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Ground-breaking multi-disciplinary research is to be launched today by the University of Oxford into the impact of poverty and social inequalities in early childhood, thanks to major funding from the Leverhulme Trust.

Young child holding soft toy

Fifteen doctoral scholarships, funded by a £1.35 million Leverhulme Trust award, will span the social and biological sciences with the aim of reducing the impact of these disadvantages on children’s life chances.

One in five children in low-income countries lives in extreme poverty, while declining living standards over the last decade has resulted in a quarter of children in the UK now being affected by poverty.

Led by Professor Jane Barlow, Chair in Evidence-Based Intervention and Policy Evaluation, the Leverhulme Trust Biopsychosocial Doctoral Scholarships scheme will be the first doctoral programme to bring together expertise from diverse disciplines with the explicit goal of reducing the impact of social inequality in early childhood through the application of biological science. The programme will encompass Oxford’s Departments of Social Policy and Intervention, Sociology, Psychiatry, and Experimental Psychology.

Read the full story on the University of Oxford website.