WELS news

Monday 20 June is International Father’s Mental Health Day, and its timing – directly following Father’s Day – is no coincidence. Dr Martin Robb, a Health, Wellbeing and Social Care Senior Lecturer specialising in Fatherhood and Masculinity, explains why this event is equally as important, if perhaps not more so. 

The WELS School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) has contributed to an OU support package for Ukrainian refugees, which aims to help those affected by the war settle into their new homes in the UK and Ireland.

Kristina Hultgren, WELS Professor of Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, has been awarded £100,000 towards her study of the role English-medium education plays in gender inequality within low and middle-income nations.

The Open University (OU)’s commitment to research and societal impact is recognised today (Thursday 12 May), with 82% of its research impact assessed to be ‘world-leading’ (4*) or ‘internationally excellent’ (3*) by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021.

A team of academics from the WELS School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport (ECYS) have been awarded £60k from the Commonwealth Secretariat to develop a youth training programme for stakeholders across 54 member countries of the Commonwealth.

The OU has launched the world’s first Online Confucius Institute (OCI) in partnership with Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU). Housed within the WELS School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, the OCI is a non-profit educational partnership between the OU and BFSU.

The Reading for Pleasure coalition is celebrating five years of incredible growth and successful social justice-driven projects and initiatives. It is estimated that the OU RfP research has influenced the reading lives of over 180,000 children.

Researchers in the OU’s School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care have received a grant from the Hallmark Foundation, a charity that invests in the future of care, to work together to further explore the concept of ‘relational care’ and how it can successfully be delivered in UK adult care settings with a focus on older adults.

As we approach International Nurses’ Day, we spoke to Ros Moore, Associate Lecturer on our Nursing qualifications, and a former Chief Nursing Officer for Scotland about her career, and why she chose to move into Nursing education.

WELS Research Fellow, Dr Hannah R. Marston, has provided evidence in a recently published report on the need for more life-enhancing technologies for disabled and older people.