Log in
The quality of estimates in the 2000s of immigration to local authority areas in England needed radical improvement. School of Geography (SoG) researchers Rees and Boden developed a method, based on administrative data including NHS Patient, National Insurance and Higher Education records, to improve the accuracy of immigration estimates. The research had a direct impact on the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which adopted and further developed the method for annual estimates of local immigration statistics. These are used as inputs to mid-year population estimates and projections, which play an important role in formulae for allocating funds to local authorities and health bodies.
Research at Oxford's International Migration Institute (IMI) on the driving forces of global migration processes, conducted in conversation with international stakeholder groups, has significantly affected the ways in which migration is conceptualised and viewed by experts, international organisations and governments involved in formulating migration and development policies. The new perspective arising from IMI's research fundamentally challenges the common assumption that migration is driven by poverty and distress, and holds that migration is in fact an integral part of the process of human and economic development. This view was adopted by the United Nations in the UNDP Human Development Report 2009 and has significantly influenced the UK government's Foresight report on Migration and Global Environmental Change.
There is growing evidence that official population statistics based on the decennial UK Census are inaccurate at the local authority level, the fundamental administrative unit of the UK. The use of locally-available administrative data sets for counting populations can result in more timely and geographically more flexible data which are more cost-effective to produce than the survey-based Census. Professor Mayhew of City University London has spent the last 13 years conducting research on administrative data and their application to counting populations at local level. This work has focused particularly on linking population estimates to specific applications in health and social care, education and crime. Professor Mayhew developed a methodology that is now used as an alternative to the decennial UK Census by a large number of local councils and health care providers. They have thereby gained access to more accurate, detailed and relevant data which have helped local government officials and communities make better policy decisions and save money. The success of this work has helped to shape thinking on statistics in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and has contributed to the debate over whether the decennial UK Census should be discontinued.
Research by the University of Southampton has led to an entirely new approach to the creation and management of small geographical areas for the publication of official statistics, including those from the 2001 and 2011 UK Censuses and the Neighbourhood Statistics Service. The software at the heart of this transformation is now used in 10 countries, while the academics responsible for it have helped inform government decisions, are integral to the policy and practice of the Office of National Statistics and have presented evidence to various influential committees. The research continues to deliver benefits to a large user community.
Statistical techniques developed at the University of Southampton have transformed the accuracy with which Census data can estimate the UK population's size and characteristics, delivering far-reaching socio-economic impact. The methodologies developed by Southampton have increased the accuracy and availability of the 2011 UK Census data, not only for the Office for National Statistics but for central government, local authorities, the NHS and the private sector, who all use the data as a basis for policy decisions. Preserving the privacy of the UK population, Southampton's work allowed, for the first time, the release of highly localised data, which is used by local authorities to target resources efficiently and meet the demands imposed by the Localism and Equality Acts.
Research carried out at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS) and disseminated through an accessible multimedia website, `The Migration Observatory', has transformed public and policy debate on migration and changed the practices of government departments, media, and third-sector organizations regarding migration data. As a result of COMPAS's research on public attitudes to immigration, migrants' remittance payments, and employers' demand for migrant labour, these groups have been able to make stronger, evidence-based arguments and decisions.
The impact has occurred in two main ways: (1) direct impact on public debates; and (2) changes in the practices of those participating in, or reporting on, those debates. The direct impact has included evidence for arguments against new restrictions on student immigration, and related arguments in favour of changing the way student immigration statistics are tracked. It has also included shaping deliberations on the potential for developing new measures of remittances by the Office of National Statistics. Changes in practice have involved the dissemination of research and data through the vehicle of the Migration Observatory. The Observatory has enabled journalists, civil servants, parliamentarians, and NGOs to use a more accurate and impartial evidence base in debates on migration issues, and to inform the public about such issues.
This research by Professor Matras has had a substantial impact on European policies concerning Romani migration. It highlighted the unique vulnerability of Romani migrants and instigated special consideration of their issues by major European policy-making bodies. At a more local level in Greater Manchester Professor Matras' recommendations led to the employment of Romani outreach workers to act as mediators and interpreters for the community of Romanian Romani immigrants in east Manchester. In 2011 a training programme born out of his research led to ten young members of the Romani community taking up roles as interpreters, mediators and classroom assistants within Manchester's local services and schools.
Professor Andrew Geddes' research on international migration has directly impacted upon the thinking of officials and the subsequent reshaping of policy at national and international levels concerning connections between environmental change and migration. Impact has occurred in several countries and at different governance levels. The result is that a previously deterministic policy debate about environmental change triggering mass flight is now based on a changed and far more sophisticated understanding of the evidence with different assumptions now informing policy development. Geddes was appointed in 2009 by the UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor to be a member of the 6-member Lead Expert Group overseeing the `Foresight' report Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities (MGEC) for the UK Government Office for Science, published in 2011. The report and associated work has had major international reach and has informed policies and practices in UK government departments (DFID, DEFRA) and the agendas and operations of the European Union (especially the Commission), World Bank and within the UN system.
Small area estimation (SAE) describes the use of Bayesian modelling of survey and administrative data in order to provide estimates of survey responses at a much finer level than is possible from the survey alone. Over the recent past, academic publications have mostly targeted the development of the methodology for SAE using small-scale examples. Only predictions on the basis of realistically sized samples have the potential to impact on governance and our contribution is to fill a niche by delivering such SAEs on a national scale through the use of a scaling method. The impact case study concerns the use of these small area predictions to develop disease-level predictions for some 8,000 GPs in England and so to produce a funding formula for use in primary care that has informed the allocation of billions of pounds of NHS money. The value of the model has been recognised in NHS guidelines. The methodology has begun to have impact in other areas, including the BIS `Skills for Life' survey.
Sussex research has contributed to a shift in public policy away from seeing climate-induced migration as an imminent security, health and public order risk (c.f. the Stern Review) towards an understanding that migration can be an important adaptive response to climate vulnerability. Specifically, reference to migration as a potential adaptation to climate change in Paragraph 14f of the Cancun Agreement of UNFCCC in 2010 reflects the nuanced approach stressed in Sussex research; through their work with GO-Science and DFID, and international organisations including the Global Forum on Migration and Development, UNHCR, IOM and the European Commission, Sussex researchers have contributed to the development and implementation of this paragraph, and to a re-framing of international debates.