More Social Science Training in Wales
Our colleagues at the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data & Methods (WISERD) offer a series of workshops, seminars and conferences, aimed at those with an interest in the social sciences.
The Learned Society of Wales are one of our strategic partners and have a national Early Career Researchers Network for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to meet, learn and collaborate. This interdisciplinary network is open to anyone who self-identifies as an ECR in Wales. Registration is free and the network offers ECRs a focussed programme of activities to strengthen researchers’ skills and capacity. You can also sign up to the LSW Newsletter to be kept up to date with their news and events.
For scholars studying through the medium of Welsh, those who are learning the language and those who might be using it in some of their day-to-day research activities, the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol creates training and study opportunities by working with further education colleges, universities, apprenticeship providers and employers to inspire and encourage everyone to use their Welsh skills, with the aim of creating a bilingual workforce. They offer a range of training opportunities through the Porth resources and regular events.
Many of our other strategic partners offer bespoke training related to their specific aims and objectives, and these can be accessed by browsing their web pages or by contacting our WGSSS Training Lead.
Social Science Training Across the UK
The ESRC funds a range of data and methods services to support research and study. It provides resources needed to access high quality socio-economic data and to develop research skills. These services are:
- The UK Data Service: provides access to a collection of over 6,000 high quality socio-economic data sets. It supports data users and works to improve data management.
- The Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) manages four British cohort studies: the 1958 National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps, and the Millennium Cohort Study.
- CLOSER supports the use of longitudinal research. Key resources include reading lists and summaries of findings, and a search portal to help find out what data has been collected across all nine studies in the CLOSER partnership.
- Understanding Society is a major longitudinal survey of around 40,000 UK households. The site contains information on the survey, as well as research articles, reports and policy briefings based on this survey.
- The Administrative Data Research Network enables accredited researchers to securely access de-identified administrative data for research that has potential benefit to society.
- Census and Administrative data LongitudinaL Studies Hub enables researchers to access census based longitudinal data selected from census records over time as well as linked material from other administrative datasets (such as health data).
- The Social Research Association is the professional membership body for social researchers and offers a programme to support their professional development.
- The National Centre for Research Methods supports researchers in developing their research skills. It hosts an extensive database of research methods training courses (see below).
Each service provides support and delivers training, including joint training and can be contacted if you are interested in bespoke training.
The National Centre for Research Methods
The National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) run their own training events. As a postgraduate social science researcher at a UK based higher education institution, you can attend these at a cost of no more than £30 per day.
The NCRM also list research methods training offered by the entire UK-wide network of Doctoral Training Centres.
All of these, and many other events, can be viewed in NCRM training database.