In this new phase the ESRC Ntional Centre for Research Methods Centre will focus on the provision of training to advance methodological understanding and practice across all sectors, disciplines and career stages in the UK.
Capturing methodological developments from the social science research community and beyond, the NCRM will build on the success of their existing training programme to deliver a comprehensive, significantly expanded programme of cutting-edge research methods training. In addition to delivering face-to-face and online short courses, the NCRM will also develop online and blended learning resources which will be embedded in a new online training portal providing a mixture of standalone instant access materials as well as whole modules based within a VLE. NCRM will closely engage with key stakeholders across sectors and disciplines to advance training in research methods.
This new phase of the NCRM will be launched on their YouTube chanel on Thursday 9th July 2020 at 5.00pm.
To view this launch, please follow the link below:
Launch programme
- Introduction and new phase overview by Professor Gabriele Durrant, Director of NCRM
- New NCRM branding and introduction to the functionality and design of the new NCRM portal by Professor David Martin, Co-Director of NCRM and Dr Eva Nedbalova, Communications Manager
- The future of research methods – a funder’s perspective, a talk by Professor Alison Park, Director of Research at the ESRC
- New ‘In Conversation’ video podcast with Professor Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford and Professor Vernon Gayle, University of Edinburgh.
Key Speakers:
Professor Alison Park is Director of Research and joined ESRC in January 2019. Prior to joining ESRC she was the Director of CLOSER (Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources), a significant ESRC-funded collaboration based at UCL Institute of Education. CLOSER brings together eight leading UK longitudinal studies, the British Library and the UK Data Service to maximise the use, value and impact of longitudinal studies by stimulating longitudinal research, developing and sharing resources, and providing training. Prior to joining UCL, Alison led a research team at NatCen Social Research where she designed and oversaw the conduct of a number of key government and academic studies, and the analysis of their findings. These included qualitative and quantitative studies. It is fair to say her work had a focus on large scale ongoing social surveys such as Understanding Society, the British Social Attitudes Survey, the British Election Survey, and the European Social Survey. Perhaps not surprisingly, given this background, Alison has a longstanding interest in research methods and experimentation, in large scale data collection and tracking change over time, and the importance of ensuring that wherever possible research is carried out with a keen eye on it having an impact on policy and practice. Alison was awarded a CBE for services to social sciences in the 2018 New Year Honours and is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences.
Professor Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. His broad portfolio of research concerns social inequalities in housing, health, employment, education and poverty. Danny Dorling grew up in Oxford and studied Geography at the University of Newcastle. He has held positions at the Universities of Newcastle, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield, before moving to his current post at the University of Oxford. Danny Dorling has prolific academic output. Google scholar calculates that he has an h index of 77, and nearly 700 citations in 2020 (even though we are only halfway through the year). His recent books include Injustice: Why Social Inequalities Persist, So You Think You Know About Britain, Fair Play, and The No-Nonsense Guide to Equality. Danny’s new book Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration – and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy and Our Lives was published by Yale University Press. We will hear more about this work in the In conversation video. Danny Dorling is a public intellectual who makes frequent appearances in print, and on the radio and television. He has also been a friend of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods and delivered the 2018 NCRM annual lecture where he discussed how analyses of different national economic policies can act as real-life experiments demonstrating economic inequalities.
