Director of the research centre that manages Next Steps awarded CBE

Professor Alissa Goodman, Director of the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), where Next Steps is based, has been awarded a CBE for her services to social science in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021.

As Professor of Economics and Director of CLS, Alissa leads some of the UK’s longest running national longitudinal studies:

• 1958 National Child Development Study (people born in 1958)
• 1970 British Cohort Study (people born in 1970)
• Next Steps (that’s you!)
• Child of the New Century (people born in 2000-01)

These studies collect valuable data for use by scientists working in many different fields in the UK and beyond these shores. Alissa’s own research has focussed on inequality and poverty, and how advantage and disadvantage are passed on from one generation to the next. Before joining UCL, she was a deputy director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Commenting on her award, Professor Goodman said: “I’m hugely honoured to have received this award, and immensely grateful to the many thousands of cohort study participants up and down the country, who have given up their time generously since they were children and over the course of their lives, to take part in research that changes lives and gives the most marginalised in society a voice.

“I’m also so grateful to all my wonderful colleagues at CLS, who work with such dedication and passion to develop these fantastic cohort studies, that make up such a unique and important part of the UK’s data infrastructure.

“We’ve had a tremendous response to our special COVID-19 surveys, which are shining a light on how long-standing inequalities have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and we’re also working on assessing the feasibility of a major new birth cohort study, to capture the experiences of a new generation of babies being born in the UK at such a critical time.”