The Centre for Care research centre is a collaboration of universities, care sector partners and international research teams, starting in 2022. The University of Birmingham is part of a collaboration of five universities, high profile care sector partners and international research teams in this new Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research centre. The centre provides an extensive array of evidence to address pressures and inequities in how people experience social care across the lifecourse.
Funder:
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): £1.5 million
Start date:
March 2022
Principal Investigator:
Professor Catherine Needham (University of Birmingham)
The prestigious award is part of the ESRC’s programme of six new research centres that can deliver real societal and economic impact, and provide robust research evidence to support government and decision-making. ESRC’s award for the Centre for Care includes £1.5 million provided through its partnership with the National Institute for Health Research. In its first five years, the collaborating universities are also jointly contributing an additional £1.2 million to the new centre.
The collaboration is led by the University of Sheffield. As well as the University of Birmingham, it includes the Universities of Kent and Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Office for National Statistics, and charities Carers UK, the National Children’s Bureau and the Social Care Institute for Excellence. They will work together with academics, sector partners, agencies, public policy experts and people who need or provide care across the UK and internationally.
The Centre for Care is an exciting opportunity to build a long-term programme of research into social care that enables people to flourish. Too much of the discussion on social care is on short-term fixes for a crisis. The Centre enables us to move beyond this, working with partners and people with lived experience, to support research that makes a difference to people’s lives.
Professor Catherine Needham, from the University’s School of Social Policy, is the University of Birmingham lead for the Centre.
Fully operational from March 2022, the centre brings together some 50 scholars: leading experts on care in multiple disciplines; 12 new post-doctoral researchers, based in the five universities; a large group of PhD students, including six commencing new studies of care in autumn 2022. Advised by a board of leading and diverse experts on care, the centre will produce major new studies of care and build a new generation of care specialists for the years ahead.
Find out more about the Centre for Care.