Director's Introduction

As a multidisciplinary research centre for financial security, wellbeing and inclusion, we are committed to conducting rigorous, policy-relevant research to understand and address the problems created by financial insecurity and exclusion. This means our remit is broad, with current research on financial inclusion monitoring, investigating insecurity in the private rental market, preventing financial vulnerability in retirement, understanding unpaid care and financial wellbeing, evaluating the impact of financial education on financial capability and exploring the effects of neighbourhood segregation on house prices.

The breadth and depth of our research activity have generated invaluable opportunities for new and ongoing collaborations with academic and non-academic organisations that share our vision, and for using our research evidence to educate and excite future researchers and policy makers and engaging the public in the real-world problems we investigate.

Our research reaches local and global audiences, and we are very excited to bring you a flavour of what’s been happening, and what’s in store, in this year’s report.

We are ambitious in our vision for a fairer and more financially inclusive society. To help us achieve that, we continue to build capacity and expand our expertise. Since the publication of last year’s report, we are delighted to have been joined by Martin Coppack, Professor of Practice in Financial Inclusion and Consumer Policy, Postgraduate Researchers, Chen Zhan, Sarah Usman and Chenyu Bao and a new member to the advisory board – Tom Levitt. We were very sad to say goodbye to Mike Small, our Impact and Development Manager, who left CHASM for pastures new. We are, however, happy to welcome Fiona Handscomb, Communications and Impact Manager, who joined us in September.

My heartfelt thanks and appreciation go to the CHASM team for everything they do to make our work a success and for being so wonderful to work with. None of this would be possible without you and your passion for research that makes a difference to people’s lives.

Finally, and as ever, we are enormously grateful to Andrew and Caroline Fisher for their ongoing support to help fund this vital research, and to Nick Eatock for his support in helping us to train new postgraduate researchers.