Annual Report

Introduction

Professor Dame Jane Finch

At NatCen Social Research we are driven by the belief that social research has the power to make life better. Our research works for society by providing a rich understanding of people's views, needs and behaviours to underpin social policy making.

Considered in the round, 2010/11 has been a successful year for NatCen Social Research. We have delivered a wide range of projects across the full social policy spectrum, continuing to share our findings with decision-makers, opinion-formers
and practitioners. We're also increasingly drawing on our extensive knowledge of people and society to contribute to wider current news debates through our blogs and comment pieces.

We have continued to play a key role in building social research capacity in the UK.
We are committed to methodological innovation and tackling the many research
challenges the research community faces. And through NatCen Learning we have
shared our skills and expertise with other researchers.

This impact has been achieved despite some challenges. Along with other research
organisations we experienced the impact of the Government's public spending cuts
on research commissioning, and took the difficult decision to implement a number
of redundancies. Despite this, NatCen Social Research has delivered very strong
financial results and we are confident that as a result of the changes made and
ongoing improvement initiatives the organisation is now in a much stronger position financially, and that it continues to be well-placed to build on its reputation for delivering high quality and impactful research.

Our role as Trustees is to provide stewardship of the organisation and I would like
to thank three Trustees who have retired over recent months for their invaluable
contributions to NatCen Social Research over many years: Professor Christine
Hallett, Professor Denise Lievesley and Michael O'Higgins. We have been delighted to welcome six new Trustees since July 2010: Ken Caldwell, Professor Paul Wiles and Alison Wright who joined in September 2010; Alan Botterill in April.

Professor Dame Janet Finch

Chair of Trustees

February 2012

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