CIRCLE - Centre for International Research on Care, Labour and Equalities

Researchers working across boundaries

Directed by Professor Sue Yeandle, CIRCLE comprises a strong team of researchers skilled in a wide range of social research methods, working in well-established partnerships both within the academic world -- across many countries -- and with many organisations in the public and voluntary sectors, and in business and industry.

Major Studies

Between 2008 and 2011, CIRCLE undertook a range of major studies examining UK policy interventions designed to support unpaid carers, commissioned by the UK Dept of Health and by the UK Dept for Work and Pensions. It also commenced a new programme of work on the relationship between caring and technology, supported by Carers Scotland and other agencies.

New funding

From 2011, CIRCLE has new funding ...

• to develop its international work on gender and labour markets, where its focus will be on women’s work, care and the services available to them in the city of Leeds, compared with other cities being studied across Europe
• to work with the Leeds Business School’s Centre for Employment Relations, Innovation and Change (CERIC) on a new programme of studies on Work, Care and Global Transitions, in which the University of Leeds is making a major five-year investment
• and to extend its international research and knowledge transfer activities on technology, IT and care through investments based at CIRCLE, made by the Technology Strategy Board, the ESRC and the EU's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies.

Wider engagment

CIRCLE welcomes international visiting scholars, by arrangement, supports PhD students, and engages with public policy issues and debates through a range of events, activities and speaking engagements.  It supported Carers UK in hosting the fifth International Carers Conference in Leeds in July 2010, and will be supporting the second in a new series of conferences on Women and the Economy in autumn 2011.

CIRCLE is proud of its ongoing association with Professor Fiona Williams OBE, appointed CIRCLE International Research Professor in 2010 on retirement from her full-time post at the University of Leeds. Fiona remains an influential ambassador for CIRCLE, and continues her internationally renowned work on migration and care, and on social policy, citizenship and the ethics of care.