This page provides some practical, ethical, and methodological resources for researchers.
Practical
- Ben Geiger's collaborative Google doc on COVID-19 social data: This document was started by Ben Geiger, but please feel free to edit it! It has mainly focused on surveys, but also included a section on qualitative research - please do bolster this section if you know more. Ben has also written a few thoughts on the need for more data at Inequalities.
- Social science and COVID-19: This list includes work funded by UKRI/ESRC, the UKRI-DHSC calls, and major relevant activity being undertaken by ESRC investments in response to COVID-19.
- Social Science Research Council Covid-19 and the Social Sciences: explores initiatives, opportunities, essays, and a time capsule for future social researchers
- Carrying out qualitative research under lockdown – Practical and ethical considerations by Adam Jowett
- COVID-19: Digital Service Delivery for Charities - Created by Third Sector Lab and SCVO Digital. Content in this document is open source - feel free to copy and paste into any toolkits, guides, etc you are delivering.
- Bringing together the social science community's response to COVID-19 - This hub showcases some leading examples of research, think-pieces and policy analysis across the full spectrum of the social sciences which contribute to understanding and tackling the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on society and economy.
Ethical
- Nuffield Council on Bioethics 'Research in global health emergencies': Following a two-year in-depth inquiry run by an international working group, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ report was published in January 2020, a matter of weeks before we began to see the impact of COVID-19 in a UK context.
- Research in Insecure Times and Places: Ethics of Social Research for Emerging Ecologies of Insecurity: In this introductory essay, Tatiana Carayannis and Annalisa Bolin outline the new valences of research in the pandemic era, from security challenges for both researchers and researched to new methodologies for gathering data remotely and the need to reflect on the changing roles of institutions. Throughout this theme, researchers with experience working in contexts of insecurity provide a roadmap for both the pitfalls of and possible solutions for navigating research in the age of the coronavirus.
- British Psychological Society Ethics Guidelines for Internet-mediated Research
Methodological
- 'Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic': Crowdsourced document initiated by Deborah Lupton (@DALupton, d.lupton@unsw.edu.au) on 17 March 2020. Please do add comments and resources to the document as appropriate
- Deborah Lupton's webinar for QSR International that provides an overview of the material in the 'Doing Fieldwork in a Pandemic' document.
- COVID-19 research resources and relevant methodological approaches: NIHR Research Design Service North West has worked with RDS colleagues across the country to collate appropriate/relevant methodological approaches for research studies being designed or delivered during COVID-19, or any pandemic.
- Deborah Lupton's innovative methods YouTube channel
- International Journal of Social Research Methodology blog series on COVID-19
- LSE Digital Ethnography Collective Reading List
- Topical mapping of academic publications on social aspects of COVID-19 by Deborah Lupton
- Creatively adapting research methods during COVID-19 by Mary Brenda Herbert
- COVID 19 and ‘Big Qual’ Research by Lynn Jamieson
- ‘Recommended Reading for Shifting from Face-to-Face to Remote (online, digital) qualitative research’ by Annette Markham
- Sarah Pink interview 'Doing ethnography remotely'
- Helen Kara and Su-ming Khoo How the pandemic has transformed research methods and ethics: 3 lessons from 33 rapid responses
- National Centre for Research Methods Changing Research Practice: Undertaking social science research in the context of Covid-19
- Tina Haux The rush to research COVID-19 risks compromising research integrity and impact
- How can we build on the COVID-19 ‘remote access revolution’? The CIIP has produced two new guides to remote access aimed at employers, universities, the public sector and researchers. This is part of a drive to ensure the COVID-19 ‘remote access revolution’ isn’t lost when the pandemic ends. The first guide: Turning the remote access revolution into reasonable adjustments pushes employers, universities and the public sector to make the use of videoconferencing technology the norm when planning meetings. The CIIP crowdsourced the suggestions from its followers to produce the guidance on facilitating successful ‘hybrid’ meetings, in which some people attend online and others in person. The guide also lays out how this form of meeting is a legal requirement under the Equality Act 2010. The second guide: Remote Researchers: Learning from experts-by-experience in digital inclusion is aimed at other researchers who wish to make their research more inclusive. It sets out the unique research practice developed by the CIIP to reach people who cannot participate in traditional face-to-face focus groups, such as those who are housebound.