News and Blog

Set within the context of UK devolution and constitutional change, People, Places and Policy: Knowing Contemporary Wales Through New Localities offers important and interesting insights into ‘place-making’ and ‘locality-making’ in contemporary Wales. Combining policy research with policy-maker and stakeholder interviews at various spatial scales (local, regional, and national), it examines the historical processes and working…

Welsh school pupils’ chances of getting into university vary dramatically according to the school they attend and the local authority in which it is situated, irrespective of their individual educational attainment, according to a new report from Cardiff University’s Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD). A new report released today…

Wales’s poorest children are starting primary school already struggling with language skills argues Ready to Read, a new report out today (22 September 2015). Professor Chris Taylor, Co-Director of the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research Data (WISERD), at Cardiff University, has advised the Read On.Get On. campaign, which is calling for the Welsh…

The impact of social media on young people’s lives is underlined starkly today as a new study by researchers at the Cardiff University-based Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research Data (WISERD) reports that more than one in five teenagers say they “almost always” wake up during the night to look at or post messages….

This week WISERD Co-Director Professor Paul Chaney was the invited plenary speaker at the 2015 Voluntary Sector and Volunteering Research Conference, which took place at the University of Leeds from 8th – 9th September. The event is the UK’s leading interdisciplinary research conference for academics, policy makers and practitioners with a shared interest in researching…

We are delighted to announce that WISERD has been awarded two modest amounts of funding under the Cardiff Incoming Visiting Fellowship Scheme and International Collaboration Seedcorn Fund. The first award goes to Professor Ian Rees Jones, Dr Sin Yi Cheung and Rhys Davies to build links with Professor Mike Hout at NYU and Professor David Grusky…

For the first time, WISERD will be presenting research at the annual National Eisteddfod, taking placed this year in Montgomeryshire. The Eisteddfod Festival is the pinnacle of the Welsh cultural calendar. It travels from place to place, alternating between north and south Wales giving communities across the country a chance to welcome up to 160,000 visitors…

Ann Keane, former HM Chief Inspector at Estyn, delivered our first keynote address of the WISERD 2015 Annual Conference. Ann discussed what she’d learnt throughout her 5 years at Estyn, and what she regarded as the key issues for Welsh education moving forward. Ann Keane, former HM Chief Inspector at Estyn, delivered our first keynote…

What effects do different environments have upon stress levels in the human body? What affect does it have upon our well-being and health? In order to test this in June 2014 WISERD’s biomapping project was invited by BBC Coast to ‘stress-test’ its presenter Nicholas Crane. The WISERD funded biomapping research project, led by Professor Chris Taylor (WISERD) and Dr Jon Anderson (CPLAN), ‘stress-tested’ the BBC…

WISERD, in partnership with the Research Institute for Applied Social Science (RIASS) and the Academy of Social Science, have today launched a new booklet showcasing the vast array of social science research taking place in Wales; titled ‘Making the Case for the Social Sciences 10 – Wales’. It includes a new study by Welsh researchers which…