Understanding Population Trends and Processes: Overview and Plans

1. RRB Directors Group Meeting, Medical Research Council, London, 5 October 2006 Understanding Population Trends and Processes: Overview and Plans

2. Overview • UPTAP projects commissioned during summer 2005 • Some projects began in October 2005 • Coordinator commenced duties in November 2005 • First Advisory Committee meeting in March 2006 • Inaugural conference for researchers in March 2006 • Four year programme

3. Primary aims of UPTAP • To build capacity in secondary data analysis • To promote the use of large-scale social science data sets, both qualitative and quantitative • To improve our understanding of demographic trends and processes which affect society • To collaborate and communicate with user (policy-making) communities beyond the academic sector

4. Principal objectives of UPTAP • To build capacity in secondary data analysis amongst new and mid-career researchers • To spread knowledge and use of secondary analysis through and beyond the social science community • To add value to the ESRC investments in the collection, preservation and promotion of large-scale national data sets by encouraging their use and exploitation • in the longer term, tomaximize the knowledge gained about demographic and social change from secondary data analysis

5. Links with other ESRC initiatives • ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) • ESRC Research Methods Programme • ESRC Researcher Development Initiative • ESRC Census Programme • ESRC National Centre for e-Social Science (NCeSS)

6. Initial UPTAP awards • 4 Postdoctoral Fellowships • 6 Mid-career Research Fellowships • 1 User Fellowship • 7 Small Research Grants • 3 Large Projects (with linked studentships) • Currently, 21 projects involving 31 researchers

7. Disciplines represented epidemiology; economics; geography; politics; primary care and social medicine; public health; sociology; social policy • Organisations represented Universities: Birkbeck; Birmingham; Bristol; Dundee; Edinburgh; Imperial; Institute of Education; Leeds; LSE; LSHTM; Manchester; Oxford; St Andrews; Sheffield; Stirling; Surrey; UCL Other: ONS

8. Those projects already underway • 1 October 2005 Saffron Karlsen and James Nazroo; Yaojun Li and Anthony Heath; Paul Norman • 1 November 2005 Roona Simpson; Eric Kaufmann • 1 January 2006 Ernestina Coast; Shu-Li Cheng; Dan Vickers; Dimitris Ballas; Daniel Guinea-Martin; Kirstine Hansen, Heather Joshi and Denise Hawkes; Sarah Smith and Mike Brewer; Harriet Young and Emily Grundy • 1 February 2006 Paula Surridge • 1 March 2006 Patrick Sturgis and Nick Allum

9. 1 June 2006 Paul Boyle, Vernon Gayle, Elspeth Graham and Ali Zohoor • 1 August 2006 Alison Smith; Oliver Duke-Williams • 1 October 2006 Michelle Jackson; Gopalakrishnan Netuveli One project yet to commence • 1 May 2007 Claudia Thomas

10. THEMES • Demographic change - residential change • Fertility - motherhood - childlessness • Living arrangements - childcare • Cohabitation - mobility • Health - wellbeing - employment • Education • Identity - ethnicity - segregation • Social and political values See flyer for details

11. Main British and European data sources Family Resources Survey (FRS) General Household Survey (GHS) Health Survey for England (HSE) Home Office Citizenship Survey (HOCS) Labour Force Survey (LFS) Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) ‘Muslims in Europe’ (ME) study National Child Development Survey (NCDS) National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (NSEM) ONS Longitudinal Study (LS) Mid-year Population Estimates Vital Statistics (VS) Youth Cohort Study (YCS) British Cohort Study (BCS) British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) British Election Study (BES) British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey Census of Population (CAS, SMS, SWS, STS) Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) International English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) ‘Ethnic Minority Psychiatric Illness Rates in the Community’ (EMPIRIC) study European Community Household Panel (ECHP) European Social Survey (ESS) European Values Survey (EVS) Family Expenditure Survey (FES)

12. Training • 13 UPTAP researchers taking various training courses – see circulated list prepared for ESRC Cross-Board Working Group on Quantitative Methods • 7 UPTAP researchers to attend next ESRC Media and Communications Training Workshop

13. Importance of collaboration and communication beyond the academic sector • UPTAP web site • UPTAP Communications Strategy - £50K • UPTAP User Fellowships - £300K

14. www.uptap.net home page

15. Events

16. News items

17. UPTAP Communications Strategy • Identify communications objectives: • - Initially, raising awareness about the initiative and opportunities for user involvement; • - later on, dissemination of results of research to users • Target user audiences: • Central Government officers; • MPs; • local authority officers; • regional administrators; • those working in non-government administrative organisations (e.g. NHS); • others

18. Creation of database of practitioner/user organisations Association of Census Distributors (ACD); Association of Geographical Information (AGI); Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector (ARVAC); Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO); Association of Regional Observatories (ARO); Audit Commission; British Society for Population Studies (BSPS); British Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (BURISA); Central and Local Government Information Partnership (CLIP); Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG); General Register Office Scotland (GROS); Government Social Research Unit (GSRU); …………………. and so on

19. Documentation and Participation • UPTAP flyers (series) • Short articles about UPTAP in Newsletters (e.g. BURISA) • UPTAP Research Bulletins (series) • Bespoke workshops for particular groups of users (e.g. MPs, civil servants, ..) • UPTAP sessions within user conferences (e.g. LARIA, RSS, …) • UPTAP launch seminar for policy-makers • Contribution to Social Science Week • Conference for practitioners (2008/09) • These activities matched with parallel series of academic outputs: journal papers; book chapters; books; conferences; ….

20. UPTAP User Fellowships • Call announced on 22 September 2006 with end-October deadline • Opportunity for young/mid career researcher in user organisation to work on secondary data with academic in a centre of excellence • Aims to enhance collaboration and build capacity • Funding covers salary costs for 6 months (or 12 months part-time) with max funding of £45K • Academic makes JeS application (guidelines available) and provides mentoring • Aim is to fund 5 or 6 User Fellowships initially

21. Forthcoming UPTAP activities • UPTAP Seminar for policy-makers on “Building Capacity in Secondary Data Analysis” at LGA on 28 November 2006 • Call for Round 2 of UPTAP funding (£1.2 million) with special focus on the theme of ‘ethnicity’ • Second Conference for UTAP participants at University of Leeds on 21-23 March 2007 • UPTAP Session at the BSPS Annual Conference at University of St Andrews in September 2007 • Workshops for users (plans in pipeline) • Participation in user conferences

22. UPTAP Co-ordinator John Stillwell School of Geography University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT Email: j.c.h.stillwell@leeds.ac.uk