This is a message for all members of the Social Policy Association about
its relations with ESRC.
As normal, the SPA Executive Committee is arranging for its annual meeting
with a representative of ESRC, on 16 March this year. The agenda usually
covers reports and discussion on the place of social policy in the
research grants and studentships awarded by ESRC by comparison with other
subjects and fields, and matters of principle raised by other SPA members
generally for discussion in this forum.
I am therefore writing to ask if any members of the SPA wish the EC to
raise any matters for discussion with ESRC at this meeting, to let me know
what they are as soon as possible.
Among the matters which we took up again last year was the apparently low
representation of social policy academics among the members of ESRC
boards and committees by comparison with some other subjects, and the
seemingly low profile which social policy is given by ESRC in
such of its activities as the Virtual Colleges -- where it is an unnamed
subsidiary of sociology along with history and anthropology in the SHAR
college, while the SPA EC thinks it should be a named subject along with
politics and economics in the PEG college. We made the point to the Chief
Executive of ESRC at our meeting with him last summer that this lack of
naming social policy as a significant subject continued to symbolise the
problem which concerns us, but which had often been denied by officials.
We said that if ESRC is as concerned as it claims about the applicability
of social science research, then it seems to us perverse to play down --
or fail to give visible recognition to -- the role of social policy which
probably exemplifies applicable research as much as if not more than many
other social science subjects which are given high profiles in ESRC
activities. We hope that as he is a sociologist, these references to the
importance of such symbols did not go unheard.
Perhaps there are signs of movement, and we shall continue to make
representations to ESRC along these lines. If SPA members who read this
are members of any of the Virtual Colleges, the EC would be grateful if
they would let me have a brief report on their activities in that capacity
during the last 12 months, since they play an important role in
representing the subject in ESRC. In any case, I look forward to hearing
if members have any issues to be raised with ESRC.
Many thanks, John Veit Wilson.
-------------------------------------------------------------
From Professor J. H. Veit-Wilson
Department of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE NE1 7RU, England.
Telephones: +44-191-222-7498 or +44-191-266-2428
Fax: +44-191-222-7497.
E-mail: <[log in to unmask]>.
|