Bernard Casey will be making a presentation at the forthcoming 2nd International Conference on Evidence-based Policy in Long-Term Care. The conference will be held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK from 5th to 8th September 2012. Bernard's paper will be on "The development of employment and skills in the social care sector: a comparison of Germany and Japan". The paper draws from work Bernard did for Skills for Care and Development (SfC&D). The conference programme with an abstract of the paper can be downloaded from the conference website.

IER's Dr Clare Lyonette has been named as the winner of the 2012 British Sociological Association's Sage Prize for Innovation/Excellence for her paper in the journal 'Work, Employment and Society'. The prize is awarded annually to one paper published in each of the BSA's journals, judged to represent innovation or excellence in the field.

The paper, ‘We both need to work’: maternal employment, childcare and health care in Britain and the USA, was co-authored by Gayle Kaufman and Rosemary Crompton, and was published in Work, Employment and Society 25: 34-50.

Two articles from IER staff, Dr Michael Orton and Dr. Clare Lyonette, have been shortlisted for this year’s SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence, the winner of which will be announced at the BSA conference in April 2012. The prize is awarded annually to one paper in each of the BSA’s four prestigious journals: Cultural Sociology; Sociological Research Online; Sociology; and Work, Employment and Society.

The prize is awarded to the paper published in the previous year’s volume judged to represent innovation or excellence in the field. The IER nominations both appeared in Work, Employment and Society in the previous year and will be considered alongside three other short-listed articles. To find out more about the articles by Clare and Michael, see:

Clare Lyonette, Gayle Kaufman and Rosemary Crompton ‘We both need to work’: maternal employment, childcare and health care in Britain and the USA, Work, Employment and Society 25: 34-50.

Michael Orton Flourishing Lives: the capabilities approach as a framework for new thinking about employment, work and welfare in the 21st century, Work, Employment and Society 25: 352-60.

IER's Bernard Casey gave a presentation at the conference "The Cyprus Economy at a Time of European Uncertainty: Managing Reform and Sustainability", organised by the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Economics and held at LSE on 10-2-12. His talk on "The Fiscal Implications of Demographic Change" gave an overview of the challenges of addressing pension and care provision for Cyprus's ageing population. Other presenters at the event included the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism of the Republic of Cyprus, Prof. Chris Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics, the head of sovereign debt rating for Europe, Middle East and Africa from Standard & Poor's, experts from the World Bank and the European Commission and academics from the University of Cyprus.

IER co-hosted a day-long workshop entitled "People with learning Disabilities: Promoting Health and Real Jobs" with the Institute of Health at Warwick. The workshop, led by Dr Carol Robinson, a leader in the field of research in this area, reviewed research on health inequalities and barriers to employment for people with learning disabilities. It also looked at policy and practice designed to improve health and to increase the chances of real jobs. IER's Professor Robert Lindley chaired the afternoon session on Employment.