News and Blog

In our last blog post we looked at how WISERD’s free interactive mapping tool UnionMaps reveals the complex patterns in trade union membership that exist across Great Britain. Analysis revealed that the overall downward trend in union density that is observed across Great Britain as a whole masks very different local fortunes for the trade…

Recent waves of strike action by nurses, train drivers, ambulance drivers, university lecturers, teachers and others besides has highlighted the prominent position that trade unions continue to hold within the UK. An important factor that determines the power and influence of trade unions, either within an organisation or across a sector, is the proportion of…

A new WISERD paper by Andrew Price, Mitchel Langford and Gary Higgs at the University of South Wales has recently been published in the journal, Case Studies on Transport Policy. Using sports facility data from Sport Wales and open-source data on green spaces, the team examine variations in potential access to recreational opportunities by different…

ADR Wales has today (Thursday 1 December) unveiled its Planned Programme of Work that will help to provide an insight on the key issues facing Wales and the UK. The ADR Wales Planned Programme of Work 2022-2026 outlines the ten thematic areas that the ADR Wales team will focus their research on to help government…

To celebrate 20 years of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Festival of Social Science, WISERD hosted two events at this year’s Festival, which aimed to highlight one of our ongoing education research projects and a useful data tool that helps us to better understand our towns and local areas. We began with a…

A prototype website has been developed by WISERD researchers based at the GIS Research Centre at the University of South Wales (USW) which examines access to key services in Wales. This is part of an ongoing research programme investigating geographical access to services in Wales. The website allows users to see indicators of accessibility to…

A recent report published by Welsh Government highlights the benefits and limitations of enhanced data utilisation to deliver careers services in Wales.   Welsh Government commissioned ADR Wales researchers to undertake a study to examine the policy and legislative context within which the national careers provider, Careers Wales operates, the utility of data holdings of Careers Wales and other organisations,…

Pupils might be excluded for a wide range of reasons, from minor breaches such as disruptive behaviour to severe, such as violent behaviour towards others. Exclusion should be implemented as the result of accumulation of many misdemeanours rather than as the school’s first route of action. Although most pupils who are excluded return to school,…

A recent paper by Professor Gary Higgs, Dr Andrew Price and Dr Mitchel Langford of WISERD and the GIS Research Centre published in the Journal of Rural Studies has highlighted the need to consider the transport options available to access services for those dependent on public transport. By drawing on a spatial analysis of the…

A new Data Insight from Dr Alexandra Sandu and Dr Jennifer May Hampton from the WISERD Education Data Lab and produced by the ADR Wales education research team is now available: Engagement with the Hwb virtual learning environment during Covid-19 school closures. This report outlines preliminary findings on engagement with the Hwb virtual learning environment…