Tagged / call for evidence

Call for evidence – forms of inequality

The Treasury Committee have launched a new inquiry – An Equal Recovery.  

The inquiry will examine different forms of inequality that have emerged or that may have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, and what HM Treasury can do to mitigate them. The inquiry will focus on disability, gender, race, regional imbalances, and intergenerational inequality, including housing.

They’re also interested to hear what measures to combat inequality the Treasury could consider when making departmental budget allocations.

You can read the call for evidence here: https://bit.ly/2PBjqPG

The deadline to respond is 28 June 2021.

Please inform Jane and Sarah within the policy team if you intend to respond to this call for evidence.

Cohabitating Partners – rights (inquiry)

The Women and Equalities Committee have launched a new inquiry – The Rights of Cohabiting Partners | Deadline for evidence submission: Monday 5 July 2021

Information on the scope of the inquiry

Cohabiting couples make up the fastest growing type of family, with over 3.4 million couples cohabiting in England or Wales. Couples who cohabit currently have less legal protection than those who are married or in a civil partnership in the event of death or separation. Despite this, there is a widespread perception that cohabiting couples have similar or identical rights to those who are married or in a civil partnership.

In 2007, the Law Commission published a report on the financial consequences of the breakdown of cohabitant relationships and recommended law reform. Since then, in 2011, the Coalition Government decided not to take forward the recommendations, and there has been little progress in this area since. Certain legal professionals have continued to call for greater protection under the law for cohabiting couples.

The Committee will examine what legal protection for cohabiting couples could look like and how this might be introduced. We welcome written evidence submissions from individuals, legal practitioners and organisations.

The Committee is inviting written evidence but cannot accept evidence that discusses on-going or active court cases.

Key questions for the inquiry are:
  • Should there be a legal definition of cohabitation and, if so, what should it be?
  • What legislative changes, if any, are needed to better protect the rights of cohabiting partners in the event of death or separation?
  • What equalities issues are raised by the lack of legal protection for those in cohabiting relationships?
  • Should legal changes be made to better provide for the children of cohabiting partners?
  • Should cohabiting partners have the same rights as those who are married or in a civil partnership?
  • Are there examples of good practice in relation to the rights of cohabiting partners in the UK or internationally that the Government should seek emulate in England and Wales?

You can submit evidence to this inquiry until Sunday 4 July. Please inform and engage with BU’s policy team before submitting evidence to the inquiry. You can contact Jane and Sarah on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

Child poverty – call for evidence

 The Work and Pensions Committee has launched a new inquiry to examine what steps the Government could take to reduce the numbers of children who grow up in poverty in the UK.

The initial focus of the Committee will be on the best way to measure child poverty and how the Dept of  Work and Pensions works with other Government departments and local authorities to reduce the number of young people living in poverty.

The inquiry is then expected to examine how well the social security system is working for children, the experiences of families with no recourse to public funds, and support for working parents and separated families.

The Committee have launched a call for written submissions to the inquiry, which they would like to focus on the following questions:

Measurement and targets

  • How should child poverty be measured and defined?
  • The measures of child poverty changed in 2016. What has the impact of those changes been?
  • What were the advantages and disadvantages of having a set of targets for reducing child poverty?
  • What has been the effect of removing from law the targets in place between 2010 and 2016?
  • What is the impact of child poverty and how can it best be measured?
  • What links can be established for children between financial hardship, educational under-achievement, family breakdown and worklessness?

Joint working

  • How effectively does the Department for Work and Pensions work with other Government departments, particularly the Department for Education and the Treasury, to reduce child poverty?
  • How effectively does the Department for Work and Pensions work with local authorities and with support organisations to reduce the numbers of children living in poverty and to mitigate the impact of poverty on children?
  • What would be the merits of having a cross-government child poverty strategy? How well has this worked in the past?

You can view the call for evidence here: https://bit.ly/3ifuSds

You can also read the full press release here: https://bit.ly/2KhL4yx

Please contact Sarah or Jane in the BU policy team before responding to this inquiry. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

The Value of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

british_academy_logoThe British Academy is launching an exciting new project which aims to articulate, for the first time, the skills that are inherent to the study of arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS), their value to the individual, and the contribution they do make and could make in future to society.

Click on the link above to find out what the British Academy Flagship Skills Project is; why they’re doing it; and how you can contribute to the call for evidence (closing date 15 March 2017).

 

 

British Academy Flagship Skills Project – The value of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

british_academy_logoThe British Academy is launching an exciting new project which aims to articulate, for the first time, the skills that are inherent to the study of arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS), their value to the individual, and the contribution they do make and could make in future to society.

Building on the success of its Languages and Quantitative Skills (LQS) Programme, the British Academy is developing a new programme of work on skills. The flagship project of this programme aims to articulate the skills that are inherent to the study of arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS), their value to the individual, and the contribution they do make and could make in future to society as well as those that are important for educators of AHSS students to introduce directly. The Academy hopes to stimulate and facilitate a national debate about the nature and value of these skills, as well as setting the agenda for its own Skills Programme to 2020.

The project will seek to intellectualise what is meant by skills, and look at questions such as what skills should studying AHSS develop? What skills do individuals who have studied AHSS demonstrate? What contribution do individuals with AHSS skills make to society and the economy? What skills do employers want? What skills will be needed in the future

To find out more, download their introductory booklet here

The Call for Evidence document is available to download here

People talkingWho should respond?

The Academy is seeking the views of a broad range of stakeholders in the education and skills sector, including but not limited to education providers, learned societies, careers advisory services, students, employers and policy-makers.

How to respond

Please ensure that all responses are in Microsoft Word format (not PDF), and that they include concrete examples wherever possible and are fully referenced where appropriate. Responses should not exceed 3000 words and should be as clear and succinct as possible. Please submit your completed response to skills@britac.ac.uk by Wednesday 15 March 2017.

RCUK GCRF Call for Evidence

Funding opportunities

RCUKlogoThe Government Spending Review on 25th November 2015 announced “a new £1.5 billion Global Challenges Research Fund, to ensure UK science takes the lead in addressing the problems faced by developing countries, whilst developing our ability to deliver cutting-edge research”. The Global Challenges Research Fund is a BIS initiative which operates across a number of delivery partners, including the Research Councils, National Academies and HEFCE.

The RCUK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) represents the largest portion of this Fund. They have launched a call for evidence to gather your views on the high-level challenges that will form the basis of the funding calls from the GCRF Collective Fund, the information gathered will also be shared with the other delivery partners so that it may inform their own strategies. They would also like your views on the most effective ways of delivering GCRF.

They are seeking inputs from individuals and institutions across all academic disciplines, non-governmental organisation and industrial sectors both in and outside of the UK.

The results from the survey will be reviewed alongside feedback from the Town Meetings. They will share a short summary of evidence they have collected and outline how that has informed their strategy in the autumn.

This call for evidence forms part of a broader programme of strategic engagement activities taking place under the GCRF programme. They will be running focus groups later this year and opening a Call for Ideas early next year to generate priority themes within each challenge.

You can complete the survey by clicking the link below. The survey closes at 16.00 on 22 August:

http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/6LOJI/

Respondents are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the following background information whilst completing the survey:

Call for evidence on interdisciplinarity in research and HE

The British Academy has issued a call for evidence for a new project on interdisciplinarity in research and HE. They will ask academics, university managers, publishers and funders about their experiences, successes and challenges. The project will consider how interdisciplinary research is carried out, demand for interdisciplinary research and research skills, how academics can forge interdisciplinary careers and whether the right structures are in place to support interdisciplinarity across the research and higher education system. If you would like to know more, or contribute your thoughts, please see http://www.britac.ac.uk/policy/research_and_he_policy.cfm?frmAlias=/interdisc/