The OU’s Professor Jacqui Gabb has won a research impact award for work completed on the Enduring Love? project, a study into the way couples sustain their long-term relationships.
The inaugural Evelyn Gillan Research Impact Prize was presented by the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships in memory of the centre’s late colleague Evelyn Gillan (1959-2015) and supported by the Scottish Government.
Jacqui Gabb, OU Professor of Sociology and Intimacy, received the accolade during a conference in Edinburgh. The Enduring Love? study provides unique research evidence on couple relationships in the 21st century and this information has been used to inform professional practice and help shape general debate on couple diversity.
Professor Gabb said: “At the Enduring Love? project launch, Annabel Burns, Deputy Director at the Department for Education, Section for Family Law and Relationships, asked: ‘how can we mainstream relationship education?’
“This provocation has inspired and informed our impact and public engagement activities, and we’ve worked hard to ensure that research findings are widely disseminated.
Informed professional practice
“Research evidence has been presented to government departments (Department for Education, Department for Work and Pensions and The Treasury) and parliamentary policy making groups (Centre for Social Justice and Labour Policy Review).
“Knowledge of the ordinary things that couples do to sustain their long-term relationships has informed professional practice and is being applied in clinical assessment. In collaboration with Brook, online relationship information resources for young people have been developed and eLearning teaching materials have been produced for inclusion in Personal, Social and Health Education curriculum – with a teachers’ pack being launched at the House of Lords in September.
“Extensive media coverage of findings has shaped debate on couple diversity and enduring relationships and a self-help book has ‘translated’ academic findings for a general readership.”
Find out more about the Enduring Love? project in this series of videos.
Below is the first in a series of videos produced to explore the art of relationships in support of the Enduring Love? research with a visual artist.
