A high profile project which will support the work of the UK’s research community and raise the standards of social science research at home and abroad has been awarded to a consortium led by the University.

The £1.1m grant has been made to the Institute for Social and Economic Research, ISER, the UK Data Archive, UKDA, and the Department of Sociology, who, in partnership with four other national research organisations, will establish the Survey Resources Network, SRN.

Peter Lynn at ISER is the Principal Investigator and co-director of the newly-established Network: ‘The SRN will foster and disseminate best practice in survey research, provide online information resources for researchers and will forge and strengthen links between academics, policy-makers and survey practitioners.’

The SRN will co-ordinate research, training and information about survey design and practice and will advise the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the project’s funders, on strategic matters relating to the use of surveys in the UK. New training programmes for researchers and students will be established which will give them the opportunity to visit survey and research organisations and observe or take part in various aspects of the survey process. Additionally, online resources will be made available to researchers around the world, including a large searchable repository of questionnaires.

Peter added: “As well as making sure researchers are properly equipped to make the best use of the rich survey data available in the UK, this highly influential project will help improve the quality of future surveys.’

Other partners in the project are the National Centre for Social Research, LSE Methodology Institute, Institute of Education and the University of Southampton.