Social conditions and problems
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research problems linked to this topic
- What specific trade and investment policy interventions are most effective in creating inclusive growth for both UK and developing countries?
- Which harmful online uses of AI are likely to increase? What could be the impact of AI-generated content on attitudes, beliefs, behaviours or psychological wellbeing?
- What are the economics underlying the spread of mis/disinformation (i.e., what is the scale and nature of the for profit mis/disinformation)?
- Preventing incidents of violence against officers and staff
- How are new and emerging geospatial technologies supporting market growth and wider economic, social and environmental value?
- How can AI be used to identify harmful content?
- In terms of horizon scanning, how do we best develop approaches to identifying new types of harm online, or new and emergent platforms of technologies (e.g. virtual reality) where online harm can manifest?
- What barriers, if any, impact the media literacy sector's delivery of effective and wide-reaching media literacy activities? What are the potential intervention opportunities for government in this space?
- What is the value and impact of policing’s crime prevention initiatives within the context of diverse communities and populations? How do policing’s crime prevention initiatives need to be altered to have a better impact in diverse communities and populations?
- How can policing best communicate our ambitions, decisions and use of science and technology to improve public awareness and understanding?
- What are the public’s perceptions, beliefs, and concerns about policing’s existing and emerging science and technology capabilities?
- How inclusive is the evolving digital identity ecosystem? What are the barriers to inclusion within the system? What are the benefits of digital identity to individuals and businesses? How can we ensure the UK’s digital identity ecosystem is secure? Within the current market which groups are disproportionately affected or are more likely to become left behind as digital identity solutions become more widespread? What are some of the consequences of having excluded groups? Are there differences across different sectors or use cases? How can we build trust in digital identity solutions?
- How can diversity in the cyber security workforce be improved? What can be done to have immediate impact and what should be done to affect long-term change?
- How might wide-spread take-up of 4G mobile connectivity affect an individual’s daily life? What impact might it have on; (i) spending/saving habits, (ii) occupation, (iii) location of residence, (iv) education, (v) health(including wellbeing)? How does this differ for different demographic groups?
- To what extent are individuals without landline based connectivity at greater risk of exclusion?
- To what extent is wide-spread connectivity contributing to a growth in digital citizenship? How can we determine what is attributable to BDUK’s interventions and monetise their benefits?
- What risks does digital first public services/digital citizenship pose to the digitally excluded?
- How would a retrenchment of the telecoms market affect: (i) market structure and market behaviour, (ii) outcomes for delivery, (iii) the general public?
- Evidence on inequality of the impact of the diseases across different population groups.
- How can AI and other emerging technologies be implemented in education settings so that they do not widen existing inequalities or create new inequalities?
- What is the impact of under-attainment for disadvantaged students on future skills needs and participation in HE?
- How do we create a SEND and AP system that better meets the needs of children and their families? Building on the SEND and AP improvement plan, we would like to better understand local delivery, partnership working in the system, cost and financial stability. What does good provision look like and how can we share best practice?
- What are the risk factors for children’s involvement in serious violence and what interventions and approaches are most effective in reducing it?
- What are the key factors that could drive improved productivity and efficiency in the delivery of DWP services? How can DWP services be designed to effectively identify vulnerable groups and those with complex multiple needs, in order to facilitate early intervention in partnership with other organisations?
- What is the impact of increased trade and investment on poverty reduction in developing countries?
- If digital identity solutions become more widespread, what are the impacts this could have on marginalised groups? What further interventions could be implemented to improve access for these groups?
- ARI 3: shaping and supporting the health and social care workforce of the future Research objective: Research to optimise a public health, NHS, social care and wider health workforce that is effectively structured, trained, deployed and supported to deliver future effective and efficient models of healthcare which meet the needs of the UK’s ageing population. Priority research topics: Developing future models of healthcare which effectively and efficiently meet the changing needs of the UK population. Developing, evaluating and understanding how to implement interventions to enable a diverse health and care workforce to deliver world-class care while addressing the current recruitment, retention and wellbeing issues such as: - understanding the barriers to recruiting and retaining staff in the NHS and social care and identifying solutions including supporting wellbeing - identifying how to structure the workforce to meet future health needs and how to drive cultural and behavioural change within organisations - developing and evaluating interventions to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of staff (for example, skills-mix, task-shifting and service integration) - developing and evaluating technology-assisted workforce solutions to reduce burden on staff while maintaining patient outcomes (for example, diagnoses assisted by artificial intelligence, robotics to support surgery and care, remote monitoring of patients including hospital at home and virtual wards)
- What impacts has COVID-19 had on income poverty, material deprivation and the cost of living?
- How can DWP enhance its understanding of the most appropriate measures of independent living?
- How have disabled people been affected by the recent Cost of Living challenges, compared with non-disabled people, and have they sought out extra resources to help them cope?
- How can DWP ensure all those entitled to claim benefits or access DWP services are reached? What barriers to accessing support services are faced by individuals from disadvantaged groups?
- How effective are child maintenance and associated policies at supporting separated families, encouraging family-based arrangements, reducing conflict and helping children and adults achieve better outcomes? And how does this differ by group?
- How can the benefit system best help low income and vulnerable households with their housing costs? What is the impact of DWP’s expenditure on housing support? What factors impact on evictions, homelessness and rough sleeping? How effective are policies designed to reduce homelessness?
- What additional labour market barriers do those from disadvantaged groups (such as ex-offenders, homeless people), face? How can DWP best support those with multiple, complex needs to gain and retain employment?
- What evidence exists about the role of transport related air pollution (NOx and PM2.5) and social inequality in England, with consideration for social, economic, and geographic factors?
- What is the impact of the digitisation of information on transport services on disabled passengers?
- How do needs, attitudes, and behaviours towards travel and transport vary between individuals with a disability/long-term health condition and those without?
- How can the social and economic disparities from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic be mitigated through transport investment schemes?
- Evidence on inequality of access to and benefit from treatments.
- Maximising the efficiency of partnership working in relation to issues concerning mental health
- Reducing the gap in confidence in the police which exists between different communities in London
- What levers are most effective for the Gambling Commission to use in regulating towards a socially responsible industry?
- What is the relationship between advertising and harmful gambling?
- Do different interventions work for different groups and in different contexts?
- What works in reducing loneliness and what are the challenges and opportunities?
- What are the benefits of reducing loneliness?
- Integrating autonomous systems - Defence is interested in addressing the integration challenges of operating these new autonomous systems with legacy military capabilities. From a people perspective - what are the opportunities, costs and risks of introducing autonomous systems? How do we effectively integrate people with autonomous systems and define the boundaries and interfaces?
- How does participation in the creative industries, and in creative activities, affect individuals’ wellbeing and performance?
- How can levels of civil society and of pride in place in a local area be increased?
- Assess and explain the causal impacts of cultural events at a local and national scale (e.g. economic, social, and cultural).
- The elements of preventative programmes that are most effective, with whom, when and why.
- What can we learn from COVID-19 about helping local areas to be more resilient to economic, and other, shocks? And what is the impact of changes in demand for land, such as office, retail, housing etc in particular locations?
- What impact do food insecurity and other disparities have on the consumer and the food system?
- What are the best ways of ensuring local growth interventions benefit intended beneficiaries in an area (e.g. disadvantaged local residents) rather than inward commuters?
- What are the likely longer-term consequences of COVID-19 for vulnerable groups and communities in terms of the volume and type of need? What new considerations does this introduce in terms of central government’s role, and that of other levels of government and other providers?
- How does well-being matter in the context of levelling up? What are the most effective levers for government (central and local) to affect well-being? How does well-being interact with other place based interventions such as housing and regeneration?
- What does the evidence show about how the pandemic has affected people’s preferences about where they live and where they are able to work (e.g. rural areas versus cities)? How are these preferences different across cohorts, such as socio-economic, and locations? Are any such trends likely to be long-term?
- What does the evidence show are the factors that create the greatest potential to build agglomeration economies that benefit local areas and residents in question? And what are the key elements that bring agglomeration benefits– housing, transport, local skills, R&D and business dynamics? Are there costs to agglomeration that that worsen outcomes for residents and neighbouring areas?
- Following COVID, the shift to online retail and increasing densification of cities, what does the evidence show that sustainable urban living looks like, to cater to society’s economic, environmental and social needs?
- Which factors, or characteristics, make some areas perform better than others at different spatial scale (towns, cities, regions)?
- What are the drivers of life chances which lead to poor life outcomes and what are the opportunity areas in the UK? How do these correlate with traditional proxies for local economic success, such as rates of job growth?
- Better understand and quantify the extent to which investment in grassroots facilities improves participation, including for underrepresented groups and in different parts of the country.
- Analyse and quantify, in economic and wider social values metrics, the legacy benefits of large scale sports events.
- Examine how sport, and interventions in sport, affect pride in place, levelling up, and other wider societal outcomes.
- What are the underlying drivers of geographical differences in educational attainment?
- How can schools best manage the transition from early years to school and minimise any negative effects on children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds?
- What is known about drivers and barriers to parental engagement in their children’s education in the home? How can improvements in the home-learning environment mitigate the effect of disadvantage on pupils’ attainment?
- How can we understand the differences in participation in further and higher education and training routes - in particular how do issues of access or choice affect disadvantaged pupils?
- What impact do further education, technical education and apprenticeships have on improving earnings and career progression for learners? What is the best way to assess the longevity/durability of impact and how does it vary by qualification and learner demography?
- What are the factors associated with teacher and pupil wellbeing, and what interventions and approaches are effective in supporting and promoting wellbeing of all in schools and colleges?
- What do we know about the public acceptability of necessary restrictions such as counter disease measures? What lessons are applicable from public acceptability of the coronavirus restrictions to the animal and plant health domain?
- What makes communities resilient to natural hazards and other crises? What can we learn from the coronavirus pandemic about the loss of resilience and protecting vulnerable communities to inform future response to crises? What are the important social dimensions for achieving environmental and infrastructure resilience?
- What is the role of the consumer in delivering net zero and how can changes be achieved equitably? What are the potential market responses to such changes and how do we avoid unintended consequences?
- How can society and government act to protect and enhance nature, thereby sustaining the ecosystem services (including mitigation and adaptation to climate change) it provides, under a changing climate?
- What are the real-world barriers that prevent land-users (for example farmers) taking up low/negative carbon measures, and how can these be overcome? How can we improve the estimation and validation of take up for these practices?
- How can we address barriers to action on adaptation, including behavioural change, and how can government policy best encourage these changes?
- Define and measure social cohesion and cultural value, relating it quantitatively to sport.
- What works in terms of improving diversity (defined as representation of protected characteristics and socio-demographic background to the UK population) within the creative industries sectors’ workforce to bring it closer to being representative of the UK workforce and audiences?
- Who is affected by it?
- What works in terms of improving diversity (defined as representation of protected characteristics and socio-demographic background to the UK population) within the media workforce to bring it closer to being representative of the UK workforce and audiences?
- What is the economic cost of loneliness?
- What drives spatial inequalities in relation to CSY’s policy responsibilities?
- What are the challenges and issues facing young people? What are the costs of not addressing these issues/risks, or improving youth outcomes?
- What are the benefits of increased levels of civil society participation and of pride in place, overall and in more localised areas?
- What are the knock-on effects of lower levels of civil society and pride in place both overall and in local areas?
- What works in addressing barriers and increasing engagement of specific groups?
- What are the impacts of lower/greater rates of engagement with voluntary sectors?
- What are engagement levels across different groups?
- What social and economic value does this sector provide?
- To what extent have investments in buildings/infrastructure (new buildings, expansion/maintenance or repurposing for cultural use) led to social and economic regeneration of an area?
- Identify and analyse the drivers and what works in terms of delivering against levelling up missions, notably in the areas of: skills, wellbeing and pride in place.
- What are the barriers to AHT sector employment for lower socioeconomic and protected groups and what works or could work in terms of increasing access and engagement for AHT sectors?
- What are the social and cultural impacts of digital engagement and how do they differ from or compliment physical engagement?
- What are the barriers to engagement in digital cultural offers for different groups and how can innovative digital content be used to reduce barriers to audience engagement?
- What are the major skills gaps in the AHT sectors and how could that impact on sector growth and wider social and culture outcomes?
- What outcomes do public service broadcasters (PSBs) bring about as a result of their distinct public service remit including economic, societal, security, democratic, environmental and international considerations? What is the role of the PSBs in the wider media market?
- How widespread is loneliness?
- What interventions can support communities to tap into and take ownership of social investment at local and “hyper-local” levels?
- How do issues related to CSY’s policy responsibilities affect pride in place and social capital at the local level?
- How can we embed better evidence into our investment decisions, the impacts of investment on transport users and communities (including vulnerable and protected groups)?
- To what extent does greater voluntary, community and social enterprise participation in procurement lead to better outcomes for people and communities including young people?
- What are the drivers of demand for services in this sector taking into account the needs of different groups?
- What affects and supports resilience at the organisational level?
- What factors contribute to creating and maintaining a rehabilitative culture within prison, and how can this can impact on post-release outcomes for individuals?
- Factors contributing to vulnerability to exploitation, interventions for different groups and individuals, and approaches to targeting these interventions.
- What types of approaches lead to better outcomes for condition-specific learning needs in mainstream schooling? What works for SEND outreach work, for example from special schools to support learners in mainstream schools?
- How can a One Health approach promote a cultural change to curb the expansion of illegal wildlife trafficking and implement solutions that will ultimately benefit humans and the planet, galvanising the role of protected species conservation and biodiversity on disease prevention and mitigation?
- How can we best understand and measure the relationships citizens have with different layers of UK governance?
- How can we consistently estimate impacts across different risks, for example through use of subjective well-being indicators?
- What are the needs and experiences of victims, defence witnesses, and those in distressing civil, family, or tribunal cases? How does this vary by protected characteristics, socio-economic or socio-demographic background and jurisdiction?
- How can we better understand drivers of demand in the justice system, so that we support early problem resolution where appropriate, whilst ensuring the formal justice system is accessible to those who need it?
- What are the long-term outcomes of exposure to online mis/disinformation for the individual and society?
- What is the cost of lack of diversity both in the digital sector and in digital and technology jobs? What are the potential impacts and benefits of a more diverse digital workforce?
- Where are the opportunities to break down barriers, tap into unrealised opportunities and ensure that those building our digital and technological solutions are representative and cognisant of UK societal needs as a whole?
- How will AI impact societal outcomes, especially regarding inequality, health and the environment?
- How can we best support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and those who attend Alternative Provision (AP)?
- Statistics representing society: How well or poorly do statistics represent society, and what are the impacts of this on how they are used and valued?
- How will AI affect existing kinds of harmful online content (e.g. online abuse, scams) and what new kinds of online harmful content might it give rise to?
- What types of harmful content exist online, and what is the impact to children’s offline behaviour?
- How can we improve the education experiences and outcomes for children and young people with SEND or in AP? How do we best identify needs and level of need, what are the benefits of early intervention, and what are appropriate outcomes to measure for this group?
- What are the causes, consequences and costs associated with parental conflict and family breakdown? What is effective in avoiding or mitigating parental conflict and for whom? How do parental characteristics including worklessness, low skills, lack of stable housing, ethnicity, parents in the perinatal stage, LGBTQ+, being (or having been) a member of the armed forces, mental health and parents with SEND children interact with conflict and influence what works?
- How has rising inflation impacted on the living standards for different groups?
- What are the causes/drivers of the ethnic minority employment gap? What are the barriers to entry and progression in the labour market for ethnic minorities?
- What are the enablers and barriers to travel for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions -including those who fall into other protected characteristic groups?
- What is the causal relationship between loneliness and transport/travel?
- How effective are different prison types, categories and functions, such as reception, training and resettlement, in meeting their core objectives?
- Why do recruitment, career progression and pathways, and retention within the legal profession, vary by protected characteristics, socio-economic and socio-demographic background?
- What are the long-term impacts on children’s developmental outcomes because of placements made under public law orders in care proceedings? Including care orders, placement orders, and special guardianship orders?
- How can we better understand how problems link, interact, and reinforce, and how people move through different systems as they attempt to resolve them? Including unemployment, debt, housing, or family issues.
- What are people’s experiences of dealing with justice problems? How can they be supported to access and navigate the justice system, enforce their rights, and achieve the best outcomes? How does this vary by problem type, level of legal capability, and awareness of support?
- Understanding which individuals are at risk of becoming offenders (and/or victims), for what reasons and at what stages of their lives.
- Motivations for committing modern slavery offences, and types of organisations, businesses and services that enable offending.
- The social and psychological harm of new forms of crime.
- How might the COVID-19 pandemic affect homelessness and rough sleeping in the longer term?