Research projects

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 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…

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…

This project aimed to create a series of community audio walks around Grangetown, one of Cardiff’s inner-city neighbourhoods. Audio walks have become an increasingly popular way of engaging groups in a city’s histories, spaces and societies (Butler, 2007).  They provide not only an opportunity to share social knowledges and heighten spatial literacy, but they allow…

The 3Gs Development Trust is a community regeneration organisation serving deprived areas in Merthyr Tydfil. During the summer of 2010 the trust, with the support of WISERD, carried out the Evaluation of Rock project. This four week project was focused on evaluating the effectiveness of culturally based approaches for engaging young people. Although there are a number…

Overview This study, funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (£295,915) examined the extent to which an ICT intervention to enhance sustained shared thinking impacted on young children’s cognitive and linguistic outcomes. The project aimed to maximise the benefits of children’s early use of ICT whilst minimising the potential problems that may result from their use….

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 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…

The research was concerned with examining the degree of integration of people for whom their national origins or those of their parents lies in a country outside the European Union.  The justification for studying the living conditions of neighbourhoods in which there is a large percentage of the population who are migrants from third countries was…

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…

The Census of the Population remains a key element of the quantitative research undertaken by the social science community in the UK. It provides an essential snapshot of socio-economic circumstances in the UK and is fundamental to research in many disciplines since it allows for certain types of investigation on issues (e.g. small areas and…

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…

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…

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…

Overview The immigration flows to the UK that followed European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004 is thought to have constituted the largest wave of immigration in the UK’s history (Salt and Rees, 2006). One of the main factors behind these very large inflows was the UK government’s decision to more or less allow the free…

This project aimed to provide new understandings of the dynamic relationship between the generations in Welsh-English bilingual families in Wales. In particular, the research considered how the experience and enactment of relationships associated with being a grandparent were shaped by the practices and identities derived from using Welsh. A survey and qualitative research was carried out…

Description This Council-led research project explored the multiple needs and risk factors presented by the rough sleeper population on Anglesey, and the extent to which these needs are matched by the current services provided by voluntary, private, and public sector organisations. The project specifically investigated whether there was sufficient local need to justify extending the…