News and Updates
Invited Speaker – Political Studies Association
April 2025
In April I presented the first findings from the Electoral Psychology Observatory’s research on the experience of first time voters. In the talk, which can be found on the PSA Political Psychology’s Youtube channel, I discuss how the FTV experience is one of a rite of passage, the anticipation that comes with that and the anti-climax that emerges after, partly due to the absence of a societal presence, and recognition, of their participation.
EPO at Science is Wonderful – Brussels
March 2025
The EPO team participated in the annual Science is Wonderful! – an initiative of European Union’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). Over two days we greeted over hundreds of students (from age 6 to 18), engage them in different interactive voting experiences and discussed their views on democracy.
Collaborative workshops with Democracy Box and The Talking Shop
February and March 2025
With thanks to funding from the Learned Society of Wales, my collaborator Yvonne Murphy (co-founder of Democracy Box) ran two workshop to explore creative arts-based approaches to democratic engagement. For more information on the wonderful work Yvonne is doing in Wales and beyond – have a look at their website.
© Yvonne Murphy/Omidaze Productions Ltd 2020. Used with permission of Yvonne Murphy.
New PhD student alert – Jennie Kirk
October 2024
In October 2024, Jennie Kirk began her part-time PhD at the OU. Jennie, who continues to work at the OU part-time, is supervised by myself, Jean McAvoy and Jovan Byford. Jennie’s PhD will explore how Northumbrian women make sense of the impact of the 1984-5 miner’s strike on their identity and wider community.
New PhD student alert – Tetiana Shyriaieva
February 2024
In February 2024, Tetiana Shyriaeva began her PhD at the OU, supervised by myself and Prof. Kesi Mahendran. Tania’s PhD explores the role of linguistic and geographical borders as sites where the everyday become extreme, due to ongoing conflict. Her PhD focuses on the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Promoted to Senior Lecturer
October 2023
In October 2023 I was officially promoted to Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the OU. Working on my case I had a lot of support from colleagues in the School and outside of it, to whom I’m very thankful.
Consultancy for European Commission (Part 2)
September 2023
Following a successful one-year collaboration with VVA and DG JUST, myself and colleagues from the Electoral Psychology Observatory (LSE) embarked on a second year consultancy for the European Commission in September 2023. This time our focus will be on developing a report on electoral turnout, best practices in member states and specific initiatives targeting populations with low voter turnout.
OppAttune – Horizon Europe project begins
April 2023
In April 2023 the inception meeting for OppAttune was held in Athens, Greece. OppAttune received over €3 million in funding for participating multidisciplinary research teams, spread across higher-learning institutions in 15 European countries. OppAttune tracks the evolution of oppositional extreme ideologies and protectionist decision-making, develops an innovative attunement model and tests a series of interventions at the national and transnational levels which limit the spread of extremism. OppAttune revitalises trust in key democratic institutions. Its actions involve an on-line I-Attune self-test interactive to build democratic capacity across diverse publics. OppAttune will create an OppAttune Summer Academy for students and researchers (2025) and an OppAttune Winter Academy for practitioners and policymakers (2026). OppAttune provides micro, meso, and macro level evidence-based recommendations and strategies designed to counter the potential of extreme narratives to disrupt democratic growth. To read more about OppAttune – visit our website.
Presentation in UK Parliament
February 2023
In February 2023 we celebrated the three-year anniversary of the Electoral Psychology Observatory on Global Elections Day. The anniversary was celebrated with a research talk in UK Parliament. The event “The State of Electoral Hostility” was co-chaired by Sir Peter Bottomley (Father of the House, Conservative) and Dr Stella Creasy (Labour). More information on the event, and the powerpoint slides for our talks can be found here.
Consultancy for Westminster Foundation for Democracy
January 2023
In the new year, January 2023, I embarked on another consultancy, this time a research project in partnership with LSE colleagues (Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison) and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, funded by the FCDO (UK). The project “Analysing the electoral experience of first-time voters in Zambia and consider how it can be improved and optimised” involved travelling to Lusaka. Zambia, in February 2023 to develop research protocol tools, conduct focus group data analysis and report writing (March 2023).
Consultancy for European Commission
November 2022
In November 2022, I began a research consultancy project via LSE consulting for the European Commission (DG JUST) on Research services on issues pertaining to EU citizenship rights and democracy. My involvement mainly pertains to the development of a Type-C report on the electoral experience of citizens with disabilities. The consultancy completed end of summer 2023. You can find our report here.