About social science for schools

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provides funding for research and training in economic and social issues. We fund both research in universities throughout the UK and postgraduate students, ensuring academics have world class skills to do high quality research.

The research that we fund helps to inform and shape government policies and provides evidence to support decision making in both businesses and the public sector. We are an independent organisation, receiving most of our funding through the Government’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. For the year 2010/11 we received £218 million in funding, of which almost two-thirds is spent on research and just under one-third on postgraduate training. 

The ESRC has three strategic priorities:

• Economic Performance and Sustainable Growth
• Influencing Behaviour and Informing Interventions
• A Vibrant and Fair Society

These encapsulate the big issues for Britain, the wider world and for social science that we identified in a process of refinement. The three priorities guide our work towards maximising the impact from existing research, resources and training investments.

ESRC is part of Research Councils UK. Find out more about the ESRC and its history.

Contact details:

• Email: schools@esrc.ac.uk
• Telephone: 01793 413194
• Fax: 01793 413001

Postal address:

Social Science for Schools
Economic and Social Research Council
Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon
SN2 1UJ