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 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.
Case Studies
The London Borough of Waltham Forest commissioned M·E·L Research to deliver four waves of its Resident Insight programme. This longstanding research programme tracks the perception of Waltham Forest residents regarding their neighbourhood and Council services. Each wave comprises 750 interviews conducted face to face at pre-selected sample points, selected by stratified random location sampling. A qualitative follow-up is also undertaken after each wave.
Case Studies
A review of the DKMS registered donor database, carried out by DKMS, highlighted specific ethnic minority communities that are significantly under-represented. M·E·L Research was commissioned to carry out an exploratory study with people from these communities in order to understand their awareness of blood cancer and stem cell donation, their motivations/barriers to register to become a donor, their motivations/barriers to donate blood stem cells, and their preferences around communication if they were a registered donor
Case Studies
Sheffield City Council received funding from the Tranche 2 of the Active Travel Fund (ATF) which aims to create a safer, cleaner and more pleasant environment for residents and local businesses and a more attractive area for walking, cycling and spending time outdoors. Sheffield City Council were looking to understand perceptions of the Nether Edge Active Neighbourhood scheme from three audiences: Those who lived in the area (Residents) Those who are visited the area from outside of the specified area (Visitors) Businesses/business owners trading in the area (Businesses).
Case Studies
The Code was last reviewed in 2019 and, due to COVID as well as emerging considerations in universities around DEI and accessibility, mental and physical wellbeing and changing expectations around the duty of care that HEIs have, there was a feeling that the Code needed to be reviewed in order to ensure it was fit for purpose. We spoke qualitatively to senior stakeholders from more than 30 HEIs, including Heads of Accommodation, Heads of Residential Services, Directors of Estates, Heads of Internal Audit, Accommodation Officers and a range of other roles to ensure coverage of a range of roles and experiences.
Case Studies
In support of the delivery the Maidenhead station (Crossrail) scheme, which was being rebranded as the Elizabeth Line, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead was looking to introduce a package of measures to enhance pedestrian and cycle access, improve the public realm, accessibility and functionally of the train station. The borough hopes that the scheme will help to improve investment and support the regeneration of Maidenhead town centre.
Case Studies
In response to the growing need to better support its vulnerable residents, the London Borough of Barnet initiated a research partnership with MEL Research and a third party. The objective was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current support mechanisms available to vulnerable residents and to identify ways to enhance their financial stability and overall well-being.
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.
M·E·L News
September 2024
In line with our commitment to tackling difficult subject matters and working with under-represented audiences, M·E·L Research is proud to announce that many of our team members have recently undertaken Suicide Awareness Training. This initiative aligns with our core values and this announcement coincides with World Suicide Prevention Day, reflecting our dedication to working with partners to promote mental health awareness across all sectors of society.
M·E·L News
September 2024
M·E·L Research is delighted to announce that we have once again been commissioned by English Heritage to undertake a large-scale interpretation evaluation project. Following the success of last year’s research, which was well-received, we have been tasked with a refined study for this year, concentrating on fewer sites but allowing for more in-depth analysis at each location.
Industry Insights
September 2024
Following the spectacle that was the Paris 2024 Olympics, and as we are glued to the Paralympics now, Ben Thatcher says more needs to be done to identify and remove the barriers to sports participation for disabled people. Fewer than half of disabled adults (or those with long-term health conditions) meet the government’s recommended guidelines for physical activity, meaning 52% of disabled adults in England are categorised as ‘inactive’, according to the latest research from Sport England.
M·E·L News
August 2024
At M·E·L Research, we are committed to the wellbeing of our employees and to delivering high-quality insights to our clients. As a social research agency serving public sector organisations and charities, we like to live our values and adopted a nine-day fortnight working model in January 2024. To make this model work and ensure that our client services and offer continue to improve, we have been examining each step of our research project delivery to find smarter, more efficient solutions which still deliver the same quality and consideration in our outputs. As one part of this effort, we have adopted the SlideGen platform from Indico Labs. SlideGen enables us to visualise research findings more quickly, allowing our team to focus on interpretation and storytelling, which adds greater value to our work.
M·E·L News
August 2024
M·E·L Research are delighted to announce we have been commissioned by Welsh Government to evaluate the Culture, Heritage and Sport Anti-Racist Wales Action Plan Grants Programme. *-*-*-*-*-*-* Mae ymchwil M·E·L Research yn falch iawn o gyhoeddi ein bod wedi cael ein comisiynu gan Lywodraeth Cymru i werthuso Rhaglen Grantiau Cynllun Gweithredu Cymru Wrth-hiliol, Diwylliant, Treftadaeth a Chwaraeon. Cyhoeddwyd Cynllun Gweithredu Cymru Wrth-hiliol (ArWAP) ym mis Mehefin 2022 ac mae’n adeiladu ar fentrau blaenorol Llywodraeth Cymru ar gydraddoldeb hiliol. Mae’n ail-gadarnhau ymrwymiad hirsefydlog Llywodraeth Cymru i hyrwyddo cydraddoldeb i bawb.
M·E·L News
August 2024
The specific focus of this randomised control trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of recipe-boxes in helping households with children prepare healthy meals at home. SALIENT is a collaborative research initiative that brings together experts from eight leading universities—Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Birmingham, Hertfordshire, Liverpool, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Queen Mary University of London—alongside two renowned research institutes, Nesta and the Behavioural Insights Team. The consortium is led by Professor Pete Scarborough from the University of Oxford and Professor Martin White from the University of Cambridge.
M·E·L News
August 2024
M·E·L Research is pleased to announce the addition of three talented individuals to our team: Emily Preston-Jones as Senior Evaluation Manager, Sophie King as Senior Research Executive, and Richard Newman as Research Executive. Each brings a wealth of experience, expertise, and enthusiasm to our growing company, strengthening our capacity to deliver high-quality research and evaluation services. Karen Etheridge, Managing Director of M·E·L Research, welcomed the new team members: “We are thrilled to welcome Emily and Sophie to M·E·L Research and to promote Richard internally. It is brilliant to see the development of individuals with internal M·E·L experience, as well as adding those joining us from client-side and agency backgrounds. This melting pot of experience and perspectives, combined with sector knowledge they bring aligns perfectly with M·E·L’s values – enhancing our ability to deliver insightful, impactful, and inclusive research for our clients.”
M·E·L News
August 2024
Building on our experience of undertaking visitor research at mega-events, cultural festivals and local initiatives – including Birmingham Weekender 2023 – M·E·L Research Ltd will be conducting on-site interviews with festival attendees. Our team aims to gather valuable feedback and insights from participants and visitors, providing a comprehensive understanding of their festival experiences. This feedback will be crucial in understanding the success of Birmingham Weekender, ensuring it continues to meet and exceed the expectations of its audience.
M·E·L News
August 2024
Since 2011, Kathy had been the Director of Seymour Research Ltd, a boutique research and evaluation consultancy. She has an extensive background in various research methodologies, including survey research, interviews, focus groups, ethnography, documentary analyses, and secondary data analyses. Kathy has also successfully led high-profile evaluations assessing the implementation and impact of programmes and initiatives, utilising theory of change and other evaluation approaches. Her clients have included universities, schools, multi-academy trusts, local and national government, NHS trusts, charities, and private organisations.
