Dear Colleagues

The Social Policy Association is planning to carry out an audit of HE institutions/programmes which teach social policy and, alongside this, we are also planning to carry out a survey of those who teach social policy within HE to gather information on the current and future state of social policy teaching/learning in UK HEIs.

We have been awarded £5,000 from SWAP to carry out this study and are now looking for a researcher (or small team of researchers) to take on this work for this fee.  If you are interested in taking on this work, please read through the research brief below and submit a proposal of how you would go about the research, within the timescale below, and within the budget.  Please keep proposals to a maximum of 3 pages giving full details of the methods you would use as well as key milestones to guide the research timetable and the outputs you will produce.  The SPA may be willing to pay for expenses on top of the fee if these are essential for the work but these should be kept to a minimum.  Please also provide a 1 page CV for all researchers named on the proposal and give details of your expertise/experience to carry out the work.  The deadline for proposals is Tuesday 8th March.  If you have any questions about the work please get in touch with me at the email address below.

Karen Rowlingson
Professor of Social Policy, University of Birmingham
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Brief for research on the current and future state of social policy teaching in UK HEIs

The idea for this research stems from concerns that social policy, along with many other social science disciplines, is likely to face many challenges as a consequence of forthcoming changes in student funding.  It also stems from the demise of the JUC as a venue for social policy departments to discuss issues relating to their subject area, and the demise of SWAP’s support for the development of teaching and learning.  At this time, it is therefore vital that the SPA has a firm understanding of social policy teaching in HEIs in the UK.  It is also crucial for the SPA to gather information about experiences of teaching social policy, good practice and the kind of training/support needs that teachers in HEIs have.  In light of this, the research has two parts.

The first is to carry out an audit of social policy teaching in HEIs in the UK by gathering information about:
•	Where it is taught (in terms of institutions/departments)
•	Whether it is taught as a single honours, part of joint honours or in modules on a related or more general degree
•	What is taught at different levels (undergrad and postgrad)
•	Who teaches social policy (eg postgrads, early career, lecturers/professors)
•	How many students are taught
•	Current/best practice in recruiting social policy students
•	Details of any recent changes in the above
•	Details of any current discussions/anticipated changes (not least in light of the likely changes to student fees)

The second is to carry out a survey of social policy teachers in HEIs to gather their views on:
•	Examples of good practice
•	Type of support/training that would be helpfully organised by the successors to SWAP

Both parts of the study would gather information on:
•	Concerns about potential threats to social policy teaching in light of the changes to student funding
•	Suggestions about how to safeguard social policy as a subject for undergraduate and postgraduate study

Brief description of methods or tools   
We anticipate that the first part of the project will involve desk research in gathering information about different social policy degrees in HEIs through UCAS and other databases.  However, we appreciate that social policy is often taught within degree programmes which do not bear the social policy name and so would also expect the researcher(s) to gather information about broader social science degrees which might include social policy.  We will also make our own members’ database available to gather information about institutions which include our members if these are not already highlighted in our earlier research.  Once the researcher(s) have produced an initial list of HEIs teaching social policy we would anticipate that this list would be sent to the social-policy jiscmail to ask if we have missed any institutions out.  We then expect the researcher(s) produce a short questionnaire for each institution and identify, through websites/telephone screening, the most appropriate person to fill it in.  An internet survey or telephone interviews may be used to do this.

The second part of the project will involve the design of a questionnaire.  We expect that ‘survey monkey’ would be a useful tool to use here to gather experiences and views about teaching social policy.  This could be sent to each institution that has been contacted in the first part of the research and this contact could be asked to cascade the survey to other members of staff.  It might also be appropriate to send the survey to the social-policy jiscmail email database and ask people to fill it in from there to gather as many responses as possible.

We expect those submitting a proposal for this work to discuss the pros and cons of different methods and to state clearly which method they propose to use.

Anticipated outcomes and milestones
The researcher(s) will produce a report on the findings from the research which will also draw out recommendations in relation to good practice, future training/support needs and ways to safeguard social policy.

Timescale
The first part of the study will aim to report by the SPA conference (4th-6th July 2011)
Both parts of the study will be completed by December 2011

Deadline for receipt of proposals
Tuesday 8th March 2011

Contact for any questions
Karen Rowlingson
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