Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL)
The School is currently involved in two Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) projects, each funded for £250,000 over three years.

The PREPOL project, a consortium also including the University of Birmingham, Nottingham Trent University and the University of Central Lancashire, is looking at improving pre-entry and initial guidance and students studying the subjects of International Relations and Politics.

The ALAC (Active Learning, Active Citizenship) project, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, aims to enhance the teaching and learning of citizenship and political literacy in the subjects of Education Studies, Social Policy, Politics and Teacher Training by developing resources and approaches that integrate the use of ICT and multimedia involving the use of virtual learning environments and open and flexible approaches to learning. These will address three inter-related strands of (1) social and moral responsibility (2) community involvement and (3) political literacy.
See the ALAC site at: http://extra.shu.ac.uk/alac/

Catherine Bochel & Hugh Bochel
Women Councillors and Political Leadership: research funded by the Nuffield Foundation

Local Government Modernisation: The modernisation of local government under the Labour governments has involved the development of new structures of political decision making. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of these changes on women councillors, and in particular their progression to more ‘senior’ or ‘leadership’ positions in local government.