Work and Equalities Institute to look at equality policies at work across Europe

Professor Miguel Martinez Lucio and Dr. Stefania Marino at the Work and Equalities Institute (WEI) have been awarded a major grant looking at how equality policies and regulation at work have developed across different European countries.

The WEI (Work and Equalities Institute) brings together two internationally-recognised Alliance Manchester Business School research centres (European Work and Employment Research Centre and Fairness at Work Research Centre). It’s research agenda develops new interdisciplinary approaches to addressing core policy and intellectual challenges.

It is a University-wide research institute, working to identify and promote the conditions for more inclusive and fair work and employment arrangements. Their research is used in knowledge exchange, dialogue and debate with key stakeholders and policymakers, and to make informed contributions to policy formation and the development of practice. To achieve this, the Institute draws on advice from an advisory board of policymakers and practitioners with local, national and international expertise.

A three-year £566,000 project, entitled The Politics of Equality: The Evolving Nature of Equality Agendas at Work in the UK and Europe in a Context of Political Uncertainty, is financed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The project also involves partners at the Grenoble Ecole de Management including Dr Heather Connolly who has worked with Miguel and Stefania over many years.

The central aim of the project is to contrast the experiences and issues related to equality at work in terms of policy and regulation within the UK with other countries within Europe which have made an explicit and concerted effort to engage with a more progressive and inclusive approach to equality since the 1970s.