Impact

ESRC Festival of Social Science, and the ‘Big Data’ Debate

November 5, 2012 869

http://sageconnection.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/efss_2012_logo_rgb.png?w=300&h=241This week is the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science, an event that takes place all over the UK where social scientists get a chance to show their latest research directly to the public.

For a list of events, and to find something near you GO HERE, and visit the Festival’s website.

SAGE will be hosting a festival event tonight (Monday), jointly with the British Academy. Both SAGE and the British Academy have long supported the festival, which they “believe strongly helps to showcase the valuable work of the UK’s social scientists and demonstrate how their work has an impact on all our lives.”

The event this year concentrates on a truly ‘big’ topic for social scientists: ‘Big Data’. What opportunities does ‘Big Data’ offer to the social sciences?  What challenges are there, what skills, training and resources are needed? And what are the wider implications for public scrutiny and debate?

These challenges cannot be solved by the research community alone. We are therefore thrilled to have convened a panel that offers such a strong representation of the stakeholders engaged in social science, both from the research and policy perspective. These are:

  • Professor Paul Boyle, Chief Executive of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
  • Professor Harvey Goldstein FBA, Professor of Social Statistics at the University of Bristol and a leading expert on league tables.
  • Dr Farida Vis, a Research Fellow in the Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield who has been part of the Guardian newspaper’s groundbreaking Reading the Riots project – part of the team that examined 2.5 million riot tweets.
  • Paul Woobey, the Chief Information Officer (CIO), Director of the Strategy and Standards Directorate, Head of the IT Profession and Senior Information Risk Owner for the ONS.

The media also plays a key role in raising public engagement with Big Data, and as such SAGE and the Academy of Social Science invited Polly Toynbee, a political and social commentator for The Guardian, as the panel chair.

If you didn’t manage to register for a ticket, you can still follow the event on Twitter by following #BASAGE12.

Related Articles

Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa
Impact
March 27, 2024

Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa

Read Now
Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024: The Grandfather of Behavioral Economics
News
March 27, 2024

Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024: The Grandfather of Behavioral Economics

Read Now
A Community Call: Spotlight on Women’s Safety in the Music Industry 
Insights
March 22, 2024

A Community Call: Spotlight on Women’s Safety in the Music Industry 

Read Now
Using Translational Research as a Model for Long-Term Impact
Impact
March 21, 2024

Using Translational Research as a Model for Long-Term Impact

Read Now
Coping with Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

Coping with Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

Institutional complexity occurs when the structures, interests, and activities of separate but collaborating organizations—often across national and cultural boundaries—are not well aligned. Institutional voids in this context are gaps in function or capability, including skills gaps, lack of an effective regulatory regime, and weak contract-enforcing mechanisms.

Read Now
2024 Holberg Prize Goes to Political Theorist Achille Mbembe

2024 Holberg Prize Goes to Political Theorist Achille Mbembe

Political theorist and public intellectual Achille Mbembe, among the most read and cited scholars from the African continent, has been awarded the 2024 Holberg Prize.

Read Now
Charles V. Hamilton, 1929-2023: The Philosopher Behind ‘Black Power’

Charles V. Hamilton, 1929-2023: The Philosopher Behind ‘Black Power’

Political scientist Charles V. Hamilton, the tokenizer of the term ‘institutional racism,’ an apostle of the Black Power movement, and at times deemed both too radical and too deferential in how to fight for racial equity, died on November 18, 2023. He was 94.

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments