News and Blog

WISERD Education Team responds to Senedd Cymru consultation

The WISERD Education Team has submitted its views on what it thinks should be the Early Years, Children, Young People and Education Committee’s main priorities during the Seventh Senedd. Providing these views in response to the latest consultation, which closes later this week, will help to inform Senedd Cymru with its strategic planning and forward work…

WISERD Education Multi Cohort Study team responds to Senedd Cymru consultation

The WISERD Education Multi Cohort Study (WMCS) team has submitted a recommendation on what it believes should be the Early Years, Children, Young People and Education Committee’s main priority during the Seventh Senedd. Providing these views in response to the latest consultation will help to inform Senedd Cymru with their strategic planning and forward work programme….

ADR Wales research and data expertise helps shape pioneering homelessness prevention programme

A BBC News article published this week showcases how data collected through Llamau’s Upstream Cymru screening surveys has helped identify young people at risk of experiencing homelessness and connect them with early support, changing lives and preventing crises before they happen. Supporting this work has been a longstanding partnership between Llamau and ADR Wales. Llamau…

WISERD Annual Conference 2026

On Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 July, the 16th WISERD Annual Conference took place at Cardiff University’s Bute Building, welcoming over 170 delegates. The agenda comprised over 60 paper presentations, seven flashtalks, three plenary sessions, several panels, workshops and symposia, and an exclusive film showing, all under the theme of ‘In Pursuit of Sustainable Futures’….

WISERD Annual Conference 2026 – gallery

The WISERD Annual Conference 2026 took place at Cardiff University on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 July 2026. Scroll through the gallery below to see some of our favourite moments from the event.                                            …

New research sheds light on pupils’ post-16 subject choices and success in Wales

New research from the ADR Wales team based within WISERD, at Cardiff University, has uncovered important insights into how pupils in Wales make post-16 subject choices, and what drives their academic success.  Drawing on data from more than 8,000 sixth form pupils, the research examined links between GCSE attainment and AS-level (first year of A-level) subject choices and outcomes. The findings reveal that…

New research provides fresh insights into the Welsh language, educational choices and early careers of young people in Wales

ADR Wales has published the first in a series of Data Insights providing new evidence on Welsh language ability, how it is transmitted across generations and how it influences education and early career outcomes. Carried out by the ADR Wales Skills and Employability team using census and linked administrative data, the research seeks to inform key policy…

Why science GCSEs matter more than we think in a post‑truth age

Concerns about living in a “post-truth” society – where evidence struggles to compete with misinformation, ideology and emotion – are now familiar. From vaccine hesitancy to climate change denial, public debates increasingly hinge not on a lack of information, but on how people judge evidence, expertise and uncertainty. These concerns are often framed as a problem…

WISERD and CARE book launch celebrates publication of ‘The 21st Century Ladz’

Young men, masculinities, education and employment are gaining increasing societal attention. On 17 October in sbarcIspark, we launched an important new publication in this field of research by Dr Richard Gater, a research assistant at the Centre for Adult Social Care Research (CARE) and previously a postdoctoral research fellow at WISERD. Dr Gater’s timely new…

Cracking the science pipeline: how language skills shape post-16 science choices

The narrative around science education in the UK and globally is often framed around a “leaky pipeline”. While every pupil is required to study science until age 16, many step away from it beyond this point. Reasons for disengagement are multifactored: gender differences, socioeconomic barriers, subject popularity (maths and biology dominate over physics), and now,…