Professor Alasdair Rutherford

Professor

Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology Colin Bell Building, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Alasdair Rutherford

Contact details

About me

Alasdair Rutherford is a Professor of Social Statistics at the University of Stirling. His work focusses on using data to better understand major challenges in charities and nonprofits, data-driven regulation, health & ageing, social care, and volunteering. His research uses administrative and survey data to tackle big questions. Alasdair's teaching is mainly applied statistics for social scientists, and he has also been involved in a number of initiatives to build data analysis skills amongst third sector practitioners.

"I describe myself as an 'altruistic economist', if you can believe such a thing exists. That's because I am primarily interested in pro-social behaviour, and how that is expressed through charity, volunteering and caring. I try to use big data - all sorts of data - to better understand patterns in this sort of helping, and to try and shape the policies and systems that support it."

Current and recent research projects include:

Watch a recent webinar on data visualisation for third sector organisations:

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Alasdair's academic background includes economics, sociology, psychology and artificial intelligence. Prior to becoming an academic, he worked for seven years in marketing and fundraising for a large social care charity. He has been in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Stirling since 2013.
 
Alasdair is part of the Centre for Population Change; the Scottish Civil Society Data Partnership; and the Scottish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (HAGIS). He was also involved in the Scottish Administrative Data Research Centre.
 
Alasdair sits on the Scottish Third Sector Research Forum and the NCVO Research Advisory Group. He is a board member of the Stirling Carers Centre, and managing director of the social enterprise Socialudo. He has previously sat on the Scottish Informatics and Linkage Collaboration Strategic Management Board; and the trustee boards of Age Scotland, Hanover Scotland; the Bumblebee Conservation Trust; and the Broomhouse Centre.

His teaching with the Faculty of Social Sciences includes quantitative methods; data visualisation; and volunteering & the voluntary sector.  Alasdair teaches on the MSc Applied Social Research; the MSc Social Statistics; and the BA (Hons) Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology.

Alasdair's research is mainly applied econometric work using large national datasets, including both social surveys and administrative data. His research interests include charities and nonprofits, data-driven regulation, health & ageing, social care, and volunteering, with an emphasis on the implications for public policy.

Alasdair is interested in research collaborations and PhD students projects in the fields of:

  • charities and third sector: measurement, employment & workforce, finance, volunteering, risk & resilience, regulation

  • health and ageing: employment, care, retirement, housing

  • social care: measurement, costs, workforce

  • data: methods, causal estimation, visualisation, capacity building

  • games: serious games, sociology of games, use of games in teaching
      

Selected research projects:

Civil Society Data ISPA DesHCA CPC HAGIS

| Organisational data on the third sector | Intersectional Stigma of Place-based Ageing (ISPA) | Designing Homes For Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA) | Connecting Generations | Healthy AGeing In Scotland (HAGIS)

Find out how we are using large survey data to understand patterns of stigma, disability and ageing in the ISPA project:

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Alasdair works with a range of research methods, including:

  • causal estimation: regression discontinuity; interrupted time series; and instrumental variables
  • data visualisation: including animated and interactive visualisations of complex patterns
  • serious games: as a tool for both research and engagement

You can find his publicly available code shared at GitHub.
  

Within the Faculty of Social Sciences, Alasdair is a member of the Social Statistics & Social Surveys research group; the Dementia & Social Gerontology research group; and the Public Services & Governance research group.

  

PhD Supervision

Current PhD Students

  • Louise Macaulay  "Overcoming Barriers to Labour Market Entry amongst People with Disabilities and Long-term Health Conditions and their Unpaid Carers"

  • Claire Stuart  "Charity Trustees, Governance and Accountability in Scottish Charities: Modelling Trustee Dynamics Using Linked Regulator Data"

Completed PhD Students

  • Stacey McNicol (2023) "A Life Lived for Others: Volunteering Participation and Transitions in Older Age"

  • Dr Paul Henery (2022)  "Pathways through Care: Health, Social Care and Multimorbidity"

  • Dr Craig Docherty (2021) "Exploring the use of Games and Gamification for Public Engagement in Tree and Plant Health"

  • Dr Alana McGuire (2020)  "Impact of New Information Technologies and 'Big Data' on Skill Requirements"

  • Dr Nur Azam Perai  (2020) "The Malaysian Third Sector: An Investigation from a Historical and Cultural Perspective"

  • Dr Elizabeth Lemmon (2019) "Understanding the Link Between Health and Social Care: A Quantitative Approach"

  • Dr Tom Wallace (2019)  “Trust in the data: External data use by the Scottish third sector”

  • Dr Diarmuid McDonnell  (2017) “Risk and Resilience in Scottish Charities”

  • Dr Jessie Azong (2015) "Economic Policy, Childcare and the Unpaid Economy: Exploring Gender Equality in Scotland"

  • Dr John Marecki  (2015) "Investigating a Structural Model of Addiction Stigma related to Student Perceptions towards Persons Addicted to Heroin"

Award

VSSN Campbell Adamson Memorial 'Best Paper' Prize

VSSN Campbell Adamson Memorial 'Best Paper' Prize

Outstanding Research Leadership, Research Culture Awards

Community Contribution

Board Member of the Broomhouse Centre

Board Member of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

Board Member of Hanover Housing (Scotland)

Board Member of Age Scotland

Board Member of Stirling Carers Centre

Board member, Socialudo Ltd

Member of NCVO’s Research Advisory Group

Member of the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Research Forum

Member of UK Dept. Culture, Media & Sport Civil Society Stakeholder Group (CSSG) Data and Evidence Working Group

External Examiners and Validations

External Examiner, University of Edinburgh

Other Academic Activities

Member, SGSSS DTP Training Implementation Working Group

Member, ISTR publications committee

Research programmes

Research centres/groups

Research themes