Government Social Research
Aisha Riaz
I work for the Lone Parent and Partners Strategy Evaluation Team, part of the Family, Poverty and Work division at the Department for Work and Pensions in Sheffield.
I joined in April 2003, and this is my first job since university - I did a BSc. in Psychology at Huddersfield University followed by an MSc in Occupational Psychology at Nottingham University. Working here has been a good experience - I get a lot of autonomy over my work, and I've been encouraged to apply the methods that I've learned over the course of academic education in my everyday work life.
I think my career has progressed well so far - I didn't envisage being as involved as I am at this stage. I manage two qualitative projects which involve writing up research specifications, contracting work out to external contractors, and monitoring the progress of the projects. I contribute to literature reviews, feed evaluation findings from our projects to policy and strategy colleagues, and have the opportunity to get involved with fieldwork for in-house projects, which involves going out to Jobcentres and interviewing staff and customers. I am encouraged to think about developing within the organisation and hope to progress to Senior Research Officer in the near future.
I've had quite a lot of training since I joined, which has been well supported by my managers and the team. It's a big organisation and there's lots of training specific to the job. It's good for the future, and relevant and regular training is one of the ways in which I've seen Government Social Research progress as a profession during the last year or so. I've also had the opportunity to become involved in central GSR initiatives as a member of the cross government GSR Communication Committee. This has involved representing GSR at research and career events, and working with the central GSR team to strengthen the network and promote government social research to external stakeholders.