• What is SPEaR?
• Sub committees and working parties
• Chair and secretariat
• Member agencies

Current work

• Work programme
• Linkages funding
• Monitoring initiative
• Data saving and sharing

• An important part of SPEaR’s work programme is to build social research and evaluation capacity and capability in the social sciences. To this end, SPEaR runs the Linkages Programme, which offers awards for social policy research scholarships, fellowships and exchanges, and workshops and seminars that are aimed to improve the capacity of researchers to deliver policy-relevant research and evaluation now and in the future. This programme is currently on hold.
• SPEaR has facilitated a cross-sector, cross-disciplinary Working Party to encourage practice principles for Data Saving and Sharing across the social sector. This initiative enhanced the ability of the research community to share data and maximise the effectiveness of investment in data collection and saving.
• We undertook a stocktake of agency policy research programmes related to persistent disadvantage. SPEaR’s mandate is to improve the co-ordination of social policy agencies’ research efforts, the promotion of collaborative research, and the alignment of research with government’s social policy needs and priorities. SPEaR had a role in identifying and co-ordinating programmes of work to meet some of the knowledge shortfalls that exist around enduring social challenges. Policy challenges associated with people who experience persistent disadvantage are not unique to New Zealand. For example, the Social Exclusion Task Force (United Kingdom) has noted that improving the outcomes for "high cost" individuals and families depends on identifying and addressing causes requiring prolonged and sustained effort to overcome.

SPEaR’s portfolio of activities have also included:

• monitoring of publicly funded research and evaluation, and communicating priorities and gaps in the social policy knowledge base
• developing good practice guidelines for research and evaluation - five principles are applied to four areas: contracting, ethics, research and evaluation involving Māori, research and evaluation involving Pacific peoples. The Guidelines were released on 27 June 2008. They are a 'living document' and will be updated and expanded over time.
• ensuring strategic alignment between major capacity and capability building initiatives, eg SPEaR and the BRCSS Network - including joint events
• improving the communication between researchers, policy advisors and decision makers to increase the uptake of research - as part of the Improving the Knowledge Base (IKB). Our Uptake project (2005) identified four key elements for research uptake: timely, accessable, relevant and credible.
• publishing this website. We do this to facilitate and improve information sharing across the social sector.