Government Social Research Profession

Government Social Research (GSR) is the analytical profession within Government for civil servants who generate and provide social and behavioural research and advice.

GSR members enable government to understand issues relating to society, groups and individuals; and support policy debate and decision-making through a variety of approaches, advice and evidence. We currently have over 2,400 professionally accredited members across 50+ departments/organisations.

Our members come from a wide range of professional backgrounds and disciplines covering the breadth of social and behavioural sciences. Our work puts people at the heart of government decision making by providing expertise in applied quantitative and qualitative design and analytical approaches, evaluation and interventions to solve complex problems. GSR takes a scientific and tailored approach, supported by bodies of knowledge and a range of research methods to inform, influence and provide robust and defensible decision-making at all levels.

Specifically, GSR’s role is to:

  • provide analytical insight to enable decision makers to understand systems, processes and change associated with people, groups, organisations and society – their attitudes, perceptions, behaviours and intentions – to inform and improve the quality of strategy, delivery and policy debate decision-making
  • anticipate and evaluate the impact of government decisions, understand ‘what works, for whom, to what extent, in what contexts, how and why/why not?’
  • provide expert social research advice and evidence to design, challenge, reduce risk, trial, improve quality and implement government strategy and policy
  • maintain and grow social research professional skills, knowledge and expertise
  • represent society through our membership profile and the work that we do.

The current Learning Frameworks contract is ending on 30 April 2026. This change will impact when you can book learning linked to our Professions pages. To support you with this transition, any courses impacted by the change will display a notice.

The final date for bookings is 30 April 2026, with learning required to start by 31 July 2026 and finish by 31 January 2027. After this deadline, new bookings will resume after the new contract starts.

These changes are happening across a series of waves and more information can be found here. The products in Wave 1 will not be available to book from 30 June 2025, and products in Wave 2 will not be available to book from 1 November 2025. The products in Wave 3 will need to start by 30 April 2026 and therefore we recommend bookings are made six weeks before this, by 19 March 2026.