Research unit is honoured for pioneering work with children

A RESEARCH unit at a Yorkshire University that has helped to promote the needs of vulnerable people in society for more than three decades is among academic institutions receiving a prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize this week.

Friday's event will see two of the region's leading universities recognised – as both the Social Policy Research Unit at York University and Leeds University's Institute for Transport Studies receive awards.

The Social Policy Research Unit was formed in 1973 as a project to evaluate the support available to parents of children affected by Thalidomide.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Now, its 40 staff work in four teams – covering on social work, social care and health care, welfare and employment.

The Unit has also had a direct impact on government policy.

Benefits rules were changed after its researchers revealed that families of children with life-limiting illnesses faced a 72 per cent drop in their income when the children died.

As a consequence, child benefit was extended for as long as eight weeks after a child's death.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The unit's work on vulnerable groups of children and young people at risk has provided new knowledge about young runaways and those who go missing.

This, in turn, resulted in the establishment of the first refuge for children in Glasgow, a national service framework for runaways and new national guidance from the Department of Health.

The Social Policy Research Unit's director Professor Gillian Parker said: "We are honoured and extremely pleased by the award of the Queen's Anniversary Prize.

"It recognises the hard work of many people over many years.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"The Social Policy Research Unit started as a small team working on a single research project in 1973. The foresight and dedication of its founding director Professor Jonathan Bradshaw and his successor, Professor Sally Baldwin, laid the foundation for its success today."

This is York University's fourth award, since the scheme was establishment in 1992 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen's succession to the throne.

University vice chancellor Prof Brian Cantor said: "For more than three decades, the Social Policy Research Unit has been a force for good in influencing improvements in the way society supports some of its most vulnerable members.

"It has achieved this through scholarship and expertise of the highest quality, and it is rightly recognised as being among the finest research units of its type in the world."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Leeds University's Institute of Transport Studies is also being honoured for its cutting edge work.

Academics have developed technologies to assess how much mobile phones distract drivers. They are also the forefront of research into cleaner and greener forms of transport to try to reduce climate change.

Technologies pioneered at the Institute are now being used nationally and internationally to plan roads and public transport networks, assess transport safety, predict driver behaviour and examine air pollution.