Alumni Association
Dr. Iain Ferguson (University of Sterling)
21 December 2011
Joint Research Project
Project Title: The Impact of New Public Management Policies and Perspectives on Professional Social Work: a comparison of British and Japanese experiences
Japanese Lead Scientist: Professor Akira Namae, Faculty of Healthcare and Business Management, Nihon Fukushi University
UK Counterpart: Dr. Iain Ferguson, Department of Applied Social Sciences, University of Sterling
Project Duration: September 2010 to March 2011
This collaborative seminar
series, jointly funded by the ESRC and the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS), sought to explore the impact of New Public Management ideas,
policies and practices (often referred to as managerialism) on one branch
of social care provision - professional social work - in the United Kingdom and
in Japan.
The idea for the project
arose out of discussions between British social work academics and Japanese
colleagues who attended a social work conference held at Liverpool Hope
University in 2008. From these discussions it was clear that there were similar
developments in the impact of managerialist policies and practices on social
work in the UK and Japan which merited further exploration.
A sum of £11,649 was awarded
by the ESRC to Dr Iain Ferguson of the University of Stirling to host a seminar
series on the theme ‘The Impact of New Public Management Policies and
Perspectives on Professional Social Work: a comparison of British and Japanese
experiences’. A similar sum was awarded by the JSPS to Professor Akira Namae of
Nihon Fukushi University to host a second seminar in Japan.
More
than thirty participants from all parts of the UK attended a three-day seminar at
the University of Stirling in September, 2010. This involved presentations by
five social work academics from three Japanese universities to an audience of
British practitioners, postgraduate students and social work academics. A similar number of Japanese practitioners,
students and academics attended the second seminar in Tokyo in March 2011 to
listen to and discuss presentations by four British social work academics from
Stirling, Bath, Durham and Liverpool Hope Universities.
Collaborative
developments since then have included the award of a small research grant to a
Japanese colleague into ethical dilemmas in social work which will be jointly
conducted with a British academic colleague; agreement in principle by a
Japanese colleague to act as regional editor for a new international social
work journal to be edited by two of the British social work academics involved;
the translation of key publications by British colleagues into Japanese;
planned joint presentations and seminars at the
International Association of Schools of Social Work Conference in Stockholm in
2012; and joint publications which are currently in preparation.
The seminar series has served to deepen our mutual understanding of similarities and differences in trends in British and Japanese social work and initiated a collaboration which will provide the basis for future projects.
