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The purpose of this study is to reveal the dynamics of house prices and sales in spatial and temporal dimensions across British regions.

This paper incorporates two empirical approaches to describe the behaviour of property prices across British regions. The models are applied to two different data sets. The first empirical approach is to apply the price diffusion model proposed by Holly et al. (2011) to the UK house price index data set. The second empirical approach is to apply a bivariate global vector autoregression model without a time trend to house prices and transaction volumes retrieved from the nationwide building society.

Identifying shocks to London house prices in the GVAR model, based on the generalized impulse response functions framework, I find some heterogeneity in responses to house price changes; for example, South East England responds stronger than the remaining provincial regions. The main pattern detected in responses and characteristic for each region is the fairly rapid fading of the shock. The spatial-temporal diffusion model demonstrates the presence of a ripple effect: a shock emanating from London is dispersed contemporaneously and spatially to other regions, affecting prices in nondominant regions with a delay.

The main contribution of this work is the betterment in understanding how house price changes move across regions and time within a UK context.

This study aims to examine the drivers of membership at the micro-level to influence club retention rates and promote positive health-related behaviours through encouraging active member participation.

The data for this study (n = 197) was obtained from four martial arts groups in Melbourne, Australia. Self-administered questionnaires assessed the importance of personal benefits, risk taking, personal values and enjoyment of specific benefits.

Hierarchical analysis identified shared values, excitement (ß = −0.066, p < 0.05), sense of belonging (ß = 0.644, p < 0.05), enjoyment of activities (ß = 0.179, p < 0.05), fitness level (ß = 0.564, p < 0.05), belt status (ß = 0.466 p < 0.05) and the expectations of instructor (ß = 0.144 p < 0.05) and others (ß = 0.483 p < 0.05) as predictors in attracting and retaining club membership. Adult Australians share socio-demographic characteristics and common desires to attain specific benefits which appear to evolve, as membership is not perceived as an interim engagement but rather as a lifelong lifestyle choice.

By advocating positive associations between lifetime membership and active participation, social marketing campaigns can inform and contribute towards a knowledge base for sports clubs to develop targeted strategies and practices towards membership retention.

This study contributes to evidence-based social marketing approaches in an era of ageing demographics, where there remains a need to learn more about how to manage active memberships to promote healthy lifestyles and well-being at a national, community and individual level. The approach of exploring club membership at micro-level to inform tailored macro-level strategic health-related messages is also novel.

“My Story” is based on a life story approach. This study aims to facilitate therapeutic alliances by providing a format for older and younger people to interact.

Three pairings were studied to explore the experiences of the older and younger person using “My Story”. The focus of the case studies was on how and if any therapeutic alliance emerged.

This study found that in the two of the pairings, “My Story” helped to create a bond and mutual benefit for the participants’ central to a therapeutic alliance. This led one of the pairings to develop into an intergenerational friendship and potentially help with loneliness.

As this was an exploratory and small pilot, more cases and research are required to fully assess if “My Story” is a useful approach to develop intergenerational befriending.

Intergenerational befriending may be one solution that could help with loneliness and social isolation through forming a therapeutic alliance to make the befriending successful.

Loneliness and social isolation for older people remain a problem.

An original pilot was undertaken to test the approach by bringing together older people identified as lonely by a voluntary sector provider and pairing these with a student volunteer. The students visited the older person over six weeks to discuss their life story and create an artefact based on the story for the older person.

The skillsets of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates are widely recognised to be important for economic prosperity. At the same time, it is broadly accepted that in England there is a need to increase the number of people studying STEM degree courses and working in STEM. However, despite decades of interventions post-16, STEM participation rates remain lower than projected requirements. Some research reports suggest a lack of positive attitudes towards these subjects and aspirations amongst some social groups. As these debates continue, official reports such as those released by the Department for Education show these patterns from the labour market and higher education (HE) extend to both attainment and participation in science and math in school.

In this paper, the authors summarise the authors' findings from the analysis of official reports, policy documents and major research reports focussing on attainment in school science and math and post-compulsory STEM participation.

The authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.

Some aspects identified here warrant further research and will be of particular interest to researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

In this new report, the authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle in England and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.