Hello, I’m
Abigail
Bose
researcher, strategic advisor, dancer
By day, I am a social impact researcher who spends her time investigating violence, trauma and mental health. I hold a PhD from University College London and have spent the last decade spanning academic and freelance research. Somewhere along the way, I’ve also ended up spending 35 years as a dancer, offering strategic business advice to small, creative businesses, and working on odd little projects just for the fun of it.
You may come across my professional and published identity as Abigail Bentley. Bose is my middle name, and my grandmother’s surname. As someone of mixed racial heritage, I’m constantly exploring questions of identity. I’m using Bose here to connect more with my South Asian roots.
Research & consultancy
My work sits mostly in violence, trauma and mental health, with a specific focus on intimate partner violence, technology-facilitated abuse, the mental health impacts of different types of violence, and access to support services.
I use mixed-methods research to investigate problems, evaluate services, projects or organisations, or understand where systems are failing the people they're meant to serve. More recently, that work on system failures has extended into exploring more human, relational ways of governing.
I hold a PhD in social science from University College London and have spent my career moving between academia and freelance research. I’m currently director of AB Research Consulting, an independent research and evaluation consultancy.
All of my work is social impact focused. I often work with marginalised and disenfranchised groups, including global majority populations, refugees and migrants. My work spans contexts across the UK, Europe, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America.
Recent projects
- Youth Endowment Fund / Department for Education (2025) — access to mental health support for young people at risk of serious youth violence
- Chayn (2026) — cultural presentations of image-based abuse, and the case for consent-based frameworks for non-explicit IBA
- AWRC (2026) — an organisational profile of a specialist by-and-for domestic violence organisation
- Kinship Works (2026) — learning from “the energy at the edges” on more human ways of governing across Birmingham’s civil society sector
Strategic advising
Alongside my research work, I’ve spent time as a strategic advisor to small and creative businesses. Examples include:
During Covid, I helped Valtournative, a local tourism company, avoid closure. I built new digital and online offers, moved services onto new platforms, expanded their social media presence, and designed new products — all of which helped grow the business’s revenue.
I’m strategic advisor and partner to Jazz & Things, an online school teaching authentic jazz dance. By developing the concepts, structure, product ideas, and refining the USP, I co-developed the business, and I continue to lead on business development, marketing, and strategy.
Other projects/outputs
Dwelling Together
(2018, funded by UCL Grand Challenges, £10,000)
I secured funding to co-lead a project with Dr Darren Chetty, exploring multiculturalism, racism, and education through philosophical inquiry. The result was a 40-minute documentary film, built from four discussion sessions with 13 participants over two weeks.
The film has been used to train Philosophy for Children facilitators through the SAPERE Network, screened at national education conferences, and used for CPD training in 12 UK schools. It’s reached 1.7k views in the educational sector, featured in two university honours degree syllabuses, and further inspired academic research at UCL and Teachers College, Columbia University.
A Celebration of Immigrant Women Through Art
(2023, University of Valencia, Spain)
As part of my Marie Curie research fellowship on intimate partner violence, mental health, and access to support services for migrant women in Spain, I ran a 9-week series of art therapy workshops with immigrant women in the Valencian community. Together, we explored memories of childhood, what they missed and valued from their home countries, connections to smells and tastes through food, identity and sense of self, and what it means to live as a migrant woman. At the end of the project, we co-created a public exhibition of the work — a visual representation of everything the group had shared.
Leadership & mentoring
Trustee, The Youthood Project
The Youthood Project is a youth development organisation working across the education, health, social care, and youth work systems that shape adolescence in Britain. Its premise is that these systems too often work in isolation, without a shared understanding of what young people are actually going through — leaving gaps in language, lived experience, and accountability between them. Youthood exists to connect that fragmented landscape: building shared language and developmental stewardship so that young people experience more consistency, clarity, and opportunity as they grow up.
As trustee, I sit on the governance board, and I’m also advising the organisation through the early-stage funding and governance decisions involved in building towards registered charity status.
Mentoring
My PhD was an isolating, difficult experience that affected my mental health and self-worth in ways I'm still working through. If I'd had someone to talk to at the time, a friendly, independent face to explore the guilt, shame, and imposter syndrome with, I believe it would have been a lot more manageable.
So I now offer that space informally to other PhD students: warm, non-judgemental, entirely separate from academic supervision. It's particularly for people who feel they don't have much of a support system around them.
Please do reach out if this resonates and you think you would benefit from support.
Creative
Dance
I started dancing at three years old, and thirty-five years later, I’m still going. Most of my experience is in ballet, tap and modern jazz. Over the years, I’ve performed, competed, completed qualifications, taught and choreographed — as a child, through university and now as an adult. I still train multiple times a week, perform in shows, choreograph and occasionally teach.
Somewhere along the way, I also fell into the global swing dance scene, including lindy hop, balboa and blues dance. I’ve been part of this scene for over 10 years, dancing internationally, performing, and teaching local classes. When I moved to Mumbai in 2016 and found myself missing dancing, I established a local blues dance scene. I taught classes and ran social events for the two years I was based there.
Writing
I'm currently building a writing practice outside of my research. I share my thoughts on my work at The Residual Researcher, and my thoughts on life more generally at The Liminal Glow.
What’s next
Currently building
A few things in progress, just because.
- The moon project — a visual, interactive way to understand the sky above you, wherever and whenever you are. Why does the sky do what it does? Hopefully this will help answer some of those questions.
- The Snug — a warm, unhurried little corner of the internet for anyone who’s ever felt not-quite-at-home. Being built, for you, room by room.
- A youth services map — built out of the Youth Endowment Fund work: an interactive map of psychosocial support services for young people across England and Wales, for the professionals who so often don’t know where to refer someone.
What I’m exploring now
Currently, I’m excited about exploring themes of connection, community and relationships. These are things that come up in almost all of my work and across various aspects of my personal life. What I learn again and again is that relationships and trust are the key to success. But, almost everything about our environment — how we design systems, services and organisations — works against that. I want to know more about why, what gets lost, and what it would take to build a more relational and connected life, from individuals all the way up to systems.