News and Blog

The newly established WISERD Politics and Governance Research Network was launched at a well-attended event in Swansea today. This multidisciplinary network will bring together scholars who conduct and publish research that centres on Welsh politics and governance, from across the five WISERD partner universities. The Network is jointly led by Dr Matthew Wall and Dr…

  In July, eight young volunteers engaged in participatory action research training de-livered via a collaboration between Ethnic Minorities and Youth Support Team Wales (EYST Wales) and WISERD. EYST Wales, an award-winning charity, was set up in 2005 by a group of ethnic minority young people in Swansea, with the aim of providing a targeted,…

    On Friday 21 September 2018, WISERD Co-Director Professor Paul Chaney gave a keynote address at H.M. Treasury, Government Economic Service and Government Social Research Annual Conference in Aldersgate, London. The conference theme was ‘Better Analysis through Diversity of Thought, Place and People’. Professor Chaney presented the findings from WISERD research into international progress…

    WISERD Civil Society is one of nine research centres to have been awarded follow-on ‘centres transition funding’. This will enable us to continue our research and activities, and work towards increasing the use of our research in policy and practice. WISERD Civil Society is an ESRC-funded social science research centre undertaking multi-disciplinary, policy-relevant…

Following the recent violence and civil unrest in Bangladesh over the summer https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45069935 some of the country’s leading human rights activists attended a one-day civil society research workshop organised by WISERD and BRAC University in Dhaka on August 30. It was held as part of the project ‘Exploring Effective Practice in Civil Society Organisations: Promotion of Human…

Constitutionally a secular state, India is a diverse country with marked religious divides. Recent years have seen growing international and domestic concerns over multiple forms of discrimination affecting persons belonging to religious and linguistic minorities, and a growing trend of violence against members of religious minorities. There are similar worries over discrimination and oppression faced…

Work from WISERD’s Civil Society Research Programme features prominently at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) Annual Conference in London, taking place today and tomorrow September 6-7. The WISERD stand (pictured) is doing brisk business with high levels of interest from conference-goers.     WISERD researchers will be presenting a raft of papers. For…

Our previous blog showed the challenge facing British democracy stemming from the sharp age-based differences in electoral turnout: while younger people have always been less likely to vote, since 1970 the difference between them and their elders has trebled. Since 2001, it has been fair to say that the average British young person does not…

India’s leading human rights NGOs attended the two-day WISERD- Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi joint civil society Research Workshop held in New Delhi on August 17-18. It was held as part of the project ‘Exploring Effective Practice in Civil Society Organisations: Promotion of Human Rights, Good Governance and Social Justice in India and Bangladesh’ project…

In the 1970 General Election (the first following the reduction of the voting age to 18), 65% of eligible 18-24 year olds voted – roughly 7% lower than the turnout for the whole electorate.  By the 2017 election (despite claims of a so-called ‘youthquake’), this difference had trebled: fewer than half of eligible 18-24 year…