National Centre for Social Research

Last updated

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) is a registered charity and is the largest independent social research institute in the UK. [1] [2] [3] The research charity was founded in 1969 by Sir Roger Jowell [4] and Gerald Hoinville with the aim of carrying out rigorous social policy research to improve society.

NatCen is best known for its annual British Social Attitudes Survey, founded by the organisation in 1983. [5] [6] The British Social Attitudes survey is Britain's longest-running annual survey of public attitudes and can be accessed for research through the UK Data Service. It uses a random probability method and face to face interviews with more than 3,000 people to ensure that it achieves a sample that is representative of Britain. [7] NatCen's sister organisation, the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen), carries out an equivalent of the survey in Scotland, called the Scottish Social Attitudes survey. [8] [9]

In addition to the British Social Attitudes survey, NatCen collects a number of statistics on behalf of the UK government and government bodies. These include the Health Survey for England, [10] the English Housing Survey, [11] The National Diet and Nutrition Survey [12] and the Study of Early Education and Development (SEED). [13] In 2015 NatCen also launched a new panel survey called the NatCen Panel, which was the first panel survey in the UK to use a probability methodology. [14] [15] [16] [17]

The National Centre for Social Research is not just a survey organisation, however, it is also well regarded for its research using qualitative and evaluation methods. NatCen researchers authored one of the key textbooks for qualitative researchers Qualitative Research Practice published by SAGE Publishing. [18]

Related Research Articles

The United Kingdom is an ethnically diverse society. The largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom is White British, followed by Asian British. Ethnicity in the United Kingdom is formally recorded at the national level through a census. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded a reduced share of White British people in the United Kingdom from the previous 2001 United Kingdom census. Factors that are contributing to the growth of minority populations are varied in nature, including differing birth rates and Immigration.

Sir Roger Mark Jowell, CBE was a British social statistician and academic. He founded Social and Community Planning Research, now known as the National Centre for Social Research, and the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys at City University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Social Survey Programme</span>

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a collaboration between different nations conducting surveys covering topics which are useful for social science research. The ISSP researchers develop questions which are meaningful and relevant to all countries which can be expressed in an equal manner in different languages. The results of the surveys provide a cross-national and cross-cultural perspective to individual national studies. By 2021, 58 countries have already taken part in the ISSP.

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides funding and support for research and training in the social sciences. It is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Data Archive</span>

The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) is an annual statistical survey conducted in Great Britain by National Centre for Social Research since 1983. The BSA involves in-depth interviews with over 3,300 respondents, selected using random probability sampling, focused on topics including newspaper readership, political parties and trust, public expenditure, welfare benefits, health care, childcare, poverty, the labour market and the workplace, education, charitable giving, the countryside, transport and the environment, the European Union, economic prospects, race, religion, civil liberties, immigration, sentencing and prisons, fear of crime and the portrayal of sex and violence in the media. The survey is funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, government departments, quasi-governmental bodies and other grant-giving organisations. The BSA was not conducted in 1988 and 1992, when funding was devoted instead to studies of voting behaviour and political attitudes in the British Election Study. The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust stepped in when the government stopped funding the poll.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tessa Jowell</span> British Labour politician and life peer

Tessa Jane Helen Douglas Jowell, Baroness Jowell, was a British Labour Party politician and life peer who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dulwich and West Norwood, previously Dulwich, from 1992 to 2015.

The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is a national data archiving and dissemination service that was founded in January 2003. It is funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Jisc. In July 2012, the ESRC announced it will become a partner in the UK Data Service, to be established as of October 1, 2012.

The Health Survey for England (HSE) is a statistical survey which is conducted annually in order to collect information concerning health and health-related behaviour of people living in private households in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Curtice</span> British political scientist

Sir John Kevin Curtice is a British political scientist who is currently professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research. He is particularly interested in electoral behaviour and researching political and social attitudes. He took a keen interest in the debate about Scottish independence.

The Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, started in 1999, is an annual survey of public opinion in Scotland, funded by the public purse.

The UK Data Service is the largest digital repository for quantitative and qualitative social science and humanities research data in the United Kingdom. The organisation is funded by the UK government through the Economic and Social Research Council and is led by the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex, in partnership with other universities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centre for Macroeconomics</span>

The Centre For Macroeconomics (CFM) is a research centre in London dedicated to the investigation and development of new methodologies and research in order to inform economic policy decisions. It also focuses on ways to alleviate the effects of the global economic crisis through its careful study. The CFM is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and was founded in 2012. It is one of the larger research centers in the world dedicated to the study of financial crises.

The UK in a Changing Europe is an initiative intended to improve public access to research on the relationship between the UK and the European Union (EU). It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and is based at King's College London.

Elena Semino is an Italian-born British linguist whose research involves stylistics and metaphor theory. Focusing on figurative language in a range of poetic and prose works, most recently she has worked on topics from the domains of medical humanities and health communication. Her projects use corpus linguistic methods as well as qualitative analysis.

The British Election Study is an academic project to analyse the results of British elections that has examined every general election in the United Kingdom since 1964. The lead researchers are based at the University of Oxford and the University of Manchester.

ScotCen Social Research is the Scottish branch of the United Kingdom’s largest centre for independent social research, NatCen Social Research.

Jane Cecelia Falkingham is a Professor of Demography and International Social Policy at the University of Southampton. She is also Vice-President at the University of Southampton, and Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Principal Investigator of ESRC Connecting Generations. She is Chair of Population Europe. She was President of the European Association of Population Studies (EAPS) between 2018 and 2020, and was President of the British Society for Population Studies between 2015 and 2017.

Sharon Fae Witherspoon, Lady Jowell is a British statistician, serving as Head of Policy of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Campaign for Social Science, and as a member of the Review Body on Senior Salaries of the British government. She is also Vice President for Education and Statistical Literacy of the Royal Statistical Society.

Alison Macdonald Park is a British social scientist who is a professor and previous (2021-2023) executive chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Her research has focused on longitudinal data collection and social attitudes. She was appointed a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to the Social Sciences.

References

  1. ↑ "NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH". Companies House . Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  2. ↑ "The National Centre for Social Research". Directory of SRA members. Social Research Association . Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  3. ↑ "Company & charity information". NATCEN Social Research. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  4. ↑ "Professor Sir Roger Jowell". Daily Telegraph. 2012. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  5. ↑ "Discover - British Social Attitudes Survey". discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  6. ↑ "British Attitudes Survey: More Britons 'back higher taxes' - BBC News". BBC News. 28 June 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  7. ↑ https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/media/604586/natcenintrobsa.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  8. ↑ "UK Data Service Discover » Scottish Social Attitudes Survey". Discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  9. ↑ "Scottish independence support 'at highest ever level' - BBC News". Bbc.co.uk. 15 March 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  10. ↑ "Health Survey for England". Healthsurvey.hscic.gov.uk. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  11. ↑ "UK Data Service Discover » English Housing Survey". Discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  12. ↑ "NatCen and MRC to deliver national diet survey | News". Research Live. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  13. ↑ "Study of early education and development (SEED)". GOV.UK. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  14. ↑ "ESRC-funded researchers win prestigious awards - Economic and Social Research Council". Esrc.ac.uk. 5 December 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  15. ↑ "Daily Research News Online no. 25439 - NatCen Scoops Key MRS Awards". Mrweb.com. 5 December 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  16. ↑ "Daily Research News Online no. 21783 - NatCen and JRF Set Up 'Low Income' Panel". Mrweb.com. 12 November 2015. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  17. ↑ Bronwen Morgan. "NatCen and JRF launch poll of low income individuals | News". Research Live. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
  18. ↑ "Qualitative Research Practice - SAGE Publications Ltd". uk.sagepub.com. Retrieved 31 March 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.