Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
New report on government commissioning of social research
A UK study into government commissioning of social research has concluded that any of the three procurement methods currently used can be […]
Speech by UK universities minister on longitudinal studies and social mobility
In a speech this week in London – against a backdrop of students protesting noisily about government cuts to higher education – […]
“Research matters: Graduates with quantitive methods skills are increasingly sought after”
Ricky Rylance writes in the Independent about the value of quantitive methods to social science students. “Mention quantitive methods to any social […]
Census and Society: why everyone counts
2011 has been the year of the population survey. The UK saw its most detailed census to date. Understanding Society, a huge […]
Can a single case be used to test theory?
This post is by Richard Nielsen on the Social Science Statistics Blog, hosted by the Institute for Quantitative Science at Harvard University. Every so often, […]
Playing the numbers game in policy
The statistical illiteracy of the population – including policy-makers – was the subject of a discussion at the British Library on 13 […]
In front of one’s nose
With the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, many prominent public figures declared that America had “entered a ‘post-racial’ era.” But as sociologists Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and David Dietrich argue, “racial oppression is still systematic in America.”
How tobacco warnings labels impact smokers
The University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted a controlled experimental study of over 5300 smokers regarding reactions to tobacco warnings labels. Their findings reveal […]
