The guidance under discussion is available here.

Nicole Smyth, Customer Insight, Holland & Barrett
Nicole Smyth is an experienced Insight leader, having worked client-side within a number of UK and Global retailers, including ASDA, George Clothing and Debenhams, and most recently leading Strategic Insights at Holland & Barrett. With a passion for ensuring research is inclusive and representative, Nicole is involved with a number of EDI initiatives, including recently working alongside Clare Woodward (BT) to update the MRS client-side EDI Best Practice guides. Alongside this, Nicole is also leading EDI initiatives within Holland & Barrett to create insight team and agency guidelines focussed on improving representation in all areas of research and analysis.

Clare Woodward, Enterprise Insight Manager, BT
Clare Woodward is an experienced clientside research currently working for BT across B2B and B2C research projects. With a focus on ensuring research and the research industry are inclusive across both practices and culture, Clare is the original author of the MRS Clientside EDI Best Practice guides first published in May 2022 (and believed to the first of their kind!). Working alongside Nicole Smyth (Holland and Barrett) the guides have recently be reviewed and updated and will be relaunched following the MRS Clientside Conference. Clare is also a part of the MRS People and Talent workgroup and chairs the New and Returning Talent subgroup.

Megan Cross, is People Director for Finance & Legal and Head of Inclusion & Diversity at Kantar. Megan is passionate about building inclusive, engaging and high-performing cultures.

• Why are clients approaching generative AI with caution?
• How can small agencies use AI to punch above their weight and win new clients?
• Are fully autonomous research agents the future of market research? 

The group discusses the findings from an MRS Delphi Group report AI: Adoption & Integration - where are we now?

Download the report for free here mrs.org.uk/adoption

Host: Christian Walsh, Content & Digital Director, MRS

Panel:
Adelynne Chao, Founder, Untold Insights
Gemma Proctor, Associate Partner, PA Consulting
Patrick Alacantara, Strategic Customer Insight Lead, AXA

Talking to Dr Mark Thorpe, Board Director, Truth.

But what do we mean by synthetic data? Are we just talking about filling gaps and augmenting real data based on primary research, or are we proposing to take the human out of the picture altogether, and just ask questions of ChatGPT or another similar large language model? 

What are the opportunities for the industry, and what are the risks for clients? Can AI convincingly simulate a customer? What are the ethical and legal implications of doing this?

The MRS Delphi Group has published a report ‘Using synthetic participants for market research' which is referenced during this podcast.

Host:
Christian Walsh, Content & Digital Director, MRS

Guests:
Reena Sooch, Partner, Day One Strategy

Ray Poynter, Founder of The Future Place, President of ESOMAR and Fellow of MRS 

Colin Strong, Head of Behavioural Science at Ipsos, Honorary professor at Nottingham University, Fellow of MRS and Chair of the MRS Delphi Group.

Barely a week passes on research-live.com without a new deal being announced. Just look at the dozens of notable sales in 2019: including Kantar to Bain Capital; Join the Dots to InSites; and Com Res to Savanta. The list goes on... 

The market research industry is consolidating more rapidly than ever before. According to the Research Live Industry Report 2020, research agencies in the UK generate more than £5bn turnover every year. And over half of that comes from the top 10 agencies. 

In this podcast we want to find out what the impact of this consolidation is on the people in the companies that are being bought and merged. 

We’ll also hear what it’s like for buyers of research - are clients getting what they want from fewer, larger suppliers? 

Ultimately, who are the winners and who are the losers in this new climate of deal making?

Host: Christian Walsh, Digital Director, Market Research Society (MRS)

Guests:

Rhea Fox – Head of Insight and Strategy at Aviva and member of MRS Delphi Group
Angela Morgans, Regional MD for Europe at Metrixlab
Jon Priest, former-ceo of Future Thinking and now Director of Capel Partners

We may feel that many battles have been won – everyone is talking about diversity; laws are in place and doors have been opened. But when we dig below the surface the picture is less positive.

According to Stonewall, 62% of graduates go back into the closet when they enter the job market.

Almost half of 18- to 24-year-olds identifying as something other than 100% heterosexual.

And a recent YouGov study found that almost two in five Brits don’t think it’s appropriate for colleagues to be out in the workplace. 

To discuss all this, today's guests are:

Chantel Le Carpentier, project manager at YouGov
Michelle Fan, senior strategist in semiotics at Flamingo
Alex Turk, associate director at ICM Unlimited

The host is Jane Bainbridge, Head of Editorial for Impact magazine and Research-Live.com, both of which are published by the Market Research Society (MRS).

The MRS Delphi Group is a collection of the most respected thinkers in the research, insight and data analytics sector.

The host is Christian Walsh, Digital Director at the Market Research Society (MRS).

The MRS Delphi Group is a collection of the most respected thinkers in the research, insight and data analytics sector.