After her PhD, Fancourt moved to Imperial College London as a postdoctoral researcher, where she was based in the Centre for Performance Science. The Centre for Performance Science is a partnership between Imperial College School of Medicine and the Royal College of Music. At the annual Imperial College London festival Fancourt analysed the capacity of men and women to play board games whilst listening to music, and showed that men perform worse when there is rock music in the background. During her time at Imperial she acted as Director of Research for Breathe Health Research, an organisation that looked to support children with hemiplegia through magic training. Fancourt studies the impact of the arts on immune response, with a particular focus on the use of music in clinical settings. She analyses how engaging with music and other cultural activities impact physical and mental health at all stages of a person's life. Engaging with music can mean joining a local choir, listening to music or attending a concert. For her contributions to science and the arts, Fancourt was made the British Science Association Jacob Bronowski Award Lecturer in 2016. In 2017 Fancourt was selected as one of the BBC Radio 3Next Generation Thinkers. As part of the award, Fancourt had the opportunity to create content for BBCRadio 3 and BBC Radio 4. She joined University College London as a Wellcome Trustresearch fellow later that year. Fancourt worked with the World Health Organization to develop an agenda that connected the arts, health and well-being. In one of her WHO reports, Fancourt concluded that arts interventions, including singing in a choir to improve the outcomes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, present low-cost treatment options for healthcare workers. During the COVID-19 pandemic Fancourt established the network COVID Minds that looked to better understand the impact of coronavirus disease on mental health. The network collates longitudinal international mental health studies during the pandemic, offering opportunities for researchers to join projects and sharing regular updates with members of the public. Fancourt is leading the COVID–19 Social Study, an investigation looking at the social experiences of adults in the United Kingdom during the outbreak. She created a survey that could collect information on the psychological and social challenges that people in the UK faced during the pandemic. The outcomes of the survey are regularly reported, allowing policymakers and the media to better understand and report on the impact of lockdown. In particular, the Social Study looked to better understand how the virus and enforced social isolation impacted mental health and loneliness. At the end of April 2020 the social study had over 75,000 participants. As part of the social study Fancourt will conduct in-depth surveys of over 150 adults, exploring the impact of social isolation. Her results showed that prior to the lockdown officially beginning there was a decline in happiness. However, over the course of April Fancourt showed that levels of well-being had increased and levels of anxiety had decreased.
Awards and honours
2016 British Science Association Jacob Bronowski Award Lecture for Science and the Arts
