The University of Sheffield has been awarded £10m to fund a new Centre for Care to address the need for accessible research on social care.
Fully operational from March 2022, the centre will provide an extensive array of evidence to address pressures and inequities in how people experience social care.
The Centre for Care will investigate, for example, the impact of policy changes on the care workforce and the impacts from changes in how care is provided, including the growing use of technology.
Research will specifically focus on efforts to raise the working conditions, profile and status of care workers.
“The Centre for Care will be a pivotal hub for researchers and practitioners across the social care sector. Based in Sheffield, it will develop new evidence on providing and delivering the care needed by people of all ages who need support in daily life,” said Centre for Care Director Professor Sue Yeandle (pictured) of University of Sheffield’s Faculty of Social Sciences.
“It is vital that we understand how our society’s arrangements for care can provide the best support possible to all who need it as they negotiate changes and challenges in their lives,” she added.
The collaboration includes the Universities of Birmingham, Kent and Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Office for National Statistics, and charities Carers UK, the National Children’s Bureau and the Social Care Institute for Excellence.
The organisations will work together with academics, sector partners, agencies, public policy experts and people who need or provide care across the UK and internationally.
The centre will bring together some 50 scholars: leading experts on care in multiple disciplines; 12 new post-doctoral researchers, based in the five universities; a large group of PhD students, including six commencing new studies of care in autumn 2022.
Advised by a board of leading and diverse experts on care, the centre will produce major new studies of care and build a new generation of care specialists for the years ahead.
