This year’s conference is well underway, with around 2,000 geographers from around the world enjoying over 375 academic sessions.
Some of the research being presented at the conference has been featured in the media. A study by Sol Gamsu (King’s College London) showing that schools in the south east of the UK send more students to Oxbridge than schools in other parts of the country was covered by the BBC, the Independent and the Mirror in the week that A Level results were announced.
The Sunday Times also featured Sol Gamsu’s research with an article focusing on his findings that some state schools are asking for ‘voluntary parental contributions’ of up to £30 per month. The same edition of the Sunday Times covered research by a team from Loughborough University led by Professor Darren Smith that found middle class families are increasingly buying small plots of woodland, enabling their children to interact with nature and play in a perceived safe natural space.
Research by Dr Tim Chatterton and Professor Graham Parkhurst, from the University of the West of England, shows that despite pollution contributing between 15 and 30 times the annual number of deaths associated with road traffic accidents (2000-2015), road traffic collisions continue to remain the primary concern of transport planners. The BBC, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and ITV News all reported their findings.
A study that found that 4% of people in England cannot afford to feed themselves and exposed the stark geography of food poverty in the country was covered widely, including by the Daily Express, the Mirror and the Yorkshire Post. The research team included Dr Dianna Smith (University of Southampton), Kirk Harland, Claire Thompson (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Nicola Shelton (University College London) and Storm Parker (East Surrey Hospital).
Dr Luna Glucksberg’s research into how London’s wealthiest individuals and families feel they are being pushed out of the capital’s most exclusive areas by people with even more money was picked up by the Evening Standard and the Guardian.
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