The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funds research and training in social and economic issues. The ESRC is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. We support independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. At any one time we support over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes. We are part of UK Research and Innovation (www.ukri.org).