You may be wondering what we have been doing since October 2008 when the TSRC was officially launched – well this blog will give you an insight into the hard work underway by our researchers in Birmingham and Southampton Universities and our activities as the knowledge exchange team (KET) based in London. We don’t expect to offer ground breaking news or politically controversial views, but an insight into how our research is progressing, and reflections on the potential implications for policy and practice. The researcher’s blogs will comment on their latest findings, their reflections and the implications for academia.

Over the past year TSRC has had to recruit research teams and create the operational infrastructure for the new ESRC National Research Centre, as well as responding to the wide ranging interest in the centre from across the sector. It has been important to get the preparation, groundwork and foundations of the centre right as a first priority, and much of our work so far has focused on this - but we have also been starting on our research.

Staff at Southampton have been focusing on the statistical  analysis of datasets currently available on the third sector – this has involved an intense amount of ‘cleaning’ and cross referencing of data to ensure that the database we use is accurate, robust and meaningful. At Birmingham, we have been undertaking a systematic review of research on the sector - sourcing, codifying and reading material to identify weaknesses and gaps in the research knowledge available, and prepare for our planned qualitative research.

All research teams have also started to undertake research in specified programs as part of our contract, starting with research reviews for the identified topic areas. Middlesex University is leading on the Social Enterprise stream (as well as the Capacity Building Cluster) and have already published some of their initial evidence revies on how to map social enterprises, building on their earlier work in the field.

Our knowledge exchange team only started in May this year and have been playing catch up with the research teams, as well as outlining our strategy to ensure that communication and knowledge exchange is integrated across all aspects of TSRC work. We are keen to work in partnership with stakeholders to organise events on research topics, in order to inform the questions the research should consider and debate the implications of the research once it has been published. The website, discussion board and blogs will be key to ensuring that those who are interested have a chance to voice their views during the research process.

This is the beginning of an exciting journey for all concerned, in which all parts of the third sector will finally have available to them a dedicated research centre to inform practitioners, funders, policy makers, stakeholders and decision makers on how best to support their work. With your participation we want to transform the research into a reality.