British Academy welcomes Nuffield Foundation's new Q-Step programme

The British Academy welcomes today’s announcement by Q-Step – a programme funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – to award £19.5million to 15 universities across the UK in order to support a step-change in quantitative social science training.

The British Academy is deeply concerned about the UK’s current deficit in quantitative skills, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, as these skills enable people to measure, understand and use data. In 2012 the Academy published ‘Society Counts: Quantitative Skills in the Social Sciences and Humanities’, a position statement calling for concerted, joined-up action to tackle the UK's quantitative skills deficit. 

The funding that is being awarded by Q-Step provides an excellent opportunity to: promote the value of quantitative skills, provide broader training to social scientists, drive course development, and increase the number of social science graduates with quantitative skills. Further, it will also increase opportunities to share resources and expertise across the education sector ensuring that the value of quantitative skills is championed at every level.

More information about Q-step is available at: www.nuffieldfoundation.org/q-step