Wales' WISERD Wheeze

Wales has a new centralised social research body, WISERD, established with £9m in joint funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Initially the Centre pulls together expertise from five Welsh universities.

Wiserd (The Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods) describes itself as an 'interdisciplinary social science research centre' with contributions from sociology, geography, social and public policy, economics, politics, education and social work - and aims to help both government and business in tackling the country's social challenges.

The Centre 'draws together and builds upon' existing qual and quant expertise from the universities of Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Bangor and Glamorgan. 'Though coordinated from an administrative centre at Cardiff University, its research activity and programme are distributed across the five HE institutions, the Welsh Assembly Government, ONS and other public organisations.

Among its ambitious targets, Wiserd says it will:

• develop and integrate a coherent set of research data relating to Wales
• build networks of researchers and research capacity across Wales in the economic and social sciences, as well as contributing to UK wide research capacity building, and
• develop a sustainable increase in the quantitative research base across the social sciences in Wales through academic appointments and training.

Welsh Assembly First Minister Rhodri Morgan said: 'This is a substantial advance in social research of relevance to Wales... making effective policy depends on high quality data and when that information has been assembled it becomes a starting point for problem-solving and policy development.'

Professor Teresa Rees, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research at Cardiff University says the Centre will 'enhance the research competitiveness of the Welsh sector on a UK and International basis' as well as gathering 'the kinds of research data relating to Wales which will have practical applications for the benefit of every community'.

Wiserd is currently recruiting more than 20 researchers to join the new venture: thirteen at Cardiff, three each at Bangor and Swansea and two each at Glamorgan and Aberystwyth.

Web site: www.cardiff.ac.uk/wiserd .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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