The Young Foundation has launched a project to capture the social impact of the coronavirus on individuals and communities across the UK.
The Foundation is asking people over the age of 18 to share their day-to-day experiences of the pandemic via an online platform over the next three months. This will then create a digital archive of life during a pandemic.
The project has been developed in partnership with The Open University and is being delivered via the nQuire platform.
The study is underpinned by two types of opt-in “missions”. There is one confidential mission, where data shared can only be used anonymously for research purposes, and one social mission meaning that data and stories shared will be available for anyone to view and download.
Depending on the choice of mission, participants will answer a series of questions online and be asked to share examples, photos and views on what they are seeing and experiencing in their communities. Content in the form of text and photos can be shared with consent, creating an archive of content.
The missions will be live on nQuire for three months.
'For the first time in history, the lived experience of a viral pandemic in communities will be documented'
Helen Goulden, chief executive of The Young Foundation, said: “We are in unprecedented times and this research will be critical to our understanding of how the Covid-19 pandemic is fundamentally and dynamically changing all of our lives. For the first time in history, the lived experience of a viral pandemic in communities will be documented and captured for future generations.
“The resulting research will form an important digital archive of how the communities responded to this generation-defining moment in time. To really understand what the impact of Covid-19 will be on UK society and community life we need to hear from you. This could be the biggest social citizen project ever in the UK.”
The insights will be compiled and published on nQuire and on The Young Foundation website, alongside first-person stories from around the UK, in summer 2020.
A deeper analysis of the data will go on to contribute to a wider research study into the long-term impacts of a society changed by contagion.
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