Transformers 2: changing the face of social science

14 Jul 2014 12:31 PM

The ESRC is delighted to announce the 13 successful grants of the second Transformative Research call. 

The call aims to provide a stimulus for genuinely transformative and ground-breaking research ideas at the frontiers of social sciences, enabling research which challenges current thinking to be supported and developed.

Transformative research is regarded as involving pioneering theoretical and methodological innovation, the novel application of theory and methods in new contexts, and/or research based on the engagement of unusual disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives. While it can often be seen as high risk, it provides the possibility of high reward or research that is carried out with the expectation that it will produce a broad base of knowledge and exciting new insights.

One successful project from Sheffield is concerned with devising comprehensive methodological and theoretical strategies for the capture and interpretation of social media image data, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. They are interested in finding ways to enable the study of images to become a more central focus within social media and Big Data research and will investigate how such a shift in focus may have an impact on key stakeholders and end-users.

Another example from Warwick will look at three different cases to understand how dashboards are integrated into a range of situations and for different purposes. They will study civil servants in Government Digital Services who have built and are using dashboards to visualise and 'open up' the performance of Whitehall departments. They will also study the Digital Action Lab, a civic activist organisation, as they develop and release a 'crowdsourced' dashboard which provides a range of indicators on prosperity, equality and environment in Britain. Finally, they will study the personal use of dashboards on phones and tablets, where dashboards visualise and arrange data flows in ways that make them intelligible and actionable for individuals.

Professor Paul Boyle, Chief Executive of ESRC comments: "The transformative call is central to our ambition to foster and promote innovative research. The 13 successful projects are wide ranging in scope and all have the potential to deliver exciting research that will challenge the status quo while making a significant contribution to social science." 

The successful applications recommended for funding are: 

• Understanding cognition in middle adulthood 
  Jane Raymond, University of Birmingham
• Neurogenetics and differential susceptibility to criminogenic social environments: How do young people develop and express crime propensities? 
  Kyle Treiber, University of Cambridge
• Randomly selected "politicians": Transforming democracy in the post-conflict context 
  John Garry, Queen's University of Belfast
• Where do I stand? Assessing children's understanding of law as an empowering force in their lives 
  Dawn Watkins, University of Leicester
• Urban dynamics in a complex world: The spatial dynamics of housing 
  Jonathan Halket, Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Citizen led forensics: DNA and data-banking as technologies of disruption - a novel way to learn and intervene in the search for the disappeared in Mexico 
  Ernesto Schwartz-Marin, Durham University
• Picturing the social: transforming our understanding of images in social media and Big Data research 
  Farida Vis, University of Sheffield
• Understanding and optimising health-related press releases as complex public health interventions 
  Petroc Sumner, Cardiff University
• Synchronous movement cooperation and the performing arts 
  Guido Orgs, Brunel University
• Interrogating the dashboard: data, indicators and decision-making 
  Nathaniel Tkacz, University of Warwick
• Beelines 
  Rebecca Marsland, University of Edinburgh
• Making liveable lives: rethinking social exclusion 
  Kath Browne, University of Brighton
• Rethinking child protection strategy: evaluating research findings and numeric data to challenge whether current intervention strategy is justified 
  Lauren Devine, University of the West of England

ESRC Press Office

• Susie Watts 
  Email: susie.watts@esrc.ac.uk
  Telephone 01793 413119

Notes for editors

1. Grants will start between June and September 2014 and will last for a period of 18 months.
2. There were 13 successful applicants, who will receive a grant of up to £250,000 (at 100 per cent fEC).  
3. Anonymous applications were assessed by a Commissioning Panel of relevant experts from the academic community. Shortlisted applicants were then invited to pitch their proposal at a 'Pitch to Peers' workshop.
4. The ESRC funds research into the big social and economic questions facing us today. We also develop and train the UK's future social scientists. Our research informs public policies and helps make businesses, voluntary bodies and other organisations more effective. Most importantly, it makes a real difference to all our lives. The ESRC is an independent organisation, established by Royal Charter in 1965, and funded mainly by the Government.