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Outreach

Leeds Q Step Centre focuses on two main outreach activities:

Schools engagement

Leeds Q Step Centre works closely with a network of schools and colleges through our social sciences educational engagement teams, to offer interactive, quantitatively-focused workshops for secondary school and sixth form students.

We have also delivered various ESRC Festival of Social Science workshops covering a range of social science disciplines.

Nuffield Research Placements

From July 2019, the Leeds Q-Step Centre is a partner for the Nuffield Foundation Research Placements scheme. We host sixth form students to offer hands-on experience of a professional research environment through a 4 week placement during the summer holidays. Students have the opportunity to work alongside our social scientists and undergraduate student researchers to learn core data analysis and research skills.

Find out more on the Nuffield Research Placements website.

SUMMER 2020

Year 12 social science summer research project placements at Leeds University

We are pleased to be able to offer select year 12 social science students the opportunity to work on a number of live research projects with academic staff and undergraduate researchers at the University of Leeds, for 5 weeks in late June - July.

The placements are offered as part of a widening participation initiative (Nuffield Research Placements) in collaboration with the Leeds Q Step Centre. The attached slides from a recent presentation at a University Teachers Day_Feb 2020_Q Step NRPs, provide further background information about the Q Step and NRP placement schemes.

The placements provide students with the opportunity to gain valuable research experience as well as a range of transferable skills including: data literacy; time management; project management; critical thinking and report writing skills.

As part of the 5 week placements, selected students will attend a compulsory research methods / data analysis training week (Mon 22 – Fri 26 June), before embarking on one of the 4 week research projects outlined in the table below. The training course provides the skills and confidence to successfully carry out research work and students are well supported throughout!

The following projects are available - we have indicated which subject areas the projects might be particularly suited to, although they open to students studying any social science subjects.

Project title Subject disciplines may be particularly suited to
Twitter politics - MPs use of Twitter during times of crises Politics, sociology, media and communications
Measuring and mapping levels of competition between private and public transport modes Geography or other student with a reasonably strong numeric background & an interest in transport
Mapping an LGBT+ Monument for Leeds Sociology, social policy and any student with interest in LGBT+ equality and rights
Omitted relevant variables bias in criminal sentencing research Law & criminal justice, sociology and social policy
Supporting the story of the metamorphosis of (CASIF) PGRs in into academics General interest as a research project and those interested in student education
Entrepreneurship scholars don’t know about entrepreneurship; entrepreneurs do Business studies

Full project details and further information on each of the Leeds Q Step placement projects is available from Andrea Denny: a.j.denny@leeds.ac.uk

Interested students should apply directly as soon as possible, via the link in the Nuffield Research Placements website: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/students-teachers/nuffield-research-placements

Students should also indicate if they have a preference to work on any of the placement projects offered by Leeds University.

Note on covid-19:

  • The safety and wellbeing of our placement students and placement hosts is of paramount importance.
  • This year, the pre-placement training week will be delivered online/remotely during 22 – 26 June.
  • We hope to be able to offer some opportunities for students to undertake some site-based research at the University, but only if it is safe to do so.
  • If current social distancing restrictions remain in place in July, the placements will go ahead on the basis of remote working and online supervision.
  • We will keep this under regular review as the weeks progress and will be guided by government and University on this issue.