British Social Attitudes | Britain's safety net: public attitudes towards welfare and the NHS

Speakers

• Sir John Curtice
  Senior Research Fellow National Centre for Social Research
  Biography View full profile

  Sir John Curtice is Senior Research Fellow at NatCen, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, and Chief Commentator on the What UK Thinks: EU and What Scotland Thinks websites.

  He has been a regular contributor to the annual British Social Attitudes report since 1986 and an editor since 1994. He has also been a Co-Director of the Scottish Social Attitudes survey since its foundation in 1999, and his analyses of Scottish public opinion in the run up to the independence referendum were frequently featured throughout the campaigns.

  In 2018, he received a knighthood in the New Year's Honours list. Sir John is a regular media commentator on both British and Scottish politics. 

• Dr Robert de Vries
  Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Sociology
  Biography
  Dr Robert de Vries is Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Sociology and Deputy Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kent, where he teaches quantitative methods and the sociology of inequality. His research focuses on inequality, social mobility, and public attitudes towards welfare and social policy. As well as academic articles in leading sociology and social policy journals, he is the author of Critical Statistics and regularly contributes to public discussions on evidence-based policy and the interpretation of social data.
• Avnee Morjaria
  Director of Policy and Politics
  Biography
  Avnee leads IPPR's public services teams focusing on education, childcare, health and social care. Avnee was previously the Policy and Strategy director for the UK education division of Oxford University Press. Prior to this she was a senior strategist and policy adviser at the Department for Education. She worked, most recently on childcare reform, advising on the expansion of free childcare in the spring budget of 2023. Before that, Avnee advised Ministers on a range of issues including remote education policy when schools were closed, education recovery and curriculum strategy including the set-up of Oak National Academy. Avnee started her career as a maths teacher, school leader and Ofsted inspector working in deprived catchments in London and the midlands.
• Leonora Merry
  Director of Communications and External Affairs
  Biography
  Leonora Merry is Director of Communications and External Affairs at the Nuffield Trust. Leonora joined the Nuffield Trust in January 2014 and was Deputy Director of Communications at the Trust between 2014 and 2020. During that time she led on promoting and publicising the think tank’s research work amongst the media, parliamentarians and the wider policy community, overseeing partnerships such as the joint think-tank collaboration for the BBC’s programme for the NHS’s 70th birthday. Leonora joined the Nuffield Trust from the Westminster think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF), where she was Head of Media and External Affairs for three years. At the SMF Leonora worked to significantly raise the profile of the think tank’s work in Westminster and amongst the media, contributing to the SMF being named UK Think Tank of the Year by Prospect Magazine in 2012. Whilst at the SMF Leonora co-founded ‘WonkComms’ a best practice group for communications professionals in think tanks and research organisations. Prior to the SMF Leonora worked in communications and public affairs in the voluntary sector in Scotland. She has a first class degree in Politics and History from the University of Edinburgh.