Research projects

While collaborative governance fosters inclusive decision-making and engagement, challenges remain in ensuring that insights from citizen and civil society involvement directly inform policy development. This project examines how existing governance structures, policy networks, and deliberative forums can be better designed and integrated to create a more responsive policy-making environment. The aim is to translate learning…

Project Lead: Robert French The purpose of this project is to explore patterns and trends in education in Wales and to inform policy making within Welsh Government. The project will bring together national datasets on education from primary school to university. The aim is to explore issues around school-level attainment, school improvement, progression to higher education,…

Cultural capital is a resource for local and place-based development and Culture Based Development (CBD) is a framework that has been designed to elaborate measurement and empirical exploration of cultural capital as a micro-economic powered endogenous resource for regional and place-based development. Within this context, this research will explore the sources of cultural capital accumulation…

Project Lead: Alexandra Sandu Project Overview : The project explores the relationship between household and family characteristics, socioeconomic factors, and educational outcomes in Wales. By linking census and education data and using advanced geospatial techniques like Geographically Weighted Regression, the research seeks to provide a nuanced understanding of how various factors relate to and interact…

Well-being is a core policy priority in Wales under the Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). It established Public Services Boards (PSBs) in each local authority area with statutory responsibility to co-ordinate the assessment and improvement of social, cultural, environmental, and economic well-being. This research provides a new perspective on regional development by combining these…

Project Lead: Jennifer Keating The broad aim of this project is to investigate education outcomes for children with additional learning needs (ALN). In particular, I am interested in whether the timing of receiving ALN support has an impact on children’s attendance, exclusions, and attainment. Previous research has shown that children with ALN are more likely…

This research will explore Welsh domiciled students’ decisions and transitions to higher education and their expectations and aspirations following undergraduate study. It will examine the extent to which considerations of employment opportunities in local and national contexts inform decisions and transitions to HE, and aspirations for work, study, and life upon graduation. It will also…

This project will provide an independent assessment of progress the Welsh Government has made towards making Wales a fair work nation and what more needs to be done in promoting this agenda. The research will undertake secondary analysis of existing data sets and collect new quantitative data on aspects of fair work via an online…

This research investigates the importance of place and space to communities, addressing key challenges around social exclusion and isolation, the effects and drivers of poverty, and community cohesion. The research will examine the development and evolution of warm hubs as places of social inclusion and community connectedness within Wales. Whilst prior exploratory research has suggested…

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…

One of the core challenges for local economies is the transition to sustainable and green economies. Working with Environment Centre Wales, in partnership with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, we will conduct mapping and assessments of co-produced innovation in local economies linked to sustainable food and energy production, flooding prevention, responses to pollution, land…

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…

Community-led mapping provides an important way of identifying local community assets and understanding their use by local people. This project will explore the use of open digital mapping platforms to help create living online labs where local knowledge is captured, curated and presented in interactive maps. The project will roll out these methods to undertake…