The Centre for Voluntary Action Studies promotes, develops and conducts research on voluntary action as a contribution to scholarship and as a resource for social and public policy and for the voluntary sector in both parts of Ireland and internationally.

CVAS contributes to increasing knowledge and understanding of voluntary action by means of research and develops links with research users (especially including policy-makers, administrators, and policy implementers in the voluntary and community sector and in government), and with colleagues in the research community throughout Ireland and in other countries.

Strategic Research Themes include:

• Governance and Civil Society
  • The Values of Volunteering: Towards Basic Principles: Complacency or Caution?
  • The Voluntary and Community Sector in Northern Ireland: Developments 1995/96 - 2001
  • Governance and Democracy in Northern Ireland: The Role of the Voluntary and Community Sector after the Agreement.
  • The Voluntary and Community Sector in Northern Ireland: Political Development and New Forms of Governance, 1970-2000.
  • Rebuilding Civil Society in Northern Ireland: The Community and Voluntary Sector’s Contribution to the European Union’s Peace and Reconciliation District Partnership Programme
  • Making Government Volunteering Policies More Effective: Research Evidence from Northern Ireland
  • Voluntary Action and European Social Partnerships in Ireland, North and South
  • Fledgling Social Partnership in the Irish Border Region: European Union Community Initiatives and the Voluntary Sector
    
    
• The Legal Framework of Voluntary Action
  • Charity Law in Northern Ireland
  • Charity Law and the Legal Framework for Voluntary Action in Ireland
  • Jurisdictional Differences in Charity Law on the Island of Ireland
    
    
• Social Inclusion and Voluntary Action
  • Youth Empowerment through Volunteering
  • Churches and Social Capital
  • Disability and Voluntary Action in Northern Ireland
  • The Role of Voluntary Organisations in Furthering the Social Inclusion of Marginalised Groups in Local Communities: The Case of Disabled People.
  • Public Participation in Rural Regeneration
  • Training Needs of Board Members of Housing Associations in Northern Ireland
  • Housing Associations in the Republic of Ireland: Responding to Challenge from Government.
  • The Changing Role of Third Sector Housing Organisations in Ireland: A Study of Voluntary Action in Contrasting Policy Settings.
  • Empowering People: Community Development and Conflict in Northern Ireland, 1969-1999
  • Voluntary Action and Social Policy in Northern Ireland
  • Voluntary Action, Health and Social Well-Being in the Derry City Council

CVAS has collaborative links with the London School of Economics, Oxford Brookes University, George Washington University and University College Dublin, among others.

For more detailed information on CVAS click on the following links:

• CVAS: Background
• CVAS: People
• CVAS: Advisory Committee
• CVAS: Publications
• CVAS: Events .... details on conferences, visits and other events.