Informing Public Policy: new agendas for social research

Last week I was one of some 190+ attendees at the Informing Public Policy conference: a two day event organized by NatCen and the LSE, and sponsored by SAGE.

The conference looked back at the role of social research over the last 100 years, and importantly what impact it has had in contributing to social policy. Speakers looked at healthcare, education, criminology and more, examining some of the key contributors and the changes in approach. Panelists also looked at how social research should contribute to social policy ongoing. There were many different approaches considered from diverse viewpoints, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.

Being the largest publisher in research methods it wasn’t surprising that many of the speakers over the two days were well known to us, several as authors of some of our 1200+ titles in research methods. We were delighted to have an opportunity to demonstrate Methodspace to delegates at the conference, and to live blog through the conference directly onto the site.

You can read our summaries of the different sessions here. If you attended the event, let us know what you made of the discussion.

If you’re attending an event, why not blog about your experiences, share your viewpoints and discuss the sessions with other attendees on Methodspace?