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Over the last five years, researchers within the Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment (iROWE) have worked closely with policy-makers at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to develop a programme of research that has provided new evidence in the areas of conflict management and downsizing. This has been central in re-shaping Acas's strategic priorities to include explicit reference to conflict management for the first time. It has also informed Acas's response to government over proposed employment reform and been used to develop new guidance in respect of redundancy handling, representation and workplace mediation. These impacts were sustained and maximised through the co-ordination of an ESRC funded seminar series, co-sponsored by Acas in 2012-13.
Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal can be constituted by a professional judge sitting alone or by a professional judge with lay members depending primarily on the type of complaint. In 2011 the government proposed to limit dramatically the type of complaint where lay members could sit. This research provided empirical, timely evidence on the positive contribution that lay members make to the adjudicatory process. It provided an evidential basis for a keen public policy debate, was used by stakeholders responding to the government's proposal and was cited by the Minister and his shadow in the parliamentary debate.
Faced with pressures on the UK Employment Tribunal (ET) system, policymakers have turned to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a way of easing the strain. However, there is little robust evidence of a statistically significant cost-saving impact from ADR. The evaluation of Judicial Mediation (JM) in ETs was the first to use robust statistical evaluation techniques. The Ministry of Justice commissioned study found that JM did not provide good value for money. The results have been debated widely amongst policymakers, practitioners and across various media; impacting the activities, attitudes, awareness and practice of those involved in ADR within the UK.
Research at Oxford has played a central role within the recent restructuring of the nursing workforce to improve healthcare quality in a context of growing service demands and tightening resource constraints. Much of this restructuring has been heavily dependent on the use of the Healthcare Assistant (HCA) role, provoking much controversy. Presented as a flexible, low cost resource, these HCA roles are also unregulated and therefore seen as a potential source of patient risk. Oxford researchers have fed into this debate across a number of projects, strengthening the evidence base on the nature and consequences of the HCA role. Examining the role from the perspective of different stakeholders, these projects have impacted on national, regional and local policy and practice centred on the management and use of HCAs. In so doing, the research has contributed to the development of a more productive and safer nursing workforce.
The impact of the research detailed in this case study has been made at four levels:
Employee relations in Britain have undergone fundamental change in the last three decades. Research by Lewis, Upchurch, Croucher and other colleagues has tracked these changes identifying the decline of collective bargaining and the rise of alternative forms of employee voice. The impact of this programme of research has been evident in influencing the evolution of wider public debate on issues of employee voice and shaping the development of policy frameworks and specific policy initiatives in the UK and abroad, particularly concerning whistleblowing. Impact has been apparent through influencing the development of employment culture and the respective practices of employers, unions, and human resources/industrial relations practitioners.
The impact of the Hull University Business School`s (HUBS) research on ESV emerged out of a project with Yorkshire Bank and Irwin Mitchell Solicitors (August 2010-July 2011) and a separate project with the Co-operative Group and the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG) (February 2012 - January 2013). These led to wider impacts on:
1) Corporate ESV policies of the case study companies.
2) Hull and East Yorkshire Community Foundation (HEYCF) approaches to ESV and engagement with business.
3) Securing new funding from the ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities Grants Scheme in partnership with HEYCF.
Brown has carried out research on payment, workplace industrial relations, conflict resolution, and collective bargaining over forty years. He has had a close involvement with policy formulation and implementation in British industrial relations; this has continued since 2008. The attached testimonies confirm that his research since 1993 has had a direct influence on the design and continued implementation of the National Minimum Wage; on the work of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service; and on the administration of the Union Modernisation Fund. His research is the basis for a continuing advisory role with the Chinese government
Research undertaken at the University of Manchester (UoM) considers the use of mediation for citizen versus state disputes outside the context of the courts, and efforts to render an appeals system less adversarial. It focuses specifically upon dispute resolution concerning Special Educational Needs (SEN). SEN is an area of education decision making relevant to one in five children, in which there is an established right of appeal to a tribunal.
The research has impacted on both policy development and practice, in terms of both the guidance given to parents by the tribunal and proposed legislation providing for would-be appellants' compulsory engagement with the choice of mediation as an alternative to appealing.
A corpus of research developed over twenty years brings together experience and expertise of staff, students and researchers at Birmingham City University in the Early Years (EY) cluster. This has had effects on practice in contexts in which national and international EY policy, leadership and pedagogy are developed and produced, enacted and contested. It has affected specific areas of learning and development, e.g. mathematics, including thinking skills, creativity, information and communications technology.
Research that was policy, programme and issue-focused has stimulated discussion and action, locally, nationally and internationally, for instance in Europe, Central and South-east Asia and Australia.