Sectors
Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
Social Research ¦ Market Research ¦ Behavioural Insight ¦ Evaluation ¦ SROI
M·E·L Research is a specialist market, social and behavioural research and insights consultancy. But M·E·L Research isn’t a standard agency. Our vision is to make a positive difference to organisations, employees, customers and wider society. We push for social value – in why we work, how we work and who we work with.
We provide insight that enables public sector bodies and charities to improve their service delivery. We also explore attitudes and behaviours and evaluate interventions on key societal issues including poverty, mental and physical health and wellbeing, mobility, infrastructure and the climate and environment with residents, customers, employees, stakeholders and businesses.
We deliver social and market research services across various sectors, including housing, health and wellbeing, transport, culture and heritage, sport and activity and the environment.
To ensure we deliver excellent research with a purpose, we work with a clear set of values and quality standards.
More detail on our unique approach to delivering social value for communities, partners and the wider population can be found here.
What sector or service are you looking for?
Our team work in a diverse range of sectors, conducting research into wide ranging issues from local government to environmental impact studies.
Our highly skilled team are able to conduct many forms of research. Depending on the depth and scope of research required our team will recommend the most appropriate method of research.
It can be hard to know which market research consultant to choose when you’re looking for commission research. At M·E·L Research, we believe in transparency and are proud to share insights into the processes and outcomes of the research we’ve conducted for organisations in the past.
Case Studies
In 2024, M·E·L Research were appointed to deliver a major transactional research contract for Midland Heart, one of the largest social landlords in the West Midlands. For the next three years, we will be delivering up to 14 monthly transactional surveys, covering key areas of service delivery. We will capture customer feedback on key services such as routine repairs, gas servicing and the maintenance activities undertaken by communal services contractors. We also engage with Midland Heart customers when things don’t go as well and complaints are lodged formally.
Case Studies
For the World Gymnastics Championships, as well as an economic impact evaluation, we also conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the fan, athlete, volunteer and delegation experience incorporating a diverse array of data sources to ensure a robust analysis.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research was commissioned to undertake a first of its kind study to analyse video footage from enforcement actions involving significant and high-volume debts, such as council tax arrears, non-domestic rates, parking fines, and penalties issued by authorities like Transport for London. The study took place between June and September 2024, and researchers from M·E·L reviewed 935 videos, 648 of which involved interactions with individuals subject to enforcement. This study is significant as it provides a unique and objective insight into real-world enforcement practices, which will enable the ECB to develop informed and targeted policy interventions aimed at improving fairness during enforcement.
Case Studies
The research aimed to investigate the extent to which female and non-binary fans experience discrimination at games, how this discrimination manifested, and their experiences of reporting discrimination, where experienced. A key focus of the research was in looking at how these experiences varied among different groups of fans, for example by ethnicity, sexuality or region. The research was to be used to get a greater understanding of the experiences of female and non-binary fans, and to help publicise the issues where they are occurring via a multi-channel campaign.
Case Studies
The Groundlings are an online research community of 250 Royal Shakespeare Company audience members and potential audience members. The community first began in 2023 and will continue until 2026 and potentially beyond. The group have been systematically sampled from the RSC mailing list to represent a broad spectrum of RSC audience members – from Patrons to those who have not visited but would like to, and including a boost of n=50 teachers who use RSC resources or undertake visits / outreach.
Case Studies
City of Doncaster Council commissioned M·E·L Research to evaluate an alternative provision service for children and young people who were struggling to engage in mainstream education. The alternative provision comprised of two settings (Big Picture Doncaster and Vega College) and was based on the Big Picture Learning philosophy that originated in the US. It is a model of learning that focuses on one student at a time, with small class sizes and a curriculum taught in a way that is centred on the passions and interests of children and young people6. Based on evidence of impact in the US, the Council believed it had the potential to re-engage young people in learning, and ultimately improve their long-term life chances and outcomes.
Case Studies
In spring 2023 M·E·L Research were commissioned to undertake face to face interviewing to boost survey participation from those living within 6 GP practice catchments in Stoke-on Trent. These GP catchments were identified by the MIDAS team as those of comparatively high deprivation and low participation in the MIDAS population survey to date. A focus on these catchments also provided an opportunity to boost the number of participants from minority (non-white communities) given the demographic profile of the 6 surgery catchments.
Case Studies
Residents across the London Borough of Waltham Forest were reporting high levels of anxiety regarding their personal safety amid growing fears of increasing crime in their communities. It is within this context that the funding was secured two Community Safety ‘safer streets’ pilots to be delivered in two key areas: Chingford Mount and South Leytonstone. M·E·L Research was commissioned to conduct a qualitative review of the pilots and worked with the LBWF project team from the outset. The research worked directly with several key stakeholder audiences including: Project staff and partners (including the police); residents; elected council members and local business.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research were commissioned to explore the challenges and barriers that unique family groups (single, separated, foster, adopted, extended, families with children with a large age gap) experience when it comes to keeping their children safe online. How do parents feel about it, how do they engage with the topic, how do they talk to their children about it and what are the challenges? By providing this insight we were able to explore where NSPCC resources fits into the conversation, how they can support families and what the opportunities are for NSPCC.
Case Studies
Established in 1959, British Cycling is the national governing body for the sport of cycling in Great Britain. It oversees various cycling disciplines, including road cycling, track cycling, mountain biking, BMX, and cyclocross. British Cycling plays a crucial role in developing and promoting cycling at all levels, from grassroots participation to elite competition, and has even supported riders representing Great Britain on the international stage. Currently, British Cycling has around 137,000 members. Research was desired to explore potential reasons for some members leaving in greater detail so as to guard against lapsing memberships moving forward.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research was commissioned by the Wales Cancer Network to help assess the outcomes and impact of the all-Wales Rapid Diagnosis Clinics (RDC) programme. The RDC programme was a national initiative supporting Health Boards in Wales to provide General Practitioners (GPs) with a referral pathway and RDC to investigate vague symptoms that may be caused by cancer. RDCs aimed to: • Support earlier diagnosis for patients with vague, non-specific symptoms that could be cancer • Reduce cancer diagnoses via emergency presentations • Improve overall patient health outcomes by detecting cancer earlier • Improve patient and GP experience • Identify and manage other serious non-malignant disease or those at risk of developing serious illness • Provide reassurance and early discharge for those patients with no, or non-serious disease, thus increasing capacity through appropriate and efficient use of finite services
Case Studies
In March 2023, the NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB commissioned M·E·L Research to undertake a process and outcome evaluation to explore and demonstrate how the personalised care approaches in the elective care, pre-op MSK pathway at SFH and the cancer prehab pathway at NUH were being delivered. In order to assist future decision-making and commissioning, understanding the challenges, learnings and impact was key. The evaluation also needed to explore the different approaches adopted by the Link Worker providers, namely PICS and Self Help UK.
Case Studies
Fair Housing Futures (FHF) was funded by the Nationwide Foundation’s Transforming the Private Rented Sector programme. It is a place-based collaborative programme to test and learn from interventions which improve the experience of ‘vulnerable’ people accommodated in Greater Manchester’s PRS. Fair Housing Futures has sought to explore ground-breaking solutions to the issues and barriers that vulnerable people face when private renting. FHF’s ambition is for the private rented sector in Greater Manchester to provide more decent, genuinely affordable homes for people in need.
Case Studies
To support Birmingham City Council in assessing the impact of the Better Mental Health Fund, M·E·L Research was commissioned to carry out an independent evaluation to provide insight into how the projects engaged with people across the city, what the experiences of people were and what the variations in impact were on different types of people. The evaluation also looked to assess the changes and opportunities created as a result of the grant and if projects had been cost effective through a value for money assessment.
Case Studies
Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, and South Lincolnshire Mind (CPSL Mind) has delivered perinatal mental health services since 2013. In 2021, CPSL Mind received funding from the Department of Health and Social Care to design and deliver a new service focusing on the wellbeing needs of pregnant women and new mums from the local Muslim Community in Peterborough. The Starting Well funded programme – Connecting Muslim Mums – was a two-year collaboration between CPSL Mind, The Lantern Initiative and a range of other local community partners.
Case Studies
The programme focused on improving the inclusivity, accessibility and relevance of mental health and wellbeing information in communities. Although the information produced for this programme is open to all, the programme focused on increasing access to relevant information for three priority audiences – children and young people, people experiencing poverty and people that experience racial inequality.
Case Studies
English Heritage (EH) sought to evaluate the interpretation work across nine historic sites within its estate, aiming for a significant shift towards a qualitative measure of success. Recognising the need for a nuanced understanding of visitor experiences, EH commissioned MEL Research Ltd to undertake this comprehensive framework development and evaluation.
Case Studies
It had been some time since tastecard’s personas were last reviewed and there was a requirement to re-fresh the findings. Ello has significant data on its members and was able to understand both their product orientated behaviours and actions to a good extent (via 1 st party data) as well as having a broad understanding of what their customers are like via Fresco by CACI profiling. However, there was room to understand the drivers of behaviour in more depth, particularly in relation to specific dining and entertainment behaviours, as well as to review customer perceptions around the tastecard product.
Case Studies
Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom, as Ukraine—the winner of the 2022 contest with the song “Stefania” by Kalush Orchestra—was unable to host the event due to the Russian invasion of the country. We undertook a large-scale longitudinal study of Liverpool residents, across 6 months, to understand the impact of Eurovision from a wellbeing, tolerance and community perspective.
Case Studies
The Birmingham Weekender ran between 26-27 August 2023 with over 100 free events to enjoy at Bullring & Grand Central, the New Street Station concourse, Birmingham Markets and elsewhere. M·E·L Research consulted on the design of the questionnaire, and were responsible for scripting and hosting the software. We conducted face to face fieldwork during the course of the weekend, interviewing attendees using a systematic sampling approach.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research were commissioned to host and conduct a visitor survey with attendees at the festival during the course of its run, as well as to undertake a specialist economic impact assessment for the event to understand the profile of attendees at the event, the impact that the festival had upon them and the economic impact that it had on the local area.
Case Studies
The four events under evaluation were Taste Liverpool. Drink Bordeaux in June 2022, Liverpool International Music Festival in July 2022, River of Light in October-November 2022, and the World Gymnastics Championships in October-November 2022. In addition to conducting the Visitor Satisfaction and Social and Economic Impact studies for the World Gymnastics Championships, M·E·L Research were also commissioned to conduct a pre-event survey with ticket bookers to understand what they were hoping to get out of the event, and also wrote a report summarising the performance of the Championships in relation to its KPIs, incorporating data from the visitor survey, athlete and volunteers survey, expenditure reports and media reports, among other sources.
Case Studies
The primary objectives of this follow up research were to collect fresh insight into residents’ perceptions of their local area, explore in more depth residents’ views on local safety issues, and to identify priority issues to address and where possible, benchmark perceptions within Bushbury Hill against national data.
Case Studies
To address these financial challenges and plan for budget balancing, LCC initiated a comprehensive programme of activities. This included online polling, publications in ‘Leicestershire Matters’, participatory budgeting, engagement with Council officers, and targeted stakeholder events. A key component was the commissioning of M·E·L Research to conduct a deliberative community study, allowing residents to review, explore and understand the budget pressures and their implications before giving their opinion.
Case Studies
The survey is conducted via telephone by M·E·L Research’s experienced CATI team who work at various times throughout the day and at weekends to ensure that residents are called at convenient times and that tenant response profiles do not skew heavily towards a particular cohort. On a quarterly basis, we provide Leeds Federated with a number of outputs; along with the data tables with key cross breaks, Leeds receive a written report to share with internal stakeholders which includes trend analysis and demographic breakdowns to illuminate any substantial variations.
Case Studies
This was the first survey Great Yarmouth Borough Council have run in line with the TSM guidelines. Our report also included actionable Key Driver Analysis of the core measures to understand how satisfaction withs specific aspects of the service provided by GYBC’s Housing Service correlates with overall satisfaction, and spatial analysis of the results by Ward to understand if there were any geographical variations in results. These added value elements ensure that the findings can be actioned effectively by the team at GYBC.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research needed to provide methodological rigour which balanced with the wider TSM guidelines, allowed for ability to benchmark data with other councils and public sector bodies (in this case against Housemark data), an ability to correlate data across the most recent TSM survey and the earlier TSM surveys that M·E·L had previously produced for Cannock Chase Council. Given the subject matter an inclusive approach to research participation, a positive experience for residents taking part, and ensuring representativeness of the Cannock Chase response profile was key.
Case Studies
M·E·L Research needed to provide methodological rigour based upon a recognised evidence-based engagement index, an ability to benchmark data with other councils and public sector bodies, an ability to correlate data across both surveys, an inclusive approach to research participation, a positive experience for residents taking part, creativity in question design to respond to emerging issues and clear and innovative communications of research findings, including post-survey analysis sessions. A stratified random locational approach was used for sampling, with all Census Output Areas (COAs) per ward ranked by deprivation. The target number of interviews was 1,100. The final number of interviews achieved was 1,101, undertaken via in-person door-knocking.
Case Studies
To support Welsh Government in assessing the implementation and impact of the Period Dignity grant, M·E·L Research were commissioned to carry out an independent evaluation. Er mwyn cefnogi Llywodraeth Cymru i asesu gweithrediad ac effaith y grant Cyfnod Urddas, comisiynwyd M·E·L Research i gynnal gwerthusiad annibynnol.
Case Studies
To support MHF and WWT in assessing the implementation and impact of the Blue Prescribing programme at the London Wetland Centre, M·E·L Research were commissioned to carry out an independent evaluation to understand the implementation and outcomes of the pilot programme.
Market research can be fraught with issues surrounding transparency, data security and the quality of analysis applied to research. That’s why we’re fully accredited to ISO 9001, 20252 and 27001 as well as cyber essentials plus certified.
Stay up to date with the latest news from MEL Research.
Industry Insights
April 2025
M·E·L News
April 2025
We’re thrilled to share that our Client Solutions Director, Elliot Simmonds, will be speaking at this year’s Visitor Studies Group (VSG) Conference, taking place at the London Transport Museum. The Visitor Studies Conference – which is now open for bookings – brings together practitioners, researchers, and cultural leaders from across the UK and beyond, all focused on the critical question: how do we value our audiences?
M·E·L News
April 2025
We’re delighted to share that we have been commissioned by the NSPCC to deliver a new research project supporting the potential scale-up of their Pregnancy in Mind (PiM) service. Pregnancy in Mind is an early intervention service aimed at supporting expectant parents experiencing or at risk of mild to moderate anxiety and depression during pregnancy.
M·E·L News
April 2025
We are thrilled to announce that Karen (Managing Director), Jenny (Finance & Operations Director) and Sophi (Senior Evaluation Lead) will be running a half marathon in the AJ Bell Great Birmingham Run on May 4, 2025! These dedicated runners are taking on the challenge of the half marathon to raise vital funds for Narthex Sparkhill, a Birmingham Based Charity committed to supporting vulnerable individuals and families in our community.
Industry Insights
April 2025
It’s always a bit awkward when someone leaves a role and says what they really think. In this case, the departing Chair of the Charity Commission offered this morsel (among others) during an interview with a national newspaper: “But if a charity decides it’s not so much a charity but an engine for social progress, we [the Charity Commission] can step in.”
M·E·L News
April 2025
M·E·L Research Ltd, a leading market research agency known for its expertise in regulatory and policy development, has been awarded the contract to deliver the Legal Services Board (LSB) Public Panel until 2028. This solidifies M·E·L Research’s position as a trusted legal services market research partner in shaping the future of legal services regulation in England and Wales.
Industry Insights
April 2025
We are proud to have supported the Cairngorms National Park Authority in delivering its first-ever resident and worker survey, designed to explore how people living and working in the National Park feel about their communities, the environment, and the impact of National Park status.
Industry Insights
March 2025
Though very far from an expert, I feel compelled to add my voice to the discussion space created by Neurodiversity Celebration Week. So with that, I have set out to explore Neurodiversity in the workplace. I have long been aware of the unique talents and different perspectives that neurodiversity brings to all our lives. I’ve worked with neurodivergent children and adults in a number of different research and educational settings.
M·E·L News
March 2025
M·E·L Research Ltd is proud to announce that it has been selected by Durham County Council to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of a wide range of cultural events and festivals across the county. This partnership will see M·E·L Research develop and implement a tailored cultural events evaluation framework that will assess the impact of these events on local communities, businesses, and the broader cultural landscape.
