
Care matters. It is a complex and important issue that affects everyone at some point in their life.
The Centre for Care provides accessible evidence on care to inform changes that could improve the lives of millions of people.
The Centre for Care links experts on care in 5 universities, 3 major charities and the UK’s Office for National Statistics.
Funded as an ESRC Research Centre to address the need for evidence on care that can make a difference, we have built a large research team to co-produce excellent research on care topics that really matter. We work closely with partner organisations in the care sector and people with direct experience of care.
Commentary
Our latest commentary pieces
Continuing ‘The Transitions that Matter’ series: Robert Walker writes about transitioning into older age, and the financial risks involved.
Read More about The financial risks of transitioning into older ageA newly published PhD-thesis on welfare technology for older people and their informal carers in a Swedish context by Maria Nilsson, doctoral student at the Swedish Family Care Competence Centre.
Read More about Welfare technology for older people and their informal carers in a Swedish contextJayanthi Lingham writes about Arts-based research methods, its role in her research and how it can change the way participants engage in a study. Also, watch Chloe Alexander explain how and why she used Arts-based methods in her PhD research.
Read More about Using Arts-based methods for data collectionCharlotte Ashworth writes about carrying out practitioner research in her own organisation.
Read More about Navigating practitioner-academic research in Local Authorities
Explore key topics

We explore how arrangements for care – formal systems, support by families and friends, local and national arrangements affecting daily life – fit together and affect each other, focusing on how care system outcomes could be improved.
Read moreabout Care as a Complex Adaptive Ecosystem
We work to improve the quality, availability and provision of data on care, collaborating with ONS and other partners to produce up-to-date, world-class data infrastructure on care for all to use.
Read moreabout Care Data Infrastructure
We investigate how digital technologies, care and caring relationships are evolving and interact, and what this means for people with support needs, those who assist them and the wider care system.
Read moreabout Digital Care: roles, risks, realities and rewardsOur Research Groups

Here we explore experiences of care at different life stages, when families are geographically dispersed and as people experience different parts of the care system.
Read moreabout Care Trajectories and Constraints
We study change, innovation and challenges in paid care work: recruitment, organisation, conditions, digitalisation and their effects on job and service quality.
Read moreabout Care Workforce Change
We use statistics and link data to study how socio-economic, health and other inequalities shape experiences of care for groups and individuals in different places and over time.
Read moreabout Inequalities in Care
Latest Updates
News and latest content from the Centre for Care
Jayanthi Lingham writes about Arts-based research methods, its role in her research and how it can change the way participants engage in a study. Also, watch Chloe Alexander explain how and why she used Arts-based methods in her PhD research.
Read More about Using Arts-based methods for data collectionOur new report, written by Centre for Care colleagues Kate Hamblin and Rachael Black, looks at unpaid carers in South Yorkshire and their use of, and access to, digital technologies and online services.
Read More about Digital exclusion and unpaid carers in South YorkshireWe partnered with the Nuffield Trust to host a webinar on 7th June 2023, which explored shared challenges in implementing social care reform.
Read More about How do we ‘unstick’ social care reform across the four UK countries?New research by Centre for Care colleagues Maria Petrillo & Matt Bennett, in collaboration with Carers UK, estimates the value of unpaid care in England and Wales
Read More about Value of unpaid care in England and Wales now exceeds that of NHS budget