Survey Skills
Key contacts
The Survey Skills Programme is managed by the following people:Bev Botting - Survey Outreach Officer
Bev joined the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in April 2009. She is responsible for leading the Survey Skills Scheme workshops and organising placements for social researchers. Bev is an experienced quantitative researcher and a trainer, having written and presented widely, largely in the field of child health. Her more recent experience has been leading national financial social surveys.
Bev joined NatCen following a long career in ONS, where from 1990 she led a team working on child health and coordinated medical research service. She has a particular research interest in multiple births, and was a joint research lead, author and editor of the report ‘Three Four and More: a study of Triplets and Higher Order Births’. In 2001, following a secondment to the Department of Health, she joined ONS Social Survey and led teams working on major financial National Social Surveys. She also has considerable experience in recruiting and the personal development of researchers.
Iram Awan - Survey Skills Programme and Survey Resources Network Administrator
Iram joined the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in 2009. She will be administering the Survey Resources Network of which one strand is the Survey Skills programme. The Survey Resources Network brings together the ESRC’s investments in survey research and aims to enhance the quality of training and resources available to researchers. She is also an administrator for the NatCen Research Ethics Committee. Iram was previously a student advisor at City Lit; the largest adult education centre in Europe for the last five years, and was involved in helping to develop its Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) services.
Bob Erens - Co-director of the Survey Resources Network
Bob is Director of the Survey Methods Unit at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), having taken up the post in January 2007. Joining NatCen in 1986, he initially worked on projects for the former DSS and DfEE. From the mid-1990s until 2006, Bob concentrated on health-related projects and was head of NatCen's Health Research Group. After running the first Scottish Health Survey in 1995, he took over the running of the Health Survey for England in 1998. Most recently, Bob has completed co-editing a major report on the diet and nutrition of low income households and co-writing a report on the first prevalence study of elder abuse in the UK. Bob was lead NatCen researcher on the second National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal 2000) and is a co-investigator on Natsal 2010. He also worked on the first national survey of gambling in Britain, which resulted in the book, Problem Gambling in Britain (Brunner-Routledge, 2003). He has a particular interest in surveys of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Groups, and co-authored a chapter on designing surveys for BME groups in Health and Social Research in Multiethnic Societies (Routledge, 2006). Bob has co-written a chapter on measuring sexual behaviour, which will be published in 2009 in Social Measurement Through Social Surveys: an Applied Approach.
Kandy Woodfield – Director of NatCen Learning, responsible for development of the Survey Skills programme
Kandy has been the Director of Communications and Learning at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) since 2008. She is responsible for the activities of NatCen Learning, the training arm of the organization, which provides a range of learning events in social research to central government, academic units, and researchers in the public and voluntary sector. Kandy is an experienced trainer and qualitative researcher, she has written and presented widely on key issues in social research.
She joined NatCen in 1997 from academic research and teaching and has over fifteen years experience of directing high-quality qualitative research across a range of policy areas. In addition to spearheading the establishment of NatCen Learning in 2005, Kandy was Deputy Director of the Qualitative Research Unit at NatCen until 2008. Her most recent research studies included qualitative projects focusing on issues of disability, incapacity and employment; resettlement to the UK and immigration issues, social exclusion, and identity. Together with colleagues in the QRU Kandy is responsible for the development of the new FrameWork software for qualitative data analysis.
Nick Allum - is developing and teaching on the Survey Skills programme workshops
Nick is the senior Lecturer in Empirical Sociology at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) (University of Essex). Previously he has held posts in the University of Surrey and the London School of Economics (LSE). He is an advisory board member of Science Communication and the Wellcome Trust Biomedical Monitor Survey and is a Reviewer for the US National Science Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
He has published many articles and books in the public understanding of science, the social psychology of risk, risk perception, social and political trust and survey measurement.
Jon Jackson – is developing and teaching on the Survey Skills programme workshops
Jonathan Jackson is a Lecturer in Social Research Methods and member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics (LSE). He has also held visiting appointments at the University of Oxford, New York University, and the University of Sydney.
His work focuses on the social, political, cultural, psychological and moral aspects of public attitudes towards crime, justice and punishment. Jon is currently involved in various international research projects, including an ongoing European Commission FP7 project into public confidence in criminal justice that develops social indicators of public trust and the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. He is also the principal investigator of a rotating module on this topic in the fifth round of the European Social Survey
His research has been published in journals such as: British Journal of Criminology; Risk Analysis; Science; British Journal of Sociology; Psychology, Crime and Law; Public Understanding of Science; Journal of Social Policy; European Journal of Criminology; Nature Materials; Journal of Applied Social Psychology; and Policing and Society.
Shirley Dex - is developing and teaching on the Survey Skills programme workshops
Shirley is Professor of Longitudinal Social Research in Education at the Institute of Education (IoE). She acted as an advisor to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Work and Family Life Programme from 1998 to 2004. Previously, she has held posts at the Judge Business School (University of Cambridge), the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) (University of Essex), and the Economics Department at the University of Keele.
She has published many books and articles on labour markets, household employment, flexible working arrangements in organisations, equal opportunities, women’s employment and cross-national comparative research, work, care and family policy.
Contact Survey Skills
To register for the programme and book a place on an initial workshop, complete the online booking form. To discuss the programme in more detail contact:
Bev BottingSurvey Skills Outreach Officer
NatCen Learning
The National Centre for Social Research
35 Northampton Square
LONDON EC1 0AX
Tel: +44 (0)20 7250 1866
