Dr Sophie Bissett, Senior Researcher

Sophie is practised in using a diverse range of resources for both social reporting and academic publications. She is  the lead researcher for quality assurance and project design. Her experience includes providing high quality desk research, comprehensive literature reviews and qualitative data analysis, as well as presenting research outcomes in diverse formats for a range of audiences. She also has a sharp eye for editing and proofreading.

Recent project work includes acting as the lead researcher for a project for City & Guilds on social mobility, examining the reasons and causes behind limited social mobility in the United Kingdom; and how education and training may support social mobility. She is also currently the second research lead on a project for the Education & Training Foundation, looking at the training needs of those educating the early years workforce. This role has included project design, stakeholder mapping, a range of interviews, desk research and analysis.

Since joining The Research Base in 2012, Sophie has further developed her expertise in rights-based approaches to education and international development. She has written a number of ThinkBase articles on related themes, including a series of global case studies on Equity in Education, and an analysis of an article exploring the potential impact on taking a right-based approach to technical and vocational education as part of the post-2015 Agenda. Before taking up her current role at the Research Base, she was involved in social research through a number of roles from a London-based think tank to an international project on constitutional reform in sub-Saharan Africa.

Sophie holds a BA in Politics, an MA and PhD in Intellectual History and a PGCert in Higher Education Teaching and Learning from the University of Sussex; she was also awarded a number of academic prizes and scholarships during her university studies. She has experience of the education sector from inside the classroom, having taught seminars and delivered lectures in higher education as well as working closely with local schools and colleges on curriculum enrichment projects. She has also published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals, and she is currently engaged in co-editing a book.