News and Blog

Dr Peter Mackie, the Chair of WISERD’s housing research network, will today share findings from his research at an event on homelessness at Westminster. The panel discussion, ‘How can we tackle the homelessness crisis?’ is part of the Social Market Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s ‘Ask the Expert series’.  This event…

Strikes have taken place at McDonald’s and TGI Friday’s restaurants across the UK in recent months. These strikes are the first of their kind in the UK, instigated by a new generation of trade union members fighting for better pay and fairer working conditions.  At the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and…

Rhys Davies reveals how official figures have under-estimated the presence of trade unions within UK workplaces over many years. This morning, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published its latest estimates for trade union membership in the UK based upon data from the Labour Force Survey.  Today’s figures reveal that 6.2 million…

In ageing societies, promoting active ageing and intergenerational solidarity has been a key aim of policy at national as well as European level. Governments have promoted these policies as a response to concerns over the social exclusion of older people; critics have suggested that such policies merely serve to ease the economic and financial burden…

Following last week’s WISERD blog post about the 2017 McDonald’s strike, Wil Chivers and Helen Blakely report from the picket lines in London at the UK’s second McStrike. Until now our research on the McStrike has been at a distance. We’ve followed the Twitter conversation and although we’ve got a good sense of what’s been…

In September 2017, McDonald’s workers went on strike for the first time in the UK. Researchers at WISERD analysed the social media conversation that surrounded the ‘McStrike’at the time. With a second McStrike scheduled for the 1st May Wil Chivers, Helen Blakely and Steve Davies outline key findings from this research. Young workers unite McDonald’s…

WISERD’s Professor Melanie Jones blogs for The Conversation with Professor Victoria Wass, Cardiff University. Disability affects the lives of millions of people in the UK. With about one in six working-age people currently reporting some kind of disability, around 70% are either working, looking for work or want to work. Good quality work is important…

A blog co-written by WISERD’s Dr Sioned Pearce for the National Assembly for Wales Research Service

PhD student Philippa Davies blogs on her placement with a women’s sport charity

‘Have you done any research on how to recruit volunteers?’; ‘Can I use the WISERD DataPortal to map my members?’. These were just some of the questions we were asked when WISERD returned to this year’s gofod3, the WCVA’s annual gathering of the third sector. We had a stand in the exhibition hall, along with 60 other organisations…