Focusing on the UK's growing but highly fragmented home care (HC) market, this fellowship aims to strengthen and enhance HC businesses' offer of sustainable quality HC services, by addressing skill levels in lagging areas and encourage growth across the UK care economy and understanding current business models. Advancing business innovation and skills development in the HC sector has the potential to contribute to Pillars 1 (Investing in Science, research and innovation), 2 (Developing Skill), 4 (Supporting Businesses to Start up and Grow) and 9 (Driving Growth across the Whole Country) of the Industrial Strategy. Pillar 1: There is an opportunity to increase competitiveness in the home care sector by understanding the current business models and developing more sustainable ones that will attract investment and commercialisation. The effective adoption of new business models is just as important as new technologies to improve competitive advantage in the sector. Pillar 2: Health and social care employers report a comparatively large skills gap in their workforce (19%, compared with 15% in all sectors). Skills in communication, mathematics and technology have become essential for the HC worker's role, yet these are lagging in many areas of the UK. This research aims to help businesses assess and understand the skills needed in their workforce and raise the skills level of social care staff. Pillar 4: The ability of businesses to innovate and grow depends on creating the conditions for companies to invest for the long term and developing the management skills needed to capitalise on these opportunities. This research aims to build understanding of what motivates, assists and hinders HC businesses to start up, establish and grow and help businesses identify and address their need for management and other skills, e.g. in assessing technology needs; working with care partners; advertising, marketing and costing their HC offer to people needing care and their families; building teams, managing quality, and organising their workforce. Pillar 9: By studying businesses operating in different places (e.g. urban/rural; affluent/deprived), this research will build knowledge on the flexibilities and variations HC sector businesses need to recruit staff and build their customer base throughout, or in target regions of, the UK. By working with organisations operating UK-wide, it will examine how they manage and adapt their approach for different localities, e.g. in regions facing lower levels of inward investment, with low productivity, or lagging skill levels. Implementing the innovation-oriented research and engaging industrial partners. The research will include several short periods placements with different home care provider businesses, to build trust and a holistic understanding of its vision, strategy and operational constraints. Working with HC industry bodies and with specific partner companies (selected for their potential to yield insight into their business model and offer to customers, and to how this has been configured and experienced as part of their growth or expansion strategy), the fellowship aims to: (a) analyse the challenges these businesses face in developing, extending and sustaining their business models and configuring the provision and delivery of quality care services; (b) assess how they change in response to forces and conditions affecting the HC market; (c) examine how they evaluate and address workforce and management skills needs; (d) produce a robust understanding of the business environments in which quality-orientated innovative HC businesses are operating, set out in concise reports accessible to key industry stakeholders; (e) examine different industry perspectives on the business benefits of innovating in the wider care economy, with the aim of building a 'business case' for extending innovation to long-standing, as well as start-up, HC companies.

Innovation or doing things differently is often seen as a solution to the problems facing adult social care today and for the foreseeable future. Adult social care might seem to be an area where new approaches will naturally flourish (e.g. competition between providers, different people paying, choice over types of care and provider). Yet, while there are many innovations and good evidence that some benefit people using care services, they do not spread rapidly and are often do not become mainstream. Many get abandoned, despite seeming promising. There may be several reasons for this but we are not sure what really stops good things being taken up. Compared to other parts of society, we don't know lots about innovation in social care and why things do not spread. Many organisations and people offer to help with innovation but we do not know much about what they do and how they do it, or what works. Overall, there has not been much effort to draw together experiences of innovating or changing things in adult social care to let people know what might help and avoid 'reinventing the wheel'. This is the reason for our proposed research. We want to support the adult social care sector to start up, implement, spread and scale-up affordable innovations that work well. We will produce: 1) new evidence about the process of innovating (doing things differently), what influences the process (what helps and what hinders), what helps people and systems change, what support is available to help people, and the sector's experiences of and views about that support; 2) a theoretical framework (the 'big idea') for understanding social care innovation that will help to design, plan and learn about innovations; 3) an evidence-based discussion about innovation overall in the care sector and its prospects; 4) descriptions of types of social care innovations, including the people and organisations involved, and types of support for innovation. If our research is to support social care to do things differently and better, then our findings need to be translated into actions. We will build and foster strong relationships with stakeholders (e.g. users/carers, care providers, local authorities) and work with them to design and choose the focus of the study and develop recommendations. Doing this, we will swap ideas and share learning, which should encourage use of the research. We will also ask people who have helped us with the research to tell us what they learnt, if/how they have used the findings, and what we could do better. Innovation is a dynamic or changing process, involving many organisations and people. It needs to be understood in its particular context (e.g. support at home or a carers' group). So, we will develop illustrations or case studies of innovations around selected topics (e.g. integrating systems, making the most of human resources (people), promoting choice and control) to explore the process in-depth. We will explore how individuals, organisations and the wider context all influence innovation. We will focus on parts of adult social care where there is potential for a lot of learning (e.g. research evidence and capacity, stakeholder networks and knowledge leaders, organisational characteristics, 'misaligned' or 'perverse' incentives around costs and benefits). To develop more general claims about what influences innovation and what are the necessary conditions for it to flourish, we will study different types of innovations and conduct a national survey to test findings from the case studies. Informed and supported by strong and diverse user and carer involvement, our study should a) inform decision-making about how to foster the right conditions and policies for innovation to flourish in adult social care; b) inform the design and planning of innovations, work out what innovations are more likely to succeed, and gain learning from innovations; and c) provide evidence-based recommendations for policy, practice and research.

IMPACT stands for 'Improving Adult Care Together'. It is a new £15 million UK centre for implementing evidence in adult social care, co-funded by the ESRC and the Health Foundation. It is led by Professor Jon Glasby at the University of Birmingham, with a Leadership Team of 12 other academics, people drawing on care and support, and policy and practice partners - along with a broader consortium of key stakeholders from across the sector and across the four nations of the UK. IMPACT is an 'implementation centre' not a research centre, drawing on evidence gained from different types of research, the lived experience of people drawing on care and support and their carers, and the practice knowledge of social care staff. It will work across the UK to make sure that it is embedded in, and sensitive to, the very different policy contexts in each of the four nations, as well as being able to share learning across the UK as a whole. As it gets up and running, IMPACT will seek to: Provide practical support to implement evidence in the realities of everyday life and front-line services Overcome the practical and cultural barriers to using evidence in such a pressured, diverse and fragmented sector Bring key stakeholders together to share learning and co-design our work in inclusive and diverse 'IMPACT Assemblies' (based in all four nations of the UK to reflect different policy and practice contexts) Work over three phases of development ('co-design', 'establishment' and 'delivery') to build a centre that creates sustainable change and becomes a more permanent feature of adult social care landscape

The Centre for Care is a collaboration between the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, Kent and Oxford, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Office for National Statistics, Carers UK, the National Children's Bureau and the Social Care Institute for Excellence. Working with care sector partners and leading international teams, it addresses the urgent need for new, accessible evidence on care. Arrangements for care, and people who need or provide care, are under unprecedented pressure. Quality, cost, unmet need and the situation of carers and care workers are central concerns. Care interacts with other systems in the NHS, jobs market and in policy on migration, welfare and housing. The cultures, values and public policies that determine eligibility for support and funding rules are also crucial, and 'shocks' like Covid-19 have profound and multiple effects. Together, these factors have led to fragmented care provision and unfair outcomes, and the need for reform is now widely accepted. The Centre for Care provides new evidence and thinking for policymakers, care sector organisations and for people who need or provide care. Its objectives are to: - work with people who need care, carers, care workers and others to produce studies that improve understanding of care and promote wellbeing; - publish robust findings on care systems, on paid and unpaid care, and on diversity, inequalities and sustainability in care; - exploit existing data and develop new studies, producing findings that policymakers and other researchers can use; - work with PhD students and emerging scholars, establishing a new generation of care specialists; - stimulate and inform public discussion of care and translate research into practice; and - collaborate with other care research teams, within and beyond the UK. In studying care, we focus on support, services and protections to promote the wellbeing of vulnerable or disabled people of all ages, and the networks, communities and systems that affect them. Our work will generate new knowledge on three major topics: 'Care trajectories and constraints: requiring, receiving and giving care' explores experiences of care at different life stages and as people transition between different parts of the care system. It also studies how giving or receiving care is affected when families are geographically dispersed. 'Inequalities in care: consequences, planning and place' uses latest statistical and data linkage techniques to learn how socio-economic, health and other inequalities shape experience of care, and the consequences of these for groups and individuals in different places and over time. 'Care workforce change: organisation, delivery and development' focuses on care worker recruitment and conditions; regulation and organisation of care work, including the introduction of new technologies; and efforts to improve job and service quality in care. Cross-cutting these studies, the Centre will also examine 'Care as a complex, adaptive ecosystem', 'Digital care' and Care data infrastructure', supporting the integration of all our research. This helps us develop new thinking on care inequalities, how care ecosystems operate and change, and the drivers and implications of digitalisation and other developments. It also enables us to exploit the UK's finest statistical datasets to produce compelling new insights on care and caring. Our multidisciplinary research team builds on a strong portfolio of care studies and is supported by researchers in nine other countries, all equally passionate about doing impactful research that can drive positive change in experience of care and caring. Our work is undertaken in partnership with care sector organisations and groups advocating on behalf of people who need care, carers and care workers. The Centre for Care is vibrant, innovative, and determined to make a positive difference through impactful, accessible research for all to use.

Our programme focuses on the care needs of adults living at home with chronic health problems or disabilities, and seeks sustainable solutions to the UK's contemporary 'crisis of care'. It is distinctive in investigating sustainability and wellbeing in care holistically across care systems, work and relationships; addresses disconnection between theorisations of care in different disciplines; and locates all its research in the context of international scholarship, actively engaging with policy partners. It will fill knowledge gaps, contribute new theoretical ideas and data analyses, and provide useful, accurate evidence to inform care planning, provision and experience. It develops and critically engages with policy and theoretical debates about: care infrastructure (systems, networks, partnerships, standards); divisions of caring labour/the political economy of care (inequalities, exploitation); care ethics, rights, recognition and values (frameworks, standards, entitlements, wellbeing outcomes); care technologies and human-technological interactions; and care relations in emotional, familial, community and intergenerational context. Our team comprises 20 scholars in 7 universities, linked to an international network spanning 15 countries. Our programme comprises integrative activities, in which the whole team works together to develop a new conceptual framework on sustainable care and wellbeing, and two Work Strands, each with 4 linked projects, on 'Care Systems' & 'Care Work & Relationships'. 'Care Systems' will: (i) study prospects, developments and differentiation in the four care systems operating in England, N. Ireland, Scotland & Wales, comparing their approaches to markets, privatisation and reliance on unpaid care; (ii) model costs and contributions in care, covering those of carers and employers as well as public spending on care; (iii) assess the potential of emerging technologies to enhance care system sustainability; and (iv) analyse, in a dynamic policy context, migrant care workers' role in the sustainability of homecare. 'Care Work & Relationships' will: (i) develop case studies of emerging homecare models, and assess their implications for sustainable wellbeing; (ii) focus on carers who combine employment with unpaid care, filling gaps in knowledge about the effectiveness of workplace support and what care leave and workplace standard schemes can contribute to sustainable care arrangements; (iii) explore how care technologies can be integrated to support working carers, ensuring wellbeing outcomes across caring networks; and (iv) investigate care 'in' and 'out of' place, as systems adapt or come under pressure associated with population diversity and mobility. Each project will collaborate with our international partners. These scholars, in 26 collaborating institutions, will ensure we learn from others about ways of understanding, measuring or interpreting developments in how care is organised and experienced, and keep up to date with latest research and scholarship. Our capacity-building strategy will build future scholarly expertise in the study of sustainability and wellbeing in care, and ensure our concepts, methods, and research findings achieve international standards of excellence. Universities in our partnership are contributing 5 UK & 12 overseas PhD studentships, enabling us to form an international early career scholar network on sustainable care, supported by our senior team and partners. Our impact strategy, led by Carers UK, involves leading UK and international policy partners. Informing policy, practice and debate, we will co-produce analyses and guidance, enhance data quality, promote good practice and engage decision-makers, policymakers, practitioners in the public, private and voluntary sectors, carers, people with care needs, and the media. Our Advisory Board of leading academics, policy/practice figures and opinion formers will guide all our work.