Reducing HIV in Africa with ‘cash plus care’

by Lucie Cluver

Our work often feels like a series of battles against an enemy that outwits us.

Despite real global progress in preventing and treating HIV/AIDS (PDF, UNICEF website), children and adolescents remain left behind. Every hour, 30 adolescents are infected with HIV.  The situation is most severe in Southern and Eastern Africa, which accounts for nine in 10 of adolescent AIDS deaths. AIDS is the leading cause of death amongst adolescents in the region.

We have realised that if we are to have any chance of winning the battle, academics need to work in close partnership with governments, UN agencies and policymakers – and with teenagers themselves. Our research studies are developed together with these groups, which often leads us to unexpected questions and findings.

Researchfish: spreading the word about your research

Rhian Jones is a Senior Information Analyst for the Insights team at ESRC.

As the Researchfish submission deadline for 2017 approaches, here she explains the value of the information researchers submit and how this is used

Researchfish, the research reporting system for the research councils, is a vital source of information for the ESRC, providing us with evidence and impact case studies to highlight the benefits of social science research.

Can we measure the impact of art?

Jessie Nicholls manages all communications and marketing activity for Project Oracle: London’s Children and Youth Evidence Hub, which is funded by the ESRC. She also works part-time as the Communications Manager for The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP).

Can we measure the impact of art?

Many feel that evaluation methods are inappropriate and even directly opposed to the values of art. Most people have felt the effect of a work of art or a play, either intellectually or emotionally. Artistic value is intrinsic and is associated with ideas of aesthetic excellence and individual experience. Efforts to force the qualitative nature of art into the quantitative measurement of other kinds of outcomes, undermine and even threaten this intrinsic value.

Planning for impact: helping universities make the most of their research

Louise Shaxson is manager of the Evidence & Policy Group (EPG) of the DFID-ESRC Growth Research Programme.  She is also a research fellow in the Overseas Development Institute‘s (ODI) Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) programme, which focuses on improving public sector policy and strategy within the broad framework of evidence-based policy making.

The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) continues to spark debate, with some fascinating work by public policy research organisation RAND on how universities submitted their impact case studies and how they were assessed, and by King’s College London on the nature, scale and beneficiaries of research impact.  We don’t know what exactly will happen next time, but assuming impact remains important, should universities begin to prepare now?

From research to creating social change through art and engagement

Celia Kitzinger (University of York) and Jenny Kitzinger (Cardiff University) Co-Directors of the Coma and Disorders of Consciousness Research Centre and joint winners of the ESRC’s Outstanding Impact in Society Award, 2015.

Running into the office last week carrying a bundle of eight foot bamboo poles, along with a picnic blanket, an iron and a bag of sand, we reflected on the changing role of the academic.