Nuffield Foundation

This project will investigate how race, colonial legacies, and migration histories shape British public attitudes toward climate-linked migration. Climate change is predicted to displace up to 1 billion people globally within 30 years, yet public awareness of climate-linked migration in the UK remains limited. The issue is often framed through crisis or threat.

This project will investigate evidence-based interventions targeting non-academic outcomes for children and young people with SEND aged 4 to 25. In 2024, this research team completed a Nuffield-funded systematic review and meta-analysis of more than 400 international studies of teaching approaches aimed at improving the academic outcomes of children and young people with SEND.

This project will explore how migrant settlement policy impacts integration outcomes and racial inequalities in the UK. The UK has witnessed a rising number of people granted Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). The number is expected to grow in the coming years as the large number of arrivals in the 2021-2024 period become eligible for settlement. The projected surge in ILR grants has triggered intense political and media debate over the impacts of settlement in the UK.

This project will explore the financial challenges adoptive families face and their impact on children’s outcomes. Around 3,000 children are adopted annually in the UK. Research shows adopted children are at significantly increased risk of long-term developmental, behavioural, educational, and emotional difficulties resulting from early trauma, disrupted attachments, and/or genetic or neurodevelopmental factors.

This project will investigate how local authorities can effectively support and enforce improved energy performance standards in the private rented sector to reduce energy poverty among vulnerable and low-to-middle-income renters. Millions of households in the private rented sector remain in poorly insulated, energy-inefficient homes. In 2022, 44% of households in this sector were classified as fuel-poor, spending a disproportionate share of their income on energy bills.

The new UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, like his predecessors, will confront intense pressures for additional public spending while remaining within the constraints of fiscal discipline. Yet the live debate about “headroom” under the current rules is far too narrow. The real challenge is how government plans, allocates and controls public money to improve performance across public services amid economic shocks and rising demand.

This project will explore how family-friendly workplace reforms can improve retention of teachers in their 30s. Schools in England continue to face teacher shortages in primary and most secondary subjects. A significant proportion of teachers leave the profession in their 30s and yet there has been relatively little research on why so many of these experienced teachers leave, or what would retain them.

This project will investigate community-level extremism risk in the UK, focusing on harmful extremism and democratic erosion. The UK lacks a comprehensive framework to monitor community-level extremism risk. Current measures, such as social cohesion indices, fail to integrate indicators of extremist activity, structural vulnerabilities, and diminishing democratic resilience.

This project will co-design culturally responsive health visiting services for refugee and asylum-seeking families with preschool children in temporary accommodation. Refugee and asylum-seeking (RAS) children in temporary accommodation often face developmental disruptions and invisibility in public health services.

Public inquiries need fundamental reform if they are to deliver accountability, support those affected by harm and prevent future failures, according to a new report.