Making your Marx in research: reflections on impact and theefficacy of case studies using the work of Karl Marx

Drawing from a recent study on how impact occurs in the social sciences, Sioned Pearce looks at some specific issues with the case study approach to understanding impact. Viewed alongside the life and works of Karl Marx, the REF’s approach to impact measurement can be seen as highly problematic. Marx’s work was an accumulation of a lifetime of intellectual thought, the full effect of which did not emerge until 100 years after his death and his research would not have been eligible for an impact case study

Survey evidence: the EU referendum had a clear positive impact on young people’s political engagement

The UK’s EU referendum was often discussed in terms of a generational divide between older citizens who were more likely to vote Leave, and younger citizens who were more likely to back Remain. But did the referendum do anything to increase the interest of younger citizens in politics? Presenting survey evidence gathered at the beginning and end of the campaign, Stuart Fox and Sioned Pearce write that there are some clear indications the referendum increased engagement among young voters, but it remains an open question as to whether this interest in politics will be maintained long-term

Young people, place and devolved politics: perceived scale(s) of political concerns among under 18s living in Wales

Despite clear linkages between conceptualisations and perceptions of politics, society, culture and territorial rescaling, research into young people’s political engagement, participation and representation is underrepresented in the field of social and cultural geography. Here the gap is addressed using perceptions of devolved politics, as a form of territorial rescaling, among young people living in Wales. Specifically it shows the geographical scales at which young people locate their political concerns and where responsibility for these concerns is perceived to lie, with a focus on the National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government. This is a key contribution to our understanding of the role devolution plays in youth political engagement in-light of the following: the relative infancy of the devolved UK institutions; their asymmetrical development and increasing divergences; the growing variation in turnout among young people for different types of election and referenda; and the lack of research examining the youth engagement dimension of Welsh devolution as a political, social and cultural process of territorial rescaling in the UK. The paper concludes with a critique of notion that devolution poses a politics of hope for youth political engagement in Wales, a very different picture to Scotland

Constitutional change and community development : Communities first under the Welsh government.

This thesis is an original contribution to key debates on the politicisation, governance and scale of 'the community' in contemporary society (Etzioni, 1996; Bourdieu, 1989; Giddens, 1984; Taylor, 2003). It contributes to knowledge on constitutional change and community development in three key ways.Firstly, findings from micro-geographical case studies in Wales are situated within global debates on the fragmentation of governance into networks, hierarchies and scales (Rhodes, 1997; Brenner, 2004; Gore, 2008). These complex and contested subjects are used to uncover the relationship between state and civil society using Multi Level Governance (Armstrong & Wells, 2005), theory on territorial rescaling and multi-scalar governance. These theories are encapsulated within one strand of the Strategic Relational Approach (Jessop, 2008) to understand the state. Use of theory in this way ensures that the findings add to wide-ranging and existing knowledge rather than replicating it.Secondly, the research was carried out at a significant time in Welsh political history. Under devolution Communities First is the first national area-based community development programme to be exclusively designed and implemented by Ministers elected to represent the people of Wales. The thesis explores the impact of devolution on community development from the perspective of those involved at different levels of governance; from Ministers with a Wales-wide remit to community groups in neighbourhoods. It also explores the influence of UK regeneration policy and actors during the late 1990s (SEU, 2001; Lawless, 2011).Thirdly, the research questions have developed directly from existing research on Communities First in Wales (Adamson & Bromilley, 2008). Published at the outset of this PhD the research provided an empirical base from which to develop a relevant investigation of the Communities First programme using the theoretical tools noted above

Be brave, look for meaning: highlights of the tenth annual meeting of the National Cancer Research Institute

The tenth Annual Meeting of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) conference took place in Liverpool, UK. Just under 2000 delegates were estimated to have attended the conference, predominantly from the UK and Europe. It was a multidisciplinary gathering aimed at cancer professionals at every level. The conference included primers on basic science and public communication as well as workshops on more advanced topics.The conference was grouped into six main themes, which this report will address in greater detail

Challenging scalar fallacy in state-wide welfare studies: a UK sub-state comparison of civil society approaches to addressing youth unemployment

Here we make an original, empirical contribution to debates on welfare pluralism, the mixed economies of welfare and territorial rescaling by comparing civil society approaches to tackling youth unemployment in England, Scotland and Wales. Our core finding is that academic and policy literature's frequent characterisation of the UK as a single Liberal welfare regime is based on methodological nationalism privileging state-wide analyses. In short, a scalar fallacy pervasive in international welfare studies. In the context of the global rise of meso-government and so-called ‘stateless nations’ pressing for greater autonomy, our case-study challenges the dominant paradigm. Our analysis shows the liberal characteristics of work-first policy orientation and marketised civil society are concentrated in England then tempered by devolved (social) policy. Based on contrasting, left-of-centre and civic nationalist governing traditions, grounded in multi-level electoral politics, we show the devolved nations taking a different approach to Westminster, partially eschewing the market and incorporating collectivism and co-production