USPG’s research is wide-ranging, addressing some of the defining issues of our time. It takes a deeper and more systematic look at the work and contexts in which our partners are engaged around the world. We spend time with our partner churches, visiting their projects and talking to people in order to learn about their experiences and how they are responding.
Our aim is to develop a better understanding of the contexts in which our partners live and work, in part to ensure our support for their initiatives is effective. We also want to support our partners challenge and change unjust structures.
We work with our global partners to produce research and reports which are approved by British universities and can be used to inform and campaign at high-level global forums. Our co-produced reports have been used to inform discussions at the UK Foreign Office, at academic conferences and at the synods of partner churches around the world.
Our research work is led by Dr Jo Sadgrove, USPG’s Research and Learning Advisor, and Rev’d Dr Peniel Rajkumar, our Global Theologian. It has also been supported by Emma Bridger, an independent research consultant.
Recent work has included evaluating the Church’s response to Covid-19. Our research reports are organised chronologically, year by year.
2022
Pastoral Care
USPG has been working with scholars at the University of Leeds who have been exploring, analysing and digitising some of the documents from our early history as an organisation (1701 – 1720). Working around the theme of pastoral care, we have been trying to understand how the past might inform the present in relation to the Covid 19 crisis and USPG’s ongoing mission to care and create community across cultures and contexts. The archival work has been accompanied by a series of contemporary research conversations with chaplains and clergy working in front line spiritual care provision. This report, written from an organisational perspective, seeks to draw the archival conversations into dialogue with USPG’s work with African and UK church partners throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Click here to visit the project website.
To read our blog for the Bodleian library introducing the project, click here.
2019
Response to a report by the Bishop of Truro into support for persecuted Christians
The Bishop of Truro, Rt Rev’d Philip Mounstephen, was commissioned by the UK government in 2018 to examine Foreign Office support for persecuted Christians around world. His independent review made a number of recommendations for action. You can read the report here.
USPG responded to the review with its own report - A response to the Bishop of Truro report. Working with scholars from the University of Birmingham, we explored some the complexities of the issue, the statistics produced and the methodology of the report in gathering and analysing those statistics. We also explored what was meant by ‘persecution’, the human rights literacy among religious leaders and their communities and the growing lack of tolerance to religion.
2017
USPG Episcopal Accompaniment Process and Impact Evaluation (June 2017)
The Episcopal Accompaniment Programme involves working with small groups of bishops within a province to support them in reflecting upon and re-evaluating their leadership styles, aims and objectives.
Episcopal Accompaniment Report
CWAG - Anglican Communion Survey
2015
Forced Labour, Human Trafficking and the FTSE 100
Modern slavery is one of the predominant human rights issues of our time. This report provides investors with a selection of representative industry examples and case studies that will enable them to be more conversant with, and have greater understanding of, the nature of human trafficking and forced labour risks in various sectors. Advice and guidance is given to investors and businesses on how these risks can be addressed and companies can meet their corporate responsibilities.
