Students' research highlighted by DMU's politics department

Topics as diverse as the Grenfell Tower fire, Apple’s corporate social responsibility programme and President Trump’s Twitter account were discussed and debated at a student poster competition.

Students from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s Department of Politics and Public Policy were invited to put together a poster as part of their final dissertation project. They went on display at The Venue@DMU with senior lecturers and invited guests providing critiques and feedback.


Professor Jon Davis meets student Uzma Debar, researching women and violence

The display recognised the breadth of quality and diversity of the final-year work being carried out by DMU’s politics department.

The event aimed to celebrate the students’ progress and give them feedback on their work so far, as well as give them the chance to see the breadth of topics being studied. They are due to hand in their dissertations in April.

Zain Afzal chose to study the political decisions and policy which led to the Grenfell Tower disaster. He said: “I work as a security guard at Elizabeth Tower and I was on the nightshift when it happened so I kind of felt this connection. It’s something I feel so passionate about, why this cost cutting and these decisions happened. I went to Grenfell to speak to people as part of the research and it was so humbling.”

Rebecca Ackerman’s project aims to find possible answers to why her home country of Wales voted to leave the EU, despite benefiting from millions in EU funding. “Our community centres and rugby clubs rely on funding yet there was this shift to leave.”



Richard Hayes decided to analyse Donald Trump’s tweets while he was on the Presidential trail to see if he could identify a shift in the language he used and the amount of tweets sent.

Uzma Debar, international relations, is studying why many people find it difficult to associate women with violence. She uses case studies including Lynndie England, who was convicted of torture in Iraq. “It’s this idea that people are always shocked women take part in wars and conflicts. They get singled out as though it’s worse that they have done this because they are women.”

International Relations with Politics student Parvez Minhas said the project had given her a love of research. She is comparing the experiences of working women in India and the UK and was flying to the Punjab to conduct interviews. She said: “I never even thought of doing this type of research but now I’m living in the library and I absolutely love it.”

Former Lord Mayor of Leicester, Councillor Ted Cassidy, was among the guests invited to see the posters and chat to the students. He said: “It has been really good to see so many different topics covered here. Many of the students have got personal connections with their subjects and it was fascinating to hear about their work I have learned so much.”