Connected by evidence

It was a privilege for Reed in Partnership to share a presentation at the annual Centre for Evidence for the Armed Forces Community Conference yesterday.

The theme of the conference was 'Connected by evidence'. Keynote speaker Annette Boaz spoke about the importance of carrying out research in partnership and building learning from high-quality evidence into systems and services for people.

Sarah Welfare, Associate Director of Policy and Research, and Research Manager, Eva Bell, presented findings from their research project with global labour market analytics experts Lightcast. This took a data-driven approach to understanding how military-acquired skills match civilian labour market demand, with a spotlight on UK regions and the priority industrial strategy sectors. We have used these insights to boost our labour market intelligence support for Service leavers and shared it with thousands of employers and support organisations to use.

Discussing our evidence enabled us to talk to people who had served about their own experience of transition, plus a wide variety of community support organisations and research leaders in the Armed Forces community.

Sarah and Eva commented: “It was a pleasure for us to spend a day learning from research leaders in the Armed Forces community, particularly from the many people with lived experience at the event. We are glad that our research can play a part in supporting successful transition into civilian life for Service leavers.”