Dr Sarah Weakley is a Research and Knowledge Exchange Lead at the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
Her areas of research include:
- poverty and inequality
- social security
- young people’s transitions to economic independence.
Dr Weakley’s knowledge exchange activities include organising events, developing proposals, and creating tools for policy impact to serve internal partners within the University of Glasgow, and external partners in government and the third sector.
She also served as a Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee inquiry into welfare in Scotland from November 2020 to May 2021.
Research interests
Dr Weakley focuses on using social science research to investigate the nature of poverty and inequality, its impacts on individuals and society, and how government policy addresses or fails to address it.
She is interested in work that improves the production and uptake of robust, policy-relevant evidence to improve the lives of adults and children living in poverty.
Background
Sarah was awarded a PhD in Social Policy by the University of Edinburgh in 2019. Her doctoral research focused on assessing evidence from the US and the UK on young people’s transitions to economic independence and the role of government assistance.
She holds an MRes Urban Studies (Merit) from the University of Glasgow and a Master of Public Administration (Distinction) from George Washington University in the USA.
Policy Scotland projects
She is joint founder of the University of Glasgow’s Third Sector Knowledge Exchange Collaborative and led the Community resilience and addressing disadvantage strand of Policy Scotland’s COVID-19 project.
- Challenge Poverty Week 2019
- Poverty Trends in Scotland 1995-2018 and Policy Change: work with the Poverty and Inequality Commission and SPICe
- Welfare Reform in Scotland: Research, Policy and the Third Sector – seminar and discussion
- Scotland’s Department of Work and Pensions’ Areas of Research Interest Workshop
She also had a role as an Associated Researcher for Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland, co-leading the outcome evaluation workstream to develop a plan for context and asset mapping, data analysis and primary data collection of quantitative and qualitative data.