Uncategorized

Jo Bacon and Helen Bullock are joint heads of the Behavioural Insights team at the Department for Transport (DfT). In this interview they talk about their careers and current roles as well as how the job sharing arrangement works in practice.

Why did you chose social research as a career?

Helen – After completing my undergraduate degree in History, I embarked on a PhD programme where I was introduced to the wonderful world of social research methods and was instantly hooked. I became a Government Social Researcher in 1996, working on housing and homelessness issues in the then Department of Environment. I instantly recognised that as a Government Social Researcher, particularly designing research to shape policy decisions, I had found my perfect job! Several years on, and after working in a range of Government Departments, I am now at the Department for Transport.

Jo– I was working as a property market analyst and one day got chatting to someone who worked in government social research. I immediately knew that was what I wanted to do, so I gave up my job to do a full-time Masters degree in Social Research Methods. After that, I joined the Office for National Statistics, managing a large-scale social survey. I was attracted to a more policy-focused role, so I moved to the Department for Work and Pensions to work on welfare to work issues, then to the Department for Transport. Like Helen, what I love about being a government social researcher is the intellectual challenge of research design and analysis combined with the opportunity to make a difference to policy.

What is your current role?

We are joint heads of the Behavioural Insights team at the Department for Transport. Our team is based within a larger team of DfT social researchers. Our role is an exciting one that has involved promoting the use of behavioural insights across the Department, and ultimately establishing our team as the centre of expertise on behaviour change. Recent outputs include a Behavioural Change Toolkit, and a segmentation study of individuals (see http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/behavioural-insights-toolkit http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/climate-change-transport-choices-segmentation. We are currently working on a number of areas, such as applying behavioural insights to promoting the take up of electric vehicles and a potential segmentation of businesses.

How does the job sharing arrangement work in practice: what are the pros and cons?

We’d worked in the same unit (though in different teams) at DfT for a few years before the job share came about. The job share started when we each returned from maternity leave on a part-time basis. There are different models of job-sharing, ranging from roles that involve shared objectives, responsibilities and accountability, to job splits (that in many ways are two part-time jobs being undertaken in parallel). Our particular model is closer to the former model – although the majority of our objectives are shared, we still have scope to pursue individual goals. This arrangement works really effectively for us. There are a number of factors that have helped: we have similar levels of experience and, importantly, we trust each other’s judgement and decisions. Good clear communication is also important. We provide each other with clear handovers, enabling each other to quickly get up to speed with what has happened while the other is away.

There are many advantages to job-sharing, both to the job-sharers and the employer. It opens up high profile jobs that would be more difficult to undertake on a part-time basis. We also think that it’s a classic case of two brains being better than one, and we both value being able to use each other as a sounding board to inform key decisions. The arrangement also makes us more resilient if ever there are unexpected absences.

It's hard to identify any significant problems, and the advantages definitely outweigh any disadvantages. The one day a week that we are both in the office is always incredibly busy with meetings, but we have got better at only doubling up at meetings where our combined presence is absolutely essential.

Do you see this as being a long term arrangement ?

Of course, there will be factors arising over the coming years that might mean that a job share is no longer appropriate for our needs, but for the moment the arrangement is working well, so we hope it will continue for a good while yet.

What advice do you have for anyone considering a job share to fill a social research role?

Job-sharing is working really well for us, and so we would definitely encourage part-time workers to consider job-sharing if appropriate to their circumstances. Our impression is that there are lots of part-time social researchers out there who would be interested in job sharing. It would be great if there was some way of putting potential job share partners in touch with each other.

The key selling points for employers must be increased ability to attract and retain experienced high calibre staff and the higher levels of resilience and flexibility that having two people can offer.

Interview by Gillian Smith

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

I had thought of becoming a teacher and also a career in architecture had always appealed.

So when did you first turn towards a social research career?

When I was completing my Masters in the Sociology of Education at KeeleUniversity I became involved in a small-scale research project on how young people experienced their training, funded by a Training & Enterprise Council (TEC) with CSRE (the Centre for Social Research in Education) lead by Prof Dennis Gleeson. My job was to make notes on the interviews with young people that were conducted by the researchers and I also was tasked with coding and entering all of the data form a set of around 400 in-depth questionnaires.

What was your first professional job?  And first project there?

I stayed at Keele and  worked on a Nuffield-funded research project looking at Education Action Zones and then was appointed as Research Assistant on a OU funded-project looking at the transition experiences of young people as they moved from school to work.

What has been your best professional moment?

Best moment – working on a DfID-funded project on the use of ICT to support the learning of rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the project was the development of health and agriculture modules (by in-country academics) and then the piloting of these. We met with a small group of mothers, one of who said that the learning materials that had been developed had for the first time helped her to understand the link between the health of her young children and basic hygiene and cleanliness. For me, this connection of research to practice has been the most important aspect of anything I have worked on.

...and worst?

Worst  moment –there have been so many! I guess sending out many 100s of paper copies of a questionnaire to schools and realising that the middle pages had been omitted. Or, travelling for over 8 hours (with delayed trains and flooding to contend with) to get to a school to do an interview with the head for the school to say that they had rung to cancel the interview so couldn’t meet with me. (This was in the days before mobile phones.)

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

All of those who have made a real difference and are true to what they are doing. Somebody that epitomises this is Prof Jenny Ozga who I had the privilege to work with when she was at KeeleUniversity. She is now Professor of Sociology of Education at Oxford and has completed ground-breaking work around education policy and development.

Do you have a favourite quote?

‘But I being poor have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly for you tread on my dreams.’ From W B Yeats ‘He wishes for the cloths of Heaven’

What would you say to encourage a young person today considering a social research career?

Social research underpins and informs debates (both explicitly and implicitly) around how we develop as individuals and communities and nations and view our world. It is exciting to be part of this.

Interview by William Solesbury

Louca-Mai Brady is an independent research consultant and trainer and  is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of the West of England on ‘embedding the participation of children and young people in health and social care services’.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

A librarian (because I loved books) or a rescuer of badly-treated animals (my grandparents lived in Spain and coming from England I was shocked by how some of the animals appeared to be treated). So I suppose my interests in research and social justice were there from early on!

When did you first turn towards a social research career?

After my first degree, in psychology and English literature my first  job was as a support worker  in mental health and learning disability services. The organisation I worked for had identified the changing needs of older people with learning disabilities as a key issue for service development, and asked me to undertake a small piece of qualitative research to explore the issue further. Having a chance to apply the research skills I had developed during my degree to the work I was doing in social care gave me a taste for how social research could be used as a tool for change, as well as realising that it was something I really enjoyed doing.

What was your first professional job?  And first project there?

I left the social care job when I was offered a post as a researcher for an organisation called PACT Community Projects in Brighton. I was responsible for a project on education, training and employment opportunities for disabled people, working closely with researchers leading parallel projects on other ‘vulnerable’ groups. As well as the research itself the role involved organising and running training sessions, stakeholder meetings and a conference to disseminate research findings, as well as contributing to a successful European Social Fund bid for a project to implement the research recommendations. So as a first research job it was a steep learning curve on many levels – not least when, after almost a year off to travel the world, I returned to the ESF-funded post we’d created and had a chance to find out about the realities of applying research recommendations to multi-agency practice.

What has been your best professional moment?

One of the best was the conference I organised with a group of young people who were part of a public health advisory group I ran at the National Children’s Bureau. There were a few nail-biting moments in the run up, not least because I’d never organised a conference from scratch before, let alone working collaboratively! But it was fantastic seeing the delegates (a mix of researchers, practitioners and young people) really engaging with the day. And even more amazing seeing the young people I’d worked with presenting the research they’d commissioned as part of the project, running workshops and being involved in making every aspect of the conference work really well.

 ...and worst?

Leaving NCB following a restructure was definitely one of my more challenging professional moments. Going on to start a PhD, alongside work as an independent researcher and trainer, after having had twins has also definitely had its challenges! But it’s also great to have the opportunity to work flexibly and really get my teeth into a research topic I’ve been interested in for many years.

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

Peter Beresford was among my early inspirations when I first started to become interested in participatory research. When I subsequently had the opportunity to work with him, his approachability and commitment to social justice was a real inspiration. Ruth Sinclair, although she had retired from the NCB Research Centre before I joined, has been one of my key inspirations in relation to children and young people’s participation in research.

Do you have a favourite quote?

“All learning, all reflection, all contact that helps you learn more about yourself is svadhyaya [study as a means of self-understanding]” TKV Desikachar on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.  As a yoga teacher as well as someone with a longstanding interest in participatory and inclusive research, I really like this idea of learning as a process of on-going, and collaborative, critical reflection rather than attempting, in a more traditional, positivist way, to be a neutral observer.

What would you say to encourage a young person today considering a social research career?

The young people I’ve worked with during the last few years have said that being involved in the research process has given them a chance to make a difference in things that matter to them, as well as to develop useful skills and experience. So my advice to a young person considering a social research career would be to seek opportunities to get involved in research, both for these reasons and to gain an understanding of what is involved in doing social research by working alongside established adult researchers.

Bob Erens works in the Policy Innovation Research Unit at theLondonSchoolof Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and is also a research fellow in the Centre for Sexual Health & HIV Research at UCL.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

My passion was playing basketball, and my dream was to play in the NBA (National Basketball Association). Despite practising every day, unfortunately I lacked the skills – and height – to reach the top.

When did you first turn towards a social research career?

The early 70s in the USwas an exciting time to complete high school and go to university. Political activism, led by young people, was in the air and there was a widespread feeling that significant social change was possible through collective action. So even someone like myself, whose main interests at the time were maths and basketball, could not help but become politicised and develop an interest in social issues, particularly around race and class. By the time I started university, I had decided to focus on the social sciences, with the vague ambition of gaining a greater understanding of the social problems of 20^th centuryUS society. Later I came toLondon to broaden my horizons and to study social anthropology at the LSE.  

What was your first professional job?  And first project there?

My first social research job was at NatCen (then known as SCPR). Since this was the period of Thatcherism, many of SCPR’s projects at the time were concerned with the large number of unemployed people resulting from government policies and how to get them ‘off the dole’. My first few projects looked at peoples’ incomes after losing their jobs and the (mainly lack of) effectiveness of different government schemes at getting people back to work.

What has been your best professional moment?

It was a privilege to direct both the Health Research Group and the Survey Methods Unit at NatCen, and to work alongside the extremely talented and committed researchers in both those teams, as well as the many Operations staff at NatCen, who make an often unrecognised but enormous contribution to the success of the organisation’s surveys.

...and worst?

The ending of the Survey Methods Unit due to organisational restructuring.  That’s when I moved to UCL initially and thereafter to LSHTM.

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

I started out in social anthropology, and was always inspired by Claude Levi-Strauss, whose books introduced me to the sophistication of “tribal” societies.

Do you have a favourite quote?

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this." Bertrand Russell

What would you say to encourage a young person today considering a social research career?

I know from experience that recruiting researchers with good statistical skills can be difficult. So my advice to any young person would be to focus on developing their quantitative skills, since these are in great demand, but in short supply. Also, be passionate about your work and about the power of research to impact on social policy.

Interview by William Solesbury

Peter Lynn is Professor of Survey Methodology at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex.
What was your childhood ambition?

Inspired by the BBC series Animal Magic and the Gerald Durrell books, I wanted to run my own zoo, saving endangered species. By the age of 14 or so I wanted to be a journalist instead.

When did you turn to social research?

I chose physics, chemistry, pure maths and applied maths at A level – just because I was reasonably good at those subjects, not because I had any idea what I wanted to do afterwards. But I was too lazy to keep up with the pure maths, so I swapped the two maths courses for single-subject maths. That left a hole in my timetable. I wanted to fill it with Russian, but there were not enough takers for the course to run, so I opted for O level statistics instead. Statistical analysis methods were applied to all kinds of topics on that course, but it was social issues that I found most fascinating, perhaps not least because I was encountering them for the first time.

What was your first job?

During my second year as an undergraduate studying statistics at UCL, we had a guest lecture from Denise Lievesley on survey sampling. This was the first I had heard about social surveys, and it sounded amazing. At the time Denise was Deputy Director of the SCPR Survey Methods Centre, so I wrote to SCPR (now known as NatCen Social Research) asking if they might have any summer vacation job for a student. They invited me to an interview and then offered me the job of estimating sampling errors for the England & Wales Youth Cohort Study (cohort 1, sweep 1), a task which mainly involved sitting at a Sun terminal in the dusty basement of City University compiling Fortran 77 programmes. The task was expected to take the whole of my three month vacation, but I finished it in six weeks so they had to find other things for me to do. I did telephone interviewing of research company CEOs, sampling by hand from electoral registers and proof-reading of survey reports, all of which opened my eyes to the survey research process. SCPR offered me a job upon graduation, which I accepted (after toying with OPCS!).

Your best professional moment?

A very satisfying moment was getting agreement between the Bosniak and Serb statistical agencies in Bosnia to implement a standardised sampling methodology for a national household survey. This was just a few years after the Bosnian War, tensions were high, and any exercise that might reveal the relative size of the population in the two ethnically-divided entities was highly contentious and politicised. At that moment I felt more like an international diplomat than a researcher!

…and worst?

One of my first interviewer briefing conferences was in Leeds. On the same day, unbeknown to me, an SCPR colleague was going to a meeting in Sheffield. The SCPR administration somehow managed to give me my ticket but the colleague’s seat reservation. This led to me boarding the wrong train and ending up in Sheffield, from where I had to get a tiny local train which crawled over the hills dropping off locals with huge bags of shopping, bicycles, and – memorably – two chickens. Long before the days of mobile phones, the 20 or so interviewers in Leeds had no idea what had become of me until I showed up red-faced.

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

I hold in awe the achievements of people like Charles Booth and Florence Nightingale. But the biggest personal influences on me have been Roger Jowell and Denise Lievesley.

A favourite quote?

I used to have this pinned on my office door: “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read or write” (H.G. Wells)

What would you say to encourage a young person today considering a social research career?

The demand for quantitative social research is unlikely to diminish. The opportunities provided by new data and new technologies are escalating and appreciation of the benefits of statistical analysis of social issues is spreading. Consequently, there are great career prospects. Social research is also enjoyable and highly rewarding.

Interview by William Solesbury

Nick Ockenden is the Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research, a research and consultancy agency specialising in volunteering (www.ivr.org.uk).  The role of the Institute is to deliver evaluations and impact assessments, advise government, and help organisations improve the way in which they involve volunteers. Nick has worked there for just over seven years. 

 In this interview Nick talks about the SRA, his role on the board of trustees and his ideas for the future.

What was your first experience of the SRA - how have you been involved?

I’ve known about the SRA ever since I started working in research and have been a member for years. I’ve found the events and training courses really valuable, particularly at the start of my career.

When and why did you join the board?

I joined the board in the summer of 2010. I really like the work of the SRA and had been thinking about becoming a trustee for a while, so it was an easy decision for me to get involved.

What is your role on the board?

As well as the general duties of a trustee, I have a few specific roles on the board. I’m the main board link to the voluntary and community sector, so it’s my responsibility to ensure we develop in a way that’s relevant to those working in that area. I’ve been leading our work on communications, which has included working with Graham Farrant, our office manager, and Ian Henghes, an independent web developer, to help redevelop our website. 

What do you enjoy (or otherwise) about being on the board?

I love being part of an organisation which is actively improving social research practice and is supporting those working in the field. Because we’re a small organisation we can be very flexible and responsive to the challenges and opportunities facing the profession, and I think we make a real difference. I also really enjoy working with the other members of the board – everyone’s completely committed to social research and they bring such a variety of experiences and skills that I’m constantly learning from them.

Where would you like to see the SRA being/achieving in one year/ five years’ time?

While the past couple of years have been a bit bumpy for the SRA – and anyone working in social research – we’re now in a real position of strength. In the future, I’d like us to continue to expand our engagement with social researchers across the UK. In the longer term, I’d like us to publish a journal of applied social research, to give social researchers the opportunity to publish practical articles on issues and challenges they’re facing. We’re currently exploring options and are looking for top 10 online casino volunteers who would like to be involved, so please do get in touch if you’re interested.

In the light of this, what do you see as the key priorities for the SRA?

We need to make sure we continue to represent the views and needs of those working in social research, and a key part of this is reaching out to and engaging with as many social research colleagues as possible. There’s also a huge amount of research being done in the voluntary and community sector, and I think there’s a great opportunity for us to link that in further to the work of the SRA.

Short report on the SRA Annual conference 2012, by Emily Fu, TNS-BMRB

Building on the success of the two previous conferences the SRA has held at the British Library, this year focused on the potential opportunities and challenges presented by the increasing digitisation of the research world, and indeed of the social world. Over twenty speakers discussed a range of issues across a broad spectrum – both in terms of scale and methodologies, with workshops on data visualisation and collection, and various video, visual and audio approaches.

Certainly one message that came across strongly was that there is still no single definition or understanding of what the digital age means for social research, or consensus on what digital methods are. As Dr Grant Black and Yvette Morey stated, the important thing is to ensure you are using the right tools, and to ask yourself whether your research question really requires an answer from the mass of digital data that exists, even if it is arguably “too easy to collect to be ignored”.

Another interesting theme was that researchers are now armed with innovative data sources and methods, through tablets, social media and mobile, but also have novel opportunities for sharing information. Nick Leon and Annie Crawley demonstrated how video ethnography with young people at risk of becoming homeless was not only able to provide ‘thick data’ for analysis, but was also utilised as a poignant dissemination and campaign tool allowing the voices of the participants to be heard.

Alan Smith presented a further example of this in his fascinating talk on the ‘Visualisation of the 2011 Census’, where a combination of syndication with news websites and the provision of relevant, interactive tools for the wider public to engage with the data enabled the ONS to boost outreach by 1000%. It was shown that fairly simply shifts in ways of working that do not require huge time or financial investments can be successful in integrating these ‘digital practices’ into our research. This echoes one of Michelle Harrison’s closing points, that the implications of the digital age are incremental, a gradual evolution rather than a paradigm shift.

Editor's note:  The event was followed by a drinks reception in the Conference Centre.  Many thanks to the British Library for hosting the conference, and to Peyton Events for their high standards of catering and technical support.  Emily's more detailed report will appear in the next 'SRA: Research Matters' magazine.

Photos: Mark Jenner, Ipsos MORI

Teresa Williams had just started work as Director, Social Research & Policy, Nuffield Foundation, responsible for its research programmes on Children & Families and Law in Society. Before that she had worked in the Government Social Research service, most recently as Chief Researcher at the Ministry of Justice.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

Initially an airline pilot – mainly motivated by learning that it was well paid and that women hadn’t been allowed to do it.  I don’t think it was the uniform!

When did you first turn towards a social research career?

I remember my history teacher saying I was too sociable for a career in science (hmm!) in an attempt to get me to think broadly about my A-levels.  I ignored him and did all Science A-levels but something from that conversation stuck and when I applied for university I decided to study social anthropology rather than natural sciences. But I was happiest in the boundaries between science and social science and pretty much knew towards the end of my time at university that I was most interested in applied social research.

What was your first professional job?  And first project there?

My first job after university was at Social & Community Planning Research (now NatCen).  My first project was piloting and arranging the mainstage fieldwork for the National Child Development Study’s fifth sweep of the 1958 birth cohort who at that time had reached the age of 33.  The fieldwork was quite complex – it involved a number of medical checks (height, weight etc) and also collected information about their children.  I learned early on just what an amazing job interviewers do – we had some very feisty ones at SCPR who were not backward in putting junior researchers straight if questions didn’t work!

What has been your best professional moment?  

I had serious doubts about whether it would be possible (as the Treasury was dictating) to design and implement an appropriate RCT to evaluate the New Deal for Disabled People given it was a voluntary programme, we knew very little about likely effect sizes, and the delivery was through private and third sector providers with considerable latitude for ‘innovation’.  A professional highpoint was the admission from a senior Treasury official that perhaps they had been overly ambitious in trying to test too many things at once – she was also woman enough to acknowledge that this was what I had been saying all along!

...and worst?

Well we all have our skeletons.  I remember getting the initial data back on my first ‘solo’ project at SCPR on pension provision (following the introduction of ‘Personal Pension Plans’) and spending many hours scratching my head on why my weighting ratios made no sense at all – only to discover that the wrong sampling fraction had been calculated and applied to people in employer pension schemes leaving us with way too few in this group.  Although I hadn’t calculated the fraction (the sample was supplied to us by DSS as was) I should have checked it was correct.  Luckily I had a wonderful boss who gave me the credit for picking up the mistake and who was a great support in the ‘difficult conversation’ with our clients at DSS.  It was a really good lesson early in my career about the importance of being open about mistakes as soon as possible.

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

Roger Jowell was definitely my social research hero.  He was truly inspirational in having a genuine passion for the difference social research can make to policy, the importance of professional standards and ethics, with a good dollop of creativity and innovation thrown in.  Plus he was a charmer!

Do you have a favourite quote?

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong” [JM Keynes]

What would you say to encourage a young person today considering a social research career?

I do a lot of this!  My main message (bearing in mind that I work in applied social research) is:

• Social research is wonderfully creative and challenging as ‘real world’, as opposed to laboratory, research requires us to make constant tradeoffs between scientific purity and pragmatic implementation.  Given the changing nature of society and human interaction, we are permanently kept on our toes – there’s never a dull moment.

And my practical tips are

• You’ve got to care about the ‘so what’ – if research-based knowledge is going to make a difference you need to think hard about who might use (or shoot down) your findings and how.  Putting effort into this at the design stage can reap dividends later.
• It’s really important to have a good grasp of a range of methods – as the most influential  work often blends different types of evidence.
• Try and get your hands dirty with data early in your career – it only gets harder!
• Spend time networking – a great way to do this is to join societies such as the SRA.  I was a member of the SRA Exec early in my career and it was invaluable in understanding issues in the wider social research community.

Interview by William Solesbury

Vicki Welch is the Research Lead at the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS), University of Strathclyde

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was very young I wanted to be a vet or a surgeon, but by the time I was a teenager I knew that I wanted to be a researcher. The only problem was that the only model I had in my head for research involved test-tubes and labcoats. Hence the first 8 years of my working life I was an analytical chemist at the Water Research Centre where I was involved in working up some new methods for the water treatment industry. Smelly work, but I enjoyed having access to a lab and the facilities to ‘experiment’.

When did you  turn towards  social research?

I think I was always interested  how societies could make things better and why this often didn't happen. This became much more real for me when I had my first child and got interested in children and family services. I made the decision to re-train in health and social welfare which I first did through the OU while my own children were very small.

What was your first professional job as a social researcher?  And first project there?

My first job in social research was as a field researcher working for NatCen (they were called something else at the time).  I was conducting CAPI interviews with young people and their families in a pilot area for Educational Maintenance Allowance.

How has your career panned out since?

I wouldn't say it was a very planned path for career development but it has worked out well. I have been lucky enough to have a number of really interesting posts, first with University of Plymouth working up through the ranks, then as a manager for a Local Authority, then back into academia at Lancaster University and now in CELCIS at Strathclyde University. My main bug-bear with social research careers is that so many of us have to experience the insecurity of having consecutive short term contracts.

What has been your best professional moment? and worst?

Hard to say, as they are often flip sides of the same occasion. For example, 20 years ago during an interview with a young person who’d left care to live independently, he shared very strong feelings about being unable to get access to his new baby which was both wonderful and heartbreaking. I felt it was such an honour that he trusted me in this way. I have had a few experiences like this now and they stay with you for a long time.

In your work what gives you the most satisfaction?

Having a small role in opening up the way people think about an issue; that moment when you see someone who has the power to make a difference suddenly understand a new  perspective or get a key piece of information that makes it all fall into place.

Do you have a favourite quote?

I love lots of quotes, but something I heard on the Radio 4 programme ‘Analysis’ really made me smile, I can’t remember who said it. “The search for certainty is not a sin, finding it is (slight pause) err, probably”. This sums up how I feel about my own work, frequently uncertain and professionally sceptic.

Do you have a social research hero/heroine?

It may sound a bit twee but, every child, young person or family member that has agreed to take part in social research is a hero as without their participation we really are nothing.

What would your advice be to new social researchers?

Apart from wishing them luck and telling them not to expect to get rich, I think I would advise them to constantly think about their own reasons for doing the job and how these might impact on what they do.

Interview by William Solesbury

What were the highlights of your early career prior to becoming a social researcher?

I have enjoyed an extremely varied career. My first job was with Ferodo, the brake-lining manufacturer as an industrial management trainee.  They sent me to Caernarvon where my life-long love of mountains helped me to make the switch to become an Outward Bound instructor, firstly at Aberdovey in mid-Wales and then in Zambia.  Then I tried to be a teacher but found classrooms too constricting after the great out-doors. Having got married and wanting to raise a family I needed a secure job and that was when I trained as an accountant in London. In 1987 I moved to Guildford where I set up a new business in partnership with a brave colleague. Our little firm flourished as we exploited the new technology of PCs to take work away from larger, but less nimble, firms and we steadily grew in numbers of staff and clients. But nothing lasts forever, and in 2004 I left and went back into the academic world.

Why did you move to work in social research?

I had reached my 50’s before I found out that social research was the career for me. At university I read economics because I liked logic and numbers, and as I have mentioned I spent most of my working life as an accountant. However in 2004 I gave that up and did an MSc at Surrey University in Social Research Methods, expecting to specialise in quantitative analysis but finding that I enjoyed the qualitative methods just as much. I was influenced to try this degree by my daughter, who did a sociology course at school and came home telling us that it was just like typical family conversations around the meal table, so maybe I have been a sociologist for longer than I think!

What are career highlights of your social research career?

When I had completed the MSc at Surrey, I was lucky enough to get a research post in the same department. I initially worked on the ESRC-funded Question Bank (an online resource providing a searchable database of survey questions) for three years. And then I worked on another ESRC-funded project at Surrey called Qualitative Innovations in CAQDAS, this time working with qualitative analysis software.

In late 2011 that came to an end and I was made redundant. Being 60 years old by then I began easing myself towards retirement. However, in early 2011 Patten Smith approached me with an offer I couldn’t refuse, to become the Treasurer for the SRA, and thus combine my accountancy background with my social research interest, all unpaid of course but using much of that free time I now have!

Looking back what has been your greatest career achievement?

I am very proud of the fact that the accountancy firm that I co-founded is still thriving 25 years later, without either of its founding partners, and that many of the small businesses that I worked with many years ago are also still thriving. I always saw my role as that of helping businesses to survive and prosper, rather than simply reducing their tax bills. But maybe in a few years’ time I will be even more proud of my role in helping the SRA through this difficult period.

Who is your social research hero/heroine?

A person who has been a great help and influence on me is Patrick Sturgis, the current director of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). He was a lecturer at Surrey when I did my MSc and he supervised my dissertation, making a real impact at one stage when he insisted on more rigour in my analysis that led to a major rewrite in the best online casinos last two weeks. He was also a co-director of the Question Bank when I worked there. And he introduced me to Patten Smith, something that indirectly led to my present position in the SRA.

 When did you become involved with the SRA?

Patten approached me in early 2011 and, as the SRA did not have a Treasurer at that time, I agreed to join the organisation and the Board at the same time. So I have only been involved for around 18 months, but it has been a hectic time!

What is your role on the SRA board?

My role should be that of overseeing the financial functions, but with the cashflow crisis that we found ourselves in by the summer of 2011 it became necessary to make all of the employed staff redundant and reduce the office functions to the bare minimum. For a few months this meant that Ceridwen Roberts and I had to do all of the administration on a voluntary basis until we could begin to establish a positive cashflow and pay the creditors. We now have two part-time employees working in the office, but I am still doing the bookkeeping – so, as Treasurer, I have to oversee my own voluntary work, which is slightly less than ideal! I hope that in the next 12 months we will find ourselves on a more stable path and then we should be able to employ a part-time bookkeeper once more, so that I can step back a bit.

What do you enjoy about your involvement with SRA?

 The last 16 months have been stressful and dramatic at times, but it is very pleasing to see the SRA beginning to thrive once more after so nearly collapsing. The Board is developing several new initiatives, to strengthen the advocacy role in particular and to provide more support for members, and this is exciting as we see the core purposes being advanced. I am very glad to have Graham Farrant working for us as our office manager, because he manages to do the things that I hate, such as negotiating with BT!

Which of the SRA plans are you particularly excited about?

 I am excited to know that two initiatives are taking shape that I hope will make a major contribution to the effectiveness of social research in the next few years. These will make the SRA a place where researchers can come together and discuss issues of policy and practice at various levels of influence and experience. For too long we have allowed a discourse of market competition to dominate at the expense of ideals and professional standards. Our society needs good quality social research to expose the myths about market efficiency and researchers need to break down the walls that the politicians have erected between us with their policies of divide and rule and the commodification of knowledge. I am seeing a stronger campaigning organisation emerging from the struggles of last year.

Looking forward - where would you like to see Social Research and the SRA being in 5 years time?

I do not think that there is going to be a quick recovery from our present economic problems, and the strains of unrealistic expectations will probably get worse as a result. It will be more important than at any time in the last 50 years that we have information to help us understand how policies that are intended to deliver economic effects are impacting on our social cohesion. That information will only be reliable if it is generated through good quality methods by well-informed researchers and for this we need a strong co-ordinating body to praise the good practice and shame the shoddy. The SRA should be well-placed to do that.

What do you do in your spare time? 

I have two main hobbies. One is bell-ringing, I am vice-captain at a local church tower where I spend quite a lot of time teaching other people how to ring, as well as helping to mark weddings and regular church services. The other is hash running, which involves following a trail laid by another runner around the countryside, with added interest from junctions and false trails that act as a handicapping system to keep a group with varying abilities together. Over 25 years of hashing I have developed a detailed knowledge of the footpaths of Surrey, although I seem to be nearer the back of the bunch than the front these days so this knowledge is less useful. Both of these activities seem to end in a pub, which is handy as I do enjoy sampling real ales!