Graduate students use their research skills to pursue social justice

Graduate students, Arden Jaeger (Mst History of Art and Visual Culture, 2024) and Diya Ramful (Environmental Research, 2024), have been working with the Tap Social Movement, which offers employment and training to people with convictions via the brewery, bakery, café and tap bars it runs across Oxfordshire.

Tap Social has worked with around 60 prisoners or prison leavers and nearly a third of its staff have prison experience. As a Community Impact Fellow with Oxford SDG Impact Lab, Arden’s task was to find out what impact secure employment has on people with convictions, their families and their friends. He also needed to consider how the Tap Social Movement could be scaled for broader social impact.

With his research partner, Diya, Arden reached out to local arts organisations and criminal justice charities working with marginalised groups as well as Tap Social staff and customers.

Arden said:

‘There is huge support for Tap Social’s mission. Among staff with prison experience, a secure job is more than an income. It affects their housing, social connections and their mental health.

‘This project showed me just how interlinked problems of social justice can be. Tap Social is a positive case study that should be used to inspire other employers.’

Since its was founded in 2021, the Oxford SDG Impact Lab has connected talented students with purpose-driven organisations to co-create solutions for global and local sustainability challenges. The Community Impact Lab is one of four programmes set up by Oxford SDG Impact Lab to harness the skills and knowledge of the University's graduate students to advance the UN sustainable development goals. The Community Impact Lab links the research talent of Oxford University graduates with local community organisations tackling environmental, economic and social inequality across Oxfordshire.

Find out more about how Oxford's graduate students are using their research skills to boost local community projects.