We were delighted to attend the Royal Statistical Society’s 2024 International Conference on 2-5 September in Brighton. With over 600 people participating from across the world, the event was a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge and learn about the latest developments in statistics and data science.
Our presentations
Dr Vanessa Higgins, our Director of Training and User Support, organised a panel session titled “Developing quantitative data driven research skills in social science students outside the classroom”. The session, which was chaired by Professor Bev Hale from the University of Chichester, provided an important discussion on statistical literacy, data skills and the importance of including students from the social sciences and humanities in data-related careers.
Vanessa’s presentation discussed her work with social science students to evidence the skills they obtain from the UK Data Service online training programme. It also covered our new Data Skills Framework, which provides a taxonomy of data skills for working with social, population and economic data.
The framework has attracted significant interest both within the UK and internationally, including from the Office for National Statistics and the Royal Statistical Society. Some of the feedback so far includes a comment that it will “have implications for schools and education, far and wide” and that the paper “will help move on the discussion” about how training can develop to address the data skills gap.
Dr Jools Kasmire was invited to join a panel called “Getting your Work to Work”, which was organised by Reny Baykova and Teresa Lee. The panel emphasised the importance of reproducibility and how computationally reproducible research builds confidence in research. Dr Kasmire’s contribution, titled “Coding in Public”, focused on the barriers that prevent equal participation in reproducibility, with special attention paid to the barriers that most directly affect the social sciences.
Poster award
We were also proud to sponsor this year’s award for the best academic poster displayed at the conference. There were a great range of posters presented from across multiple different sectors and it was a privilege to be able to offer our support.
The winner of the poster was Tilly Spurr, from the University of Chichester. Her poster was called: ‘Physical Activity and Nutrition Behaviour in Female Adolescent Hockey Players within the competitive season’.