Dr Ellie Brown

Dr Ellie Brown is the Director of Impact at Get Further, an educational charity that supports further education students from disadvantaged backgrounds to pass gateway English and maths qualifications, reach their potential and unlock opportunities.

How did you get to where you are now?

I’ve had a slightly unusual career path. I started out as a lawyer: I trained as a solicitor but then became interested in crime, justice and how evidence shapes our laws and policies. So, I went on to study a Masters in Criminology and then a PhD in this area, specifically looking at the use of segregation (solitary confinement) in prisons.

During my PhD, I helped design and deliver educational programmes in a number of prisons. At this point, I got the bug for education and saw how important education was for giving people opportunities and changing their life course. I also realised just how important it was for educational programmes and initiatives to be informed by evidence, by principles of ‘what works’ and high-quality research – we owe it to the people we support and work with.

I then had various research and policy roles, mostly focusing on interventions and initiatives in criminal justice. However, I really missed working directly with people and missed seeing the pure joy of students who experienced that ‘light bulb’ moment, their excitement at new topics, and missed seeing the pride for students, and their supporters, on successfully completing a programme of study. The role at Get Further came up and seemed like a perfect fit for combining my research background, love of education and previous charitable work.

What do you do in your current role?

As Director of Impact at Get Further, I lead our research and evaluation activities to understand the impact of our programmes on students, tutors and other stakeholders. I help the organisation to collect accurate data and undertake high quality research, through surveys, focus groups and interviews, and work with our programmes team to embed research findings.

We pride ourselves on ensuring that our programmes and practices are evidence based, on maintaining a culture of learning and growth, and that we consistently use data and evidence to improve programme delivery.

Day to day, I manage the impact team to deliver different projects and activities. This might be upgrading our digital systems, training staff in the organisation on research and evaluation, undertaking research activities, or preparing findings and reports for internal and external stakeholders.

I also lead the research and impact activities of the team. I oversee the design of surveys and interview questions, design the evaluation framework for the year and work with colleagues across the organisation to ensure that evaluating Get Further’s activities happens at the right time and is of high quality.

As part of my role, I report to the Board and others in the organisation on the impact of our programmes on our students using quantitative data like student exam results, attendance, their progress, but also secondary measures like their confidence and motivation. Alongside this, I oversee the preparation of our annual impact report, blog posts for our website and feed into reports to funders and other stakeholders.

What skills do you need for this role?

I’d say:

• A good understanding of research methods, especially a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research is important.
• Being able to manage projects well. We offer a few different programmes and evaluate each one, essentially undertaking several different research projects, often simultaneously. Being able to design and manage project timelines, deliverables, budgets, and work with others to achieve these, is vital.
• Communication skills. Data can sometimes be confusing, so you need to be able to interpret it and distil the main findings in ways which others can understand.
• Collaboration. The impact team works across the organisation and so I have to be mindful of others’ priorities and workloads. Having an eye on the ‘bigger picture’ and how the impact team supports the mission of the organisation is important too.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I really like being able to contribute to programme design and delivery and that there is a clear relationship between research and practice. I can see the value that the research, driven by the impact team, has on how we deliver tuition, how we support student attendance, and the interventions we deliver to increase a student’s chance of achieving the qualification(s) they need.

Why did you choose to study social science?

I don’t think I ever made a conscious decision to study social science. I ‘fell’ into it, largely because of my general interest in human behaviour. I’ve tended to be interested in how and why humans act a certain way: why they make certain decisions, how they think, feel and make sense of the world. This curiosity drove my interest in criminology which I like, as a discipline, because it captures so many parts of the social sciences: psychology, sociology, philosophy, law, geography. So, not only is it very broad in terms of the areas of inquiry, but also the research methods available.

Social science uses both quantitative and qualitative research methods to consider some of life’s really big problems or challenges. Whether they relate to climate change, deprivation, inequality, crime, it’s an area where there are lots of opportunities to follow your interests and passions.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?

It’s tricky to say! I’ve had quite a varied career path to date and I’m not sure where it will take me next. I’ve enjoyed picking up different skills, knowledge and experiences, many of which are transferable to different sectors and roles.

That’s the benefit of social science, it allows you to gather a range of skills and experiences, all are readily transferable to different organisations, in different sectors.

What would you say to someone considering studying or pursuing a career in the social sciences?

If you’re curious about the world, the actors and institutions in it, social science allows you to start probing, asking and interrogating those things. Even if you don’t want a strict research career, having an understanding of what makes humans tick, how we make decisions, understanding research design and methods, good and poor-quality evidence and how to use research and data in practice, will stand you in good stead for many career options.

A career in social science, whatever form it takes, can keep lots of doors open. I’ve considered going back into policy work, or leading a charity, there are lots of different opportunities and paths out there. Social science sets you up well for that – foundations in research methods and design, a curiosity for human behaviour, reliance on data and evidence are all skills and traits applicable (and valuable) for many organisations.