Research and Innovation

Dr Olga Ustyuzhantseva speaks to Mattia Dessì about Russia’s energy situation and the state's views on it; the ecological impact of coal in Russia; and the role of the labour movement in Russia's coal industry.

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2.

Visit the project webpage. business.leeds.ac.uk/faculty/dir-re…s-11-countries

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in May 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available. business.leeds.ac.uk/downloads/down…al-exploration

About the speakers: Mattia Dessì is a Postgraduate Researcher at Leeds University Business School. His PhD research focuses on new technologies and the future of work in the South African mining industry.

Dr Olga Ustyuzhantseva is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa). Her recent research focuses on the sociotechnical transition to the sustainable development of coal-mining countries (South Africa and Russia), particularly climate, energy, and just transition policies and their impact on the coal phase-out trajectory.

Dr Jo Cutter is joined by Sam Perry, Green Bargaining Officer for Yorkshire and the Humber Trades Union Congress (TUC) to discuss the work the TUC is doing in the region to support a Just Transition for workers. 

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2.  

Visit the project webpage. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in November 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. To find out more about the TUC’s Just Transition work, or to join the Yorkshire and Humber Just Transition Network, email Sam Perry [email protected].  

A transcript of this episode is available. 

You can listen to the rest of the episodes in this series. 

About the speakers: 

Dr Jo Cutter is a lecturer in Work and Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research focuses on employment relations, social dialogue and the regulation of work with a core focus on skills, education and training. She is currently researching these themes concerning two contexts: workers and the just transition and labour mobility. 

Sam Perry is the Green Bargaining Officer for Yorkshire and the Humber TUC. He is focused on raising the profile of environmental action within the labour movement and building capacity in trade unions to bargain for justice as organisations adapt to the need to decarbonise. His special interest is in making the case for a massive growth of energy efficiency retrofits to homes across Yorkshire and the Humber, where he brings together a background in social housing and political and union activism. 

Lena Jaspersen and Tony Morgan talk about their pedagogical research on the development of employability skills in students engaged in challenge-based learning in diverse teams. Drawing on assignments produced for their own module “Innovation, Thinking and Practice”, Tony and Lena analysed reflective diaries that the students wrote throughout the module. Findings provided useful insights into how team-based learning can be designed to improve inclusivity and enhance learning outcomes, including employability skills. Lena and Tony discuss how pedagogical research can connect research and teaching activities in mutually beneficial ways.    

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in December 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact  [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available.    

Useful resources: 

• LITE Research Project: https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/research/fellowships/i-de-es-project/ 
• Diverging and Converging for Team-Based Learning: https://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/diverging-and-converging-for-team-based-learning/ 
• Design Thinking for Student Projects book: https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/design-thinking-for-student-projects/book276875 

About the speakers:  

Lena Jaspersen is an early-career researcher with a multidisciplinary background in international sociology and organisation studies. Lena’s overarching research interests are in collaborative innovation processes, in particular in the context of global development, and qualitative research methods.  

Tony Morgan (FHEA) is an Associate Professor in Innovation Management Practice at the University of Leeds in the UK, where he teaches interdisciplinary and team-based innovation modules. He previously held senior innovation and technology roles at IBM. Tony's primary interests include design thinking, innovation and innovation management, emerging technology, pedagogy and student skills development.

Mattia Dessì speaks to Dr Alexander Beresford about their South African research as part of the project looking at just transitions across the globe. They discuss factors affecting just transition in South Africa, including how international partners fit into the domestic debates, the political sphere, and the role of the ruling elite. 

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2. 

Visit the project webpage. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in October 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available. 

About the speakers: Mattia Dessì is a Postgraduate Researcher at Leeds University Business School. His PhD research focuses on new technologies and the future of work in the South African mining industry. 

Dr Alexander Beresford is an Associate Professor in African Politics, and Director of Research and Innovation for the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. His research provides a multi-layered insight into how global normative order is mediated and contested within and between two interwoven spaces - political struggles over inequality, power and corruption from everyday sites of politics through to the highest tables of power in South Africa; and the global diplomatic contestation of vaccine access, conflict resolution and climate change led by South Africa as an emerging power. 

Dr Peter Gittins and Dr Deema Refai discuss their research on constrained rural entrepreneurship. They talk about the constraints and opportunities farmers are facing post-Brexit, and also discuss how other entrepreneurs work within constraints to achieve positive changes. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in November 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact  [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available.    

Visit the project webpage for further information. The project is funded by Leeds University Business School’s Impact and Engagement Support Fund and International Research Collaborations Fund. 

About the speakers:  

Peter Gittins is a Lecturer in the Centre for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Studies (CEES) at Leeds University Business School. He has a practical working background in farm management, helping to run his family-owned livestock farm in West Yorkshire. His research interests are centred around agricultural business management, specifically rural entrepreneurship and approaches to strategic management in farming businesses.   

Deema Refai is an Associate Professor in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in CEES and is currently Joint Editor in Chief of The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Deema’s research focus is developed around constrained entrepreneurship, with a particular interest in the refugee and rural contexts. 

In this latest episode of the “Just Transitions - a Global Exploration” series, Professor Vera Trappmann and Dr Felix Schulz discuss German workers’ perception of the climate crisis, and the role of policy in transitioning to a greener economy. 

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2. The Competence Centre mentioned in this episode is also funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation. 

Visit the project webpage. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in November 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact  [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available. 

About the speakers:  

Vera Trappmann is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research engages with the comparison of labour relations across Europe, focussing on the dynamics of economic and organisational restructuring and its impact on working biographies, and organized labour.  Currently climate crisis and just transition are her main focus.   

Felix Schulz is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Digital Futures at Work (digit) Research centre and on an international Hans-Böckler-Stiftung funded project on the role of labour in the “Just Transition”. His research is interdisciplinary, drawing on labour economics, industrial relations, environmental labour studies and social psychology, with justice and inequality as the overarching focus. 

In this episode of the “Just Transitions - a Global Exploration” series, Professor Vera Trappmann speaks to Dr Ursula Balderson about the Foundation Industries: how they can transition to Net Zero, how the energy crisis has affected the industry, and what the government is (or isn’t) doing to support the transition.

This project is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation – Just Transition: Aktivitäten im internationalen Vergleich 2021-582-2. 

Visit the project webpage. 

The research on the foundation industry is also available as a report with the European Trade Union Institute, funded by the European Climate Foundation. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in July and October 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available. 

About the speakers:

Vera Trappmann is Professor of Comparative Employment Relations at Leeds University Business School. Her research engages with the comparison of labour relations across Europe, focussing on the dynamics of economic and organisational restructuring and its impact on working biographies, and organized labour.  Currently climate crisis and just transition are her main focus.  

Dr Ursula Balderson is a postdoctoral research associate on a project on Work, Labour and Climate Change. She is an interdisciplinary social scientist interested in how the transition to a greener economy can improve worker well-being and quality of life. 

Dr Lilith Brouwers asks Dr Abbie Winton about Abbie’s research on the impact of technology on labour in food retail. They discuss how technology is influenced by society, the economy, politics, culture, and pre-existing technologies, and how all these different aspects affect the future of work in retail – not just new technology in isolation. They also discuss how understanding historical context is a useful way to interpret what is happening in the labour market today.  

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in August 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available.    

About the speakers: Dr Abbie Winton is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC). Her research explores issues related to sociotechnical change in the retail, warehousing and logistic industries, and the quality of work. Currently, Abbie is working on the HuLog project which investigates how digital technologies shape work and employment conditions in warehouses across Europe. 

Dr Lilith Brouwers is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CERIC. Their research focuses on marginalised workers in informal labour, how hyper-precarious workers use labour mobility, and on the intersection of disability and marginalised forms of work.   

Dr Jack Daly speaks to Dr Lilith Brouwers about their recent report on sex workers’ experiences of management and other third parties. Lilith gives an overview of the legal status of sex work and third parties in England, which third parties exist in sex work, why sex workers choose to work with or without third parties, and what kind of changes sex workers want to improve their relationships with those third parties. 

View the report discussed in this episode here.

Visit the project webpage. 

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in July 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this podcast, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available.    

About the speakers: Dr Lilith Brouwers is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC). Their research focuses on marginalised workers in informal labour, how hyper-precarious workers use labour mobility, and on the intersection of disability and marginalised forms of work.   

Dr Jack Daly is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CERIC. His research focuses on equality, diversity and inclusion in traditionally male-dominated industries, with a specific interest in the role of men as resistance to and facilitators of inclusive working practices.

Dr Matthew Davis speaks to Afshan Iqbal about Afshan’s research on technostress and the impact it has on remote and hybrid workers. They discuss what technostress is, the effect it can have on workflow and work-family conflict, and coping mechanisms for how to deal with it. 

A summary of Afshan’s research on technostress is available.  

This podcast episode was recorded remotely in July 2023. If you would like to get in touch regarding this research, please contact [email protected]. A transcript of this episode is available. 

About the speakers: Dr Matthew Davis is an Associate Professor at Leeds University Business School, a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. His research focuses on how people interact with their environments, office design, hybrid working and future workplaces. He also researches how businesses engage in CSR, particularly to address sustainability and modern slavery.  

Afshan Iqbal is a Research Fellow in Organisational Behaviour and Socio-Technical Systems, with a keen interest in virtual working, hybrid work, the future workplace and the use of technologies in new ways of working. Her doctoral research focused on the antecedents to technostress in remote workers and the impact this had on work-family conflict, performance and job satisfaction when boundaries between work and professional lives are increasingly blurred.