MethodsCon: Futures programme

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is projected to revolutionize society, increasing what we can collectively achieve and altering how we work. This transformation is particularly significant in fields like quantitative social science and epidemiology, where secondary data analysis is crucial. AI's ability to automate tasks such as conducting literature reviews, analyzing datasets, writing, and editing manuscripts marks a pivotal change in the scientific workflow. This session will confront the stark reality: AI is not just an auxiliary tool but a transformative force. Current large language models demonstrate advanced abilities—they understand complex scientific and medical concepts, engage in conversational interactions, and proficiently generate and execute analytical code. As we look to the future, the potential for specialized or general AI to automate entire tasks currently performed by humans is immense. Our Provocative Panel will explore both the challenges and the exciting opportunities AI presents. We will discuss how AI can currently be used to enhance productivity and delve into the medium and long-term possibilities. While addressing the potential rise of 'papermills'—a surge in low-quality, AI-generated research—we'll also focus on how AI can liberate scientists from repetitive tasks, allowing more time and energy to be devoted to creative and high-impact scientific endeavors. This discussion will extend to the broader implications for the scientific community: How can researchers ensure they remain relevant? What training should future scientists focus on to thrive in an AI-augmented landscape?

Provocation Panel

At a time when futures analysis overwhelmingly focuses on emerging technologies like AI, and geopolitical trends among powerful states, we risk losing sight of the human in ‘the future of humanity’. As founders of the Future Threats Lab at King’s College London, we are developing innovative human-centric methods for interrogating future threats. These share three pillars: 1) human actor(s) as the key referent object, rather than the strategic, economic and/or military referent objects that often lead to securitisation at the expense of humans; 2) a broad and diverse range of threats to human life and communal existence; 3) foregrounding the importance of human subjectivity in threat perceptions. Our aim is to facilitate futures analysis that is humane, inclusive, cross-disciplinary and collaborative, and to encourage critical reflection on the most serious issues of our time. Our Provocation Panel will demonstrate how human-centric futures methods challenge prevailing approaches within the futures field. First, they centre human communities, rather than states, ideologies, or status-quo institutions and hierarchies. Second, they consider an innovative and extensive typology of future threats, in contrast to X-risk approaches that focus solely on extinction-level events, or state-centric approaches that privilege threats to state/regime cohesion. Finally, they account for subjectivity within threat perceptions and the possibility of analytical distortion. Our interactive session will present the human-centric approach and include examples of how such methods can produce more inclusive and actionable analysis. We hope our panel will encourage critical reflection as participants engage with futures methods presented at the conference.

Provocation Panel

This panel will explore VEM as a methodology that can reach sensitive issues and facilitate working with groups considered vulnerable. Such a creative methodology may return agency and dignity to ‘vulnerable’ research participants allowing for a more inclusive research process. Current research ethics processes limit the potential power and expertise of research participants with lived experience. Ultimately, we aim to demonstrate that using VEM when researching sensitive issues will allow for the emergence of more interesting data that can have an empowering effect on both participants and researchers. This panel will explore VEM as a methodology that can reach sensitive issues and facilitate working with groups considered vulnerable. Such a creative methodology may return agency and dignity to ‘vulnerable’ research participants allowing for a more inclusive research process. Current research ethics processes limit the potential power and expertise of research participants with lived experience. Ultimately, we aim to demonstrate that using VEM when researching sensitive issues will allow for the emergence of more interesting data that can have an empowering effect on both participants and researchers.

Provocation Panel

How can academia, the civil service and the wider public sector collaborate more effectively to drive evidence-informed reform of government and the public sector to deliver better outcomes for citizens? How can research help us build a skilled, flexible, diverse and inclusive government workforce, and create good work for public sector employees? Do we focus too much on research to inform policy making, whilst under-exploring the systems and structures we need to deliver successful policy? Are traditional notions of evidence and evidence-based practice even fit for purpose when thinking about the future of government, or do we need to challenge these ideas? Led by current civil service leaders working on the future of government, and their academic partners, this provocation panel will bring together civil servants with researchers to explore the challenges associated with developing, mobilising and challenging evidence about the future of government and the government workforce and generate shared commitments to action. Our goal for this session is to catalyse enduring networks through which we can co-construct novel methods for envisioning and building governments of the future that can address the ‘wicked’ problems of the twenty-first century and deliver for citizens.

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In this session, we showcase the participatory future visioning methods we deployed in two projects which aimed to support communities with imagining their future amidst the uncertainty of the climate crisis. First, we give an overview of the methods themselves, and how we went about working with groups that tend to be excluded from the making of future imaginaries. In PerfectSTORM, we used group storytelling and drawing sessions in the Peruvian Amazon, with riverine communities who are often invisible in development and planning processes, to facilitate (re)imagining their ways of living with the river in the future. In SHARED GREEN DEAL, we used storytelling, improv and participatory workshops with marginalised communities in three European locations to imagine their energy future (e.g., women in a region of Poland facing a coal phase-out where men dominate the workforce). We elicited group narrations in ways that intended to resonate with those specific communities and to allow their voices to be heard, emphasising place and local. Then, we critically reflect on what the methods achieved, and the challenges we had to navigate. Whilst our aim was to imagine the future, it quickly became clear that ethically, we had to meet people where they were at and start with the past and the present. Only then could we talk about what they would like the future to look like and explore participants’ anticipatory learning on environmental challenges. We end the session with the wider implications of those methods for transforming future social imaginaries.

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Qualitative Health research often lags behind other social sectors in its openness to adopt innovative methodology or philosophical perspectives. Thus, the thought process adopted at the outset constricts the possibilities for outcomes and creates an inherent resistance to change. As a midwife and PhD student I am conducting a project that uses elements of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to challenge closed analysis methods and create space for 'infinite possibility' research.My 45 min workshop would run as follows:Brief introduction to Gilles Deleuze Outline of key terms: White space, Rhizome, Multiplicity - with interactive examplesExcerpts from qualitative research in Maternity care which demonstrate established qualitative methodological approaches - paired challenge of these using Deleuzian thinking to establish what more could be added and what the potential change in outcome could be.Short activity feedback sharingFinish by sharing ideas around what could and should be challenged when approaching qualitative analysis and the reasons for this in a wider societal context. Draw in additional information from the group as to how other social science disciplines employ the same techniques or could benefit from doing so.

Provocation Panel

Decades of research in behavioural and molecular genetics have demonstrated that nearly all human traits possess a heritable component. This research has also uncovered significant gene-environment correlations, where individuals' exposure to certain environments is influenced by their genetic makeup. Notably, there is evidence suggesting that parenting behaviours are shaped by the child’s genetics (an example of an evocative gene-environment correlation). Together, these findings imply that studies on families and the impact of home environments, including social mobility and the effect of parenting practices on children’s outcomes, might be significantly biased if they do not use genetically informed designs. This Provocation Panel will convene a group of active researchers to discuss the implications of behavioural genetics findings for health and social science research. The session will commence with a short overview of important findings from the behavioural genetics literature. Following this, panellists will debate the (potential) role and integration of genetic data and research designs into broader research. The session will then conclude with an open floor discussion.

Provocation Panel

We (Wendy Olsen and David Byrne) will argue that the dominant current approaches in social research are fundamentally incapable of contributing to approaches to policy and practices which can address the issues facing all of us in the contemporary polycrisis. By polycrisis we mean the interwoven crises in the socio-ecological global system at all levels consequent particularly on the impact of global wamring in the era of the capitalocene, but also involving crises across all the subsystems of contemporary life. The issue is not with the nature of methods as techniques but with the ontological understanding which underpins the logics of their deployment. The socio-ecological system and all its subsystems are complex far from equilibric systems in which causation is multiple, complex and in many context equifinal (multiple routes to any given outcome). We need to reject the continued survival of positivism in both crude and sophisticated versions whilst at the same time endorsing a realist framework which allows us to construct accounts of causation which address both the way in which science is constructed and the voice of reality itself in that construction, Of crucial importance is the role of human agency in determining our future which means that all useful research must be action research. We have slightly different takes on how to proceed but insist that research and action must be intimately inter-linked particularly but not exclusively in planning for sustainable urban futures in a now predominantly urban world.

Provocation Panel

Environmental change, such as biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change, is expected to have profound implications for human health and well-being worldwide, resulting in increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as heatwaves, storms and floods, the disruption of food systems, increases in zoonoses and food, water and vector-borne diseases and declining mental health. However, these impacts will be felt unequally, with certain groups at greater risk from these negative health outcomes, such as the elderly or young, pregnant women and socio-economically disadvantaged. This provocation panel will present the challenge of addressing environmental change through the lens of justice and equity. It will blur the boundaries between disciplinary silos, drawing on knowledge from across the natural, social, and medical sciences -- arguing that to ensure the success of international agreements and programmes such as the SDGs or the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, we must account for intersectionality as well as indigenous and local knowledge (ILK). We will make the argument that new and novel research and policy approaches to managing environmental change must take into consideration the intersectionality to ensure that they minimise and reduce inequalities rather than exacerbate them.

Provocation Panel

Health research increasingly incorporates patient and public involvement (PPI) elements to ensure that people and communities most likely to benefit are adequately represented. When studies focus on minoritised groups, such as people experiencing homelessness, funding applicants are often required to demonstrate how they will include participatory opportunities for people with lived experience of the subject being explored. This involvement might include co-design of research tools, sense-checking of findings or ongoing project steering.This shift has been widely celebrated as an important and progressive step, but the benefits and costs for people with lived experience have not been sufficiently interrogated.Our panel will explore whether funders' PPI requirements can lead to researchers involving people with lived experience without having the capacity or skills to provide them with adequate support and respect. Further, if PPI is a default requirement, do researchers genuinely view lived experience insight as valuable and meaningful, or just another box to tick in a funding application process? We will also ask difficult questions about power imbalances.Taking homelessness as an example, we will explore ways in which we can continue to include and respect the voices of people with lived experience without falling into these traps and ask what needs to change in future health research.Our panel will include a researcher from Groundswell -- a charity with an explicit focus on lived experience -- and representation from academic health research, research funding bodies, and people whose insight has been sought for research projects because of their own lived experience.

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Join us for a session in which we showcase a suite of corpus linguistic techniques for the analysis of large text data. Corpus linguistics involves the computational analysis of large text data. It assumes that meaning lives in the habitual patterns which words form with other words. For example, let us look at the noun date. When it co-occurs with words, such as today or 12th September 2024, the noun date most likely indicates a calendar meaning. When it co-occurs with restaurant, go, cinema, the noun date most likely indicates a social practice. Using corpus linguistics software allows us to extract those typical co-occurrences, measure relevant statistics, and provide empirical evidence as to the key meaning patterns in data. While we don't necessarily need corpus linguistics to tell us that the noun date has got distinct meanings, the method it exemplifies allows for a nuanced extraction of stances in the particular text or for a particular speaker to concepts of interest, such as (wo)man, immigrant, climate change. The session will be followed by a hands-on tutorial on corpus linguistics. We will conclude by a Q&A segment in which participants will be encouraged to reflect on how they could integrate such methods in their own research.

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This innovative proposal on future scenarios has been designed and implemented with the intention of modelling its use in the training of future teachers. The methodology for the participatory construction of future scenarios has a large tradition in areas related to strategic planning and business, but has hardly been explored in the field of education. My project aims to analyse the viability of this technique in teacher education programs, and to show its effectiveness to enhance the training of teachers as reflective professionals. To this end, we implemented the workshop with bachelor’s and master’s education degree students and four facilitators. The technique has been implemented based on two thematic axes that, when crossed, define four relevant scenarios for the future of humanity and educational systems. These axes are, autonomy/interdependence (individual-based education, and community-based education) and eco/techno-dependence (emphasis on the media ecosystem, or on the natural ecosystem). The evaluation of the project was based on the analysis of the narratives of future produced by the four groups, and semi-structured interviews with facilitators and participants. Additionally, images have been used as a creative mean of expression and assessment. The work is part of the initial project of my doctoral thesis at the University of Cantabria (Spain). My contribution in this session aims to broaden the debate on the uses of forward-looking methodologies in the field of education and with a unique proposal focused on teacher training. Therefore, I seek to share the design, context of application, and results derived from this study.

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The session is structured as a presentation, including a mix of slides, data visualisations, and interactive components with the audience. There will be opportunities for audience questions and discussion. It aims to offer a general introduction of using synthetic control methods in causal inferences and their application in public health research. It will also highlight the importance of considering spatial data structures, patterns, and processes in policy evaluation to ensure accurate and reliable results. Content: 1.) Introduction to synthetic control methods: We begin with an overview of synthetic control methods, explaining how they enable researchers to estimate causal effects in observational studies. 2.) Application in public health policy evaluations: The presenter will discuss specific examples of using synthetic control methods to evaluate the impact of public health policies, such as covid-19 community testing, and vaccination campaigns. 3.) Consideration of spatial data structures: It will delve into the importance of accounting for spatial data structures, such as geographic proximity or spatial autocorrelation, when conducting policy evaluations in public health. 4.) Analysis of spatial patterns and processes: Attendees will learn about techniques for analysing spatial patterns and processes in health outcomes data, and how these analyses can inform policy decisions. 5.) Practical examples: The session will include practical examples to illustrate the concepts discussed and demonstrate how synthetic control methods can be applied in real-world scenarios. 6.) Discussion, Q&A: The session will conclude with a discussion where attendees can ask questions, share insights, and engage in dialogue with the presenter(s) and fellow participants.

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‘Queering’ questions, unlearns, disrupts, and transforms approaches, expectations, and realities. Futures are time and change. The approach I have designed to operationalize Queering and futures, or Queering futures, is the Queering Futures Framework (QFF). The Queering Futures Framework (QFF) is a brand-new transdisciplinary research framework intersecting values, positionality, complexity, Queerness themes, and futures praxis. This framework expands traditional mixed methods research conventions by integrating quantitative, qualitative, and practice-based research modes and mindsets.  The Queering Futures Framework (QFF) prototype presented in this dissertation functions as a test case and proof of concept. The prototype quantitative mode measures attitudes towards AI, and a qualitative mode explores impressions of mental time travel, AI, and futures. Within the culminating practice-based mode, signals identified in the quantitative results and qualitative findings are integrated and inform a new practice-based method, called data-driven speculation. I created data-driven speculation method to connect data and imagination. I used data-driven speculation to make time machines, Queer time machines.

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Join us for a revealing session titled "A Day in the Life of an AI-Savvy Researcher". Explore the daily schedule of a pioneering researcher who integrates AI tools and applications throughout their day, from the early morning to late evening. Learn how AI significantly boosts productivity, enhances time management, and refines decision-making and research methodologies in today's academic and scientific fields. This narrative will highlight the crucial role of AI in maximizing efficiency in each task, offering a comprehensive look into the practical applications and benefits of AI for research innovation. Experience how AI is fundamentally transforming the research landscape, providing researchers with powerful tools to accelerate discovery and analysis. Here's a breakdown of its format, purpose, and content:
Format: Interactive Presentation: A mix of engaging narrative storytelling and live demonstrations. Q&A Segment: An opportunity for attendees to ask questions and discuss how AI tools can be integrated into their own research practices. Practical Demonstrations: Live examples showing AI in action, helping participants visualize the application of AI tools in real research settings.
Purpose: Educational Enhancement: To educate researchers and academics on the effective use of AI in their daily research activities.
Skill Development: To equip researchers with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement AI tools to enhance their research quality and efficiency. Innovation Promotion: To inspire innovative thinking and encourage the adoption of cutting-edge AI technologies in research methodologies.
Content: AI Tools Overview: Introduction to various AI tools that are transforming research, including data analysis software, machine learning platforms, and automated content generation tools. Daily Applications: A walkthrough of a typical day in the life of an AI-savvy researcher, demonstrating how AI assists with data collection, analysis, hypothesis testing, and documentation.
Benefits and Challenges: Discussion of the advantages of using AI in research, such as increased productivity and improved accuracy, alongside potential challenges and how to overcome them.
Future Implications: Insight into how AI is shaping the future of research and what this means for the field of academia.

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Climate change is profoundly transforming how the future is imagined, and visions of the future in the present have political consequences. Climate politics is dominated by scientific scenarios of potential futures (such as IPCC reports, IAMs, SSPs, etc) and political visions and strategies for decarbonisation, Net Zero, Just Transitions etc. Yet cultural visions of the future also have political power. Textual analysis of climate fiction can be a tool for critique and reimagining alternative futures (Haraway, 2016; Johns-Putra, 2019; Thaler, 2022), for expanding spheres of empathy and understanding (Nussbaum, 2017), for defamiliarising the present (Jameson, 2007), as well as for illuminating dominant ideologies and obstacles to climate justice (Ghosh, 2016). This session is intended to introduce and discuss the methodological opportunities, tools and challenges in analysing fictional visions of climate futures. The session will be led by two researchers in International Politics (Charlotte Weatherill and Carl Death) who have used novels, films, short stories and poems in their own research to understand alternative climate futures from various global perspectives, especially in and from Africa and the Pacific. It will involve short presentations on their research projects, followed by semi-structured discussion with participants shaped by research agendas and challenges faced in the group, as well as reflections on topics including: What does climate fiction do, politically?; Approaches to analysing climate fiction, including as socio-climatic imaginaries; defamiliarization; ethical reflection; postcolonial theory; feminist methodologies; Reading fiction alongside policy texts; Positionality, appropriation and the ethics of reading; Eurocentrism and Whiteness; Resistance and counter-narratives.

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Cathays Futures is a pilot action research project that tests out innovative approaches to knowledge mobilisation and co-production through combining community know-how, lived experience, research findings & varied professional skills. Focusing on the diverse Cathays community in Cardiff, we convened a 'Futures Labs' that brought together residents, social scientists, place-based civic partners and community groups, third sector organisations and engagement professionals. The Labs provided space for this collective and varied expertise to reimagine and begin to create socially just futures for Cathays. This session will showcase the project and its results, critically examining what worked well, what didn't, and most importantly, why. It will provide a bite-sized introduction to the experimental participatory futures and knowledge exchange methods applied in the work that we feel are pertinent to the future of social sciences. Key conceptual questions connected to the project will be used to ignite discussion within the session, examining the role of such methods in creating a wiser society and supporting epistemic justice. The session asks attendees to think outside of established comfort zones about how knowledge is produced and used, and how silos between different expertise can be broken down to create equitable futures. It will be delivered by a mixture of case study presentation, discussion and Q&A. Attendees will be provided with food-for-thought on how they can work across expertise and sectors to generate and apply knowledge in and beyond academia, as well as being signposted to future-oriented methodologies they can apply in their own work.

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Generative AI (GAI) offers a paradigm shift for research practice, but most researchers currently consider themselves to be novices in terms of the methodological opportunities of GAI, and the associated philosophical and ethical issues that it raises. This session will explore the potential that GAI tools, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Co-Pilot, offer qualitative researchers during both data collection and data analysis stages. It will share the experience of using different GAI prompts to pilot survey and focus group interview schedules, in scenarios where GAI took on the role of both the respondent(s) and the interviewer. The session will also share the findings of some trials undertaken to explore GAI's ability to assist with elements of qualitative data analysis, including sentiment analysis, support with transcription and thematic analysis and coding. Integral to the session will also be consideration of the philosophical and ethical considerations. The session will build on work arising from an Advanced HE Collaborative Research Project on GAI in Research Practice being undertaken by Staffordshire University with the UK Council for Graduate Education.

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This session will explore the potential for Activity Theory to inform and enable innovative changes in prisoner education in Open University Access courses in English prisons. The first part of the session will explore Engeström’s theoretical framework underpinning Activity Theory, conceptualising object-oriented activity to inform enhancement of prisoners’ education experiences. Power dynamics will be considered, with the aim of enabling enhanced agency of prison-based students to inform changes in practice. Findings of focus group discussions carried out in the early stages of the project with tutors who have supported prisoners in their Access studies will be shared to illustrate some of the pedagogical, social and contextual factors that can impact on the learning of prisoners. The potential of Activity Theory to inform understanding of barriers to learning and to enable co-creation of possible solutions to these through engaging with student, tutor and education manager insights will be discussed. This analysis will be considered through the lens of the Cycle of Expansive Learning with a view to scaffolding innovative change within these complex prison systems. There will also be an opportunity for participants to apply the principles of Activity Theory to their own contexts and in areas of practice of relevance to them, with a focus on considering the potential impact of power dynamics to enhance empowerment of learners in directing and informing change.

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In this session, we will share our experiences of using the Lang-Track App to study international students’ online and in-person language use, including use of their first language as well as English, while studying in the UK. The Lang-Track App (Arndt et al., 2023) is an open source smartphone app that allows researchers to administer short surveys on a schedule over a specified period of time, e.g. three surveys per day for a week. As such, the Lang-Track App facilitates experience sampling (Csíkszentimihályi & Larson, 1987), the study of individuals’ daily behaviour. Having introduced experience sampling and explored the advantages of using the app over other approaches to experience sampling such as diaries, we share our experiences of setting up the open source app on our own servers and demonstrate how the app works. The latter will cover the various levels of approval that were required including ethical approval, Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and IT security review as well as the support our team of Research Software Engineers (RSEs) provided navigating this process and implementing the software. We then introduce our study in which we validated this approach to data collection against one-shot self-report questionnaires, the most commonly used approach to documenting language input and interaction in study abroad contexts (Mitchell, 2023). We conclude the session with suggestions for other questions the app might be used to explore in applied linguistics, education and the social sciences more broadly, before opening the discussion about the value of the approach to experience sampling and using open source tools for data collection.

Skills Development Workshop

We are living through a period of incredible development in the capabilities and usability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, most notably with the release of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs). Used well, these systems have the potential to change much of the scientific workflow for the better, including learning new technical skills, writing code and running analyses, performing literature reviews and drafting manuscripts.This session will provide an overview of current AI tools that can be used by researchers, focusing on three areas: coding and analysis, literature reviews, and writing manuscripts. Attendees will be taught how to get the most out of AI to speed up or automate these tasks. We will cover prompt engineering, literature review tools, and analysis tools such as GitHub CoPilot and ChatGPT Data Analyst. The session will be organised around a practical exercise with attendees using AI to write a short empirical article, including analysis and writing, from start to finish. The session will end with a discussion of the ethical and professional considerations of using AI systems.As part of this session we will introduce a free-to-access platform hosted on GitHub providing a curated list of AI tools and tips.

Skills Development Workshop

Understanding and appropriately engaging with people living with dementia is the future of community, health and social care research. The number of older people living with dementia in the UK is set to near 1.5 million by 2040, more than doubling since 2015. The impacts of this on society and the economy will be enormous, with costs of healthcare, social care and informal care provided by family and friends set to rise by more than 200%, (Wittenberg et al, 2020). Therefore, researchers and research methodology must be equipped to respond to this demographic change if they are to adequately address society's challenges over the coming decades. Most importantly, directly accessing the voices of people previously excluded from research due to their cognitive impairment and societal stigma is vital to create a more equitable and inclusive approach to research. This interactive workshop will enable participants to explore the challenges and solutions to involving people living with dementia as research participants and co-producers. It will provide insight into the ways in which different qualitative methods (including creative methods) can be used and adapted to involve people living with dementia at all stages of the condition, including those who lack capacity to provide informed consent or have no verbal communication abilities. The workshop will share examples from a decade of dementia care research demonstrating the ways in which people living with dementia can be ethically involved, empowered and heard through the research process.

Skills Development Workshop

This Skills Development Workshop is aimed at academics and researchers with no prior experience of using virtual reality (VR). We will introduce attendees to key elements of adapting VR for the purpose of behavioural research. First, we will show how people (and objects) can be scanned and turned into 3D assets, which can then be used in VR. We will then outline a workflow for creating a simple behavioural experiment in VR. On completion of the workshop, attendees will have the option to sign up to our free training programme, in which we put volunteers through a series of bite-size exercises en route to developing their first VR experiment.

Skills Development Workshop

This proposed Skills Development Workshop aims to provide researchers with the skills to implement conversation game methods within a socio-environmental context. This workshop will enable the participants to design conversation games that can be integrated into their research and engagement practices. Furthermore, the workshop will provide the participants with hands-on experiences in how to conduct a conversation game. The workshop will highlight how conversation games are an inclusive and empowering way to introduce research participants to complex issues they are not familiar with and gather the participants' perspectives on those issues. Furthermore, we will discuss how the conversation game can be co-created and be part of a bigger portfolio of research and engagement activities. To illustrate this process we draw on our experience of developing and using the PlayDecide conversation game in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece in order to explore the societal dimensions of an EU Horizon 2020 pilot project that sought to develop new Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage technologies. We highlight the challenges and potentials of using conversation games to engage communities in projects where climate technologies and the socio-environmental futures they bring are still being explored and contested. As the flexibility of the PlayDecide game, means that its application is not limited just within a socio-environmental context, the workshop participants will also have the opportunity to discuss how to deploy it in other research contexts including Public Health and Artificial Intelligence.

Skills Development Workshop

Composite indicators are valuable instruments for the social sciences to illustrate complex social, economic, or environmental phenomena. Providing simplified country, regional, or local comparisons of performances, composite indicators are becoming increasingly influential in policy analysis and the public communication of current trends. Yet, the informative value of composite indicators rests on the conceptual and methodological soundness of their construction. In this Skills Development Workshop, we guide participants through the ten methodological steps in the construction of composite indicators developed by the OECD and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre: conceptual development, indicator selection, data treatment, normalisation, weighting, aggregation, correlation analysis, robustness testing, data analysis, and visualisation of scores. The demonstration uses the example of the UK Gender Equality Index (UKGEI), developed by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's College London, comparing women's and men's socio-economic outcomes across the 374 local authorities of the UK. The UKGEI combines multiple indicators related to the domains of Paid Work, Unpaid Work, Money, Education, Health, and Power & Participation to evaluate the extent and variation of gender equality across the four nations.Given the proliferation of and increasing reliance on composite indicators in policy-making and public discourse, social scientists should be aware of the benefits and risks associated with their development and interpretation. By the end of the workshop, participants will understand the conceptual and methodological decisions involved in the construction process and will have gained the skills necessary to assess the validity and robustness of composite indicators and their knowledge claims.

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Session 1.A: Developing systems and methodologies to enhance discovery and retrieval of complex data using LLMs
Large Language Models and Generative AI in general are attracting significant attention and finding applications in various environments. This session will explore how this technology can enhance data accessibility for research purposes. We will discuss the aims, objectives, and methodologies of CORDIAL-AI, a project designed to help researchers discover and retrieve information from complex structured datasets, such as census origin and destination data, using the power of Generative AI. We will present some of the latest advancements in this field, from fine-tuning models to creating efficient pipelines for user interaction, and share our approach and methodologies. The project utilises open-source models and software to provide an in-house solution. We will discuss the potentials, challenges, benefits, and limitations of this technology and our approach. Attendees will be invited to share their ideas, concerns, experiences, or any input related to the application of this technology for data discovery and retrieval. While the session will touch on several technical aspects, advanced knowledge in the field is not required.

Session 1.B: Data discovery made easy: Applying ML to a diverse social science database
Why can I "talk" to a database now and how exactly did we as a society get here? AI, and specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), are a major disruptive technological advancement that have, and will, drastically change society for both better and worse.In this session, we cover the evolution of the academic landscape in AI methods - including the new research methods that we utilise in our project called “Data Discovery Made Easy” (DDME). We explain how we are currently using open-source software built around LLMs to bridge the gap between our geospatial database and users. We also discuss the potential usefulness of advanced, locally-hosted, open-weight models, and potential scaling methods for tool production and deployment.This new type of LLM-based data discovery method raises many questions: How and why does it work? Where does it fail? How is it tested? What are “hallucinations” in the context of LLMs? Why do they happen? Why are they important to us and the DDME project? Can they be stopped? Where will the AI research field go next? What about ethics? This is a session to learn about some of these topics together.

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Session 2.A: Enhancing Data Accessibility and Security through Innovative Data Synthesis (EDASIDA).
One bottle neck in the discoverability pipeline for data is the availability of teaching datasets. This is particularly acute for data that is stored in a virtual research environment where the access restrictions make the production of teaching datasets problematic. This adds to the 'hurdle height' for potential new users. In principle, synthetic data produced by the data services themselves are an option, but there are two conflicting issues, risk and utility. A preliminary study conducted at Manchester in collaboration with Administrative Data Research UK demonstrated the feasibility of generating synthetic datasets with high utility and low risk (even achieving zero marginal risk). The essential idea is to start from output that has been cleared for publication by a service and to use the parameters of that output (model coefficients, sufficient statistics etc.) as the objective function for a genetic algorithm for data synthesis. In this session, we will describe the results of these initial studies before outlining a further extension of the work which uses the synthetic data created using this approach to assess the disclosure risk of the output itself. This potentially addresses another issue with TREs, the informality and inconsistency of output checking procedures. Again, our initial results here are very promising. Building on earlier work (Elliot et al 2023), we have discovered that comparable risk measures, akin to those applied to microdata, can be potentially employed. The envisioned goal is to modernize and automate the output checking process

Session 2.B: Extraction and Utilisation of Metadata from Non-machine-actionable Documents to Improve Data Curation and Discovery
We will describe the rationale for our approach, results of prior work and how that relates to the development of new methods to improve metadata uplift in survey and biomedical instruments

Skills Development Workshop

Multilevel models allow researchers to use data that has a clustered structure such as pupils nested within schools, or individuals within neighbourhoods. Recently, a version of multilevel models has been developed for the study of intersectional inequalities in individual outcomes. With the Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA), individuals are nested within their intersectional strata that is their combination of various sociodemographic identity categories for instance gender, age, ethnicity and social class. The method has great potential for uncovering and understanding intersectional inequalities, where a combination of social identities combine in complex ways to produce societal (dis)advantage.This session will provide a brief introduction to the conceptual underpinnings of the MAIHDA approach, as well as practical guidance on how to use it, some key statistics that can be produced from that approach, and give advice on how to visualize the results that are produced. Attendees will be provided with further resources to allow them to practice using the intersectional MAIHDA approach going forward.The session will be based on the work currently being undertaken as part of the contributors' ESRC grant

Skills Development Workshop

Participatory Prospective Analysis (PPA) is an approach geared towards the exploration of future scenarios and can be applied to multiple topics in the field of development-related research. Participatory Action Research (PAR) foregrounds the value of experiential knowledge to understand unequal socio-economic structures, and to envision and implement alternatives to address problems caused by them.This session will be a collective hands-on exploration of the connections between PPA and PAR, foregrounding their contributions towards a more epistemically just future. We will focus on the value of integrating multiple ways of knowing into research strategies, particularly those geared towards utilising our collective intelligence in a structured and systemic way to anticipate future scenarios and influence its course.Making space for variations and adjustments to standard PPA and PAR practices, this skills development workshop will focus on the value that can be found at intersection of both methods. It will also emphasise the relevance of establishing equitable participatory processes to develop different elements therein. These will include system, variable and key variable identification, scenario development, and anticipatory action elucidation. Participants will be invited to link elements of their own research and projects to the different elements presented.By the end of this workshop participants will:a) Understand the principles of PAR and PPA, as well as their value for the collective exploration of future scenarios;b) Be able to establish links and hopefully integrate elements of PAR and PPA to their own research or broader work.

Skills Development Workshop

This session illustrates the experience of university courses integrating Future Studies Methods with Challenge Based Learning (CBL) and discusses pedagogical perspectives in Future Literacy projects. Learning is a social process that involves interactions and communication as well as knowledge contents that can vary according to political and historical context; learning involves an intergenerational exchange, a role/position differentiation and the sharing of competences and practices with diversified others. Future literacy, as a capacity to recognize and anticipate changes and foresee challenges, is synergic with learning processes and could operate inside universities to solicit reforming and reframing teaching design. Adopting this perspective, the School of Innovation of the University of Trento has been organizing CBL modules that implement Future Studies Methods. The Challenges were addressed to international participants from different EU universities and involved in-presence training and online learning courses as well as reflexive moments in tutoring sessions. Two recent projects (ECIU Challenge 2023-2024 - Engaging for the Future and ECIU Challenge 2022-2023 - The future of cultural objects), specifically, addressed SDGs related to envisioning inclusive and equitable futures in collaboration with cultural and NGOs organizations. Moving from such cases, the session will explore a) under which conditions a common reflexivity about the futures could be activated inside educational institutions, b) the expected learning outcomes and the pedagogical tools associated to Future Literacy in the context of higher education, and c) the Futures Methods issues related to innovative teaching programs in collaboration with external stakeholders.

Skills Development Workshop

This workshop will introduce participants to genetically informed causal inference methods and provide a practical example of how to run these anlayses. It will be split into three components: a 40 minute introduction to genetic causal inference methods; a 10 minute question and answer session; and a 40 minute practical on applying genetic causal inference methods. The talk will introduce participants to polygenic scores and Mendelian randomisation (MR). Polygenic scores are derived genetic measures that summarise known genetic predisposition to a trait such as BMI. We will discuss their conception and construction, how they may be biased by population level social factors, and how they can be derived or obtained from major research studies. We will also introduce MR, a methodological approach that uses genetic variants as instrumental variables to obtain unbiased (causal) estimates of health, behaviour and social exposures. We will discuss the assumptions of MR, implications when these are violated, when and how it can be applied, and how results should be interpreted. The practical will use a synthetic example dataset and open-source software, making use of Posit Cloud, an online version of RStudio. Using Posit Cloud will allow us to set up the data environment and scripts in a centralised location that participants can access. This approach therefore minimises risks typically encountered in practical sessions, such as participants not having the correct software/version installed, problems with data extraction, or incorrect data environments.

Skills Development Workshop

FAIR data [go-fair.org] is a focus for all funders, whether in the UK, Europe or further afield. For instance, "UKRI aims to achieve open research data that is ‘findable’, accessible, interoperable and re-useable (UKRI Open research [ukri.org])."
Whilst creating FAIR meta(data) is primarily the responsibility of archives, journals and repositories, researchers need to be aware of and be prepared to provide the right information for them. The session will equip you to understand the core principles of data and metadata, and how metadata not only benefits access to your data, but helps you to think about how you use and discover research data.

Bite-sized

Session 3.A: Harmony: A natural language processing approach to data discovery and harmonisation.
In this workshop we will introduce you to our Harmony tool and platform. Harmony, the winner of the Wellcome Trust Data Prize, uses natural language processing technology to compare and match text content. Harmony was originally developed to facilitate fast and easy harmonisation of questionnaires commonly used in social science and mental health research. As part of the ESRC's Future Data Services programme, we have now extended Harmony's functionality to help researchers discover data from existing data catalogues, including our partner platforms the Catalogue of Mental Health Measures and Explorer by the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration. In this session you will have the chance to try Harmony and we will show you how to use it to discover data from existing UK longitudinal studies and how to import the information back into Harmony to harmonise your measures and get your data research ready. We are inviting you to become part of our Harmony community and share your vision and ideas for Harmony's future developments with us. We look forward to welcoming you to our session.

Session 3.B:Corpus-assisted discourse studies: An introduction to a mixed methodology.
Corpus linguistics denotes the investigation of an electronic collection of texts (a ‘corpus’) using specialist software. It is the fastest-growing methodology within applied linguistics and is widely-used across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Rather than being used in isolation, corpus linguistics is frequently combined with discourse analysis and is known as CADS: corpus-assisted discourse studies. This combination harnesses the quantitative power of large-scale analysis using big datasets with the qualitative strengths of detailed textual reading and the human ability to spot patterns. This session aims to demonstrate the advantages of CADS and to inspire participants to consider how it could be used in their own field of research. I will demonstrate CADS techniques such as extracting, sorting and categorising concordance lines, and tools such as plot dispersion and semantic tagging (cf. sentiment analysis). We will explore how an initial quantitative investigation such as keyword searches can provide a ‘way in’ to more detailed qualitative coding of data, illustrating searches through my recent research on Young Adult fiction. The session will briefly consider future directions of CADS, particularly around the development of new tools such as visualisation software in the age of AI. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of what corpus linguistics can offer their area of research, and with online resources to find out more about the free software currently available. No prior knowledge or experience of corpus linguistics is needed.

Bite-sized

Session 4.A:Navigating and charting career pathways in data services, a presentation of preliminary findings from the ODSESSY project
This session will introduce a new project with aims to examine pathways for Optimizing Data Professional Success. The UK has a diverse and dynamic research data landscape, with data service staff crucial in supporting researchers. As data sources and delivery mechanisms have grown more complex, so have the required skills for these professionals. However, they often find themselves in a challenging position - neither fully academic researchers nor university support staff. This has created a significant gap in training and career development, leading to high turnover, limited diversity, and unclear career progression. The project aims to transform the training and development landscape for data service staff by focusing on skill mapping, curriculum development, recruitment and induction strategies, and establishing a supportive network.During this event we will be presenting preliminary findings and designs for the skills framework and curriculum. We will be asking for feedback and discussion on the preliminary findings and sketches to help steer this project.

Session 4.B: Supporting social science data research in health-focussed Trusted Research Environments: what can we do better?
Current health-focussed Trusted Research Environments (TREs) are well-linked to NHS data, but do not maximise the potential value from linking better with social science datasets and researchers. We represent the Scottish Safe Haven TRE Network and are working to identify the gaps and needs in knowledge and skills of TRE professional staff for supporting social science data ingestion and research methods. We will present our findings so far including areas identified as needing skills development. We want to understand researchers' needs in this area and challenges experienced to date in accessing routinely collected, unconsented, linked health and social science datasets. This will feed directly into a curriculum development plan that could be used across the UK to upskill health-focussed TRE professional staff to better support social science data research.

Keynote

This talk will explore how XR technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), can revolutionize the way we approach and conduct future research. The presentation will cover:
1. Introduction to XR Technologies
2. XR in Futures Methodologies
3. Case Studies and Applications
4. Methodological Innovations
5. Future Directions
6. Q&A Session

Interactive futures Workshop

Serious games (and particularly wargames) have a history of use in strategy and training. But play is an under-used research and co-production method. In this Interactive Futures Workshop we will use serious play as a way to (re)imagine and explore the future impacts of an ageing population for MethodsCon:Futures.Our workshop will:- Build skills of academics and practitioners in creative research methods using serious play;- Explore how methods and coproduction can interact as a futures methodology for policy impact;- Demonstrate the importance of creative methods and the way we conduct research to enhance interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral partnership and networking. Participants in our Interactive Futures Workshop will learn by doing, as they actually play 'Hopetown: A Game for Housing and Ageing' to explore the future driven by the challenges of supporting healthy ageing in place over time. Participants gain insight into creative research methods for positive real-world change by putting the methods into actionDeveloped by Professors Vikki McCall and Alasdair Rutherford (based at Stirling University and co-founders of social enterprise Socialudo) the serious games are an exciting evidence-based new area of social research (see www.socialudo.com). Players take on different roles, such as policymaker, service-provider, community group or developer, and negotiate using their resources to maximise the wellbeing of (ageing) residents in the fictional Hopetown.Our Interactive Futures Workshop will build understanding of ageing futures and provide insight into how we can help support research impact. We invite participants to come along and explore this innovative approach while also having fun!

Interactive futures Workshop

To deliver a participatory futures workshop on what the future of social science research will be in ten years' time. The workshop will begin with an introduction and series of short provocations from well-known social scientists and authors about the future of social science research in the UK. Each will provide their perspective on the current state of social science research, interdisciplinarity, the role of data and AI in research, and the institutions that shape social science research. This will be followed by a breakout session of small groups when participants will share their perspectives with one another and identify up to three important issues for the future. These will feedback to an interactive panel discussion with the original presenters who will respond to these perspectives and issues, and from this a final set of topics will be identified for the rest of the workshop. Finally, participants will engage in a scenario-planning exercise using the three horizons framework, envisioning potential futures for social science research on each topic. Groups will be encouraged to create a visual representation of their scenarios using provided materials. Each group will then be invited to share their scenarios for adapting to future challenges with the rest of the group. The session will end with a plenary discussion of key takeaways, providing time for informal discussions and networking amongst participants. We expect participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the potential directions social science research could take and strategies to navigate the challenging academic landscape.

Interactive futures Workshop

We propose an interactive workshop centred on the interplay between human intelligence and artificial intelligence (AI) in the evolving landscape of research. The workshop aims to stimulate rigorous methodological discussion on the potential impact of AI, and what is needed from us as researchers to maximise potential, while minimising risks. The first part of the workshop will address the experiential dimension of researchers employing AI, with an emphasis on understanding its effects on the way we perceive and value our craft. This part will engage with questions such as: How does the incorporation of AI into research practices change the researchers' experience? What implications does this have on our conceptualisation of research? The second part of the workshop will apply our existing knowledge of research methods to investigate dynamic roles of HI (Humans Intelligence) vs AI in the research process. This will involve discussion of case studies where AI is already in use to enhance existing qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as where they may be scope in the future to evolve new methodologies. Participants will explore ethical implications, and strategies to minimise bias. Participants will delve into how current quality assurance processes can be applied to AI, while identifying areas where new skill development is necessary. The workshop will empower researchers to feel more in control of how they utilise their skills and knowledge to optimise the use of AI in their research, thereby shaping the future of AI within the research community.

Interactive futures Workshop

Our workshop is for anyone with an interest in participatory research, or a belief in its ability to create meaningful change. Our goal is to generate some collective intelligence about how to make participatory research work within universities. How do people work within institutional systems not traditionally designed for participatory research? How do they develop ways to work around barriers and constraints? How has this helped people work up ideas for more systemic change? In our session, we'll share our experiences, recount tough challenges, and imagine better ways for universities and funders to support participatory research. The workshop is a collaboration between the Co-Pro Futures Inquiry, and a major project on changing research cultures. The Co-Pro Futures Inquiry argues that the HEI sector needs to put its own house in order before better co-produced research can take place. It is addressing institutional constraints in the higher education sector that hinder more meaningful co-production of research. The Inquiry focuses on naming, and tackling, the many macro-level challenges to doing more and better co-produced research. The Inquiry team come from the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield, and Manchester and are supported by a small two year cross-institutional award from UK Participatory Research Funds. The team at Newcastle University are using a participatory action research methodology to try to change our wider research culture, and are supported by a £1 million grant from the Wellcome Trust, as part of the Institutional Funding for Research Culture programme.

Interactive futures Workshop

Purpose: Demonstrating speculative design methods, (in particular, design fiction), we will take participants through a process of imagining what a racially just hospital in 2124 might look like.

Content: Racial health inequalities in the UK have persisted for many decades. For example, rates of infant and maternal mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes are higher among Black and South Asian people. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other health technologies including medical Internet of Things (IoT) are being heralded as having positive impacts on patient outcomes. However, these technologies are already exhibiting racial biases. Without careful consideration to disrupt the (re)production of biases, the future of healthcare for marginalised groups will remain marked by inequalities. In this session, we invite participants to imagine the futures of healthcare systems, considering where bias and medical racism interact with healthcare technologies and spatial design. Through these activities, we will demonstrate how speculative design methods can be used to interrogate multiple potential futures and support research to develop more ethical, just outcomes.

Format: The workshop will be divided into three sessions. Session 1 will begin with short provocations from the workshop conveners on medical racism, AI and health technologies, ethics, and future hospitals. In Session 2, participants will 'visit' a hospital waiting room (immersive speculation) in 2034. Session 3 will invite participants to design their own healthcare immersive scenario and environment in 2124.

Audience: This workshop will be suitable for social scientists, policymakers and health organisations. We will invite participants from the NHS New Hospital Programme.