Finding existing evidence

Organisations and resources

• Centre for Ageing and Dementia Research (CADR): funded by Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW), CADR is a Wales-wide research centre focused on ageing and dementia research. CADR keeps an up-to-date list of its resources on its website.

• Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre (CASCADE): funded by HCRW, CASCADE aims to improve the well-being, safety and rights of children and their families. The CASCADE website has a range of publications and resources that contribute to bringing together shared experiences and expertise for practitioners, people who access care and support, and researchers. CASCADE is also the home of ExChange - a knowledge mobilisation programme.

• Cochrane Library: provides access to research findings to support evidence-based decision-making by professionals, policy makers and the public. Cochrane includes review groups that are based at research institutions worldwide. The ‘our evidence’ page has plain-language summaries of health evidence.

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which brings together the UK’s seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England. ESRC funds research across a wide range of social science topics, including health and well-being, public services and society. You can explore the ESRC’s areas of investment and support, and access an ‘impact toolkit’ to help with funding applications.

• Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (Iriss): a Scottish organisation with an extensive track record in presenting and collaboratively using evidence in policy and practice development. All Iriss resources are free to access, including their insights evidence summaries. 

• The National Audit Office (NAO): the UK’s independent public spending watchdog. Search the NAO’s reports or access good practice guidance through its Insights page.

• The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE): provides independent assessment of complex evidence to produce useful and usable guidance for health and care practitioners. It has a community dedicated to social care, where you can access guidelines, quality standards, tools and resources.  It also rounds up its products related to adult social care and children’s social care, and offers advice about how to use its guidance in social work.

• National Institute for Health Research (NIHR): the UK's largest funder of health and care research. It works in partnership with the NHS, universities, local government, other research funders, patients and the public to deliver and enable research. Its website provides an evidence search tool for health and care professionals, researchers and the public. You can also access a journals library and NIHR Evidence, which provides plain-language summaries of health and care research funded by NIHR.

• Research in Practice: supports people working in social care and health to improve outcomes for adults with support needs and children and families. It brings together practice expertise and the experiences of people using services so professionals across the sector can make evidence-informed decisions about the design and delivery of services. The centre produces research and evidence reviews which summarise the available research and evidence on specific topics related to adult, child and family support.

• Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE): an agency that co-produces, shares and supports the use of the best available knowledge and evidence about what works in practice.

• Social Care Wales: we provide national practice guidance and a range of research, data, and innovation resources through both our main website and Insight Collective service. The National Social Care Data Portal for Wales contains data from a variety of sources relating to social care services.

• StatsWales: a free-to-use service that allows you to view, manipulate, create, and download tables of Welsh data.

• Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care (WIHSC): the WIHSC aims to bridge the gap between academia, policy and practice. The website also has a find research outputs page.

• Foundations, The What Works Centre for Children and Families: provides answers and practical solutions that empower decision makers to improve policy and practice on family support. Its work is based on the principle that high-quality evidence should inform decision making and has a vital role in improving the lives of vulnerable children.

• What Works Centre for Wellbeing: the centre operated between 2014 and 2024. With a focus on well-being, the centre worked with stakeholders and experts to provide evidence, guidance, and discussion papers on a range of topics. You can still access the centre’s resources via its website.