SEEBOHM Rowntree’s groundbreaking study of poverty in York in 1901 resulted in the city becoming a key testing ground for social studies over the following century.

Now, leading researchers from the University of York are set to identify and catalogue all the social and urban research carried out in York over the years.

The academics, from the Centre for Urban Research, the Social Policy Research Unit and the Centre for Housing Policy, aim to produce a searchable archive which will act as a useful public resource.

Spokesman Dr Rowland Atkinson said: “Since Seebohm Rowntree’s ‘Poverty: A Study of Town Life’, was published in 1901, York has been hugely influential for research on key social questions today.

“The city of York has been the object of many major social studies conducted both by the university and a number of key social reformers which have been essential to the development of the social sciences.”

He said the city had been a kind of testing ground, in which methods and techniques of social research had been developed.

“These studies have helped us better understand the places in which we live,” he said.

“The legacy of early pioneers like Rowntree, who used York as a kind of social laboratory, digging beneath the public image of the city to reveal a range of social problems, has been influential in the development of social policy interventions.”

Meanwhile, the pioneering work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will also be celebrated at two York Festival of Ideas focus days.

The first today explores its work in raising awareness of the perils and potential of an ageing society through its Better Life website while the second, on Saturday, will focus on architecture and celebrates its work in developing social housing.

•Anyone who can help identify social studies using York can contact Dr Atkinson on rowland.atkinson@york.ac.uk or phone 01904 324742.