Social science researchers are being invited to apply for funding to refine recently developed methodological approaches.
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has a pot of £2.8 million to support adaptations and innovations that were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ESRC hopes that the initiative will enable researchers to embed their new approaches in research practice and make them accessible across the social sciences.
The scheme builds on NCRM’s ESRC-funded Changing Research Practices project, which carried out important work supporting researchers at the height of the COVID-19 crisis.
In 2022, the NCRM team turned its attention to the sustainability of some of the methodological adaptations that social researchers were developing – the outcomes of necessity combined with creativity. This work included identifying methods adaptations in progress and with potential for the future.
Professor Melanie Nind, Co-Director at NCRM and Changing Research Practices principal investigator, said: "Researchers who participated in our knowledge-exchange workshops and webinars will be pleased to see that the ESRC is investing further through funding work on refining methodological approaches developed since March 2020.
"We need to learn from the response to COVID-19 and optimise the role that methods adaptations can play in future social science research."