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Our site is built with accessibility in mind and we seek to adhere to the WACG AA levels of compliance for digital accessibility. To support that we have provided instructions on managing animations below.

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Animations & Interaction

The Leeds Beckett University website occasionally uses animations to page elements and animated gifs to add impact to pages. If you wish to stop them from playing for accessibility purposes or for personal preference then please see the guidance below. Please note that browsers sometimes change how they operate, so please refer to your browser help files to find their latest information.
How do I turn off animations?

Chrome

Chrome users will need to use browser extensions. Animation Policy from Google will help you set your own preferences.

Microsoft Edge

There is currently no way to disable animations within Microsoft Edge. Users of Edge (Chromium) browser can install the Chrome extensions above and use them.

Internet Explorer

To stop animations on a single page you can just press the 'Esc' key. This will stop the animation on that page. If you wish to restart the animations you need to refresh the page. To permanently disable the playing of animated GIF images, open Internet Options > Advanced tab. Under the Multimedia section, uncheck the Play animations in webpage check-box, click Apply and Exit and then restart your computer.

Firefox

Type about:config in Firefox address bar and hit Enter to open Settings. Search for the image.animation_mode flag and change its value from Normal to None. Once you restart Firefox this will disable animations.

Dr John Willott

Principal Lecturer

John is a Principal Lecturer in Politics & International Relations, and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Following a PhD in Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, John gained a Royal Society Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Manchester University. For this, as well as research on tropical forest loss, he managed a research station in northern Borneo. He subsequently worked on the EU-funded MEDALUS programme at Leeds University on climate change, desertification and land use in the Mediterranean region.

After an academic career break, John joined Leeds Beckett University, securing over £6m EU funding to deliver projects on social inclusion and improving access to Higher Education and employment. From these developed new research interests in marginalised groups and conflict, particularly refugees. This led to research and consultancy work funded by the EU, UN, Refugee Council, AHRC/ESRC, BAICE, local government and the HE Academy.

John now combines these research interests on people, environment and development.

Current Teaching

John currently teaches the undergraduate module Environment & World Politics, and the postgraduate modules Security, Conflict & Development and Dissertation, as well as supervising undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation projects.

Research Interests

John has previously worked on international environmental projects, but more recent work has included a UN-funded project to combat violence against women in Uganda, Cambodia and Nepal, and incorporating indigenous language and culture teaching in Colombian primary schools.

Most recent projects have been working collaboratively with organisations such as the Refugee Council and Migration Yorkshire to support the integration, employment and education of refugees, particularly those with higher level skills. This included an EU Asylum Migration & Integration Fund project which led to a best practice guide for professional bodies and dissemination to regional authorities across the UK and professional networks.