Research Projects

Current externally-funded research projects that our researchers are involved in.

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  Family Finances: what difference does cash support for children make?

  This project, funded by the Aberdeen Financial Fairness Trust, will explore the impact of household financial well-being, aiming to inform future policy and decision-making. The project is a partnership between the University of York (Professor Emma Tominey, Professor Ruth Patrick and Dr Kate Andersen), Professor Kitty Stewart at CASE, and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).
  Find out more.

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  Housing Plus Academy Initiative on Homelessness prevention and reduction

  In March 2019, the Mitchell Foundation generously granted LSE Housing and Communities funds to carry out research into Housing Plus and how we can improve the housing sector in the UK.

  The project, with Professor Anne Power as the Lead Principal Investigator, combines desk-based research, primary qualitative and quantitative research, and knowledge-exchange activities such as roundtables and Think Tanks to understand how innovation in the housing sector can reduce homelessness and precarious housing, and what initiatives are being taken to improve the quality and quantity of low-income housing.
  Fiind out more.

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  Providing Credible Evidence For Singular Causal Claims

  Professor Eileen Munro is the Co-Investigator on this project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This project will explore what methods are suited to studying the different kinds of contribution each type of mechanism makes in order to construct templates for theoretically well-grounded 'evidence-role maps' for causal prediction and evaluation.
  Find out more.

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  Repairing Care: Labour Migration, Equality and Justice

  Dr Isabel Shutes has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2023-24) for research on ‘Repairing care: Labour Migration, Equality and Justice’. Long-term care systems in many high-income countries face chronic shortages of care workers and rapidly expanding needs for care provision for older people. While the healthcare systems of those countries have long relied on the international recruitment of nurses and other health workers, their labour migration systems have typically excluded or limited the international recruitment of care workers. In grappling with severe labour shortages, exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, a number of countries, including the UK, have started to open up their labour migration systems to care workers in order to mobilise care labour. This research investigates the integration of care in labour migration systems and the transnational recruitment of care workers. It provides a systematic, comparative analysis of how high-income countries are incorporating care workers in their labour migration systems, and an in-depth study of transnational care labour recruitment between the UK and selected countries.

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  School admissions and school choice policies in comparative perspective

  Professor Anne West has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by The Leverhulme Trust for a two-year period starting in September 2023. She will work on a major new research project entitled ‘School admissions and school choice in comparative perspective’. School admissions are important as they can affect equality of opportunity, school composition and social cohesion. However, comparative research on school admissions and choice policies is lacking. This project addresses the gap, by analysing admissions and choice policies in France, Germany, Sweden, the UK and the USA and selected policy dimensions in Chile, China, and South Africa. Using historical, legal and policy documents, and academic literature, it analyses school systems established post-World War II; how ideas, policy goals and policies on school choice and admissions developed during the 1980s/early 2000s; consequences of admissions arrangements; and policies designed to enhance mixed intakes. The main outcome of the research project will be a monograph to be published by Routledge.

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  Social Media Use and Child Development: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trials

  As social media (SM) usage skyrockets among youth, concerns mount over its impact on their development and well-being. This research, investigates the crucial role parents play in regulating their children's SM experiences. Leveraging new data sources, we aim to provide a rich account of parents' beliefs about SM's effects, their strategies for guiding their children's usage, and how parental mediating practices are associated with family characteristics and child outcomes. Moreover, this project will provide novel evidence on how to foster better parenting practices to promote young people's emotional health and strengthen parent-child bonds in the digital age. Our findings will reveal inequalities stemming from varied parental approaches and inform policies to safeguard the next generation from SM's potential risks while harnessing its benefits. As regulation proves challenging, empowering parents emerges as a vital step towards ensuring SM positively impacts youth development.
  Dr Margaux Suteau is the LSE Principal Investigator for this research project funded by the British Academy.

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  Social policies and distributional outcomes in a changing Britain

  This research programme is being undertaken by a team of social policy and inequality experts with Dr Polly Vizard as the Lead Principal Investigator, to provide an authoritative, independent, rigorous and in-depth evidence base on social policies and distributional outcomes in 21st century Britain.
  Find out more.

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  The economics of race and ethnicity

  Professor Lucinda Platt is co-investigator on this project funded by the ESRC. This programme of work will investigate economic opportunities across racial and ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, focusing on five interlinked domains: identity, education, crime and justice, labour market, and wealth and inheritance.
  Find out more.

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  Understanding Society

  Professor Lucinda Platt is co-investigator for this UK Household Longitudinal Study, the largest longitudinal study of its kind and provides crucial information for researchers and policymakers on the changes and stability of people's lives in the UK. Lucinda leads on ethnicity and immigration for the Study, one of the special strengths of the Study.
  Find out more.