Convenor: John Stillwell, University of Leeds

This strand of the Festival is aimed at demonstrating the alternative methods that researchers adopt in studying population structure, characteristics and dynamics. In most cases, those presenting papers have received funding under the ESRC ‘Understanding Population Trends And Processes (UPTAP) programme which is a capacity building initiative involving early or middle-stage researchers from different disciplines  working on projects using data from a range of secondary sources. During the day, a number of researchers will illustrate the methods that they have adopted to analyse particular secondary data sets, identifying the reasons for their choice of method and the problems encountered, and showing some of the results of the work that they have undertaken. The morning session is devoted to presentations from researchers working on projects that have now come to fruition, whilst the afternoon session (session 19) includes presentations from three doctoral students about the methods they are adopting for analysing the data in their ongoing theses, and three UPTAP user fellows, researchers from outside the academic sector who have been working on short duration projects with academic collaborators but aiming to develop their methodological skills in the process. Both sessions aim to understand how and why particular methodologies are chosen and what problems participants have experienced along the way when applying their methods.  It is hoped that this autobiographical approach will be useful to others starting out as researchers or wanting to use a new method for the first time.

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