Government Social Research
St Andrew's House
The Scottish Government is the devolved government for Scotland (formerly know as the Scottish Executive). It is responsible for most of the issues of day-to-day concern to the people of Scotland, including health, education, justice, rural affairs, and transport. It manages an annual budget of more than £30 billion.
Following the election of an SNP-minority administration in May 2007, the Scottish Government was reorganised into five directorate generals - Economy and Chief Economic Adviser, Health, Justice and Communities, Education, and Environment. Led by the Chief Researcher (Diana Wilkinson), social researchers are structured into 18 analytical teams which support the work of the five DGs. Social researchers work directly with economists and statisticians in joint analytical teams. In addition the Office of Chief Researcher provides professional support, advice on knowledge transfer, and coordinates strategic and cross-cutting research across the administration.
Most analytical teams publish joint analytical work plans for their area. These work plans can be downloaded from the Social Research web-pages, and have been agreed with policy colleagues and Ministers. All social research project opportunities are advertised on the Expression of Interest page. Contractors can express an interest in being considered to tender for a project by completing an Expression of Interest form available from this page.
As in most other government departments / devolved administrations Scottish Government social researchers provide a number of different functions. These include
The Scottish Government publishes all research findings documents and final reports on Scottish Government Social Research (provides a list of such publications according to the research topic).