Are you a student at secondary, higher or further education? Are you a teacher or lecturer of a subject focusing on life in Northern Ireland (eg social sciences, history, politics, psychology)? Are you looking for datasets that you can use for quantiative methods courses? Then look no further!

ARK is an essential resource for teaching and learning. Our Teaching and Learning Resources page highlights our student newsletter, teaching datasets and tutorials for schools and youth organisations. And of course, all the other information on the ARK site will be invaluable too, such as surveys, CAIN, election results, and publications.

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The latest T:BUC (Together: Building a United Community) Engagement Forum took place in Lisburn on 18 September 2018, and focused on young people.

YLT Director Dirk Schubotz delivered the key note speech, reporting on latest findings of the Young Life and Times (YLT) survey. The workshops at the Forum focused on young people's attitudes to good relations and minority ethnic groups; respect; and participation in cross-community projects, including T:BUC camps.

Since it began in 2003, YLT has collected data on all these issues. The latest YLT findings can be viewed on the YLT website.  

2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights campaign in Northern Ireland. Conflict Archive on the INternet (CAIN) provides extensive information and documents relating to politics and the conflict in Northern Ireland. In particular, CAIN contains a selection of digital versions of public records that are held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, relating to the conflict and politics from 1968 to 1990.

Brendan Lynn (Deputy Director of CAIN) will be one of the speakers at a conference organised by PRONI and the Nerve Centre. 'Exploring Northern Ireland 1968: resources and records' will take place on 18 October at PRONI. Further information is available on the NIDirect website.  

A team from ARK, at Ulster University, has been awarded the contract to produce the fifth report for the Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring project run by the Community Relations Council and financially supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The Community Relations Council will publish the report in late October 2018.

Previous issues of the Peace Monitoring Report are available on the Community Relations Council website.  

ARK's Reel Life Data competition asked film makers to produce a short film based on findings from the 2013 Northern Ireland Life and Times survey data on attitudes to LGBT issues. We were very impressed by the different ways in which the filmmakers interpreted the survey data. Thank you to everyone who took part.

On 5 September, we held an event in the Queen's University Film Studio to celebrate the films and film makers, and two of the films are now available to view online.

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Our latest publications include:

• Reviewing the Review: Barriers to Implementing the Northern Ireland Youth Justice Review (ARK Feature 10), by Clare Dwyer and Siobhan McAlister. This Feature explores barriers in implementing the recommendations put forward in the 2011 Youth Justice Review.
• Intergenerational approaches to educational attainment, by Paula Devine and Vicki Titterington, is a discussion paper based on a workshop held in June 2018 with ARK Ageing Programme Visiting Fellows Alastair Wilson and Katie Hunter (Intergenerational Mentoring Network, University of Strathclyde).

ARK produces a range of publications, including Research Updates and fact sheets. Most of these are available online. For a full list of publications, as well as links, visit our Publications page.  

In 2017, Volunteer Now funded questions in the Young Life and Times Survey on the experiences of, and attitudes to, volunteering of 16 year olds. The findings from the survey, along with their implications, will be highlighted at an event on 23 October. Full details about the event will be available on our Events page soon.  

ARK is Northern Ireland's social policy hub. Established in 2000 by researchers at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, its primary goal is to increase the accessibility and use of academic data and research. Most of our dissemination is via our website at www.ark.ac.uk, which is divided into four main areas:

• Surveys
• Projects
• Resources
• Publications
• Events