Research Studies

For think tanks, charities and non-profit organisations

Who you ask decides what you find.

Most research hears from the loudest people who are always heard. The survey goes out, the confident and well-connected answer first, and the findings quietly reflect them. We design studies that go looking for everyone else, then weight their answers so they count.

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Research built on the same values as your organisation

If your organisation exists to make things fairer, your evidence should be gathered fairly too. Ipsa Consulting designs and delivers research for organisations that need to understand their public, their community or their audience before they decide, campaign or build.

We'll take a kernel of an idea, a funder's brief or a full invitation to tender and turn it into a study you can stand behind: clear research questions, a sampling plan that reaches past the usual suspects, mixed methods that give you breadth and depth, and findings written in plain English.

How we work

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Shape the question with you

We start with collaborative workshops with your team to agree what you need to find out and why. We're honest about what your budget and timeline can deliver, and about the strengths and limits of each approach, before a single question is written.

Design for who's missing

We build the sampling and weighting plan first. For Exeter UNESCO City of Literature we created a scoring system that gave a higher, more equitable weight to responses from people who are traditionally marginalised, so their experience shaped the recommendations instead of being averaged away.

Mix the methods

A wide online survey gives you breadth. One-to-one interviews give you depth. Focus groups show you how people talk an issue through together. We combine them so each method tests what the others found, and we pilot and cognitively test questions with real participants before fieldwork begins.


Recruit and run the fieldwork

We recruit through your networks, partner organisations and targeted paid social, and we thank participants properly for their time. This is where our marketing experience comes in handy!


Turn findings into decisions Responses are scored against the criteria we agreed at the start, then grouped into themes ranked by weight. You get clear recommendations, the data behind them and a write-up of the method, so your board, funders and critics can see how every conclusion was reached. We can also author and design a report for you.

FAQ’s

Frequently asked questions about research studies

What our clients say…

  • Malcolm Shead, ShelterBox

    "Ipsa Consulting was provided with a kernel of an idea that they subsequently shaped into a viable research proposition and reviewed from a variety of interesting perspectives. The research has scratched beneath the surface of what is undoubtedly a more nuanced concept than was first conceived. It was an academic interrogation of the subject area which has led to a more considered set of recommendations as a result."

  • Megan Gordon, Dartington Service Design Lab

    "From the initial pitch right through to considering the legacy of the work after they had finished, we found Cath to be considerate and very alive to the values that we hold as an organisation."

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Tell us what you need to find out

At Ipsa Consulting we believe that any organisation can take proactive steps to becoming more inclusive, listen harder and use that data to help our society take big strides forward.