We start 2019 with an ambitious new series of evidence projects at the Centre. Each piece of research or guidance developed builds on the evidence programme of the last three years. The projects will also all be delivered within the next 12 months to ensure the relevance in a changing policy and practice landscape.
The Economic and Social Research Council, Arts & Humanities Research Council, together with nine different government departments and agencies, have worked with us to develop an exciting £900,000 programme of work for the next year.
Coming in 2019
Work
- Cost effectiveness
- What works for implementation of workplace wellbeing interventions
Culture, sport and communities
- Conceptual review on loneliness
- Culture, sport and social connection
Community wellbeing
- Community Business (with Power to Change Trust)
- Place based interventions
- Measures and assessment
Wellbeing economics
- Wellbeing cost effectiveness methodology to support the Green Book
There are already three calls for evidence out on loneliness, community business and workplace wellbeing.
We also have two current jobs available – one to work with business and one to run our Programme, Governance & Operations.
This is in addition to our ongoing work on student wellbeing, charity wellbeing measurement and evaluation, and providing an evidence base through our our Lifelong Wellbeing Evidence programme, to inform policy that supports children and young people’s wellbeing.
Some highlights of the 2019 evidence projects
Loneliness: understanding it better, and new research what works to tackle it
In October, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport published a strategy to address loneliness in the UK, recognising how important loneliness is for people’s wellbeing.
Our research team led by Brunel University conducted a review of reviews which surveyed the available evidence on what works to alleviate loneliness to inform this strategy.
The research team at Brunel will be conducting a conceptual review, which will then be the basis for research which will unpack how volunteering, space and place interventions and intangible heritage can tackle loneliness. With the new strategy and the Minister for loneliness driving this work, there is a real opportunity for our evidence to inform the way we design and deliver interventions to tackle loneliness in the UK.
Wellbeing cost effectiveness: approaches to measuring it
With a spending review expected in 2019, appropriately comparing and contrasting the value of different interventions, services and investments with respect to what’s important to people and communities will become even more significant for UK policy makers in the coming year.
Our research team led by the LSE will be taking this work forward, building on the resources and training courses already developed by the centre, to produce a comprehensive handbook on the history and approaches for measuring wellbeing cost effectiveness – a resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of the best approach to use.
Workplace wellbeing: new research with practical support
The research team led by University of East Anglia have been reviewing the evidence on what works to improve wellbeing in the workplace, which has helped to and increase recognition of how much potential there is to improve wellbeing in the workplace.
Over the next 12 months they will take this evidence further by looking explicitly at how to assess the cost effectiveness of different interventions, to enable employers to make practical and informed decisions about which wellbeing interventions to implement based on those likely to have the most impact enabling them to plan and make changes to implement interventions that works.
Community wellbeing: developing tools, building on the research
Community wellbeing is a complex concept involving dynamic forces between people, place and power.
Led by Liverpool University, the work programme for the next 12 months will consolidate the concept developed over the previous evidence programme. It will also involve the development of measures and tools for practitioners – including projects funded by the Big Lottery – that can capture the impact that their work has on communities. The team will also conduct reviews of place based interventions and community businesses to find out what works to improve community wellbeing, in what circumstances.