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 existence of a ‘brain drain’ of graduate labour from Wales has long been a focus of debate (for example, Drinkwater and Blackaby, 2004, c.f. Fevre, 2004). Welsh and English higher education and labour markets are interconnected (for example, Rees and Taylor, 2006) and Wales is a ‘loser’ region generating more undergraduates than it…

Overview The UK Strategy for Data Resources for Social and Economic Research (referred to as the National Data Strategy – NDS) sought to identify, prioritise and assist in the development of and access to research data.  It provided a strategy for how different organisations can work with the research community to ‘maximise the research potential of existing…

Researchers from the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods, Swansea University, Cardiff University, and the University of Glamorgan will conduct a systematic research review in order to gain an understanding of the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on changing cultures and patterns of connectivity within and between minority communities…

Overview Talk of industry in the South Wales Valleys is preoccupied with the loss of the mining and steel industries and also the failure of foreign direct investment, its transience and lack of loyalty. This is combined with boosterism around tourism and pleas for the promise of higher education. However, there is another industrial presence…

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 Existing quantitative evidence points to differences between Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers in terms of labour market outcomes, however little is known about the precise mechanisms underlying such differences. A range of factors were identified which may contribute to this including educational attainment (Welsh medium schools), bilingual employment policies (e.g. as a result of the…

Overview This project focused on increasing the engagement between local authorities and the higher education research community in Wales by reviewing current local authority education research capacity and activity in Wales and identifying factors that had an impact on activities, examining existing datasets, and identifying good practice in relation to collaborative research activities.

Summary and Rationale This project explored the (bio)physical and emotional relationships between people and place. By using state of the art galvanic skin response units alongside geographical positioning technology, this project sought to map (bio)physical records of human interaction with their environment. To date, this potential has been explored through and for artistic means. The…

This project, carried out between 2009 and 2011, was set within the context of the safeguarding children policy agenda, particularly the notion that child protection is ‘everybody’s business’. The research aimed to explore every-day safeguarding of children at neighbourhood level, including how safeguarding is seen, experienced and carried out by residents, community leaders and professionals….

The project aimed at a qualitative understanding of local knowledge as enacted in practice through a case study of the street-level management of public space, taking the city-centre and abutting residential streets of Cardiff as a field site. Aims The project has taken pedestrian patrol as a particular focus, and has sought to map and…

The project was designed as an ethnographic study of one place, chosen by the wider Local Knowledge in Context Programme, referred to hereafter as Cwm Dyffryn. Aims The main aims of this project were as follows: To explore the ways in which young people understand the different places within their locality, and the ways in…

The remit of the WISERD Language, Culture and Identity Research Network is as follows: To bring people together from the academic; public; private; policy and third sectors; with an interest in research in relation to the group theme. To facilitate communication between group members via the website; meetings; social networking; seminars; conferences and other means….