Research

CREC has been undertaking national and international, large and small scale research for more than 20 years and has a clear objective to generate knowledge which has applications for policy and/or practice.

CREC has taken part in several cross national projects including:

• INT2: a comparative study of integrated services in eight countries;
• OECD Starting Strong Project: in which CREC was the Rapporteur for the Portugal Review and authored the UK’s country note; Starting Strong
• INCA: an international review of Early Years curriculum and assessment of ECEC undertaken with the NFER; http://www.inca.org.uk/early_years.pdf
• Children Crossing Borders: a five country study of migrant parents’ voices.

CREC has undertaken several studies, evaluations and developments for Governments including Egypt, Ireland, Qatar, Portugal, Singapore, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Channel islands.

For the UK Government, CREC delivered the four year National Evaluation of the Early Excellence programme, a study of Black, Minority Ethic communities’ take up of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services and a smaller study on Food and Nutrition with the Schools Food Trust.

In the past 2 years CREC has undertaken research and evaluation work for:

• Starting Well: Benchmarking early education across the world (full report can be found here);
• The National College ‘Leading at the Edge’ project (2011)
• School Food Trust, ‘Qualitative Evaluation of Impact of School FEAST Network’ (2011)
• Birmingham City Council, ‘Evaluation into the Impact of Under 2’s Buddying Programme across the City’ (2011)
• NHS South West region: ‘Evidence from Childminder Focus Groups on Promotion of Healthy Living in Home-Based Childcare South West Region’ (2011)
• Parkfields Children’s Centre, ‘Report on the Review of Parklands Nursery & Children’s Centre’ (2011)
• School Food Trust, ‘Evidence for Early Years Food & Nutrition Focus Groups’ (2010) which fed into a report by the DfE commissioned Advisory Panel on Food & Nutrition in the Early Years:  http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/research/advisory-panel-on-food-and-nutrition-in-early-years
• Torbay County Council, ‘Evaluation of Children’s Centre provision across Torbay’ (2010)