Dr Eddy Hogg

Dr Eddy Hogg is a Lecturer in Social Policy and Director of Studies for Social Policy and Health and Social Care. 

His research looks at volunteering, charitable giving and public attitudes to the voluntary sector. His research interests include volunteering across the lifecourse, on volunteering and charitable giving for public services, on youth volunteering, on the value of charity involvement in supporting young people, on attitudes towards charity regulation in England and Wales and, on charity engagement with the Fundraising Regulator. 

Prior to joining Kent, Dr Hogg completed his PhD at Northumbria University in 2012, which looked at how volunteering undertaken by older adults relates to their volunteering and other work activities across the lifecourse. This research was undertaken in collaboration with Age UK and funded by an ESRC CASE Studentship.  

Dr Hogg’s recent research projects have explored: 

• Charitable giving and volunteering in schools, work which found that schools in deprived areas receive considerably less donated income or voluntary support. The UK Government is increasingly encouraging voluntary action as a response to depleting school budgets – our work suggests this would substantially increase inequality. 

• Volunteering within the National Health Service, exploring the roles that volunteering plays and the impact this has on volunteers, patients and on the NHS as a whole. 

• Social class differences in engagement in volunteering by adolescents. This finds that when pathways to volunteering are through schools, there are no statistically significant differences in engagement between young people from different social backgrounds. When community groups, clubs and organisations are the main pathway, significant class differences emerge. 

• Public attitudes towards charity regulation in England and Wales, in response to a proposal by the Charity Commission to charge charities to support the cost of regulation. It found that donors were broadly happy to support charities paying a small fee, if that money was invested in robust and supportive regulation. 

• Charity engagement with the new Fundraising Regulator in England and Wales, which found that the use of name and shame tactics for organisations refusing to pay the ‘voluntary’ levy have been successful, at least initially. 

Dr Hogg teaches a range of undergraduate modules which explore the voluntary sector and volunteering, including two modules which support students in undertaking volunteering within the local community and one which provides students with the opportunity to undertake a research project in collaboration with a voluntary organisation. 

Dr Hogg has contributed to articles in The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Charity Times and Kent on Sunday. 

He has appeared on BBC 5Live and a wide range of local BBC Radio stations discussing volunteering, charitable giving and the charity sector. 

He is an active member of the 'Voluntary Sector Studies Network' and the 'International Society for Third Sector Research' and is Book Reviews Editor for the journal Voluntary Sector Review. 

Additionally, he speaks regularly at events for voluntary sector practitioners, sharing research findings and exploring how these can translate into practice. These include events organised by the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, the Association of Volunteer Managers and the Sports Volunteering Research Network. 

• Think Kent lecture video - Voluntary Action in Primary Schools: An uneven playing field? (YouTube)
  
• Think Kent lecture video - The role of the voluntary sector (YouTube)