Research, Events & Publications

Substance is a research specialist in the areas of sport, culture and young people. We work with clients to generate the information and insight to help bring about meaningful change at organisational and policy levels.

Substance founder members hail from backgrounds in sports, cultural theory, sociology and economics at leading university institutes. At the core of Substance’s approach to research is to make connections between people and organisations and policy makers, funders and government.

Our approach is to gather information by using participatory qualitative research techniques. This involves listening to and engaging with people through interviews, observation and dialogue. Substance develops and makes use of a range of new technologies and web based tools in its research projects, in a desire to go beyond the simplistic collation and dissemination of statistics.

Our portfolio of clients includes: The Home Office Positive Futures programme, the Department for Children, Schools and Families, Big Lottery Fund research programme , the Kickz programme , Youth Music , the Football League Trust, Supporters Direct , Sport England, Standard Chartered Bank, UK Sport, The Media Trust, Bafta, several leading universities, the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and others.

To date, Substance has hosted two national conferences, with a third scheduled for October 2010. Conferences have attracted delegates and speakers from across the Uk and overseas representing government, sport, youth, regeneration and community development cultural sectors as well as leading academics and researchers.