Project CoPIs: Dr Rita Gardner and Prof Tony McEnery

A key part of the Academy’s strategy is to sustain the health of the social sciences in research and education. That requires the Academy to monitor carefully the health of the sector and to be ready with evidence to influence policy – and especially higher education policy – that is likely to impact the social sciences.

The past two years have seen unprecedented levels of uncertainty and challenge arising from the impacts of Covid-19, the vote to leave the EU, and ongoing policy changes emanating from Whitehall and the devolved governments.

Our independent monitoring work is more important than ever right now and we are most grateful to the ESRC for grant funding the ‘Social Sciences in a Time of Change’ project that has enabled this work to be scaled up at such a critical time.

We are seeking to document and understand the effect of these combined developments since early 2020 on the HE social science sector as a whole, differentially between the types of HE institution, and across the four UK nations. We also want to understand which of the resulting changes are likely to have a lasting impact, which will be short lived, and which, if any, social science disciplines, faculties or groups of staff are expanding and which are most at risk. We are seeking to understand how institutions are responding and what, if any, impact – positive or negative – that may have on the social sciences.

Read the project outline and update

For further information, please contact r.gardner@acss.org.uk or d.vernon@acss.org.uk