The ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health's innovative methods platform supports the use of cutting-edge statistical methods and novel qualitative approaches in close partnership with communities and experts by experience to more effectively answer questions about the mechanisms and pathways that link society and mental health.
The 'Primers and Provocations' programme will prime researchers on methods which are innovative or where training is not widely available as well as providing a space to provoke discussion on cross-cutting issues in methodology — theoretical, practical, ethical — which transcend diverse fields of research, engagement and community action.
All sessions are one-hour long and are designed to provide a 'broad brush' overview of methods that are accessible for all.
Recordings for past events are available on the Centre's Youtube channel.
Programme Overview
2025
Wednesday 22 October, 14.30: Introduction to Latent Class Analysis
Dr Rebecca Rhead, Lecturer in Society and Mental Health, King's College London
Wednesday 19 November, 14:30: "Get to know us! Our lives with mental illness in the Palestinian community" - the journey of and lessons learned from a participatory action project
Professor Hanna Kienzler, Co-Director, ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health
Wednesday 18 February, 14.30: Creative Methods in Social Science Research: Visual and Embodied Perspectives
Dr Phoebe Martin, a research associate on the Visual and Embodied Methodologies for Addressing Gender Based Violence project at King's, and Dr Tiffany Fairey, an active member of the Visual Embodied Methodologies Network
2024
Wednesday 24 April, 15.30: Knowing our Own Minds: the role and value of experiential knowledge in mental health research
Alison Faulkner, Survivor Researcher
Monday 20 May, 15.30: Photovoice and Paired Description - an introductory workshop
Prakash Krishnan, Flickr Foundation Research Fellow and Access in the Making (AIM) Lab member
Wednesday 29 May, 16.00: Qualitative Longitudinal Research - Strengths and Challenges
Bren Neale, Emeritus Professor of Life Course and Family Research, University of Leeds
Wednesday 26 June, 16.00: Multilevel Models of Intersectional Inequities: Introducing MAIHDA and Reimagining Multilevel Methods
Clare Evans, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, USA
2023
Wednesday 8 March, 14.00: How human centered are our practices?
Bessie Bulman, Research and Evaluation Project Officer, Thrive LDN
Wednesday 24 May, 14.00: Conversation Analysis as a method for health and social policy research.
Dr Annie Irvine, Quantitative Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College London Dr Merran Toerien, Reader in Sociology, University of York.
Tuesday 8 June, 14.00: Mediation Analysis from a life-course perspective.
Bianca de Stavola, Professor of Medical Statistics, University College London
Wednesday 5 July, 15.00: Under-recognised emotional labour: the mental health impacts of co-produced research projects within university-community research partnerships.
Louise Warwick-Booth, Reader in Sociology, Leeds-Beckett University.
Thursday 5 October, 14.00: An Introduction to Social Network Analysis.
Molly Copeland, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Michigan State University
Holly Crudgington, LISS-DTP PhD Student, King's College London
Wednesday 6 December, 14.00: An Introduction to Realistic Evaluation.
Iveta Tsenkova, PhD student, King's College London