Developing Social Science Research Expertise: a resource and guide for trainers

This guide offers some information, suggested methods and rationales for supporting mid-career university academics in developing their full potential as social science researchers. It is the product of an ESRC Researcher Development Initiative grant (2010-14) held by the authors, at Cardiff University, UK. The project's aim was to establish how social scientists in mid-career (c.10-20 years in an academic post) could be supported in accelerating their development of the expertise - including expert thinking skills - that internationally renowned social scientists possess. A review of expertise research literature, coupled with a small-scale empirical study establishing what such international experts know how to do and how they learned it, informed the design of a set of training materials. These materials were piloted in workshops, to find out which aspects of social science research expertise mid-career researchers identified as lacking in their own profile, and to experiment with simple interventions that might support the development of missing skills.