Dr Paola De Agostini won the Research Impact Award for Best UK Public Policy Impact for her work with the Scottish Parliament at the University of Essex’s Celebrating Research Impact Awards this week.
Dr De Agostini leads ISER’s ongoing work with the Scottish Parliament, providing evidence for policymakers looking at the potential impact of changes to taxes and benefits.
Following devolution of powers over tax and welfare to the Scottish Parliament, ISER has undertaken a framework agreement to support the use of EUROMOD, ISER’s tax benefit microsimualtion model, by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).
SPICe provides confidential and impartial information to Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) and their staff on a range of issues including analysis of the costs and effects of proposed policy reforms on household income distribution and poverty risk.
The use of EUROMOD by SPICe has:
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contributed to improvement and widening of the research-based support provided to policymakers in Scotland;
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informed debate on policy issues in Scotland through SPICe’s analysis published as parliamentary briefings or other reports for specific MSPs;
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generated new expressions of interest in using the model from other UK institutions that could develop in new collaborations;
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enabled new commitment to further collaborative projects between ISER and SPICe.
The prizes were presented by Melanie Knetsch from the Economic and Social Research Council.
Professor Christine Raines, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) said: “At Essex we want our research to help make the world a better place, and this event showcased the wide range of excellent projects we are involved in demonstrating we are having an impact across our three faculties in projects that span from improving public services to developing novel technologies.”