Welcome to BVSC Research

What do we do

Our aim is to lead and support high quality research and evaluation with, for and about the Voluntary, Community, Faith & Social Enterprise Sector. We offer:  

1. Research about things that affect the sector and the communities we serve.
2. Evaluation of the services, projects, and organisations - supporting you to clearly evidence your impact.

We are committed to delivering high quality, timely and relevant research and evaluation that is useful and helpful to the sector. As part of this commitment, we offer a range of free events to bring people together in a ‘research space’ - including our quarterly ‘Space to Think’ sessions, webinars aimed at supporting a more ‘research ready’ sector, network events, training, and face to face codesign events.  

Working in partnership with the VCFSE, public sector, academic and non-academic research institutions and Community Researchers we have developed strong networks across Birmingham of people keen to share resources, intelligence and information that can help inform and support practitioners working across the sector.  

Our extended offer also includes consultancy support developing and implementing organisational values and values-based interviewing.

Who we are

Sophie Wilson, MPA – Director of BVSC Research - [email protected]

Sophie established BVSC Research in September 2019. She is a skilled and experienced Third Sector Leader and researcher with excellent in-depth knowledge and understanding of the sector gained over twenty years. She has delivered over 30 research and evaluation projects since setting up the Research Directorate, commissioned by, amongst others, BCC, WMCA, the WMVRP and VCFSE organisations. Sophie completed her Masters in Public Administration with the University of Birmingham in 2020 and is currently undertaking her doctoral study with the Institute for Community Research & Development at the University of Wolverhampton.

Susannah Wilson, MA – BVSC Research & Evaluation Manager - [email protected]

Susannah has worked in the VCFSE sector for 10 years, working on the front line with citizens, helping them to access support. Prior to this, Susannah worked as a BBC journalist and researcher. She joined BVSC Research as the NNS Research and Evaluation Lead in April 2020 and is now Research & Evaluation Manager.

André Castro Bilbrough MSc – BVSC Research Assistant - [email protected]

André has practical experience in diverse settings within the public and voluntary sectors and has experience using quantitative and qualitative research skills and has a Master’s degree in Research Methodology. He is adept in a wide variety of statistical techniques (primarily implemented using the programming language R) and is particularly interested in methods applicable to the analysis of ordinal data (such as Subjective Well-Being scales). André has experience working on cost-outcome assessments, including social value assessments and has attended the Social Return On Investment practitioner training run by Social Value UK.

Clare Harewood MA– BVSC Learning & Evaluation Lead - [email protected]

Clare is a Learning & Evaluation Lead with an MA in Applied Social Research (Researching Professional Practice) from the University of Birmingham. Clare joined BVSC in 2021 having previously worked as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Prior to this she was a senior practitioner within the youth justice system and is a qualified youth and community worker. Clare has a particular interest in participatory research methods and co-production activity.

Jan Pusiak - BVSC Learning & Evaluation Lead - [email protected]

Jan joined the research team from BVSC’s Birmingham Changing Futures Together programme which he has been involved with since 2015, leading on research, evaluation and communications. Jan led on numerous pieces of research for BCFT, interviewing clients experiencing multiple disadvantage, frontline staff and commissioners of services.  Jan is qualified to degree level and a member of the Social Research Association.  Jan will support both the quantitative data analysis and the qualitative fieldwork on this project.

Sam Teo, Administrator - [email protected]

Sam has worked with BVSC Research since November 2021, and is a skilled administrator who leads on the coordination of our activities, including scheduling interviews and organising events.

CONTACT US – Please contact us using the email addresses above, or via the team email address -

[email protected]