The Nuffield Foundation makes key research and policy hire

Society is pleased to announce the appointment of Ruth Maisey as a Senior Research and Policy Manager at the Nuffield Foundation.

Ruth has spent the last ten years in the Children, Families and Work department of NatCen, the Nation Centre for Social Research. Whilst there, she has worked on projects relating to childcare and early years education, the interface between work and family life, and youth issues. Her work has largely been quantitative in focus, and includes secondary analysis as well as a number of large scale government evaluations. Most recently Ruth directed two multi-million pound research projects for the Department for Education (DfE) - the Evaluation of Children’s Centres in England, and the Study of Early Education and Development. The former aims to measure the impact of children’s centres on families and their children through a series of surveys with children’s centre managers and parents, and through cognitive assessments with children. The latter aims to evaluate the free entitlement to early education that DfE provides to disadvantaged two year olds, and to all three and four year olds in the country, through a longitudinal survey that follows children and their families until the end of Key Stage 1.

At the Nuffield Foundation, Ruth will work closely with the Director of Social Policy and Research, Teresa Williams, to develop and manage the Foundation’s Children and Families & Law grants portfolio. This exciting role will include enabling cutting edge social policy studies and supporting Nuffield to bring its funded research findings to a wider audience.

The Nuffield Foundation was established in 1943 by William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors. It aims to improve social well-being by funding research and innovation projects in education and social policy, and building research capacity in science and social science.