Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin awarded £1.5M for Future Leaders Fellowship project

Photo Dr Sweta FLF

Senior Lecturer and inter-disciplinary scholar, Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin, has been awarded a remarkable sum of money from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in the latest round of  Future Leaders Fellowships awards.

Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) provide long-term support to talented early career researchers, enabling them to tackle major global issues, and to develop and commercialise innovators’ new business ideas.

Dr Rajan-Rankin’s project entitled “Hair and Care” provides a ground breaking examination of the socio-material contexts of racialised belonging by exploring how Black hair is curated, manifested, disciplined and experienced by children and young people in social care and education settings.

The FLF will enable Sweta to develop a new field of inquiry on race, new materialisms and social work and generate real world impact in tackling racial inequalities in social care and education settings in England.

Commenting on the accolade, Dr Rajan-Rankin said: “Social work research traditionally doesn’t have many post-doctoral opportunities, and while inter-disciplinarity can be a strength, it can also be difficult to find one’s niche when applying to mainstream funding bodies.

“The UKRI FLF is life-changing for me because it recognises the value of inter-disciplinary thinking and liminal imagination and enables me to examine systemic racism in boundlessly creative ways. I am exceptionally grateful for the outstanding mentoring opportunities available through the FLF and for belonging to this incredibly talented community of scholars. It now seems possible to lead cutting edge research that can make real-world impact.”

Read the News Centre’s recent FLF announcement on the University’s website.

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