LISS DTP Vision
LISS DTP will train the next generation of research leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs who will transform the way social scientists tackle complex problems and global challenges.
Our vision for the DTP is informed by three interwoven core principles:
Bridging disciplines to advance innovative, challenge-led social science at the intersections with health, science, engineering, and the humanities.
LISS DTP fosters interdisciplinary research that transcends traditional boundaries within and beyond the social sciences.
Our Doctoral Researchers and Postdoctoral Fellows are supported to develop the skills required to engage in challenge-led research that cuts across disciplines and research traditions. Through a comprehensive training programme, we integrate diverse disciplinary perspectives to nurture innovative research at the interface of the social sciences with the health sciences, engineering, the natural and mathematical sciences, and the humanities.
Interdisciplinarity is embedded throughout our provision, but we also actively support projects that extend the frontiers of overlap between the social sciences and the remits of other research councils. These include, for example, population health research that falls primarily within the MRC remit but is enriched through social science theories and perspectives; research on political activism and institutions informed by historical and philosophical approaches usually falling under the remit of the AHRC; and social science projects that draw on advanced methods from applied mathematics and computer science, which would ordinarily fall under the EPSRC remit.
Harnessing diverse forms of data and methods to generate deeper insights into complex social realities.
LISS DTP champions data-driven research across and beyond the social sciences.
We are committed to embedding data analytic skills across our disciplinary portfolio, while maintaining excellence in theoretically informed and conceptually rich research. Our aim is to harness advanced forms of data analytics to engage with complex and emerging datasets from diverse sources, including government at multiple levels, the private sector, and civil society, in order to generate deeper insights into the societies we live in. We value the full spectrum of data – numeric, textual, visual, structured, and unstructured – and recognise the importance of both large- and small-scale forms of evidence.
Equally, we embrace a wide range of methodological approaches to data collection, analysis, and interpretation, encompassing quantitative, computational, digital, qualitative, participatory, and mixed methods. In so doing, we seek to sustain a thematically and methodologically pluralistic research culture, offering all students the opportunity to develop the data analytic and digital competencies most relevant to their intellectual and professional trajectories, whether grounded in quantitative or qualitative traditions.
Embedding research in practice to deliver meaningful societal and economic impact through collaboration and engagement beyond academia.
LISS DTP is committed to supporting research with the potential to generate significant societal and economic impact.
We embed Research in Practice as a defining feature of the doctoral experience, offering our students distinctive opportunities to co-design research and collaborate with partners in the public, private, and third sectors. In this way, students develop transferable skills, leadership capacities, and cross-sectoral experience that prepare them for a wide range of career pathways. Our aim is to equip students to lead impactful projects by engaging with diverse networks of non-academic collaborators, including users, practitioners, and prospective employers.
To this end, we provide a robust placements programme with partners spanning government, industry, and civil society, and deliver a tailored suite of training modules designed to strengthen transferable skills, foster a global perspective on impact and employability, and enhance the ability of our students to collaborate effectively with stakeholders beyond academia.
LISS DTP
- develops and delivers a high-quality training programme by integrating different disciplinary specialisms into a heterogeneous training structure that fosters interdisciplinary social science research at the interface with the health sciences, engineering, the natural and mathematical sciences, and the humanities;
- enriches students’ learning experience by offering flexible student-centered training that integrates conceptual and general research training with a rigorous and comprehensive programme of specialist training in qualitative, quantitative, computational, mixed, and digital methods;
- promotes dignity and mutual respect in the ways students and staff work, and embeds Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) values and practices within the whole DTP by implementing inclusive recruitment and selection processes, widening participation of under-represented groups of students, promoting a positive research culture towards student retention and achievement, supporting student health and well-being, and strengthening professional development for supervisors;
- embeds Research in Practice as a core component of the doctoral experience by offering our students unique opportunities to co-design research and collaborate with practitioners in the public, business, and third sectors, and develop transferrable and leadership skills in preparation for future careers of all kinds;
- prepares students to lead complex, interdisciplinary, cross-sector, and impactful projects by offering opportunities to build academic networks across the partner institutions and beyond, and acquire the skills to innovate with data in response to global societal, economic, and environmental challenges; and
- contributes to continual improvement in social science doctoral training provision by engaging with the network of ESRC DTPs, sharing best practice, and promoting innovation.
About LISS DTP
Governance Structure
LISS DTP Team
