The Open University Business and Law Schools, otherwise known as the Faculty of Business and Law (FBL), is funding Ph.D. studentship projects themed ‘Responding to COVID-19 and the Climate Emergency’ in a bid to facilitate growth and change in the aftermath of an unprecedented pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic and worldwide lockdowns has contributed another layer of complexity to the ongoing climate crisis.
With usual activities on hold and reduced economic output, there’s been a noticeable improvement to the environment in many countries, showing what a greener future could look like.
Three projects focus on climate emergency:
- The consumer response to green advertising;
- The renewable energy sector in Africa;
- And exploring democratic practice as a way to engage communities and individuals in a fair transition to a green economy.
These projects are focused on the pandemic and its aftermath to address a variety of topics from rethinking relations between organizations and the material/natural environment; to gender, ethnicity and class at work and social inequalities laid bare by the pandemic; and the future of work through empirical research with workers.
These projects are being directed by academic experts selected from the Business and Law Schools.
Hence the themed call for PhD research projects that consider the organizational and legal challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency as urgent global challenges that management, business, and legal researchers can help to mitigate.