News and Blog

Horserace Politics: gamifying political engagement

Horserace Politics (HRP) offers a pioneering platform that enables users to predict the outcomes of political events in a competitive, gamified environment. HRP is led by WISERD academics Drs Matthew Wall and Louis Bromfield (both at Swansea University’s Department of Politics, Philosophy and International Relations) in collaboration with Focus Games Ltd. – a commercial partner…

Individual characteristics and family circumstances need to be considered when identifying special educational needs, research shows

A child’s characteristics and family background provide important indicators of whether they are more likely to have special educational needs (SEN), a Cardiff University study concludes. Academics analysed data from 284,010 pupils attending schools in Wales. Males, pupils of White ethnicity, pupils who were persistently absent, those from households with a lower socio-economic background all…

Causes of death among people experiencing homelessness in Wales

A new Data Insight from the ADR Wales Housing and Homelessness research theme presents findings from research into the underlying causes of death among people experiencing homelessness in Wales. Currently, the main source of information on this topic in Wales comes from annual estimates produced by the Office for National Statistics. The purpose of the analysis in this Data…

Exploring international collaboration in child health and education research

Rob French leads the ADR Wales Education research theme. In this blog post, Rob describes how the intersection of education and child health data will be explored in a new special edition of the International Journal of Population Data Science. Linking child health and education data enables us to explore the mutual dependence of these two critical…

Festival of Social Sciences workshops to support children with additional learning needs

Jen Keating is a Research Associate from the ADR Wales Education theme and the WISERD Education Data Lab. In a new blog post, she describes two workshops she led in November for parents, carers, and educators on how they can best use national data to support children with additional learning needs (ALN) in Wales. These workshops took place at…

WISERD research presented to Welsh Government Minister

Sarah Murphy MS, the Welsh Government Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing recently visited sbarc|spark to gather the latest research insights. WISERD researchers presented findings on how parents of neurodivergent children experience the school exclusion process and how we can use administrative data to improve education outcomes for children with additional learning needs. Excluded Lives…

WISERD researchers contribute to new book exploring union renewal

Trade unions across the globe face a range of disruptions that are destabilising traditional structures, practices and strategies. A new book, Experimenting for Union Renewal, which includes a chapter by WISERD researchers on the international garment sector, sets out a novel approach centred on experimentation in response to these disruptions. Drawing on in-depth analysis of…

New online tool matching voters with their ideal political party

During the General Election campaign, there was a deluge of political information, leaving many confused about which best fits their views. To tackle this issue, a project co-led by Swansea University and sponsored by WISERD created a new online voting tool. WhoGetsMyVote allows voters to match their positions on key policy issues to those of…

WISERD Annual Conference 2024

On the 3rd and 4th July, we held our WISERD Annual Conference 2024 at the University of South Wales and welcomed over 140 delegates from across the UK and beyond. Over 100 excellent posters and presentations come together under this year’s theme of ‘Aspiring to achieve a fairer society’. Professor Martin Steggall, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research)…