Commission research

Commissioned by Network Rail, research at Canterbury Christ Church University is exploring the factors that impact upon suicide on the railways and, importantly, exploring how such suicides may be reduced.

Following work to understand how suicide-safer communities can be developed in Kent and Medway, the research for Network Rail focuses on the impact of messaging and communication on suicide rates and individual suicide incidences.

The work collects insights from individuals affected by suicide, rail staff, and clinical experts to understand what myths might be perpetuated by messaging and communication relating to suicide and, importantly, what formal and informal communication strategies and interventions might challenge such myths.

With an explicit applied approach that focuses on generating actionable insights, the project has been commissioned and designed by our Faculty of Health and Wellbeing to support the rail industry in its efforts to reduce death by suicide on the railways.

Citizens Advice services support local residents to address some of the most pressing issues affecting their daily lives, including debt management and fuel poverty. Linked projects commissioned from our Salomons Institute of Applied Psychology have supported local branches of this national charity to provide and develop this support.

Following an evaluation of the Citizens Advice money advice service, which helped local residents with debt management, Citizens Advice 1066, serving Hastings and Rother, commissioned work to help understand how local residents could be supported to make their homes more energy efficient, thus both combatting fuel poverty and reducing carbon emissions in urban neighbourhoods.

Drawing on what worked in the provision and take up of money advice, the Salomons Institute is supporting and evidencing the impact of the Sustainable Houses in Inclusive Neighbourhoods (SHINE) project to develop “bottom-up” energy saving initiatives by residents, supported by networks of trained energy advisers.

Evidence from the SHINE and money advice evaluations is providing an understanding of what works in community engagement initiatives, and how charities and organisations can develop strategies to positively support behaviour change to improve local people’s lives.