News and Blog

As Wales seeks to navigate a safe path out of the coronavirus lockdown, one of the biggest challenges for the Welsh Government is how to re-open the rural economy whilst avoiding a surge of new cases in the countryside and panicking an anxious rural population. First Minister Mark Drakeford has signaled that restrictions on the…

Professor John Morgan‘s recent book Civil Society, Social Change, and a New Popular Education in Russia has been nominated by the publisher Routledge for the Alexander Nove Prize 2020 of the British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies. Professor Nove was a famous economic historian of Russia and the Soviet Union. The book is…

New research by WISERD Co-Director, Professor Paul Chaney analyses civil society organisations’ perspectives on how the UK, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland governments are responding to their international human rights treaty obligations in the formulation and delivery of social policy. This socio-legal study is the first that examines human rights and the territorialisation of social welfare…

The Productivity of Outcomes of Workplace Practice, Engagement & Learning (PrOPEL) Hub launched its website this week, featuring contributions from WISERD staff. Professor Alan Felstead and Rhys Davies are part of the Productivity Outcomes of Workplace Practice, Engagement and Learning (PrOPEL) Hub, a £1.95 million project, which is supported by the Economic and Social Research…

      This report provides an overview of our research activity in 2019 – a year that has marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, and has strengthened WISERD’s position as an important national research centre. Read more about our latest income profile, the work we’re doing to strengthen our…

The impact of Covid-19 on the economy and the world of work is unprecedented: full or partial lockdown measures are affecting approximately 80 per cent of the global workforce, with the harshest effects falling disproportionately on unprotected workers and those working in the informal economy[1]. For trade unions, the Covid-19 pandemic has cast light on…

WalesOnline, 7th June 2020 Read the full article. Professor Chris Taylor is quoted in the article: “Much of the research on transitions says that it is the familiarisation with high school that is important – knowing where to go, who the teachers are, how work is organised, how much homework there will be, will they get…

People with dementia living in the community are likely to be disproportionately affected by social distancing, isolation and lockdown measures. WISERD’s Civil Society Centre Director, Professor Ian Rees Jones, is part of the ‘Improving the experience of Dementia and Enhancing Active Life’ research programme (IDEAL project). Based on research findings, the team has recently published…

New research by WISERD Co-Director, Professor Paul Chaney and Dr Sarbeswar Sahoo (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi) analyses civil society organisations’ (CSOs’) perspectives on religious freedom violations in Bangladesh. These have been recently thrown into stark relief following the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 2011 that confirmed Islam as the State religion of the…

Wales is in the process of undertaking a major overhaul of its national curriculum. Until recently, the curriculum largely resembled that put in place by the 1988 Education Reform Act. The new Curriculum for Wales, based on the Successful futures for all review by Graham Donaldson (2015), entails a radical move away from the traditional…