Projects

An evidence review to understand the elevated risks that people living with obesity have for experiencing anxiety, depression, stigma, and social inequalities – which can all have implications for their work, productivity and success in the labour market. The research will consist of en evidence review to update the report written last year, and to highlight the case for why research into the role employment has for those living with obesity is important.

A return to work guide following the Covid-19 lockdowns to ensure that people living with obesity who have a greater vulnerability to more negative outcomes from Covid-19 are provided with a safe and stigma free return to the workplace

A survey and associated report to determine the level of stigma and discrimination that employees living with obesity experience in the UK.

IES is leading the analysis of administrative data for the Housing First evaluation. Pilot projects running in Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands seek to place rough sleepers in long-term accommodation, while providing them with expert support to rebuild their lives. This includes support aimed at labour market participation. IES will analyse linked data from benefits, health and offending datasets to assess outcomes for programme participants. This will supplement wider evaluation activities includinga bespoke survey of HF participants and a cost-benefit analysis.

The Skills Bootcamps were announced in September 2020 and provide a new, flexible training mechanism linked to robust employer engagement to ensure adult learners are prepared and fast-tracked to relevant vacancies/interviews. The W1 bootcamps are located in the West Midlands, Greater Manchester/Lancashire, Liverpool City Region, Leeds City Region, the South West, and Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire. IES has been commissioned by the Department for Education to lead the evaluation of the W1 bootcamps focusing on implementation and the difference made by the training to the learners involved. It will also design an evaluation model for the W2 Bootcamps that DfE has commissioned.

This project will analyse data from HESA and UCAS on Sutton Trust programme participants and unsuccessful applicants to measure the impact that the programmes have on students’ HE access and success, and to provide outputs for participating universities on their programme participants.

IES will assist the #LookingAfterYouToo core project team, led by NHS England and NHS Improvement in partnership with Royal College of GPs, to co-design, implement and evaluate a successful coaching support offer for primary care staff and teams, as well as a BAME pilot offer. The coaching offers aim to improve staff wellbeing. IES will also produce case studies of impact and briefing papers on key issues, for example GP Burnout.

Atkins/Good Relations have commissioned IES to undertake research to explore diversity in the engineering sector and how this has changed over the last 10 years. The research will explore how diverse groups progress within the industry and what factors are barriers (career deflection) and levers to progression within engineering. The research aims to: Investigate the extent to which under-represented groups of people in the engineering profession do not progress at the same rate as the traditional “white male” workforce; Investigate the reasons why under-represented groups do not progress as quickly, and identifying potential solutions to this; and Estimate when, at the current rate of progress, the engineering profession will be a level playing field for all.

Following development of new organisation values the Home Office is seeking support to understand how best to ensure the values become the ‘lived experience’ of leaders, line managers and staff at all levels. IES are supporting the Home Office with this research project by undertaking a review of external, publicly available data and conducting interviews with examplar organisations to create a view of best practice approaches to embedding values in organisations.

The Future Leaders Fellowships is a pan-UKRI flagship programme which will receive £900 million over the next 11 years, with six funding competitions and up to 550 Fellowships awarded. The programme aims to develop the next generation of research and innovation leaders through supporting: high quality and impactful research, increased engagement between industry and academia, increased multi and interdisciplinary research and innovation, and a more equal, diverse and inclusive research and innovation workforce. It provides sustained funding for fellows (up to seven years) and supports careers across all subjects and sectors including academia, industry and the public sector. More information on Future Leaders Fellowships can be found here. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed to undertaking a rigorous evaluation of the programme, which will identify outcomes and support conclusions about its longer-term impact. However, evaluating the contribution of the FLF against its aims brings particular challenges. To best address and account for these challenges in the programme evaluation, UKRI commissioned the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Professor Marc Cowling (University of Derby) to undertake a pre-evaluation stage study to scope the issues and explore the feasibility of various evaluation approaches. This scoping and feasibility study will run from November 2020 to March 2021 and provide recommendations for the full external evaluation. The study involves a number of elements. At its core is engagement with expert stakeholders within the research and innovation community including evaluation experts and those involved in developing and implementing the Future Leaders Fellowships programme. This will take place through a series of workshops, surveys and meetings. Other activities include: mapping programmes aimed at developing research and innovation capability in the UK, particularly those aimed at early career researchers and developing research leaders across academia and industry; a review and critique of monitoring and evaluation approaches including those used to evaluate researcher development programmes; a review of programme documentation, and analysis of programme monitoring data and wider data to provide a baseline to measure progress; and scoping of potential data sources to produce indicators and impact measures.