News and Blog

Radical Social Innovation Colloquium Podcast

Listen to our latest podcast from Professor Frank Moulaert speaking at the WISERD CRESC Radical Social Innovation Colloquium last week. Frank Moulaert is Professor of Spatial Planning, Head of the Planning and Development Unit ASRO, Faculty of Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium. For more podcasts click here: www.wiserd.ac.uk/news/podcasts

WISERD CRESC Radical Social Innovation Colloquium

As part of the WISERD Civil Society programme, WISERD and the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) jointly organised an international colloquium on 18th and 19th May at Cardiff University for academics, policy makers and civil society organisations involved in Social Innovation initiatives: The Radical Social Innovation Colloquium. As an international event the colloquium was organised…

Absent Friends and Absent Enemies: reflections on the Radical Social Innovation Colloquium

  Let me introduce you to Moran’s Law of Academic Conferences: the more a conference draws on a single discipline, the less interesting it is.   The most mind numbingly boring conferences now are those lumbering leviathans, the Annual Conferences of  professional associations, where the only way to survive is to disappear to the bar to…

Education, austerity and elitist political language: the rise of UKIP in understanding the Brex-factor

This article looks at the reasons behind the ‘rise of UKIP’ since 2013 and applies it to our data on young people and the EU referendum under three headings: employment and education; austerity; and political language. The findings show a divide in support between those who left school at 17 or 18 and those still…

WISERD Engagement – Civil Society Seminar: “Hidden Entrepreneurs? Social Innovation in Italy”

On May 12th WISERD was pleased to welcome Professor Filippo Barbera (University of Torino and Collegio Carlo Alberto) who gave the latest seminar in the WISERD Civil Society series. Chaired by WISERD Co-Director Prof Paul Chaney, his interesting and well-attended presentation explored the role of “social innovators” in Italy. Drawing on a qualitative research design…

Measuring trade union membership: Harder than it may seem?

Declining levels of trade union membership is often cited as evidence that trade unions have become less relevant within the modern UK economy. In 2012, particular attention was given to this issue as levels of union membership among TUC affiliated unions fell to beneath 6 million members for the first time[i].  The recent development and…