The themes and title of this year’s SRA Conference were chosen to reflect not only the changing and uncertain landscape social researchers are currently operating in, but also the response of our sector to those challenges.
Common threads at Conference this year were the responsible use of AI, inclusive and trauma-informed research, and the importance of the role of researchers in challenging existing practices and power imbalances.
Guiding principles and oversight for using the AI toolbox
I would argue that we are now in a different place with AI as a community than we were a year ago. Then, AI was more likely to be perceived as something coming down the line fast at us: a new toolbox, but difficult to understand and challenging a lot of the values and practices that we hold dear as a community.
One year on, and we have opened the box and started applying AI tools to our practice. The rapid development and application of AI tools is posing challenges to social researchers, both in terms of how research is done but also who does the research. Organisations running the large-scale surveys that are the backbone of much government reporting and measurement of progress, are facing difficulties obtaining the response rates needed to make them both robust and representative.
Several presentations at the SRA Conference, as well as one of the masterclasses, covered lessons from AI tool applications - highlighting the need for human oversight and quality assurance processes. However, they also demonstrated that AI tools are not a separate process, rather that we are using them for parts of a research project while staying firmly within existing ethical and quality assurance frameworks.
While I am not sure we are yet at the stage of being able to routinely and responsibly manipulate AI tools like a Rubix cube, the way Reema Patel encouraged us to do in her keynote conference session, we are definitely in a different place.
Trauma-informed methods and questions about power
An even more prominent thread running through the Conference, was that of inclusive and trauma-informed research. Trauma-informed methods came to prominence through the Every Story Matters large-scale inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many organisations involved in the data collection developed excellent trauma-informed approaches and, as part of those, provided training in trauma-informed approaches to all the staff involved. Since then, it has become ubiquitous, featuring in most ethics applications submitted to the SRA and being one of our most popular training courses.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, power emerged as a key theme across several conference sessions. Genuinely sharing power with communities as part of a research project may lead to changing the focus of a research project and, thus, having potentially difficult conversations with funders, suggested Danny Shriskandaraj in his opening plenary.
In her session, our keynote speaker Dr Holly Taylor-Dunn, challenged the audience to think of trauma-informed approaches as being based on six principles (safety; trust and transparency; empowerment, voice and control; collaboration; cultural, historical and gender issues and peer support) that often contrast with established practices of research funding and ethics appraisals.
Power was key to a sense of inclusion and the ability to participate and co-produce a research project and, thus, “researchers must actively design for power, not just ethics and methods. Power, ownership and decision-rights are core design elements, not afterthoughts.” (Laurelle Brown and Jane Evans).
And in the final session of the day, Jason Arday encouraged the audience to be aware of power structures that would like to showcase and correspondingly suppress particular critical approaches and researchers.
A community committed to inclusive and responsible research
My take-ways from this year’s Conference where: despite challenges and uncertainties for the social research community at this time; the response is one of creativity, reflection and learning, and a commitment to values of inclusive and responsible research. Research practices keep evolving but are ultimately based on key principles that remain valued and stable over time.
As I write this, a new Prime Minister and cabinet (including the first ever minister for AI) bring new ideas, new priorities and, perhaps, new hope. However, this change of government is taking place in the context of continued pressure on public finances which is likely to affect government social research capacity and commissioning, and in turn the wider sector.
I encourage social researchers to join our community, to take advantage of our training provision, networking opportunities and to add your voice. A key way you can do this now is to respond to the two live consultations on our new guidance.
Consultations on new SRA guidance
Over the summer we are consulting members on two new pieces of guidance. Please follow the links to these live consultations on our Members Hub to read about the guidance and share your responses before 31 August:
The use of AI in Social Research: Guiding Principles for Social Researchers by Reema Patel and Samm Gates, sets out four principles and a practical checklist for researchers to use.
Guidance on equitable, trauma informed research. Dr Holly Taylor Dunn and Skye Curtis Guilhen are asking members for their views and experiences to help to shape this new guidance.