Run in conjunction with the ESRC-funded UK Data Service, the Changing Perceptions Challenge 2021 asks 16-19 year old school and college students nationwide to write a short essay of between 500-750 words looking at public and media attitudes to immigration, and comparing them to real-life data and academic research. Entrants also have to come up with a campaign to communicate the positive economic impacts of immigration to their target audience.
The Changing Perceptions Challenge 2021 aims to encourage engagement with data-driven research along with creative thinking about changing public perceptions of immigration and the economy. Opinion polls consistently find the UK public believes immigration has a negative impact on the economy, job opportunities and wages. Yet economic research shows the opposite.
For example, research suggests a 1% increase in the share of the population who are immigrants leads to a 2 to 3% rise in productivity, while a study at the University of Oxford found that, in the 2015-16 financial year leading up to the Brexit referendum, EU immigrants paid £242bn more in taxes than they received.