This project will address one of the most important issues facing society: the increase in underemployed, vulnerable workers resulting from industrial changes, the 2008 recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. How we work is changing, with potential to deliver greater efficiency and wellbeing, but also greater precarity and inequality (Beck et al, 2020; Schwab, 2016). Short- and longer-term effects of labour market ruptures have seen underemployment spiral upwards (ILO, 2020) as employers seek to protect profits and/or business. At the same time, staff and skills shortages in the wake of Brexit; the precarious nature of work in some sectors; and the effects of furloughing provide further risk and insecurity for workers but also potential for changes in employment and working conditions. The coexistence of underemployment and staff shortages makes this investigation relevant to policy makers and practitioners. We aim to understand impacts of labour market changes on underemployment, the ways that social inequalities affect vulnerability to underemployment and the effect of the latter on inequalities, and, utilising robust results in discussions with policy makers and practitioners, identify how this can be mitigated. In the process, the reoccurring policy mantra that employment is the best way out of poverty and that any job is better than no job is challenged. Developing good quality employment in hours, skill use, and wages (HSW) is crucial because 1 in 7 food bank users are (mainly part time) employed, with problems deepening during the pandemic (Trussell Trust, 2019, 2021). Headline government figures extol record numbers in employment but disguise the complexity of the contemporary labour market. Before the pandemic, nearly a million (2.7%) UK workers were in involuntary part-time jobs, with 5.2% preferring more hours (Bell and Blanchflower, 2013, 2019). At the height of the pandemic, almost a third of men working part-time in the UK said that they were doing so because they could not find a full-time job (Torres et al. 2021). Between 30 and 51% of employees were overqualified and 37% overskilled for their current job (CIPD, 2018). In-work poverty affected 13% of the workforce, with 18% of low-paid workers wanting more hours (JRF, 2019). Low paid workers were hit hardest by the fallout of the pandemic, facing increasing risks of precarious work, rising living costs and financial hardship (Warren et al, 2021). Employment no longer equals full-time, sufficient, secure or good work. The spread and potential upsurge of underemployment raises concerns about limited theoretical and empirical understandings of this concept. Supply-side economic and psychological perspectives (Dooley, 2003; Mousteri et al, 2020) dominate debates and emphasise individual choices and preferences. Our proposed research innovatively shifts understanding towards a sociological perspective focused on lived experiences of underemployment. This shift is important because access to decent, paid employment is not evenly distributed. For example, women (Kamerade and Richardson, 2018; Bond et al, 2009; McQuaid et al., 2010), younger/older workers (Beck, 2015; Beck and Williams, 2015), and the working-class (Warren, 2015) are more vulnerable to underemployment. Exploring the range of lived experiences allows an investigation into the causes and consequences of underemployment. Feldman (1996) and Dooley (2003) warned of risks for underemployed workers' job security, incomes, well-being and social standing. Key knowledge gaps addressed in this project include ways in which social inequalities alter outcomes of underemployment for workers and their families; trends in each indicator of underemployment (hours, wages, skills), their combined effects, and how underemployment affects industrial relations systems, employers and businesses, business models, unions, communities, policymakers and their practices, especially given Covid-19, Brexit and recessions.

During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be societal implications for all children. However, for those in the youth justice system the impacts are likely to be exceptional. A disproportionate number of these children have complex needs, are from BAME backgrounds, have experienced school exclusions, and many come from groups with generally worse outcomes than average, including those with exposure to adverse childhood experiences (Bateman, 2017). The youth justice system is facing a strange hiatus; on the one hand, criminal trials have been delayed and arrests are down, while on the other, existing issues of BAME disproportionality, mental health, domestic abuse and school engagement are areas of acute risk for justice-involved children. There is an urgent need to develop a clear understanding of the impact of the pandemic on these children and those who work with them. Indeed, there has been a lack of focus on this group both from a political and media perspective. We do know that the pandemic has had unprecedented implications and consequences for the youth justice system, from how professionals have had to adapt to remote working, the delay of criminal trials, and the safety of children in custodial settings. Liaising with our youth justice colleagues, we know that each stage of the youth justice system has responded differently. This project will bring together statutory partners, third sector organisations, senior national policy/decision-makers, and children with lived experiences. It will provide a unique opportunity to gather insight and to produce impactful recommendations. By involving and working with children in our project, we will address the usual top-down research hierarchies inherent in youth justice research and ensure that children's voices are prioritised.

This project brings together the Centre for Cultural Value, the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and a national consortium of researchers and partners to analyse existing datasets and conduct targeted empirical research on the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on cultural organisations, practitioners and audiences. It will provide a clear national picture and identify immediate and longer-term implications for policy and practice. We will map and track the sector longitudinally over 18 months using a mixed-methods design to assess the extent of organisational exit and sectoral adjustment, as well as evolving cultural engagement behaviours amongst the public. We will use a workstreams approach to provide a holistic and nuanced analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on the cultural industries. Workstream 1 will produce a meta-analysis of cultural sector surveys relating to COVID-19, bringing together the fragmented datasets observed to date, and developing a range of illustrative, representative case studies from the core sub-sectors of the cultural industries. Workstream 2 will examine cultural supply and demand in the digital space, incorporating a longitudinal tracking survey, social media analysis and analysis of content uploaded to an online community-based storytelling platform. Workstream 3 will analyse the impacts of UK policy responses and compare international policy responses. It will include a case study of a regional cultural ecology; examine impacts of intervention packages made available by the UK governments and funders; and convene a reference group of c.20 cultural industry membership organisations, trade associations, advocacy bodies, funders and policymakers.

The Passions of Youth, which follows on from research conducted for an AHRC supported monograph, Being Boys, intends to showcase the creative potential of 'ordinary' working-class young men in their teens as an alternative to popular assumptions made about working-class young men, which tend to ignore the ordinary and everyday and focus on the exceptional, sensational and negative. This proposal focuses on the 'joiners', those who have actively followed particular leisure interests, with the aim of strengthening and validating their choices and communicating their enthusiasm for them to a public audience. The Passions of Youth celebrates the skills and experiences that working-class young men often develop when they participate in particular leisure activities, in this case football, speedway and music. The project is delivered through three groups in Manchester and Salford: FC United of Manchester, Belle Vue Aces (Speedway) and Salford Youth Hub, and uses a variety of creative approaches and the medium of these shared leisure passions to enable working-class young men in their teens and older working-class men who were teenagers between the 1940s and 1970s to explore changing experiences of youth. The young working-class men will be empowered to shape their own narratives of their leisure experiences and alternative interpretations of age and working-class masculinity. The Passions of Youth is more than about the activity itself, in this case, football, music and speedway racing; it offers participants opportunities to reflect on and become more self-aware of the wide range of skills these activities utilise, from social interaction and collaboration to self-sufficiency and resilience. A range of creative activities, chosen by the young men themselves, will help them to acquire new skills and the confidence to put their leisure pursuit into a broader historical and community context. The activities will build up knowledge and confidence by giving individuals a sense of empowerment and ownership to help them convey the personal meanings of their particular leisure enthusiasm and share, learn and reflect on it with others outside their immediate environment. The young men who participate will develop a range personal and transferable skills, becoming experienced in authoring the creative and social aspects of their projects, creating new archives and collections, articulating their own ideas and showing how history can be used to 'do something positive'. The involvement of Manchester Histories and the Manchester Histories Festivals in 2014 and 2015 will provide large audiences for the project's creative outcomes. Local communities will be encouraged to take pride in the expertise of these young men, public awareness of their potential will be raised and popular stereotypes of their behaviour will be challenged. The Passions of Youth is based on collaborative partnerships and sustainable, creative engagements between Manchester Metropolitan University, community organisations and those working in the creative professions across Greater Manchester, which will enable the young men to present and showcase their particular leisure enthusiasms to each other and to the public. The proposal's underlying aim is to communicate the potential of humanities research to stimulate fresh and innovative approaches to aspects of working-class young men's lives which are usually overlooked and unseen by the public and in broader political debates.

The Salford of the future will be more resilient and better connected - and the future health, well-being and prosperity of its citizens will be at the heart of decision making. Its key systems for transport, housing, energy and other infrastructure will need to be sustainable, more intelligently integrated and adapted to the future impacts of climate change. A feasibility study is proposedto assess how systems and infrastructure investments in the City can be effectively integrated, made more efficient.. It will also explore how a ComMUSCo could enable citizens and local businesses to benefit from, and be more involved in, key investment decisions that will be critical to the future of the City and the health, well-being and prosperity of its citizens. Manchester City Council are also submitting TSB bid. Both have a distinct focus however, during the feasibility study stage both Cities we will explore potential areas of synergy to ensure that the benefits are maximised.