News and Events

The event marked the launch of a new report published by the Academy of Social Sciences, in partnership with eight Midlands-based universities.

We are delighted to offer two PhD scholarships linked to these two important topics:

1. Intercultural research on diversity in professional contexts

2. Linguistic Bias in Large Language Model Artificial Intelligence

The Department of Education Studies is delighted to celebrate the achievements of two of our alumni who have been recognised in the King’s New Year Honours 2026 for their exceptional contributions to education and public service.

Professor Jacquelyn Bridget Dunne, who completed her MA in Education and Industry with the former Institute of Education, has been awarded an MBE for services to Higher Education. Now Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham Newman University, Professor Dunne has built a distinguished career championing access, opportunity, and innovation in the sector.

Ian Todd, a graduate of the PG Diploma in Educational Assessment, has been awarded an OBE for Parliamentary and Public Service. As Chief Secretary and Head of the Public Service for the St Helena Government, he has played a central role in public sector leadership and governance.

We are immensely proud to see that two of our education alumni have had their contributions recognised nationally. Their honours highlight the impact of education professionals whose careers have been shaped, in part, by their time at Warwick.

We warmly congratulate Professor Dunne and Ian Todd on their achievements.

More details are available here: https://warwick.ac.uk/alumni/alumni-news/news/new_years_honours_2026/

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Diversity in Data Visualization (Diverse CDT) is a pioneering, fully funded four-year PhD programme jointly delivered by City St George’s, University of London and the University of Warwick.

Applications for PhD studentships with Diverse CDT are now open for 2026 entry.

We have rolling deadlines across several months and the first deadline for submitting an application is 4pm, GMT on 30th January 2026.

Further details here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/cim/apply-to-study/phd-programmes/diverse-cdt/

We are delighted to share some positive results we have received from National Student Survey 2022.

In the week that the Church of England installed the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in its 500-year history, Warwick economist Professor Sascha Becker published new work exploring why it is that women, across almost all faiths and nations, are more religious than men even though most world faiths emphasise traditional, unequal gender roles for women and girls.

In Gender and Religion: a survey, published in the Journal of Demographic Economics, Professor Becker and co-authors Jeanet Sinding Bentzen (University of Copenhagen) and Chun Chee Kok (Université Catholique de Louvain) first investigate what economics, psychology and sociology can tell us about gender differences in personal faith and religious practice.

In the second part of their paper, they look at how religious doctrine and/or religiosity (“religion” for short) affects women’s economic and social outcomes. The researchers reviewed a large number of studies focusing on those which use empirical techniques – such as natural experiments, randomized interventions, policy changes or instrumental variables – to isolate the effects of religion.

Survey evidence and demographic studies consistently show that women are more likely than men to identify as having a religious affiliation, to engage in daily prayer, and to consider religion an important part of their lives.

Explanations put forward by researchers past and present include:-

• Economic roles and division of labour – studies in the 1970s proposed that religious participation was seen as part of the domestic sphere belonging to women. More recent time-use studies have found that women who work outside the home tend to be less religious than those who don’t.
• Aversion to risk – 17^th century philosopher Blaise Pascal proposed that a logical person would choose to believe in God, arguing “if you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing.” On average, research has found women to be more risk-averse than men. Perhaps they accept Pascal’s Wager as a form of insurance? Membership of a faith community can also be a form of insurance, offering emotional support and practical help.
• Compensation for deprivation – faith communities can offer women an alternative sphere of value, social connection and purpose in societies where they cannot achieve this through employment. In some contexts studied, the presence of women in faith leadership roles was found to have positive effects on female participation in public life and education rates for women and girls, for example in 1930s Korea.

The gap in religiosity is more marked among older generations than younger ones. Recent research in Europe, North America and Australia has found that the gap is closing, with young men turning to religion and young women leaving. Some studies cited in the paper are linking this to an increase in congregations preaching a patriarchal interpretation of Christian manhood and extreme Christian nationalism.

Professor Becker said: “An important question on which evidence is only beginning to emerge is whether the gender gap will close as societies modernise and secularise – or will deeper factors continue to draw women to faith?

“We found extensive evidence revealing how religion influences a wide range of outcomes for women and girls, from how much and what type of education girls receive, to whether girl children are even born in the first place.

“However, this influence was not only in one direction. We found that in some contexts, religious movements promoted female empowerment - such as the drive by early Protestants to ensure that all members of the congregation were sufficiently literate to read the Bible. Others, such as the modern-day Taliban, deny women and girls any education at all.

“Women’s participation in formal employment, their reproductive rights, and their legal rights and responsibilities are still shaped openly by religious teachings and indirectly through the influence of faith on legislators.

“Against this background it is clearly a puzzle that women are, on average, more religious than men despite most religions promoting and entrenching patriarchal norms which impose significant costs and burdens upon them.

“While the research we reviewed offers partial explanations, no single theory or study explains this paradox.”

ENDS

• Becker SO, Bentzen JS, Kok CC. Gender and religion: a survey. Journal of Demographic Economics Published online 2026:1-42. doi:10.1017/dem.2025.10014

Warwick ESRC DTP New Year's Social happening on Wednesday 4th February 2026.

The Skills2Capabilities project has formally concluded, marking the end of a three-year Horizon Europe collaboration that explored how skills systems can better support labour-market transitions across Europe. The project, coordinated by 3s (Austria), brought together seven interlinked work packages to tackle some of the most pressing questions facing Europe’s labour markets: how to support workers to update their skills, navigate career transitions and stay resilient throughout life – and how to give employers access to a workforce ready for the demands of green and digital transitions.

On the 23^rd of January the Politics and International Studies (PAIS) department celebrated a cohort of students graduating from PhD’s, Postgraduate and Undergraduate degrees.

Warwick Philosophy is inviting expressions of interest (EOI) in the latest round of the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. The deadline for EOIs is Thursday, 18 December 2025 at 12 noon. 

Full details of EOI process and timelines are linked above.

The Department of Sociology are delighted to announce that Professor Claire Blencowe has been selected to receive a prestigious Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council. The grant, worth £1.8 million, will enable her to lead a 5-year, cross-continental, cross-faith investigation of the role of religious authority in extractive industry struggles.

The University of Warwick’s Centre for Teacher Education (CTE) has received a glowing report following a recent Ofsted inspection, highlighting the exceptional quality of training and support provided to its teaching trainees. The inspection report underscores the University’s commitment to nurturing future educators who are well-prepared and passionate about their careers.