Business and Law in the time of COVID-19

A research project, funded internally by The Open University, explored how the pandemic impacted academic and professional staff in higher education throughout the UK.

Professor Elizabeth Daniel discusses the lasting legacy of the pandemic on self-employment and homeworking, the ‘passionpreneur’ and describes how mental load is affecting self-employed women.

Domestic homicides remain an ‘entrenched and enduring problem’ despite figures remaining relatively stable during lockdown, a new report drawing on research by an OU academic and commissioned by police has found.

The Leading school learning through COVID-19 and beyond project, led by Dr Jacqueline Baxter, together with Dr Katharine Jewitt and University of Reading colleague Professor Alan Floyd, are investigating online learning and strategic planning through, and post, lockdown in English secondary schools.

Coronavirus disruption to weddings has highlighted the complexity and antiquity of marriage law and reinforced the need for reform, a new study shows.

OU-funded projects which have aimed to improve and support aspects of online learning and education during the pandemic are being showcased on Thursday 27 May.

The pandemic cast a spotlight on much-hyped corporate purpose statements. In the glare of scrutiny, when the chips were down, organisations saw an uncomfortable question come to the fore: were they living up to the ideals they espoused? Some clearly weren’t.

Since the beginning of the first lockdown, what has become painfully, obviously, clear was that while we might all be in the same storm, we are in very different boats – and some have sprung a leak.

The Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership (CVSL) is part of a research team, funded by the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, which has launched The Value of Small in a Big Crisis report. 

Dr Hilary Collins, a Senior Lecturer in Corporate Programmes for Executive Education, has received £7,500 to assess the impact of the pandemic on Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements for organisational development in the UK.