Transforming research
Research practices are fast evolving. The rise of interdisciplinarity, the popularity of co-produced research, the ever-increasing importance of impact and the decolonial turn present challenges to traditional approaches to research and provide innovative and pioneering new methods and theories with which to address the challenges of the 21st century.
In this policy briefing, Heather Buckingham, author of 'A Taste for Change' examines how more than 2.5 million people in the UK lived in households that used a food bank in 2024–25. This highlights the urgent need to tackle poverty, improve access to secure, fairly paid work and strengthen social security so that everyone can afford the essentials…Read more
What if effective leadership were not only about developing better leaders, but also about designing organisations that make collaboration possible? The authors of 'How to Succeed at Collaborative Research' explore how ‘collaboration by design’ can help organisations harness distributed expertise to address complex challenges.…Read more
Markus Holdo, author of 'The Responsibility to Disrupt', argues that AI’s threat to democracy is its intolerance of thinking and questioning.…Read more
In this practitioner briefing, Gina Sipley, author of 'Just Here for the Comments', and Jennifer Southard, Assistant Director of Adelphi University’s Faculty Center for Professional Excellence, examines how lurking is an active form of digital literacy shaped by algorithms, with significant social and economic impacts despite involving little or no public posting.…Read more
Helen Keane, David Moore and Mats Ekendahl argue that Andy Burnham’s celebration of pubs and moderate drinking highlights a tension between alcohol’s genuine social benefits and the increasingly dominant public-health focus on its harms, which can overlook class and gender inequalities and the value of community and pleasure.…Read more
The policy briefing argues that unpaid carers and their organisations must be central to social care reform. Drawing on the history of the carers’ movement, it shows how carers’ organisations have raised awareness, influenced policy and developed practical solutions in the UK and internationally.…Read more
This policy briefing explores how community empowerment programmes give residents greater control over local decision-making in response to growing social division and declining trust in democracy.…Read more
On the eve of the deadline for EU Member States to incorporate the Right to Repair Directive into national law, Declan Murray, author of The Repair Mindset, asks whether legislation is necessary for repairing electrical and electronic devices to flourish. …Read more
Drawing on research for 'Cracking the Class Code', Lee Elliot Major and Anne-Marie Sim argue that success in elite workplaces is shaped not only by talent and hard work but also by hidden class-based cultural norms that influence who is seen as credible, authentic and deserving of advancement.…Read more
Scott Thomas and Jonathan Glazzard, authors of 'The Queer World of Prison', argue that despite government claims of modest reductions, prison education across England and Wales faces deep cuts—up to 65% in some prisons—threatening rehabilitation, prison safety and efforts to reduce reoffending.…Read more