Dr Sumedh Rao

I am an academic and policy researcher focused on intergroup relations, conflict and governance. As a policy-engaged social and political psychologist, I currently look at how people from different social groups, especially from different ethnic and racial groups, interact with each other. This includes how they perceive, think about, feel about, and act towards each other. My policy work contributes towards the conflict and governance programmes of governmental and international organisations. 

Currently, as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Open University, I work on the first systematic interdisciplinary examination of an important form of prejudice, drawing on theoretical and methodological insights from psychology and history. This innovative project, titled “Anti-Catholicism in the UK since 1945: An interdisciplinary study of prejudice” is funded by the Leverhulme Trust, with Prof John Wolffe (PI, Religious History), Prof Jovan Byford (Co-I, Psychology and History) and Prof John Dixon (Co-I, Social Psychology). 

My work on intergroup relations began at the University of Oxford, where I was a Postdoctoral Researcher, working with Prof Shelley McKeown Jones on the Shared Spaces Project. This project examined the interplay between the individual and contextual factors that influence whether adolescents in Belfast and Bradford choose to, or choose not to, engage in intergroup interactions with people from other ethno-religious groups. Prior to this, my doctoral research at the University of Birmingham explored experiences and conceptualisations of identity, threat and trust in post-accord Northern Ireland and was supervised by Prof Paul Jackson and Prof Stefan Wolff.

As a policy researcher and practitioner, I collaborate primarily with international organisations, such as the UNDP and the World Bank, and national government departments, such as the UK FCDO and DFAT Australia. Recent topics include conflict de-escalation, public service delivery, public sector reform, and electoral assistance.