News and Blog

Dr Ceryn Evans presented her research on higher education and civil society at Public  Uni’s 15th event at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff. Public Uni is an event organised by Cardiff University and aims to provide researchers with an opportunity to communicate    their research in engaging, bite-sized ‘chunks’ to a ‘lay audience’. Each presenter has just…

A WISERD PhD student from Aberystwyth University was one of twelve finalists in this year’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) writing competition, ‘Making Sense of Society’. Siobhan Maderson is studying the environmental knowledge of beekeepers and is funded by the ESRC. Siobhan, who is based at Aberystwyth University’s Department of Geography and Earth Sciences,…

The Liberal Democrats are the party most people expect to do well out of Brexit. Virtually destroyed in the 2015 general election, Brexit has given them something to rebuild their support around, by pitching themselves as the only (UK-wide) major party determined to reverse the result of the EU Referendum and keep the UK in…

The Conservatives have every reason to be on cloud nine these days: they have a majority in the House of Commons (albeit a small one); they have a commanding lead in the polls more typically seen for opposition parties on the way to win the next general election; they recently won a by-election against the…

It will probably come as little surprise that recent surveys have found the majority of adults in Europe think that international terrorism is the most pressing threat to the continent.  Though this is valuable information about what adults think, little is known about what children and young people perceive as the greatest threats to life and democracy…

As part of the WISERD Cardiff lunchtime seminar series, Dr Wil Chivers recently reported early findings from his research into trade unions on Twitter.   Back in September I introduced the Social Media Research Series of blogs here at WISERD. Following a period of data collection for WISERD Civil Society work package 3.3 at the beginning of the year,…

WISERD has recently been awarded ESRC funding to carry out a new interdisciplinary study into how young people in the UK feel about, and are responding to, the most significant policy issue of this Parliament: the UK’s exit from the European Union. Young People and Brexit will include new and existing WISERD research, employing a variety…

Professor Paul Chaney’s article about equality for disabled people in Britain was published on The Conversation, and can be found by clicking the link below. Without European intervention, equality for disabled people in Britain would be a distant dream    

Poverty and the rise of food banks in Wales were the focus of research shared at WISERD’s latest Civil Society seminar, held at Cardiff last night. PhD student, David Beck and Dr Hefin Gwilym from Bangor University’s School of Social Sciences presented findings from their research exploring the experience of food poverty in Wales. Representatives…

Research by WISERD Co-Director, Professor Paul Chaney, reveals the institutionalised ableism of parliament. In his recent article on The Conversation, he emphasises that without the EU’s help, the situation for disabled people could become even worse than it already is. “The representation of disabled people in government has never been more important. In 2014, 19%…