Exploring new data sources in the social sciences

The National Centre for Research Methods will be holding its fourth residential training event targeted at early career researchers - this year an autumn rather than a summer school - between November 12th to 14th. The theme this year is on the challenges and opportunities of new sources of data and methods for their analysis. Our starting point is the recent assertion of Mike Savage and Roger Burrows (Sociology, 41, 5, 2007) that academic social scientists are losing their monopoly on innovative methods and sources of data in the face of a serious challenge from research expertise and new data sources available outside of academia. A key aim of the autumn school is to challenge this view through exploring recent developments in relation to the types of data and approaches to their analysis increasingly available to academic researchers.