Dear all,

Please find below information about key upcoming Social Research 
Association (SRA) events for the rest of this year including:

 >> 4th December >> The SRA Annual Conference “Learning from others: 
Innovations in Social Research”. This is the major professional learning 
and networking event for social research and policy actors across national 
and local government, academia and the voluntary and private sectors. We 
have an excellent line up of speakers including: Ian Pearson, Minster for 
Science and Innovation; Karen Dunnell, National Statistician and Registrar 
General for England and Wales; Professor Peter Halfpenny, Executive 
Director, ESRC National Centre for e-Social Science.

Tickets are available now and all social researchers (whether SRA members 
or not) are strongly encouraged to attend this key event.

 >> 14th November >> SRA Evening seminar: “Counting disabled children and 
their households”.

 >> 20th November >> RSS/SRA Cathie Marsh memorial lecture “Using Samples 
of anonymised records (SARS) to research the experience of ethnic minorities”.

 >> 22nd November >> SRA Evening seminar: “The UK Study of Abuse and 
Neglect of Older People”.

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SOCIAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (SRA) ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2007
“Learning from others: Innovations in Social Research”

Tuesday 4th December 2007, at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of 
London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OXG.

Please see the flyer and booking form at:
http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/pdfs/sra_conference_flyer_04122007.pdf
for more details on workshops and the day as a whole.

Please book as soon as possible as places are going quickly. A word booking 
form is also available via the SRA office.

Please note we have a variety of sponsorship and advertising options 
available for this conference. Please contact [log in to unmask] 
for details.

BACKGROUND TO THE CONFERENCE:
This year, through key note speakers, a series of workshop sessions and a 
panel debate, the SRA conference aims to inform the research community and 
promote discussion on innovative and exciting developments in the design, 
planning, implementation, analysis and dissemination of social research.

In the morning we have a line up of excellent plenary speakers.
Ian Pearson, Minster for Science and Innovation, will outline the social 
and economic impact of social research and provide a government perspective 
on the current and future role of social research in policy development.

Karen Dunnell, National Statistician and Registrar General for England and 
Wales, will be providing a perspective on the role of social science based 
social research and the issues it faces if it is to make a key and 
continued contribution to policy and practice. She will also discuss 
implications for social statistics users of recent changes in the 
organisation of British statistics as well as providing some insight into 
the innovations the Office for National Statistics is making to its 
production and dissemination of statistics.

Professor Peter Halfpenny, Executive Director, ESRC National Centre for 
e-Social Science, will be discussing, in a milestone address, developments 
in Information and communication technology (ICT) and the role they will 
play in advancing social research processes.

In the afternoon, a series of 12 workshops delivered by research experts 
from academia, government and the private sector will examine and discuss 
upcoming developments on the following themes:

 >> Innovations in the development of research design and strategy
 >> New methods and techniques for undertaking research, and exploring or 
interpreting data
 >> Connecting research to policy development
 >> New methods of disseminating research to reach wider audiences

Finally a panel consisting of Fiona Wood, Director of Research, COI; 
Professor Peter Halfpenny and Karen Elton, Research Director, Future 
Foundation, will outline their thoughts and discuss  “Looking ahead: 
Innovations and issues for the next ten years”.

===============

SRA EVENING SEMINAR:
Counting disabled children and their households

5:00pm, Wednesday 14th November 2007 (light refreshments from 4:30pm)
The Nuffield Foundation, 28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS

On Wednesday 14th November, the SRA is delighted to announce that Clare 
Black burn and Janet Read (Associate Professors, School of Health and 
Social Studies, University of Warwick) will be speaking about their ESRC 
funded research into “Can We Count Them? Disabled Children and their 
Households”.

It is widely recognised that quantitative data on disabled children and 
their households in the UK has its limitations. This research set outto 
scope and evaluate existing data sources in order to inform the development 
of more robust data on this important population of children and their 
circumstances.

Clare and Janet’s presentation will highlight some of the project's key 
findings (including those from secondary analysis work using FRS and FACS) 
and their policy implications.

This meeting takes place at the Nuffield Foundation and starts at 5pm (with 
light refreshments from 4.30). There is a small charge of £5 for SRA 
members and £10 for non-members to attend this event.

Directions to the Nuffield Foundation are available at: 
http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/go/contactus/page_17.html).

Please email [log in to unmask] to register your attendance. You may also 
simply turn up on the evening, but priority is given to those who have 
pre-registered.

===============

RSS/SRA CATHIE MARSH MEMORIAL LECTURE:
Using Samples of Anonymised records (SARS) to research the experience of 
ethnic minorities

5pm-7pm, Tuesday 20th November 2007 (light refreshments from 4.30pm)
Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX

This year's RSS/SRA Cathie Marsh memorial lecture aims to illustrate how 
the Samples of Anonymised records (SARS) from theBritish Census together 
with small area statistics can be used to look at key issues of social 
concern about the different labour market experiences of minority ethnic 
groups. It will be highly relevant both for practitioners who want to 
understand more about patterns of minority ethnic employment in local areas 
and for academic researchers who are interested in this substantive area or 
in the use of Census based data as a resource for research.

5pm >> Welcome and introduction by the chair Del Jenkins, Area Initiatives 
and Communities Division, DWP

‘The SARS as a Resource for Researchers’
Prof Ed Fieldhouse, University of Manchester

‘The dynamics and diversity of ethnic minority labour market outcomes: 
evidence from the SARs’.
Ken Clark, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Manchester and 
Research Fellow, IZA, Bonn.

'Profiling local labour markets: using the SARS to explore the situation of 
ethnic minority women'
Lisa Buckner, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Leeds

Discussant : Rachel Leeser , Senior Research and Statistical Analyst" 
Greater London Authority

6.30pm >> Questions and discussion

The meeting will conclude with a drinks reception at 6.45 that has been 
kindly sponsored by SPSS.

There is no charge for this event but pre-registration is requested. Please 
email [log in to unmask] to register.

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SRA EVENING SEMINAR:
The UK Study of Abuse and Neglect of Older People

5:00pm, Thursday 22nd November 2007 (light refreshments from 4:30pm)
The Nuffield Foundation, 28 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JS

The abuse and neglect of older people is increasingly acknowledged as a 
social problem, particularly in the context of increasing longevity and the 
concomitant growth in the numbers of people with disabilities, mobility and 
cognitive problems.

A series of studies commissioned by Comic Relief with co-funding from the 
Department of Health and conducted by NatCen and King’s College London, has 
begun to address what had been a lack of research into this area.

The SRA is delighted to bring together key researchers on the projects for 
an SRA evening event.

Unlike other recent presentations on this research which have looked at the 
results of the various elements of the study, this evening seminar will 
have a particular focus on the qualitative elements and the use and impact 
of the study.

Bob Erens (NatCen) will describe the methods used to measure elder abuse, 
including how the concept of elder abuse was operationalised in the survey 
context. He will present findings from the national prevalence survey, 
including the estimated numbers of older people experiencing different 
types of abuse and neglect in the community.

Simon Biggs will examine the impact of the research on the perception of 
elder mistreatment. In particular, he will examine the reception of 
research in its transition from the relatively objective world of the 
research process to the subjective world of the public sphere. Some policy 
implications of the prevalence study will be discussed.

Josie Dixon, Alice Mowlam and Rosalind Tennant (NatCen) will present 
findings from the in-depth interviews with some survey respondents. These 
findings highlight some issues relating to how abuse and neglect of older 
people is defined and explore the nature and impacts of abuse and neglect, 
factors that influence older people’s ability to cope and recover from 
abuse or neglect and the barriers to reporting abuse or neglect.

This meeting takes place at the Nuffield Foundation and starts at 5pm (with 
light refreshments from 4.30) and will end at around 6.30pm. There is a 
small charge of £5 for SRA members and £10 for non-members to attend this 
event.

Directions to the Nuffield Foundation are available at: 
http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/go/contactus/page_17.html).

Please email [log in to unmask] to register your attendance. You may also 
simply turn up on the evening, but priority is given to those who have 
pre-registered.

===============

The Social Research Association looks forward to welcoming you to these events.

Thanks

Oliver Hayllar
Chair, SRA events