(University of East Anglia)

Primary mentor: Dr Birgit Larsson

Second mentor: Professor Núria Fuentes Peláez

Research topic title: The role of foster carers in meeting children’s developmental and identity needs in England, Portugal and Spain.

Research project description: The number of children who have been removed from their birth families for reasons such as neglect and/or abuse and have been placed in care has been increasing over the years, for instance, in England, 83,840 children were in care in 2023, against 60,820 in 2003. These children are among the most vulnerable groups in society. Foster care is the widely preferred type of placement for the majority of these children, however, differences between countries emerge when it comes to the use of foster care and how foster carers are expected to perform the role, that is, as parents, professionals or a combination of both. These differences can condition how foster carers support children’s development and identity formation and, particularly promote their sense of belonging to both the foster family and birth family (i.e. multifamily membership). International comparisons can, therefore, shed light on cultural differences, best practices and areas for mutual learning, which can ultimately contribute to children’s outcomes.

In my PhD thesis, I explored the role of foster carers in England and Portugal and focused on understanding the different elements of the role and how these could influence children’s outcomes. For this, I conducted focus groups with a total of 99 participants between England and Portugal. Children and young adults with foster care experience, foster carers and social workers shared their perspectives on “what makes a good foster carer” and how placement success could be measured. Moreover, a total of 740 foster carers in England and 53 foster carers in Portugal filled in a survey where they reported on their fostering competencies, the quality of their relationship with children and children’s difficulties. The most relevant findings that emerged from this research were that in England, some foster carers had difficulties in promoting children’s sense of belonging to the foster family, while, in Portugal, the difficulties were around promoting children’s sense of belonging to their birth family; and that a lower quality of the relationship between foster carers and children could negatively influence children’s development and identity formation.

This fellowship aims to generate societal impact in England, Portugal (where I conducted my PhD research and am carrying out further research) and Spain (where I am conducting a research visit and further research), by advancing the understanding of the role of foster carers, which can contribute to improving foster care provision and consequently lead to better outcomes for children in foster care. This will be achieved through planned activities that will further this academic field; specifically, I am working on two articles on the findings of my PhD thesis, developed a funding proposal and currently carrying out further research related to the PhD. In this research, I am conducting focus groups to explore how young people in foster care in England, Portugal and Spain describe their identity and perceive the contributions of foster carers to their identity development, with a focus on multifamily membership. The findings of this new piece of research and my PhD will be contextualised within the national and international literature, practice context, legal framework and policies, and tailored for dissemination next to academics, foster carers, social workers and children in foster care. Moreover, evidence relevant to national policies and strategies will be directly shared with key policymakers, considering their pivotal role in driving change in policy and practice. Most of these activities have also been designed to build and consolidate my academic, policy and practice networks, thereby increasing opportunities for impact.

Therefore, this fellowship will enhance the knowledge of different stakeholders on the role of foster carers and their contributions to children’s development and identity formation, as well as support my early career progression and future research aspirations.

What I have achieved as part of my fellowship: My ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship is based at the University of East Anglia, and my research focuses on the role of foster carers, with particular attention to how carers in England, Portugal, and Spain can best support children’s development and identity formation.

Over the past months, I have worked on several planned activities, including a research project (i.e., focus groups with young people who have foster care experience in England, Portugal, or Spain), a research stay (i.e., at the University of Barcelona), publications (e.g. articles from my PhD thesis) and dissemination efforts (e.g., organising a symposium for the EuSARF 2025 conference), 

Beyond these, I have also pursued other opportunities to engage with broader audiences and policy contexts. For example, I published an opinion piece in the Portuguese newspaper Público (link), addressing ongoing debates in Portugal about whether foster carers should be allowed to adopt. Following this, I was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on the topic hosted by the Portuguese Secretary of State’s Office. I was pleased to see that the evidence I and other colleagues contributed helped inform recent legislative changes, namely, that foster carers are now permitted to adopt and kinship care has officially been recognised as a form of foster care - link.

At the University of East Anglia, I was honoured to present my research during the visit of the Cambodian Minister of Social Affairs, as part of their exploration of child protection and social skills programmes in the UK (link).

Additionally, I recently became an Associate Member of the Rees Centre (University of Oxford), where I completed my PhD. As part of this role, and in support of Fostering Fortnight — the UK’s largest awareness-raising campaign on fostering — I contributed a blog post reflecting on the role of foster carers and the experiences of children in care - link).

More recently, I have been invited by the social services from Chile to provide training to social workers and foster carers on evidence about the role of foster carers and their contributions to children's development and identity formation. I will also have the opportunity to learn from their child protection system during this visit to Antofagasta in early October, which will provide valuable insights for my comparative research across England, Portugal, and Spain.

Finally, I am delighted to share that I have been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship - link, which will enable me to build on the research I am currently undertaking as part of the ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship.

I am deeply grateful for the support provided by the ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship. 

Publications:

Pinto, V. S., & Luke, N. (under review). The role of foster carers and children’s outcomes in England and Portugal. Children and Youth Services Review – Special Issue Social Justice in Children, Youth and Family Welfare: Unmasking Hidden Complexities.

Holmes, L., Pinto, V. S., Wroe, L. E., Peace, D. and Firmin, C. (2024) ‘Relocating Adolescents’: The Costs of Out-of-Area Placements as a Response to Extra-Familial Risk/Harm, The British Journal of Social Work, 109, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae109

Anjos, C., Magalhães, E., Graça, J., Pinto, V. S., Baptista, J., & Pinheiro, M. (2023). Perceived barriers, drivers and enablers to becoming a foster family: An exploratory study in Portugal. Children and Youth Services Review, 145. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.childyouth.2023.106811 

Magalhães, E., Costa, P., Pinto, V. S., Graça, J., Baptista, J., Ferreira, S., Castro, E., Anjos, C., & Gouveia, L. (2022). Reasons, willingness, and intention to be a foster family: A community-sample study. Children and Youth Services Review, 142. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.childyouth.2022.106648

Pinto, V. S., & Luke, N. (2022). The role of foster carers in England and Portugal: Is it solely a parenting role? Children & Society, 36(2), 249-265. https://doi.org/10.1111/ chso.12536

Gouveia, L., Magalhães, E., & Pinto, V. S. (2021): Foster families: A systematic review of intention and retention factors. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 30, 2766–2781.

https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-02051-w

Planned publications:

- How can foster carers in England better promote positive children’s outcomes?  Exploring the different elements of the role and their interactions. The target journal is Child & Family Social Work.

- Defining a good foster carer: An international meta-synthesis of stakeholders’ perspectives. The target journal is Children and Youth Services Review.

Contact details:

Email:v.salvador-pinto@uea.ac.uk

(City St Georges, University of London)

Primary mentor: Dr Sasikumar Sundaram

Second mentor: Dr Baris Cayli Messina

Research topic title: Global South Populism and the Contestation of the Global Order

Research project description: This project explores how the rise of populist authoritarian leadership in the Global South is reshaping the dynamics of international politics, with a focus on Turkey and Venezuela. It examines how these states challenge the global order through new forms of partnerships, evolving security narratives, and assertive foreign policy strategies. The research addresses three core themes. First, it investigates how populist leaders form cross-ideological partnerships that contest dominant global norms, shedding light on solidaristic relationships that defy traditional rules of international engagement. Second, it examines how populism transforms security discourses within countries, particularly how populist governments frame domestic opposition as foreign threats to justify crackdowns and the erosion of democratic rights. Third, it analyzes the use of new technologies like drones as instruments of populist foreign policy, focusing on Turkey’s expanding role in the global arms trade and how military exports are framed as empowering smaller nations to resist global powers—raising critical questions around ethics, human rights, and the future of warfare. Employing contentious frame analysis, the project explores how political narratives evolve and how populist actors continually shape and reshape their identities within changing global contexts. The findings will be shared through international conferences, workshops, and collaborations with research groups, think tanks, and NGOs, with the aim of engaging policymakers and civil society in ongoing debates around foreign policy, democracy, and global governance in an era marked by the rise of populism.

What I have achieved as part of my fellowship:

As a SENSS Postdoctoral Fellow at City, St George’s, University of London, I am conducting a project titled “Global South Populism and the Contestation of the Global Order.”  This project examines how the rise of populist authoritarianism in the Global South is reshaping political practices, focusing on Turkey and Venezuela through three core themes: the formation of cross-ideological solidarities challenging the international order, the securitisation of domestic opposition as a means of repression, and the use of emerging technologies as tools of populist foreign policy. 

 In addition to preparing academic publications, I have been hosting the Voices on Global Populism podcast, where I engage scholars and practitioners in conversations about the global dimensions of populist politics. I have also written academic blog posts, including a recent piece for the LSE Human Rights Blog on Turkey’s drone exports from a human rights perspective. 

I have presented research findings from this project at conferences and workshops, including the Political Studies Association (PSA) Annual Conference, where I focused on the securitisation of the opposition in comparative perspective. I have also delivered talks at institutions such as the University of Lincoln and the University of Copenhagen on the convergence of Venezuela and Turkey in their foreign policy. On July 1st, I will be delivering a public undergraduate lecture on the ethics of drone warfare  in partnership with the British International Studies Association.

Publications:

PSA Blog, Is Turkey Starting a New Peace Process with the PKK?

LSE Human Rights Blog, A human rights perspective on Turkey’s drone exports

PSA Blog, Approaching the Turkish Elections with a Global Lens

PSA Blog, Tensions Rising in The Mediterranean: The Interplay of Domestic and Foreign Policy in Turkey

Editor, Co-author, Methodological Approaches in Kurdish Studies Theoretical and Practical Insights from the Field

Planned publications:

- Populist Empathy: The Politics of Solidarity Between Venezuela and Turkey

- Securitisation and Authoritarianism in Turkey and Venezuela

- The Drone Effect: Populist Foreign Policy and Technological Nationalism

Contact details:

Email: begumzorlu@gmail.com

BlueSky: @begumzorlu.bsky.social

(City St George’s, University of London)

Primary mentor: Dr Stefano Sgambati

Second mentor: Dr Jamie Woodcock

Research topic title: The Internationalization of American Venture Capital and its Implications for Sustainable Development

Research project description: This ESRC postdoc project aims to consolidate

my PhD and subsequent research on the political economy of venture capital (VC) and its techno-utopian promises of artificial intelligence (AI) for sustainable development. Towards this end, I worked on several publications to outline a novel perspective on the international political economy of VC and the Tech sector that foregrounds (1) the winners-take-all imperative underpinning VC in the US in the post-dotcom era (article in Socio-Economic Review) as well as financial dependencies between the UK and the US with resulted from the unequal internationalization of US American VC since the 1980s (article in Finance and Society).

Over the course of the ESRC Fellowship, I also presented my work at several conferences such as the Association for Heterodox Economics Annual Conference in London, the ECPR General Conference in Thessaloniki, and the Finance and Society Conference 2025 in Copenhagen.

Moreover, I taught on the undergraduate courses Global Capitalism: Past, Present and Future and Global Money and Finance as part of the BSc in International Political Economy in the Department of International Politics, City St George’s, University of London. I also taught at the London School of Economics on the course Economic Sociology as part of the MSc in Economy and Society.

Publications:

Kampmann, David and Peters Nils (2025). Subordinating ‘Alt-Finance’: How British Venture Capital became dependent on the US. Accepted for publication at Finance and Society.

Kampmann, David (2025). The Political Economy of Venture Capital: Winners-take-All and Founder Control. Minor revisions at Socio-Economic Review.

Planned publications:

Kampmann, David (2025). When Private became King: Venture Burn, Corporate Control, and how to compete with Big Tech in the Race for Artificial General Intelligence. Working paper.

Contact details:

Email: d.kampmann@lse.ac.uk

X: @davvkamp

(University of Essex)

Primary mentor: Prof Eamonn Carrabine

Secondary mentor: Dr Lambros Fatsis

Research project description: During my fellowship I have been developing a portfolio of research focusing on the topics of policing, racial capitalism, counterinsurgency warfare, and grassroots resistance, that builds on both my PhD and on my work outside of academia organising with young people in East London. There have been three main strands of activity.

Firstly, drawing on findings from my PhD research, I have been preparing two articles for publication in academic journals. The first of these articles explores connections between the contemporary use of ‘community policing’ strategies in the Metropolitan Police, and the history of counterinsurgency warfare across various domestic and colonial ‘frontiers’. The second article follows on from an investigation into the Home Office’s recent use of the ‘Clear Hold Build’ initiative, a ‘place-based’ policing strategy that takes its name and inspiration from British and American counterinsurgency doctrine.  I am also developing a book proposal, and a further postdoc application, both of which, if successful, would enable further research into these topics.

Secondly, I have been building links with researchers and organisers in the US, with a trip to the east coast planned before the end of the fellowship to visit scholars at American University, John Hopkins University, and City University New York, and to present at both the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and the American Society of Criminology (ASC).  

Thirdly, I have been working towards the development of a large youth-led conference for movement-building, planned for February 2026. This event, a follow up to 2023’s conference for ‘Healing, Hope and Justice’ at University College London, will be open to activists, researchers, community organisers, and members of the public, who are interested and/or engaged with various movements for justice in the UK, with a particular focus on those experiencing and/or organising resistance in relation to policing and the criminal legal system.

Publications:

Head, T., Onapa, E., Smith, D. and Agbetu, I., (2025). Racial Profiling, Anti-Black Racism, Black Resistance and the Policing of Young Londoners. British Journal of Criminology

Planned publications:

- Co-opting the crisis? Countering insurgency with liaison, consultation and ‘Community Oriented Policing’  

- ‘You can’t Clear alone, you can’t Hold alone’: cops, co-option, and counterinsurgency warfare in inner-city London

Contact details:

Email:t.head@essex.ac.uk