This seminar, held at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) on 27 May 2025, marked the release of findings from the 2024 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey (www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2024).

Katy Hayward (QUB) and Jonny Hanson (ARK) discussed the findings of the survey.  Sian Doherty then gave a response on behalf of Climate NI. This was followed by a response by Kate Clifford, who focused on the implications for rural communities, and the work of Rural Community Network.

This seminar, held at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) on 27 May 2025, marked the release of findings from the 2024 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey (www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2024).

Katy Hayward (QUB) and Jonny Hanson (ARK) discussed the findings of the survey.  Sian Doherty then gave a response on behalf of Climate NI. This was followed by a response by Kate Clifford, who focused on the implications for rural communities, and the work of Rural Community Network.

This seminar, held at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) on 27 May 2025, marked the release of findings from the 2024 Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey (www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2024).

Katy Hayward (QUB) and Jonny Hanson (ARK) discussed the findings of the survey.  Sian Doherty then gave a response on behalf of Climate NI. This was followed by a response by Kate Clifford, who focused on the implications for rural communities, and the work of Rural Community Network.

This event, held in Belfast City Hall on 24 February 2025, launched a series of events, publications and other activities to mark ARK's 25th anniversary.

This Good Relations Week seminar explored the potential of social and community farming to cultivate good relations between different communities in Northern Ireland. It featured insights from a panel that included Dr Matt Williams, Conservation and Education Manager at Jubilee Farm (Northern Ireland's first community-owned farm), Tiziana O’Hara from Cooperative Alternatives, and Dr Aoibeann Walsh from Rural Support. The event was chaired by ARK's Dr Jonny Hanson.  

It took place in the Great Hall at QUB, 19th September, 10:00 - 12:00.

On 6 September, ARK hosted a seminar to present key findings from the 2024 KLT and YLT surveys. ARK's Professor Dirk Schubotz highlighted results relating to education, rights and gender-based violence at the event, which took place at YouthAction Belfast.

On 28 August, ARK hosted a seminar to launch a working paper highlighting the three main features that define paramilitarism in contemporary Northern Ireland - Legitimacy, Utility and Threat. These key features are consistent, although they have manifested differently over time. Written by Brendan Sturgeon, Duncan Morrow, Lucy Geddes, Dominic Bryan, Siobhán McAlister, Claire Hazelden and Peter Sheridan, the paper provides a simple way of understanding a set of complex social practices.

One in 5 adults in Northern Ireland have a probable mental illness.  In addition, our history of conflict here may have contributed to more complex mental health difficulties.  Thus, accessing timely and appropriate mental health supports is vital.  In this seminar, Professor Siobhan O’Neill and Dr Nicole Bond (Office of the Mental Health Champion) highlighted findings from the 2023 Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, exploring public experiences of accessing mental health supports.

The event took place on Tuesday 14 May 2024, 10.30 to 12.00, in the Boardroom at Clifton House, Belfast.

The Welfare State is perhaps the biggest social policy success of the post-war generation. 

The ARK Ageing Programme invited Dr. Eve Worth (University of Exeter), author of The Welfare State Generation: Women, Agency and Class in Britain since 1945 to present evidence of the impact of the welfare state on the progress of women as individual agents and important workers in public sector jobs. Her work sheds light on many of the challenges facing today’s generation of students – debt, precarity and the absence of strong ties to reliable institutions of the state.

In this event, we discussed whether the welfare state is worth saving, and what role each generation can play in maintaining social cohesion in a time of insecurity and hyper-individualisation.