VSSN - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Jarvis, Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership, the Open University

Carol's research interests explore contemporary theories of leadership in the particular context of the voluntary sector and of collaboration across sector boundaries. She is also involved in projects exploring ethics and leadership, online leadership development, and the digital skills needed for leading contemporary third sector organisations. Other voluntary sector involvement: Carol worked in different third and public sector roles over more than 20 years before becoming an academic. These roles all focused on collaborative organisational, project and strategic development to address complex social problems, including child wellbeing and family support. She was previously trustee of an adoption agency and has volunteered in youth, children and local community activities - where she particularly enjoys catering for large social gatherings. She has recently joined the VSSN Steering Group where she is particularly looking forward to supporting early career researchers.

Job Titles:

• Researcher

Daiga Kamerade is a work and employment researcher with a particular interest in volunteering and third sector employment. Particular interests include inequalities in volunteering, volunteering and employability and wellbeing, as well as future of work. She specialises in quantitative methods and the use of large national and cross-national surveys. She has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and is a Reader in Work and Wellbeing and the Lead of Connected Lives and Diverse Realities Research Group at the University of Salford. Daiga is also a co-editor of the Voluntary Sector Review.

Job Titles:

• Research Fellow at the Third Sector Research Centre, University

Diarmuid McDonnell is a Research Fellow at the Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham. His research examines the following topics relating to the voluntary sector: measuring and modelling risk; evaluating regulatory initiatives; understanding accountability incentives; constructing and tracking income profiles; and measuring mission completion. He has methodological interests in the use of administrative data for social science research, data science, and policy evaluation methods.

Job Titles:

• Senior Lecturer

Jon Dean is senior lecturer in politics and sociology at Sheffield Hallam University. His research focuses on inequalities within the voluntary sector, particularly related to youth volunteering. He has also completed research investigating the representation of homelessness, the role of emotion in charity fundraising appeals, and the symbolic power of charity. He teaches across a range of subjects but with a focus on charity and the community sector. Much of the rest of Jon's work focuses on critical reflexivity, and the use of creative qualitative methodologies. Jon has worked in volunteering sector in both the public and voluntary sectors.

Job Titles:

• Director
• Senior Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia

Jurgen is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia and the Director of the Institute of Volunteering Research there. Born in Germany in 1963, he received an MA in 1992 for work on disability in China, and a PhD in 1996 from the University of London for work on Chinese Braille. He is an academic and practitioner with 25 years' experience of applied research, working with voluntary associations and volunteer-involving organisations, with a strong focus on participative approaches. As Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research based at the University of East Anglia, he is now in a position to support actively the endeavours of VSSN, in particular by promoting understanding of the UK voluntary sector through research and by providing a voice and a meeting place for voluntary sector researchers in the UK. He is especially interested in helping to support early career researchers and also co-developing scientifically robust ways to show the difference volunteering and volunteering research make, extending VSSN's reach both nationally and internationally.

Job Titles:

• Executive Officer

Job Titles:

• Director of Research at Birmingham Voluntary Service Council

Sophie Wilson is Director of Research at Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (BVSC). BVSC supports the voluntary and community sector of Birmingham to help build a more inclusive and dynamic city. BVSC Research is a directorate within BVSC core service provision offering research, evaluation & consultancy to inform and support the VCFSE sector and its public sector partners in response to identified needs; inform service and delivery models that support innovation and development across sectors and ensures that service provision is evidence-based; Analysis and briefings to the third sector around policy developments in the City, increasing the sector's capacity to inform and influence policy; Learning and sharing resources, intelligence and information from partners to ensure these are circulated to as wide an audience as possible. https://www.bvsc.org/bvsc-research-unit. Sophie established BVSC Research in September 2019. She is a skilled and experienced Third Sector Leader and researcher with excellent in-depth knowledge and understanding of the sector gained through over twenty years of work including leading a national criminal justice charity for six years. She has particular expertise and knowledge in the area of systems change for people facing multiple disadvantage and through her professional career and her academic study (Masters in Public Administration) which focussed on systems leadership in the VCFSE sector. She has worked on a wide variety of research and evaluation projects over the past three years including research projects exploring the impact of Covid-19 on communities, and the response to the pandemic of the sector. She is passionate about ensuring research and evaluation with, by or about the sector is shared in a way that is useful to the sector and the communities they serve.

Job Titles:

• CEO at Communities

Stephen Craker is CEO at Communities 1st. Communities 1st supports c450 voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations in local communities, of place and interest, to develop and achieve positive social change in Hertfordshire. It also delivers a range of voluntary sector infrastructure support and front-line service delivery across the East of England. Stephen is dedicated to contributing to the growth of individuals and organisations through sharing knowledge, promoting best practices, creating opportunities and leading effective change. He has a passion of enabling organisations to live up to their potential and has a clear social ethos in high pressure/commercially sensitive environments through an ethical and outcomes driven approach.

Job Titles:

• Senior Researcher at the Institute for Voluntary Action

Vita Terry is a Senior Researcher at The Institute for Voluntary Action. Previously she worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Voluntary Sector Leadership, Open University. Her research interests are on the role of the voluntary sector delivering public service provision, especially small and medium sized organisations, and around organisational behaviour. More broadly she is interested in researching migration, integration, and issues around ethnic minority communities. Vita enjoys adopting different qualitative methods to co-produce research, including ethnography, visual methods and film-making. She has a long standing interest in volunteering, in the latter years as a trustee of a small local HIV charity and at a multi-purpose play space.