The projects include a study of economic opportunities across racial and ethnic groups in the UK, led by Professor Imran Rasul at the Institute for Fiscal Studies with support from the London School of Economics and Political Science, which will consider inequalities across identity, education, the criminal justice system, employment and wealth.

 Funding will also be provided for a project examining the use of Earth Observation data in decisions about biodiversity conservation, led by Dr Rose Pritchard and Dr Tim Foster at the University of Manchester with research teams based in the UK, Spain, Guatemala and Kenya.

Other projects include a comparative, large scale analysis of the practice of multilingualism in shaping violent conflict and conflict resolution in Africa, led by Prof Kristian Gleditsch at the University of Essex.

Building resilience to floods and heat in the maternal and child health system in Brazil and Zambia, led by Dr Josephine Borghi at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and the impact of integrated health and criminal justice systems in the north of England, led by Dr Stephanie Scott at Newcastle University are also getting funding.

The final project will create resources and tools to help understand and improve the experience of children and families involved in family justice system processes, including the challenges of online safeguarding and a comparison of global safeguarding models, and is led by Professor Lauren Devine at Lancaster University.

In addition to the funding from ESRC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council is contributing £500,000 to a project on flood and heat resilience.

ESRC executive chair Stian Westlake said: “These large-scale projects bring together world class researchers to address important, global issues that affect some of the world’s most vulnerable people.

“The projects are a great example of how the ideas and inspiration of social science researchers can help shape our thinking on long-term societal challenges.”