Government Social Research
You will be a member of the Institute of Education's Doctoral School and the Faculty of Policy and Society.
The Faculty of Policy and Society is one of the Institute of Education's three faculties with approximately 150 academic, research and support staff. The Centre for Longitudinal Analysis, along with staff from the Department of Quantitative Social Science, have over recent years provided the teaching for the Institute's Doctoral School courses in statistics, multivariate analyses and survey methods which contribute to the ESRC-recognised Masters in Research Methods and a Doctoral programme in research methods training.
The Department of Quantitative Social Science is responsible for course leadership for an MA and MSc in the Economics of Education and a module on Quantitative Evaluation Methodology. Staff also assist with courses run from other Schools in the Institute. There are approximately 12 doctoral students registered in these two departments, covering a range of ESRC-funded studentships and charity-funded studentships.
The Institute of Education’s Faculty of Policy and Society hosts a number major Research Centre groupings which will be relevant for students: the ESRC Resource Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), the DCSF-funded Research Centre on the Wider Benefits of Learning (WBL), the DCSF-funded Centre for the Economics of Education (CEE), and the DIUS-funded National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC).
Research activities are multidisciplinary and focus principally on longitudinal studies and especially the British Birth Cohort Studies. These research resources track individuals over time to support study of progress in education, health, employment, skills, relationships, family formation, attitudes etc. CLS is concerned with statistical methods and with the application of the evidence to a number of policy issues. Analyses of these longitudinal data have made substantial contributions to policy debates in the past and are likely to continue to do so.