Engaging with retail

The ESRC is increasing its engagement with the retail sector and, as part of this, has appointed two teams of retail experts to facilitate communication between the social science research base and retail businesses, promoting knowledge exchange and encouraging greater collaboration. Given the wide range of stakeholders and research agendas within retail we have appointed two sets of Navigators: One team is looking at the retail sector in its broadest sense, while the other is exploring different data sources and analysis within the sector.

Retail Navigators - Nottingham Business School

This team is looking to facilitate communication between the social science research base and retailers on topics of mutual interest. They have experience of working in and with both the retail sector and academia, with companies such as Boots, Marks and Spencer and Tesco. Team members are:

Contact:kim.cassidy@ntu.ac.uk

Data Navigators - Demographic Decisions Ltd

This team is focusing on areas of mutual interest between the retail sector and academic researchers with regard to data infrastructures, such as retail store card data and ‘open data’ sources. The team have experience of working with companies such as Barclays, John Lewis and Sainsbury, and work with a user group (Demographics User Group (DUG)) which represents the interests of large commercial users of public data. The Data Navigators are:

Contact:dugmore@demographic.co.uk

Funding opportunities

There are a range of co-investment opportunities offered by the ESRC for retailers wanting to work with academics including Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme, MSc student research projects, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), Student internships, Seminars competition and the research grants scheme. For further information about these schemes please see our current funding opportunities. 

Masters student opportunities

The Demographic Decisions team are running a retail-based internships scheme for Masters students, providing the opportunity to work with an industrial partner in the area of retail data. For further information about the scheme and for available projects:

Highlights of successful collaborations between academics and the retail sector

The contribution of local shops in the community
This Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) in collaboration with the Association of Convenience Stores explores the economic, social and environmental contribution of local shops to their communities and is seeking to identify and embed best commercial practice.

The Future of the UK High Street
This is a study exploring alternative visions of the high street. The project explores the role of 'new generation' foodstores in promoting innovation in the independent store sector and the resulting implications for policy.