10 year anniversary

10 Year Review

Achievements, research themesand the future

July 2020

Glasgow Caledonian University10 year anniversary

Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health

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This document was drafted by Rachel Baker, Director with the Centre Management Group Cam Donaldson, Helen Mason, Michael Roy, Artur Steiner, Simon Teasdale

www.gcu.ac.uk/yunuscentre

Executive SummaryAs Director and Founding Director of the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at Glasgow Caledonian University, we are pleased to share this review of our first 10 years and our plans for the future. It has been a pleasure to look back over the decade since the Yunus Centre was established and to bring together our successes and achievements over that time. This report describes the size and shape of the Centre in 2020. Looking to the future, the changing environment and our portfolio of research, we set out our new research themes and some exciting projects to begin the new decade.

On more personal notes, we came to Glasgow Caledonian, inspired by its association with Professor Muhammad Yunus, its mission as the University of the Common Good and to see if we could build a world-class research centre in a modern university environment around that Common Good agenda. Most importantly, we wanted to attempt to build academic capacity around new approaches to addressing social and health inequalities, working across civil society and with non-medical (i.e. nursing and allied health) professions. In that, we are proud of and pay testament to, the quality of student and staff who have worked, and continue to work, in the Centre.

• The Centre was established in 2010 and has grown from an initial staff of three to a team of 24 staff, approximately half of whom are funded through competitively awarded research grant income

• Research in the Centre is characterised by interdisciplinarity and working at the interface of research in social innovation and the social economy, health economics and public health.

• There are strong links between the Centre and the three university schools through research-led teaching, joint appointments, as co-applicants on collaborative research projects, joint supervision of PhD students and members of the Centre based in other parts of the university in Glasgow and London.

• Staff in the Yunus Centre lead the MSc in Social Innovation, a programme in Glasgow School for Business and Society with 12 students in the 2019-20 cohort. We lead health economics teaching as part of the Masters in Public Health with the School of Health and Life Sciences, teaching in Glasgow, London, and online.

• Since 2010 our research income has grown and progressed to larger grants from prestigious, blue-chip funders such as RCUK, European Commission, and Wellcome Trust. Over the last 10 years the Centre has attracted grants worth £30m with £7m income to the Centre.

• At any one time there are 10-12 PhD students based in the Centre. Our students are active members of our research groups, co-located and working with project teams. We have retained a number of our doctoral graduates as post-doctoral and early career researchers, some of whom have progressed further as Senior Lecturers, Readers and Professors.

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• The two original research groups have been reformed into three new research themes named:• Social Economy• Economics of Health and Wellbeing• Community, Citizenship and Participation

• Staff work across research themes in collaborative teams that come together for specific projects, to organise events and conferences and as writing teams. Our thematic groups draw together distinctive areas of research excellence.

• The tenth year of the Yunus Centre will be marked by a relaunch of our website and events and publications to reflect our new themes across the year, beginning on the day of our 10 year anniversary: July 6th 2020.

With the new decade come new challenges. But, given the various social and health vulnerabilities laid bare by the Covid-19 emergency, we believe the work of GCU’s Yunus Centre is of greater relevance than ever. Therefore, we look forward to the findings that will emerge from research ongoing across all three themes, to realising the impact of our research in real changes, to new research just beginning and to new ideas just forming. We welcome colleagues across the University, and potential partners more widely, to visit, collaborate or study with us. 2020 is a year to celebrate our first 10 years, to develop our new thematic groups and the researchers that make the Centre what it is, a great environment for interdisciplinary, impactful research. We are ready to research both stubborn and new social problems and inequalities in a world that is changing.

Rachel Baker PhDProfessor of Health Economics and DirectorYunus Centre for Social Business and Health

Cam Donaldson PhDPro Vice Chancellor Research and Yunus Chair

HistoryThe Centre is named after Professor Muhammad Yunus, who opened it in 2010. Now GCU’s Chancellor Emeritus, Professor Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Grameen Bank, for his efforts to advance social and economic opportunities of poor people through his pioneering work on microcredit.

We began by establishing research programmes, supported by the University, and, over time, generated funding for the Centre through research project and programme grants. Early successes came in the form of research grants in health economics (where we had a well-established track record). Grants to support social business and microfinance research took time to develop and to attract funders: the Centre was establishing a reputation in a new field, exploring the health and wellbeing impacts of social enterprise and microfinance, working at a new interface between disciplines and fields of work.

Successes in these newer research areas followed, notably the MRC-ESRC funded programme grant ‘CommonHealth’, the EU funded EFESEIIS project and the ‘Finwell’ project, funded by the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of the Scottish Government to investigate the financial lives of people living in low-income communities, focusing on microfinance.

Over time we have forged excellent networks and we are grateful to colleagues in the social enterprise sector, in policy and practice roles for working closely with us, including SENScot, Social Firms Scotland and Social Business Academia. We have begun to create an evidence base that can be used by people in the sector to support their activities. The Centre is well-connected with the Scottish Government in relation to social innovation, community empowerment and social enterprise strategy. The health economics team has good links into the NHS through NHS Scotland Public Health Scotland and Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

The successes of the Yunus Centre extend beyond the grant income generated and PhD students graduated. We have created a scholarly, critical, multidisciplinary environment for excellent, relevant and impactful research to thrive. Career development and training are part of our ambition to build capacity. Early career researchers (ECRs) have been supported into promotions, fellowship applications and post-doctoral appointments. Our researchers are valued and they present and publish their work as first authors, supported towards career independence by project teams, mentors and PhD supervisors.

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Vision, mission and research themesWorking with staff individually and in workshops we painted pictures of the Yunus Centre, our staff, strengths, and research themes. From there we have revised our vision, mission statements and research themes to reflect who we are and where we are going from 2020 onwards.

VisionEnhancing the Common Good through research on social values and collaborative approaches to improving health and wellbeing

MissionCarry out world-leading, interdisciplinary research in relation to:• Social business, social enterprise and the wider social economy• Resource allocation, societal wellbeing and distributional justice• Community resilience and the conditions that enable people to thrive• Methodological innovation, interdisciplinarity and new frameworks for researching complex

community-based initiatives and social values

In doing so we will:• Better understand the drivers of health, equalities and wellbeing.• Enhance the fairness and efficiency of resource allocation. • Collaborate with communities, policy makers and practitioners in creating and translating

research evidence for improved health and wellbeing.• Create and maintain local, national, and international partnerships for the furtherance of our

mission, enhancing our international reputation as a centre of research excellence.

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The value of our research can be most readily seen in work we have done to support the development of policy, particularly social enterprise policy. We work closely with national and transnational government actors in helping to shape policies and mechanisms designed to support the social and solidarity economy. We work in partnership with sector representative bodies as a critical friend in support of their efforts to develop and enhance the social economy, both nationally and internationally

Selected research projects• Solidarity in a time of crisis: the role of mutual aid to the COVID-19 pandemic Scottish

Government (Chief Scientist Office) (2020)• Future Development of the Social Enterprise Collection (Scotland): Collecting, preserving and

interpreting the legacy of social enterprise in Scotland. Scottish Government (2018-2022)• The Strategic Public Social Partnership Model in Scotland Scottish Government (2017)• EFESEIIS - Enabling the flourishing and evolution of social entrepreneurship for innovative and

inclusive societies (European Commission 7th Framework Programme for Research (2014-2016)

• Developing Methods for Evidencing Social Enterprise as a Public Health Intervention (CommonHealth) Medical Research Council / Economic and Social Research Council (2014-2019)

Selected recent publications• Teasdale, Simon, Michael J. Roy, Rafael Ziegler, Stefanie Mauksch, Pascal Dey, and Emmanuelle

B. Raufflet. 2020. Everyone a Changemaker? Exploring the Moral Underpinnings of Social Innovation Discourse Through Real Utopias. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship..

• Teasdale, Simon., and Dey, Pascal. 2019. Neoliberal governing through social enterprise: Exploring the neglected roles of deviance and ignorance in public value creation. Public Administration, 97(2), pp.325-338.

• Calò, Francesca, Michael James Roy, Cam Donaldson, Simon Teasdale, and Simone Baglioni. 2019. Exploring the Contribution of Social Enterprise to Health and Social Care: A Realist Evaluation. Social Science & Medicine 222 (February): 154–61.

• De Bruin, Anne, and Simon Teasdale, eds. 2019. Research Agenda for Social Entrepreneurship. Elgar Research Agendas. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Macaulay, Bobby, Micaela Mazzei, Michael J. Roy, Simon Teasdale, and Cam Donaldson. 2018. Differentiating the Effect of Social Enterprise Activities on Health. Social Science & Medicine 200 (March): 211–17.

• Mazzei, Micaela, Simon Teasdale, Francesca Calò, and Michael J. Roy. 2019. Co-Production and the Third Sector: Conceptualising Different Approaches to Service User Involvement. Public Management Review, June.

• Murray, Gillian. 2018. Community Business in Scotland: An Alternative Vision of “Enterprise Culture”, 1979–97. Twentieth Century British History, June.

• Roy, Michael J., Rachel Baker, and Susan Kerr. 2017. Conceptualising the Public Health Role of Actors Operating Outside of Formal Health Systems: The Case of Social Enterprise. Social Science & Medicine 172: 144–52.

• Roy, Michael J., and Michelle T. Hackett. 2017. Polanyi’s “Substantive Approach” to the Economy in Action? Conceptualising Social Enterprise as a Public Health “Intervention”. Review of Social Economy 75 (2): 89–111.

• Ayob, Noorseha, Simon Teasdale, and Kylie Fagan. 2016. How Social Innovation “Came to Be”: Tracing the Evolution of a Contested Concept. Journal of Social Policy 45 (4): 635–53.

 

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10 year anniversary Lead Prof Michael Roy

Researching social enterprise and the wider social economySocial economy is conceptualised in two ways: as a term to mean the ‘third sector’ comprising values-led organisations such as social businesses, voluntary organisations, co-operatives and mutuals; and as a term that reframes and disrupts notions of the economy as a web of relationships designed to serve the needs of society.At the micro level, we research value-led social and solidarity-based organisations: how they work, for whom and in what circumstances, and the contexts and mechanisms that trigger positive health and wellbeing outcomes. We conceptualise these organisations as contributing to the upstream social determinants of health. At the meso level we are interested in how ideas, especially policies, shape ‘ecosystems’ of support, enabling (or constraining) social innovation to flourish. At the macro level we are interested in how discourses and ideas travel, mutate and translate into (social economy) responses and provoke ‘alternative’ economic agendas. Adopting a critical perspective, we are particularly interested in critiquing and contributing to ideas that emerged with relevance to social economy ideas and principles, such as ‘wellbeing economy’ or ‘inclusive growth’.

We draw upon and combine a range of methods from both constructivist and realist epistemologies. We have specific expertise in qualitative research methods; from ethnography (including digital ethnographic techniques) to participant observation, in-depth interviewing, oral histories, and realist evaluation.

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economics, Q methodology, preference elicitation and priority setting, and in the use of financial diaries to examine the links between microfinance, health and wellbeing.

Selected research projects• Is ‘end-of-life’ care more valuable? Measuring societal values using the new Q2S method

Medical Research Council (2011-2014) • Fair credit, health and well-being: eliciting the perspectives of low-income individuals ‘FinWell’.

Chief Scientist Office (2015 –2017)• Developing and evaluating an economic and ethico-legal framework for priority setting in

health and social care. Chief Scientist Office (2017 –2021)• Establishing QALY weights for end of life (EQWEL). Chief Scientist Office (2014 –2016)• Feasibility and multi-centre clinical trial of gait rehabilitation in patients with recently diagnosed

rheumatoid arthritis: The Gait Rehabilitation in Early Arthritis Trial (GREAT). National Institute for Health Research (2017-2021) (led by Professor Martijn Steultjens, School of Health and Life Sciences)

Selected recent publications• Biosca, O., McHugh, N., Ibrahim, F., Baker, R., Laxton, T., & Donaldson, C. (2020). Walking a

Tightrope: Using Financial Diaries to Investigate Day-to-Day Financial Decisions and the Social Safety Net of the Financially Excluded. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 689(1), 46–64.

• McHugh, N., Pinto-Prades, José.Luis., Baker, R., Mason, H., Donaldson, C., (2019). Exploring the relative value of end of life QALYs: Are the comparators important?, Social Science & Medicine 245: 112660

• McHugh N, Baker R, Biosca O, Ibrahim F, Donaldson C (2019) Who knows best? A Q methodology study to explore perspectives of professional stakeholders and community participants on health in low-income communities. BMC Health Services Research 19 (1)

• Mason H, Collins M, McHugh N, Godwin J, van Exel J, Donaldson C and Baker R (2018). Is “end of life” a special case? Connecting Q with survey methods to measure societal support for views on the value of life-extending treatments. Health Economics. 27(5): 819-831.

• Manoukian S, Stewart S, Dancer S, Graves N, Mason H, McFarland A, Robertson C, Reilly J, (2018), Estimating excess length of stay due to healthcare-associated infections: A systematic review and meta-analysis of statistical methodology. Journal of Hospital Infection

• Fenocchi L, Riskowski J.L, Mason H, and Hendry G.J. (2018) A systematic review of economic evaluations of conservative treatments for chronic lower extremity musculoskeletal complaints. Rheumatology Advances in Practice 2018;0:1–15

• McClurg D, Harris F, Goodman K, Doran S, Hagen S, Treweek S, Norton C, Coggrave M, Norrie J , Rauchhaus P, Donnan P, Emmanuel A, Manoukian S and Mason H. Abdominal massage plus advice, compared with advice only, for neurogenic bowel dysfunction in MS: a RCT. Health Technology Assessment 2018;22(58).

• McHugh, N., Biosca , O., & Donaldson, C. (2017). From wealth to health: evaluating microfinance as a complex intervention. Evaluation, 23(2), 209–225.

• McHugh N, Baker R, Mason H, Williamson L, van Exel J, Deogaonkar R, Collins M, Donaldson C (2015) Extending life for people with a terminal illness: a moral right and an expensive death? Exploring societal perspectives. BMC Medical Ethics. 16:14.

• Collins M, Mason H, O’Flaherty M, Guzman-Castillo M, Critchley J, Capewell S (2014) An Economic Evaluation of Salt Reduction Policies to Reduce Coronary Heart Disease in England: A Policy Modeling Study. Value in Health 17:517-524

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10 year anniversary Lead Prof Helen MasonResearching resource allocation, societal wellbeing and distributional justiceDecisions are made all the time about how shared resources are used – by government, by health and social care systems and by households. Decisions about public funds should be informed by information about the costs and impacts to different people, to determine whether one investment is better value for money than another. Beyond costs and benefits (or efficiency) are considerations of fairness and the distributional consequences of resource allocation in terms of ‘who gets what’. Faced with a fixed budget all decisions imply opportunity costs and so there will be winners and losers.

Our research focuses on how best to allocate scarce resources from a societal perspective, assessing initiatives within the health and social care system, the third sector as well as in communities and households with the purpose of improving population health and wellbeing. A number of studies explore social values and the just distribution of benefits. We undertake applied economic evaluations of health and social care interventions and complex community-based initiatives. Most of our health economic evaluations are collaborative projects, with colleagues across the School of Health and Life Sciences at GCU as well as NHS and academic partners elsewhere.

We have a track record of methodological research investigating and developing techniques for the elicitation of preferences and societal values and the developments of frameworks to support priority setting within the health care system. We have world-leading expertise in health

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Projects • Sheds for Sustainable Development, Community Fund, 2017-2021. • COOL Music: Community Orientated and Opportunity Learning Music Project, European Social

Fund and the Scottish Government, Social Innovation Fund, 2017-2020. • Evaluation of Community Empowerment Act: Review of Asset Transfer Requests and

Participants Requests, Scottish Government, 2018-2020.• SIRIUS: Skills and Integration of Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Applicants in European Labour

Markets, European Union Horizon 2020 Research Programme, 2018-2021• GiG: The Gig Economy and its Implications for Social Dialogue and Workers’ Protection, Swiss

Network for International Studies, 2018-2021.

Publications• Montgomery, T. and Baglioni, S. (2020). Nothing about us without us”: Organizing disabled

people’s solidarity within and beyond borders in a polarised age. Social Movement Studies. • Montgomery, T. (2020). Social innovation and the autoimmunity of employability. Social Policy

& Administration. • Kelly, D., Steiner, A., Mason, H. and Teasdale, S. (2019) Men’s Sheds: a conceptual exploration

of the causal pathways for health and wellbeing, Health & Social Care in the Community 27(5), 1147–1157.

• Kelly, D, Steiner, A, Mazzei, M. and Baker, R. (2019) Filling a void? The role of social enterprise in addressing social isolation and loneliness in rural communities Journal of Rural Studies, 70, 225-236.

• Steiner, A. and Teasdale, S. (2018) Unlocking the potential of rural Social Enterprise Journal of Rural Studies, 70, 144-154.

• Steiner, A. and Farmer, J. (2017) Engage, participate, empower: modelling power transfer in disadvantaged rural communities Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 36(1), 118-138.

• Montgomery, T., Mazzei, M., Baglioni, S., and Sinclair, S. (2017). Who cares? The social care sector and the future of youth employment. Policy & Politics, 45(3), 413-429.

• Montgomery, T. (2016). Are Social Innovation Paradigms Incommensurable? Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 27(4), 1979-2000.

• Steiner, A. and Teasdale, S. (2016) The Playground of the Rich? Growing Social Business in the 21st Century. Social Enterprise Journal, 12(2), 201-216.

• Steiner, A. and Atterton, J. (2015) Exploring the contribution of rural enterprises to local development and resilience. Journal of Rural Studies, 40 (2015), 30-45.

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10 year anniversary Lead Prof Artur Steiner

Researching community, resilience and the conditions that enable people to thriveParticipation of different kinds contributes to a healthy community, a functioning democracy and also to high quality research. This research theme explores participatory approaches that, through community empowerment and civic involvement, effectively utilise local assets, capacities and resources in order to address citizens’ needs. Focusing on communities of place and communities of interest, our work investigates pathways to successful co-production and social innovation. The contextual importance of different geographies, policies and culture is central to this theme. We thus explore how the concept of citizenship is interpreted and mobilised across different settings and scales of society: from urban and rural communities, to the workplace and the state.

We work closely with government representatives as well as community groups, trade unions and social enterprises, co-constructing responses to social vulnerabilities, empirically testing new ideas through action research, participatory evaluation, surveys and outcome measurement.

Our research creates applied knowledge that informs community development practice, labour market policies and participation policies as well as advancing theories in the field.

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Glasgow Caledonian University10 year anniversary

Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health

Yunus Centre for Social Business and HealthGlasgow Caledonian UniversityM201, George Moore BuildingGlasgow, G4 0BA

T: 0141 331 8330 / 3234

www.gcu.ac.uk/yunuscentre