Fifteen universities across the UK will receive £19.5 million to overhaul their social science […]

I am a Qualitative Social Scientist. I believe in that words tell you more than numbers and the emphasis on numbers in my current working environment has led me to think about why I feel so strongly about the importance of words and what Qualitative Social Science can offer the Commercial world. This leads me to make suggestions for ECRs considering leaving the Academy.

Quantitative Skills (QS) give ‘empirical grit’ to the work of charities and third sector organisations. Here, Sharon Witherspoon, Director of the Nuffield Foundation and 2011 Winner of the British Academy President’s Medal and Aleks Collingwood, Programme Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, explain how QS have been crucial to their careers.