Research projects

This project sought to problematise homogenising narratives of older people as predominately ‘static’ and ‘passive’, and therefore somehow less implicated in wider social and economic networks; perceptions compounded by the context of rural peripherality. While older people’s experiences may offer insights into the changing historical shape of communities, it is also vital to understand how older…

Overview The aim of this project was to investigate public sentiments in Wales towards immigrants and immigration. The monitoring of what people think about immigration has come to feature regularly within numerous national and cross-national surveys and opinion polls. But there has been little or no attempt to consider the nature of these sentiments at…

Overview The Women’s Turnaround project aimed to engage women offenders so that they make necessary changes to stop offending, following a holistic, woman-centred, service model recommended by the Corston Report in 2007. This project explored the women’s and stakeholder’s perspectives on what women needed and whether the Turnaround project in North Wales had achieved its aim…

Overview Work has long been acknowledged as an important social determinant of health with research being conducted as to how a range of workplace, personal and job characteristics influence occupational health. Recent research has demonstrated the importance of the economic environment in terms of understanding movements in rates of workplace injury, both in terms of…

Overview The involvement of workers and their representatives in consultation on arrangements for managing risks to health and safety at work is a key element of the requirements of the EU Framework Directive 89/391. While there are differences in provisions between member states that reflect national differences in regulatory styles and labour relations cultures and practices,…

Overview The key aim of this project, funded by emda (the East Midlands Development Agency), was to provide a detailed assessment of the issue of in-work poverty in the East Midlands and its implications for regional economic performance. The project provided: a systematic literature review on in-work poverty; an analysis of the distribution of low pay workers…

Pay and Job Quality: Is the Grass Greener in the Public Sector? The unadjusted public-private sector pay differential has attracted considerable political interest since the coalition government came to power in the UK in 2010. It has been used to justify changes to pay setting arrangements and the imposition of pay restraint on the public sector. However, previous analyses have…

Funding: £119,000 The project was centred on young people and housing and had the following aims; to determine the profile of the housing system in 2020 to ascertain young people’s housing aspirations and how they fit with the current housing system and the system likely to exist in 2020 to identify the ‘new’ winners and…

Aims The aims of the project were to examine the pay statistics for Wales, for 2008 and other relevant years to determine possible reasons for the widening of the pay gap between women and men. Methodology The research methodology was desk based analysis of published data sets, primarily, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE)…

The National Equality Panel’s report An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK provided a milestone in our understanding of relationships between people’s characteristics and their financial position. Through detailed analysis of complex datasets, some newly available, it charted in depth how ‘inequalities in people’s economic outcomes – such as earnings, income and wealth – are related…

This research aimed to improve understanding of the implications of introducing a living wage policy in Wales. In March 2009, The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) commissioned an exploratory study into the implications of introducing a Living Wage in Wales. This report presents the interim findings from the first phase of the analysis. The objective of…

This project will undertake a case study of the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) Urgent Appeals mechanism. An Urgent Appeal is a rapid response to a request for support from workers in the garment industry whose rights are being infringed. The project will examine the UA system’s impact in ensuring Freedom of Association (FoA) and other…

This project will examine the effectiveness of social procurement policies in supporting fair work and initiatives that support vulnerable groups. The research will examine how procurement works in practice and explore the challenges and opportunities of the new social procurement legislation in Wales in supporting the delivery social value and fair work.  The research will…

This project will examine the impact of digital and other surveillance activities upon GRT and migrant Roma communities and groups. The research will consider key state surveillance practices affecting these communities across Europe with a particular focus on England and Wales. The project aims to extend knowledge concerning police violence and anti-Roma hate to encompass…

This project will examine the contemporary role of civil society organisations in rights advocacy and welfare provision for refugees and asylum seekers. Through a comparative case study analysis of Wales, Scotland and England, interviews with organisations concerned with supporting RAS communities will identify key issues, areas of progress and future challenges to identify transferable lessons…