Find out how you can work with Understanding Society.
There are a number of ways you can become involved with Understanding Society.
Apply for a Fellowship
Our Fellowship programme supports researchers who want to devote time to research that directly impacts the Study. Fellows are awarded funding for a 12-month full- or part-time project, with additional resources for follow-on dissemination and impact generating activities. Fellows are appointed each year, with the call for new Fellows generally opening each summer.
Find out more about Fellowships
Apply to the Innovation Panel Competition
The Innovation Panel Competition gives researchers the opportunity to field a survey methods experiment or suggest new survey questions. Experiments are run at each wave of the Innovation Panel, with applications for the Competition opening in February each year.
Find out more about the Innovation Panel Competition
Run an Associated Study
An Associated Study allows researchers to collect information from Understanding Society participants that has not already been asked in the survey. Associated Studies are self-funded and the researcher or research team applying for the study is responsible for the full costs of running it. An Associated Study could cover methods such as qualitative interviews, visual or audio methods, or a follow-up with a particular sub-sample of participants.
Find out more about Associated Studies
Join the Data User Group
This groups provides a users’ perspective on datasets before they are released. Group members are granted early access to the data to provide additional user insights on the data before release. Group membership affiliation is for three consecutive years and group members can select which topic area(s) they would like to focus their feedback on.
Find out more about the Data User Group
Suggest a new data linkage
Understanding Society links to a variety of education, environment, financial and geographical data sources. Linkage usually refers to matching records about an individual, but we also link to external data at household, institution and area level. We welcome proposals on new data linkage that we are not already pursuing.
Find out more about data linkage
Visit Understanding Society
Understanding Society has a visiting fellowship programme to encourage exchange and networking with other surveys and infrastructure projects, both within the UK and internationally. We welcome visitors from academic, professional or technical roles to visit for a period of one to four weeks to exchange learning about different aspects of leading longitudinal studies or data infrastructure projects.
Find out more about visiting Understanding Society
Work at Understanding Society
The study team is based at the University of Essex. All our vacancies are advertised on the Institute for Social and Economic Research website.
See the current ISER job vacancies
For Study participants – join the Participant Panel
Understanding Society has a Participant Panel – a group of participants who we consult with on specific topics. Panel members are volunteers from the adult survey, aged 16 years and older. The Participant Panel is used for qualitative feedback on new questionnaire content, changes to fieldwork practice, and the materials sent to participants. The deeper engagement that we have with the Participant Panel helps the Study understand how participants interpret the survey and the materials they receive from us.
If you are an Understanding Society participant and would like to join the Participant Panel, please contact us.