Visiting scholars

Dr Katy Jones, Head of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre, Manchester Metropolitan University

In January, the Australian Welfare and Work Lab hosted Dr. Katy Jones, Head of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre at Manchester Metropolitan University, for a seminar titled "From Work First to Good Work? New Developments in UK Welfare and Employment Support". Dr. Jones explored recent UK employment service reforms under the new Labour government, including a renewed focus on “good work”, stronger employer engagement, local government responsibility, and a new jobs and careers service. Drawing from her research on labour market disadvantage and job quality, she examined whether these changes genuinely enhance support for those facing structural barriers. The session offered timely insights and comparative reflections for Australian policy and practice, sparking lively discussion on creating pathways to meaningful, sustainable employment.

Dr Eleanor Carter, Research Director, Government Outcomes Lab, Oxford University

Research Director of the Government Outcomes Lab, Oxford University, Dr Carter’s research focuses on innovations in social policy including outcomes-based commissioning, and she is internationally renowned for her work on relational contracting, social impact bonds, and their potential to drive innovative approaches in the delivery of active labour market programs. During her visit, Dr Carter gave the plenary address at the Lab’s flagship workshop ‘Innovating employment services: where to next?’, which was attended by 47 people from across academia, industry, and government. Dr Carter also participated in an internal work-in-progress workshop with the Australian Welfare and Work Lab.

Marthine Thøgersen, Oslo Metropolitan University

Marthine Thøgersen is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for the Study of Professions at Oslo Metropolitan University. In her PhD project, she is researching the organisation of service provision and interagency collaboration concerning youth not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) in Norway. Marthine is a social worker and holds a master’s degree in Collaborative Management in Health and Social Services.

Niklas Andersen, University of Aalborg

Niklas Andersen is a PhD Fellow at the University of Aalborg within its Centre for Labour Market Research, who is currently undertaking a research project on local innovation in social and employment services.

Associate Professor Jo Ingold, University of Leeds - now Australian Catholic University

Associate Professor Jo Ingold conducts research that focuses on the overlap between public policy and human resource management, and has led research projects studying employer engagement in welfare-to-work programs in the UK and Denmark.

Dr Sophie Danneris, University of Aalborg

In 2018, the Entitlement to Experiment project hosted Dr Sophie Danneris Luthman for two months to conduct comparative work with the Employment Services research team.

Sophie holds a PhD in Sociology, and is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University, Denmark. Her areas of research are social and employment policies, labour market participation for hard-to-place unemployed as well as qualitative longitudinal studies, conversation analysis and practice research.

During her visit, Dr Danneris Luthman presented a public lecture on her research examining changes in the Danish approach to welfare income support for those out of work. While Denmark is widely perceived to have a more socialist welfare regime, changes in its approach over recent decades have mirrored similar developments in liberal welfare regime countries like the UK and Australia. This has been accompanied by a shift towards putting income welfare recipients into work placements and developing their work experience to transition them into employment. In her qualitative research focusing on the experience of the long-term, vulnerable unemployed, Dr Danneris Luthman shows how these large-scale ideologies play out and are negotiated locally in meetings between the recipients and the government case managers. This research provides novel insights into the experiences of the hard-to-place long term unemployed and illustrates the difficulties and frustrations they experience with the system. It sheds light on how benefits and services are received and administered as well as on what is received.

Dr Sharon Wright, University of Glasgow

Dr Sharon Wright is an international expert in welfare reform, specialising in the marketisation of employment services. Her research focuses on the lived experience of welfare policy recipients and front-line workers, and considers the agency of welfare subjects in networks of welfare governance. She is an expert Adviser to the Scottish Parliament Social Security Committee, and is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow.

The Entitlement to Experiment research project hosted Dr Wright for two weeks in 2018. During this time, she gave a keynote address at the Jobs Australia National Conference on conditionality in welfare policy, and participated in a workshop comparing implementations of conditionality in welfare-to-work policies across Australia and the U.K., jointly hosted by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the University of Melbourne.