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A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Latest Articles

Browse all the articles published on the Research Matters blog, with the most recent articles appearing at the top.

Image of the 'Harvests from Land and Sea' exhibition at Down County Museum (image used courtesy of Down County Museum)

Measuring museum success: How and why?

Northern Ireland (NI) currently has 44 Accredited museums. But how does this compare with elsewhere and how should we go about assessing whether our museums

Where and why does Invest NI invest in NI?

This post examines financial support provided by Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI) to businesses located in Northern Ireland (NI) from 2013-14 to 2017-18, identifying key

A photograph showing Market Square in Lisburn (credit: Albert Bridge)

What are rates and why do we pay them?

Rates are a property tax paid by households and businesses. There are two different types of rates in Northern Ireland, domestic rates for residential properties

A photograph showing a selection of titles from the 100 classification in the Assembly Library; in the Dewey Decimal system, 100 is used to classify philosophy and psychology

Research Matters at 100

Our blog has just published its 100th article. The Assembly Research and Information Service launched Research Matters in May 2016 in order to provide short,

An image of an empty wallet

Reclaiming the power of the purse

Half way through the fiscal year, Northern Ireland (NI) still has no 2017-18 budget. A previous blog, Who has the power of the purse if

A primary school pupil working on the topic of rainforests as part of the World Around Us

Are composite classes bad for children?

In 2016 the former Minister for Education, Peter Weir MLA, spoke of wanting to address composite classes, whereby a single teacher is responsible for two