LUMS West Pavilion

Social Justice

Everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities. Our research explores how we can organise and manage our socioeconomic lives to proliferate fairness across society. 

We work with our students, businesses, government and society to tackle inequality and make a real impact on those we teach and the wider world.

Our researchers advise government on problem gambling, work with financial regulators and multi-national corporations on tackling and reporting modern slavery in the global supply chain, tackle gender inequalities in business and Higher Education, and increase business inclusion among under-represented groups.

The Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership

The Targeted-MPI project is dedicated to advancing gender equality in Business and Management Schools.

Discover how working with institutions across Europe is helping to shape practice and policies on national and international levels.

Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership

Gender Matters

Through projects such as Gender Matters - in collaboration with the Work Foundation and Diversity UK – and wider research, the Academy works to change policy, attitudes and behaviours around major workplace issues: the gender pay gap, the lack of women in the leadership pipeline, and the take-up of family-based policies.

Gender Matters

Professor Valerie Stead, Professor Claire Leitch and Dr Sophie Alkhaled discuss the importance of their work on gender equality issues in the workplace.

Women's entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women’s socio-economic empowerment. The Academy critically examines how entrepreneurship can tackle the work inequalities women face. 

How do women utilise entrepreneurship as a platform for social change? Dr Sophie Alkhaled, a British-Syrian researcher who grew up in Saudi Arabia, outlines how entrepreneurship provides women with a legitimate space to engage in sustainable social and political change in Saudi Arabia. 

A better life for refugees

Researchers across the Management School have worked with refugees fleeing conflict in Syria, who are attempting to build new lives in a new country. They investigated the obstacles they face, and found out how life can be made better for them.

What did Dr Sophie Alkhaled and Professor Lucas Introna discover on their separate research projects about how refugees have made a home for themselves and created a sense of belonging in a new country?

Commercial Experiences of Disability

The Marketplace & I project allows people with a disability and their families to express how they experience the commercial world through the medium of art. Working with individuals, families, groups and organisations, the artworks allow them all to provide a real insight into their lives.

Commercial experiences of disability

Take a look at some of the artwork from the Marketplace and I, and allow Dr Leighanne Higgins to guide you through her work.

The Marketplace and I

Transcript for Commercial experiences of disability

So, my name is Leighanne Higgins and I'm a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Lancaster University Management School.

My work on disability access to marketplace and commercial settings began in 2015 - 2016.

I wanted to understand what were the barriers to access to commercial settings for persons with disabilities, and as part of that I travelled with a wonderful charity called The Jumbulance Trust.

There were so many things that the people I was working with couldn't do and were reliant and needed assistance with.

But there were these beautiful, creative ways that they expressed their sense of self. and I just thought, how great would it be if instead of us doing the traditional interview, we actually heard their experiences or saw their experiences through the way that they actually express their sense of self through their creative talents. And also, in doing that, I thought that way we're prioritising ability over disability. We're not looking at what they can't do, we're looking at what they can do and we're prioritising that, and from that, we can learn about commercial experiences and how the marketplace could actually change to better include persons with disabilities.

It's hugely important that we address marketplace accessibility issues, and the reason for that is there is 1 billion people, approximately a billion people, which is 15% of the world population, who are actually registered as disabled. So that's a huge part of the world.

It's actually the largest minority group that we have.

From a financial perspective, it's hugely important. The purple pound, which sort of shows the disposable income of persons with disabilities, that's estimated at £7 trillion across the world. And within the UK, it's estimated that the disposable income of persons with disabilities is £249 billion. So that's a huge amount of money that the marketplace and commercial settings could be tapping into.

But further from that, we're also seeing that a lot of people are going to be transitioning into disability due to COVID, due to the pandemic, and due to the fact that we're an aging demographic.

We're all temporarily able-bodied, that's what Dan Goodley, within Disability Studies says, because we all are going to suffer sort of bodily deterioration as we age.

So disability is something that marketplace and commercial settings really do need to think about and marketplace accessibility is a huge area that really is deserving of marketing and company attention.

So in terms of how retailers can improve marketplace accessibility for persons with impairment and their family members, there's lots of different ways that they can do it.

Quite often through sort of regulations such as the DDA or the ADA in America, we see that there are regulations where they have to have ramps, where they have to have elevators, where there has to be sort of disabled access.

But I think the biggest thing that companies really need to focus on is seeing the person behind the disability, knowing who to talk to and knowing how to interact with persons with disabilities.

I think that's the core thing, that we need to see the person behind the disability and work out how companies can really try and embrace the person over the disability.

Humanitarian Aid

Humanitarian organisations play a key role in providing aid and assistance for victims of conflicts and political crises. From Syria to Ukraine, Africa to Asia, being able to deliver the correct support is crucial.

Dr Nonhlanhla Dube explains how her work assesses what international aid organisations need to consider to help those in need.

The Economics of Pollution

Researchers in our Department of Economics study the effects of industrial activity on local populations. From the benefits and drawbacks of fossil fuel deposits being exploited in a region, to how the wealth of the surrounding population has an effect on pollution levels.

Discover more about the environmental justice research of Professor Dakshina De Silva, Dr Anita Schiller and their colleagues investigating how polluting firms locate in areas with low income and education levels.

The varying economic effects of Higher Education

Not all degrees are equal when it comes to earnings in the labour market. Professor Ian Walker and his colleagues have researched the variation in graduate earnings for more than a decade. The work takes in all graduates and allows comparisons across subjects and institutions. New research strands are looking at the effects of degree class on future earnings and at the effects of graduate status on measures of wellbeing. Read more in his blog: The varying economic effects of Higher Education.

Professor Ian Walker talks us through how his work on the financial benefits of university education for graduates has influenced UK government policy.

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