Overview

The Centre as a place of international excellence

The value of ESRC core funding to the Centre

Academic impact

Some major contributions to academic work in the UK and overseas

Policy and practice

Five important impacts on policy and practice

Use of the Centre's work by policymakers and practitioners [Hide]

The ESRC Centre at IFS has a very broad user community including policymakers, the media, civil society, business, academia and the general public. We regard engagement not merely as dissemination of research findings, but as an ongoing dialogue that helps maintain the quality and relevance of our research. All Centre researchers engage with current and potential users.

Policymakers, the media and the public more generally make use of Centre research to scrutinise, evaluate and influence government policy. We have longstanding links with UK policymakers across Whitehall. Policymakers, in the UK and from abroad, use the expertise of Centre staff through face-to-face meetings, by attending our briefings and training courses, and by reading our publications. Non-governmental organisations, particularly in social policy, make use of Centre research for analysis and campaigning. We are frequently called on to help with media coverage of policy developments and proposals. Users also include the business and tax practitioner community. Senior business and tax professionals are represented on the IFS Council and Executive Committee. Centre research is also of direct value to the general public in helping them reach informed judgements on the performance of government economic and social policy. This is especially important at times of political controversy and during General Election campaigns. Some examples include:

• Centre staff regularly serve as expert witnesses and inquiry advisers in Parliament and provide written evidence to Select Committees. We provide informal assistance to leading figures of all political parties in assessing the cost, effectiveness and distributional impact of possible policy proposals. Staff have advised government departments or Select Committees on 65 occasions since 1991 and advised international bodies 27 times. Centre staff are regularly called upon for help by the House of Commons and House of Lords libraries.
• The IFS Director briefs the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parliamentary parties individually before each Budget, typically attended by around 100 MPs.
• IFS is cited by members of all parties during parliamentary debate and has been mentioned in Hansard 934 times since 1991.
• For the last three General Election campaigns, we have prepared a series of briefings on specific policy areas as well as commentaries on the main party manifestos. These have been widely used by the media and are an area where the political independence of IFS is paramount. There were 544 items of press coverage during the 2005 election and over 22,000 downloads of the election material from the website.
• Pension policy is an area where Centre researchers have contributed directly to the formation of policy. IFS analysis has been used in the 2002 Pensions Green Paper, the 2006 Pensions White Paper and the 2004 and 2005 Reports of the Pensions Commission. Centre researchers are involved in designing the Wealth and Assets Survey in the UK.
• Centre researchers regularly meet with senior policy makers from other countries and discuss issues to do with the design and implementation of fiscal policy; we meet twice a year with the IMF, whose UK Article IV mission team also attend our annual Pre-Budget Report briefing, and with officials from the OECD and EU.
• During 2005, IFS was cited 560 times in the printed media and researchers made 130 broadcast appearances.
• Centre researchers interact closely with tax practitioners and lawyers, particularly through the IFS Tax Law Review Committee, which is supported by a range of private firms.
• We maintain close contacts with City economists and their clients, recently holding meetings at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch to discuss developments in the public finances. We collaborate with Morgan Stanley on our annual Green Budget. The Institute has around 100 corporate members, who receive publications and attend presentations. They include the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress, as well as several individual trade associations and unions.
• We engage with the general public, mainly via the media and our website. The number of hits on the website has grown from a weekly average of 3,200 during 2001 to an average of around 8,400 per week in 2005. We also engage with the public through individual membership of IFS, which currently stands at around 700. Members are invited to conferences and briefings and receive our research findings in email and hard-copy form.

Research capacity

The Centre's contribution to UK research capacity

Staff development in the Centre