Impact

Partnerships, Impact & Public Engagement

Partnerships

We seek to actively engage with citizens, communities and professionals using participatory approaches to include diverse perspectives, innovate thinking and practice and work together to bring about impact in response to contemporary social issues.

The Centre has been built on a tradition of applied research working in partnership with external research beneficiaries, including local authorities, NGOs, Health Trusts, professional bodies such as BASW, International agencies (e.g. UNICEF), national government departments and EU bodies (e.g. Council of Europe).

Research in the centre involves established collaborations with HEIs in UK and Internationally including QS500 universities such as Bologna, Aalborg, Helsinki, Ghent, Trondheim, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Cape Town, Pretoria, Delhi and international consultancies such as Ecorys.

Centre members are active in leading and supporting international networks such as INCCIP (International Coalition for Children with Incarcerated Parents) with partners in N.America, Africa, S.E. Asia and N.Zealand;  CiCea (Children, Identity and Citizenship Europe Association) and INIA with global HEI and activist partners; Migration Yorkshire; and the International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe (IMISCOE) network.

Please see Projects and Research Clusters for more details on specific partnerships.

 

Impact

We seek to maximise impact from our work through effective dissemination, knowledge exchange and public engagement activities.

We place emphasis on supporting access to, engagement with and use of, research knowledge and project findings using a variety of formats and the effective use of social media. These include: presentation of evidence to a range of All Party Parliamentary Groups and select committees (on Poverty and Child welfare, Housing, strengthening family ties for female offenders, and social work in prisons, Covid-19 impacts on education) all of which have informed policy; knowledge into practice to support professional and practice development (e.g. Research in Practice), project artefacts, reports and webinars; and direct outcomes of consultancy with partners (e.g UNICEF, local authority partners and TSOs).

 

Examples of research impact include:

Findings from the EUCIT project helping to foster a government call for evidence about intersex/differences in sex development and informing a review of NHSE Clinical Commissioning Policy concerning irreversible surgical interventions on children.

The UKIERA Social Enterprise and Higher Education project [add link] has given rise to the development of a social enterprise model for Higher Education, certificated courses in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a new global research centre for Innovation and Social Enterprise (ISE) at the University of Delhi design of a mentoring model with specific reference to social enterprise, published by invitation in the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. 

CiCea has informed Council of Europe policy on citizenship education.

The study of socio-cultural drivers of violence against children for UNICEF Tanzania is being used to inform National Plans for responding to violence against children in Tanzania as well as informing work on child multidimensional poverty assessment.

The Child Welfare Inequalities project has given rise to changes to data systems, the development of joined up policies across government departments and to local authority policies in relation to how they support families in poverty.

 

Public Engagement

Our commitment to public value and citizen engagement is reflected in an active programme of Public Engagement activities involving a wide range of workshops, book launches, exhibitions (e.g. migrant women’s I-Poems), speaking engagements, debates, democratic engagement events and webinars.

We have an established seminar series including international speakers which has achieved success in attracting large audiences of between 50-80 including external professionals and members of the public in addition to academic staff and students.

We are increasingly using diverse forms of social and public media including commentaries in newspapers, on radio and TV, blogs, and The Conversation as well as Twitter feeds to communicate our research.