News and Blog

Professor John Morgan, together with Dr Ana Zimmermann of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, has published ‘No One is an Island at a Time of Pandemic’ in a special issue of Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice on the social and cultural impact of COVID-19. The article considers the fundamental ethical question of…

A shortage of robust, nationally consistent evidence at a town level has been a longstanding problem in the UK. Without evidence it is difficult for town stakeholders, such as planners, town councils, third sector organisations and community groups, to determine local needs, evaluate the effectiveness of town management strategies and to learn from past success….

  Professor Jean Jenkins, WISERD Co-Director and Professor of Employment Relations at Cardiff Business School, has been appointed to lead an independent commission into the future of employment rights and devolution in Wales. The Future of Devolution and Work Commission, established by the Wales TUC, will be tasked with considering the impact that the current…

Pupil needs can vary significantly and might require for the provision of individually tailored special education and/or additional support. Special education needs (SEN) have been linked with a number of adverse outcomes including poor mental health and loss of school days, which in turn can lead to deterioration of mental health, highlighting the need to…

The WISERD report on Homeworking in the UK: Before and During the 2020 Lockdown has been cited in a government consultation on Making flexible working the default. The open consultation seeks views from individuals and businesses on proposals to reform flexible working regulations (The Flexible Working Regulations 2014). The report, by Alan Felstead of Cardiff…

  A new collection of essays entitled Social Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present, edited by Professor W. John Morgan and Dr Fiona Bowie will be published this month in the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Country Series. The book has its origins in a joint colloquium of the Royal Anthropological Institute, WISERD, the Learned Society…

On 22nd September, WISERD held the first of three workshops organised by the new WISERD Migration Research Wales Network. ‘Achieving Impact Beyond Research’ aimed to provide academics at all stages of their careers with the tools and recommended routes to transfer their expertise and knowledge from academia and a solely academic audience to the policy…

I recently attended Play 2021 (a new conference hosted by community interest company Playful Planet) which brought together researchers, policymakers and practitioners interested in ‘child-friendly’ urban design and children’s play. One of our interests as part of our WISERD research project has been the concept of the ‘child-friendly city’ and what an enabling environment for the…

In this third and final part of my blog series exploring the recent election of new Unite leader, Sharon Graham, I’ll be focusing on leverage campaigns and how they work. As a highly contentious topic, they form a key part of Graham’s strategy for organising Unite into a union of “strike ready workplaces”, but are…

In the second part of this three-post blog series exploring the recent election of new Unite leader, Sharon Graham, I’ll explain a bit more about her priorities and approach. I’ll focus more on one particular aspect of her strategy in the final part of the series: Leverage campaigns and how they work. I interviewed her…