Government Social Research
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Machinery of Government Changes [No 10 website] Following a review of the role and functions of the Cabinet Office, the Prime Minister has announced that Sue Duncan and the Government Social Research Unit will be moving from the Cabinet Office to HM Treasury.
GSR people: A Fellowship in Berlin Alexy Buck, Deputy Head of the Legal Services Research Centre at the Legal Services Commission and a long-standing GSR member, reportsd on her secondment in Berlin at the Social Science Research Centre (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)).
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has recruited three new members of staff at PRO level; Simon Maxwell and Alison Higgins (both from ODPM), and Isobel Hines (from DWP). Two years ago HSE had no specialist social researchers, now it has a social science unit consisting of a chief social scientist and seven principal research officers.
Sue Duncan has been awarded a Fellowship of the Market Research Society (MRS). She has been singled out as a 'laudable ambassador for social and marketing research', who has been 'committed to promoting MRS and its Code of Conduct, and to strengthening the professional identity and standing of research in government'. At the MRS Awards Dinner [MRS website] on 25 October 2005, Sue Duncan was described as “the most creative civil servant…for a century.'
Also at the MRS Awards Dinner, UK plc - represented by Sue Duncan as Chief Government Social Researcher - was nominated for the Research client of the year. The Government Social Research service was described as “an efficient and supportive model…this structure ensures that various parts of government have the freedom to conduct and tailor their own research, but still have the backing and leadership provided by Sue Duncan.' (The winner of Research client of the year was the London 2012 Bid Team).
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Launch of new government Masters Degree Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service, has launched a new Masters (MSc) degree in Policy Analysis and Evaluation. Eighteen students form the first intake of the MSc programme, to be awarded by the University of London. The degree is delivered on a part-time basis by the Cabinet Office and the University of London and forms part of the Civil Service's Professional Skills for Government programme.
The Legal Services Research Centre is conducting a continuous survey of civil justice problems: the English and Welsh Civil and Social Justice Survey [LSRC website] The survey was previously a periodic survey. BMRB will be conducting the fieldwork for the continuous survey which will commence in January. Further details from: Alexy Buck, Deputy Head, Legal Services Research Centre, Tel:+ 44 (0) 20 7759 1191, e-mail: alexy.buck@legalservices.gov.uk
Growing up in Scotland (GUS) study [CRFR website] - a longitudinal survey of parents, and later of children, on a range of topics including parenting, childcare, health and education. The survey involves 8,000 children across the whole of Scotland, 5,000 babies and 3,000 toddlers. GUS runs initially until March 2007 and preliminary findings from the first sweep will be available from around Autumn 2006 on the ESRC UK Data Archive.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) - two related large-scale surveys began in October, one of employer and one of employees. The surveys are being called the Fit3 workplace and employee surveys and they aim to measure changes in attitudes and behaviours around risk in the workplace. The findings will help HSE to check how well it is doing towards the objectives set out in the Fit3 programme (Fit for work, fit for life, fit for tomorrow), which has been set up to contribute towards the organisation's PSA targets for accident and sickness absence reduction.
Article in The Scientist (Concerns over new EU ethics panel) [Scientist website] claims that "a fight has erupted" over the composition of the 15-member European Group on Ethics (EGE) in Science and New Technologies, an independent and multidisciplinary body which counsels the EC on policies and legislation. Some [members] are arguing that new nominations were based on political and religious considerations, not ability or experience.
Publication of update from Mathematica [Mathematica website] Contents include "Methods update: how comprehensive is IPEDS?"
Office of Science and Technology (OST) publishes revised Guidelines on Scientific Analysis in Policy Making [OST website] which includes calls for:
EPPI-Centre, part of the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London, publish a systematic review (Thinking skills approaches to effective teaching and learning: what is the evidence for impact on learners?) [EPPI website] The review of research on the impact of these approaches – which teach children to understand and express their thinking processes - has found they improve pupils' attitude and performance, both in general reasoning and in curriculum tests. The improvement is much more marked in maths and science than in reading comprehension.
Scottish Social Attitudes Survey Environment Justice module results published by Scottish Executive [Scottish Executive website]. The research returned evidence that it is the small-scale street-level incivilities that cause people most concern and irritation (not the big scale infrastructural features like power stations and open quarries), and that people living in the most deprived areas are those most affected by the incidence of incivilities and lack of environmental 'goods'.
Home Office (HO) publishes Tackling prison drug markets: an exploratory qualitative study (pdf) [Home Office website] which presents the main findings from this exploratory study of drug supply and demand in six local prisons (five male and one female) in England. Interviews were conducted with 121 serving and recently released prisoners (purposefully selected to be knowledgeable about prison drug markets) and 37 staff from the six establishments between June 2003 and March 2004.
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) publishes an extended review of the literature on pupil grouping (pdf) [DfES website] Recommendations include exploring through further research how knowledge and practices of both organisational and within-class grouping may be drawn upon to facilitate transfer from primary to secondary schools, in particular to acknowledge the potential impact of friendship, gender and focus on pedagogy.
Institute for Public Policy Research publish New directions in community justice which analyses the potential and limits of community justice approaches [ippr website] Drawing lessons from international and home-grown initiatives, this report also makes a series of concrete recommendations as to how to how the Criminal Justice System in general, and the courts and probation in particular, could be brought closer to the people they exist to serve.
Study gives MMR vaccine the all-clear (The Guardian article) [Guardian website] - what is claimed to be the most systematic review of evidence concerning the effectiveness and safety of the MMR [mumps, measles and rubella] vaccine, for the Cochrane Collaboration. It examined 139 research articles but discarded more than 100 because they had been conducted in a way that could not rule out bias or error. The team concluded that all the major unintended events, such as triggering Crohn's disease or autism, were suspected on the basis of unreliable evidence.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) - fieldwork for major surveys has been completed and results are now emerging. The Workplace Health and Safety Survey (WHASS) - run by HSEs Epidemiological and medical statistics unit - provides a representative picture of health and safety practice at workplaces and amongst employers, and its first findings are published on 8 November. Analysis is also underway of the Survey of Workplace accidents and (ill) health (SWASH). This is designed to test differences in accident and sickness absences rates between different size firms and sectors. The first findings from this analysis should be published in the New Year.
DEFRA invitation for Expressions of Interest - Wellbeing research [Defra website] (Closing date 18 November) Defra has announced calls for Expressions of Interest for a number of projects on wellbeing:
Call for applications for travel grants to conduct research in New Zealand - deadline 31 January 2006 The NZ-UK Link Foundation, in association with the UK Academy of Social Sciences, invites applications for travel grants to conduct research in New Zealand.
This £10,000 scheme is intended to support comparative social and policy research that strengthens the relationship between the two countries. The scholarship will fund travel and living expenses for visits to New Zealand of between one and three months. Applicants are expected to be British nationals, living and working in the UK.
The Enquiry Learning Unit at MMU Institute of Education aims to contribute to the development of enquiry learning to enable people to formulate their own agendas of concern which they wish to explore. Some may use it to explore workplace, or professional problems, issues, needs. Others may be driven by wider cultural, political or humanitarian interests. The site is still being developed and includes areas on Research issues - including qualitative research, Cultural Issues, Philosophy and views of Self, Education and Knowledge.
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The next bulletin will be published in December 2005.
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