University receives slice of £19.5m funding to boost social scientist numbers

The University of Sheffield has received more than one million pounds in funding to overhaul social science training in a bid to meet a critical shortage of social scientists with quantitative skills. The University is one of 15 universities chosen to form part of a network of Q-Step Centres, delivering new undergraduate programmes in quantitative social science to produce graduates with the skills needed to evaluate evidence and analyse data. The University's £1.28m share of a £19.5m funding pot will enable it to develop new courses and new content for existing courses, experiment with new ways of teaching as well as offer work placements and pathways to postgraduate study. It is one of the largest partnerships in recent times between a research council, a funding council and a private foundation focussed on undergraduate social science education in the UK. Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield, Professor Gill Valentine, said: "We desperately need more people with the important skills of evaluating and analysing quantitative data within the social sciences. The Q-Step programme will provide step-changes to develop a new cohort of highly skilled graduates to meet the needs of the employer." In total 53 new full time posts will be created by the programme, four of these will be at the University of Sheffield. Although targeted at undergraduates, Q-Step aims to promote quantitative skills training across the course of the education system, from recruitment of school students to specialist training for those going on to postgraduate work.