Publications

This article uses data from the Labour Force Survey to examine the effect sexual orientation has on wages in Britain. In doing so it provides the first empirical investigation of the effect being in a same-sex legal partnership has on wages. The results show that gay cohabitees and lesbians face a wage premium compared to…

The rise of populism in the West has led to attacks on the legitimacy of scientific expertise in political decision making. This book explores the differences between populism and pluralist democracy and their relationship with science. Pluralist democracy is characterised by respect for minority choices and a system of checks and balances that prevents power…

This paper examines spatial differences in the attitudes of the public towards asylum seekers using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey. Initial analysis reveals some statistically significant variations across geographical areas, with people living in London, the South East of England and Scotland displaying the most tolerant views. The spatial variations are then further…

Sustainable Intensification (SI) has been popularised in recent years as an approach seeking to balance the potentially conflicting demands of enhancing agricultural outputs with reducing the negative impacts arising from the current food system. Proponents have argued that SI can benefit from collaboration between farmers, but understanding is limited by a lack of data on…

This briefing is from the ‘Exploring effective practice’ project 2018-19 funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences/ Global Challenges Research Fund. It reports on the findings of fieldwork, including a workshop conducted at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in January 2019 – with academics drawn from India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Australia. The workshop was…

Communications surveillance in the UK has been an increasingly contentious issue since the early 2000s. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is the result of a long series of attempts by the UK government to reform communications surveillance legislation. The consultations on this legislation — and on its precursor, the Draft Communications Data Bill 2012 —…

The Spanish nation-state is gradually being rescaled by Catalonia’s “secession crisis.” Recently and dramatically, in the aftermath of the “illegal” and “constitutive referendum” that took place on 1 October 2017, 2,286,217 Catalan citizens attempted to exercise the “right to decide” to ultimately become “stateless citizens.” This paper examines this rescaling process that has been forming…

Introduction Over the last thirty years, China has undergone comprehensive and profound social and economic transformation. The rapid development of urbanization, marketization, informatization and globalization has brought China a series of major challenges. These include how to adjust the relationship between the state, market and society; how to narrow the gap between rich and poor;…

In June 2018, the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG) published a report outlining 70 recommendations for the Scottish Government to implement in order to end rough sleeping, transform the use of temporary accommodation in Scotland and end homelessness altogether. Among these was a recommendation to improve data collection on street homelessness at a…

This briefing is the third in a series providing a quick guide to early childhood education and care (ECEC). The first two papers considered how ECEC services can be structured, organised and delivered. This final paper looks at the key policy questions around ECEC including who it is really for, how available and accessible it…