with images of recent book jackets, Without Warning and The Best of Everything
This Monday novelist Kit de Waal will be talking to our colleague Dan Taylor about working class writers and the class ceiling, part of our series, Borders in Literature, with @mklitfest.bsky.social
16 Mar, 7pm, Zoom. Tickets (free): bit.ly/mklfdewaal #classceiling #workingclasswriters #literature
📖 Policy publication | From Disorder to Harm? Governing the Moon and Protecting its Sites of Interest
Alessandra Marino examines how sites of interest on the Moon could be protected & explores possibilities for more effective environmental governance in space: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...
📣 Call for book proposals!
📖 Did you know that we've got an open-access book series on Global Development?
If you've got a good idea for a new volume, please get in touch!
www.eadi.org/news-2/call-...
🚨 This Friday 13 March! Join us for our next upcoming GCSJ seminar on Public Opinion & National Security in the UK: A People-Centred Approach | Dr Thomas Martin
🔗 www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-opi...
@jamiegaskarth.bsky.social @simonusherwood.bsky.social
#nationalsecurity #politics #research