Projects

At any one time, ISER is involved in a wide range of cutting edge social and economic research across many disciplines

WELLSIM: A life course microsimulation perspective on multi-dimensional well-being for five European countries

A project analysing multi-dimensional well-being in a life course perspective in the UK, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Sweden, through the lenses of a rich dynamic microsimulation framework.

Food environments, health behaviours and outcomes

This project will evaluate the impacts of changes in local food environments in England on a range of childen’s and adults’ health outcomes and behaviours.

Policy Modelling for Health

‘Enhancing Policy Modelling’ is a large research programme that brings together scientists, policymakers, and charities interested in using economic policies to improve people’s health.

Providing research infrastructure services to support Next Generation EU (Infra4NextGen)

This project will harness outputs from key social science Research Infrastructures in Europe and other reliable sources to support the aims of the ‘Next Generation EU’ programme and to inform EU youth policy.

Determinants and effects of benefit take-up: Insights from panel data and microsimulation

How have the take-up rates evolved over the years? Have they increased or decreased, especially after the rolling out of Universal Credit? Why do eligible individuals choose not to claim benefits? Is non-claiming temporary or permanent? Are there groups in society that are more inclined not to claim social benefits? These are some of the questions that this project is addressing.

Map showing the future of regional labour markets

Overlapping crises: (Re)shaping the future of regional labour markets (OVERLAP)

The research project has two principal aims. The first objective is to create a detailed and comprehensive overview of the demographic dynamics that characterise regional labour markets at the NUTS-3 level, focusing on the medium-to-long-term perspectives (2030 to 2040), together with their implications.

Survey Futures

Aiming to deliver a step change in survey research to ensure that it will remain possible in the UK to carry out high quality social surveys of the kinds required by the public and academic sectors to monitor and understand society, and to provide an evidence base for policy.

Sustainable Welfare: Rethinking the roles of Family, Market and State (SUSTAINWELL)

SUSTAINWELL addresses the long-term socio-economic impact of population ageing on European society.

Evaluating a ‘Minimum Income Guarantee’ and modelling major income supplementation policies: A development award

Economic conditions are well-recognised as key drivers of health and wellbeing inequalities. There is considerable interest in using major income supplementation policies (MISPs) such as Universal Basic Income to reduce such inequalities.

UKMOD: Fostering an inclusive and informed public debate of UK fiscal policies

The project aims to maintain UKMOD – an open-source tax-benefit model – as a free resource, and support its transition to long-term sustainability by fostering use of the model by third sector financial advisory and advocacy organisations.

Long-Term Modelling Tools for Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing Research

The overall aim of the project is to develop and test a novel approach to long-term effect modelling for adolescent mental health and wellbeing (AMHW) research, based on lifecourse microsimulation, that can help address a range of important unanswered research questions about heterogeneity in the long-term effects of interventions on AMHW and in the lifecourse causes and consequences of AMHW.

Caring Over the Lifecycle: the Roles of Families and Welfare States Today and Into the Future (WELLCARE)

Economic development in parallel to demographic changes over the past decades have altered family structures and the way care is given and received along the lifecycle.

Fiscal INCentives for Health improvement: repurposing consumption taxes on food (FINCH)

The central research question in FINCH is whether indirect taxes on food and non-alcoholic beverages
(FNABs) can be repurposed and restructured to create incentives for healthy food consumption,
without increasing the tax burden on households and without adverse distributional impacts relative to
the current taxation system.

Study on ‘Poverty and Income Inequality in the Context of the Digital Transformation’

The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of digital transformation on employment, earnings, poverty and income inequality in the last decade, as well as provide an indication of what this impact could be in the coming decade, across all EU Member States and in the EU as a whole.

Exploration of statistical weighting for the Graduate Outcomes Survey (HESA Graduate Outcomes)

The aim of the project is to evaluate whether the application of statistical weighting to the Graduate Outcomes Survey could effectively mitigate the effects of non-response and, if so, which estimation method should be used and which variables should be used within the weighting procedure.

COhort cOmmunity Research and Development Infrastructure Network for Access Throughout Europe – COORDINATE

COORDINATE is the next phase of the GUIDE project funded by the Horizon 2020 programme in recognition that policymakers across Europe are currently unable to draw upon consistent, comparable and high quality data on child wellbeing to inform policy.

Evaluation of the health impacts of Universal Credit: a mixed methods study

A project focusing on a mixed methods study comprising five closely related work packages (WPs) to answer the question: what is the impact of the introduction of UC on mental health and wellbeing, what are the implications for health inequalities, and how these effects are moderated by variation in implementation across Great Britain?

Understanding the impacts of income and welfare policy responses to COVID-19 on inequalities in mental health: A microsimulation model

A study that will develop a new mathematical model which will simulate the potential impact of the economic changes on mental health of the British population.

Improvement of EUROMOD Advanced Statistics Calculator

Expanding the scope of the results provided by the current EUROMOD Statistic Presenter, allowing more comprehensive and flexible policy analyses.

Health Equity of Economic Determinants (HEED)

Government policies on taxation and social security are important determinants of population health outcomes and health inequalities. However, there is a shortage of evidence to inform policymakers of the health consequences of such policies.

Mind the Gap: Educational Inequalities during Covid-19

Looking at the impact of Covid-related school closures on student achievements, inequalities in assessed exam grades and how confusion over A-level grading made a difference to university participation

Covid-19 and school availability: impact on parental labour supply and wellbeing

Assessing the impact of school closures related to Covid-19 on employment and family wellbeing for parents, especially mothers

Next Steps in Securing the Sustainability of the European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure Consortium (SUSTAIN-2)

The project aims to ensure the sustainability of one of Europe’s leading social science research infrastructures, the European Social Survey.

Event-triggered data collection

Developing new methods to collect data about life events throughout the year

Understanding and improving data linkage consent in surveys

Maximising informed consent by investigating what influences the decision of survey respondents to allow their data to be linked to administrative records.

European Cohort Development Project (ECDP)

Building a case for a European Research Infrastructure that will provide comparative longitudinal survey data on child and young adult well-being over the next 25 years.

Inequality, early adult life courses and economic outcomes at mid-life in comparative context (EQUALLIVES)

A cross-country investigation into how education, labour market and family choices create inequality across the life-course.

European Social Survey (ESS-SWEP)

The aim of the ESS is to provide high quality data measuring change and stability over time within and between European countries in their living conditions, social structure, public opinion and attitudes, while practising and promoting the highest scientific standards in cross-national comparative research in the social sciences.

Access to health care, health outcomes and hospital performance in Brazilian cities

Assessing the impact of recent innovations within Brazil’s national health system on mortality and hospitalization rates, and on the efficiency of the health system.

The impact of a personalised blood pressure warning on health behaviour

Assessing to what extent clinical information on an individual’s health status could influence their behaviours.

Developing a longitudinal study of indebtedness

Charting people’s experience of debt and utilisation of debt advice.

Exploiting the existing biomarker data available in CLOSER: social position, age and allostatic load

Cataloguing the biomarker data available in the Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resource (CLOSER) and other significant longitudinal studies, to develop a gold standard for allostatic load measurement, while informing the scientific community of the availability of biomarkers for research in the social- biological agenda.

Respondent-targeted survey design features

Targeting design features to reduce survey costs and improve survey participation.

Income and fertility: evidence from Norway in the last two centuries

Investigating how the timing of births varies across the business cycle.

Understanding household finance through better measurement

Transforming our understanding of the dynamics of living standards.

BOOST2018, the ground-breaking study of student life

BOOST2018 is a study undertaken by researchers at the University of Essex to better understand students’ life at university, the issues they may face in their daily life, their aspirations, expectations, attitudes, and their outcomes.

How can biomarkers and genetics improve our understanding of society and health?

A ground-breaking £1.4 million ESRC-funded study is gathering evidence to help policy makers understand how behaviours and socio-economic factors impact on the nation’s health

Information, expectations and transition to higher education

Examining which expectations and perceptions are held by students that may make them stay on in full-time post-compulsory schooling and apply to university.

Income and poverty dynamics: measuring instability, volatility and persistence

Providing new evidence for Britain earnings instability and improving the measurement of household living standards