Researchers gain new skills at Methods@Manchester Summer School

04 Jul 2025

Delegates from across the country joined Methods@Manchester for its 2025 Summer School – a week of engaging courses for qualitative and quantitative researchers.

The Methods@Manchester annual Summer School returned this week, giving researchers the exciting opportunity to meet and connect with their peers while gaining new social science and humanities methods skills.

Methods@Manchester is a Faculty-funded initiative developed to highlight the University’s strength in research methods across the social sciences. The jam-packed event not only offered attendees the chance to receive support from leading experts carrying out cutting-edge research but also created a supportive network of researchers who can continue to learn from one another.

Delegates had the opportunity to attend one of six specialised courses throughout the week, including training in Nvivo software, Qualitative Interviewing and Longitudinal Data Analysis, showcasing the considerable expertise in the Faculty across a range of methodological areas.

Some courses on offer were taught in collaboration with centres across the University. For example, the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives offered a team-taught course focused on Creative Approaches to Qualitative Research and the Centre for Digital Humanities, Culture and Media team ran a course focused on Digital Methods. New for this year, experts from the Decision and Cognitive Science Research Centre offered a course in AI Driven Analytics, providing the opportunity for participants to explore pioneering methods using AI.

Students were particularly engaged and keen to deepen their research throughout the week, with course lead for Longitudinal Data Analysis, Thiago Oliveira, commenting: “This is the first time I’ve taught at the Methods@Manchester Summer School, but I definitely intend to keep coming back. The interest and engagement from the students is not something you usually find as a lecturer.”

During the event, delegates shared positive feedback on the course so far, appreciating the interactivity of the sessions and how engaging the facilitators were. One student reflected on the event, saying: “I would definitely come back next year because of the way the course was facilitated, the practical and hands-on setup and the friendly, supportive and approachable nature of the staff. It’s been inspiring to see how sharing different approaches, techniques and methods can really start to feed into our own research.”

Another student commented: “Having the intensive short courses is a helpful way of either introducing or helping to solidify certain concepts useful to our research and it’s been great getting to connect with other researchers and professors who are trying to use similar skills or working in similar areas.”

Alongside the practical courses, Methods@Manchester also organised a series of social activities for delegates, including a walking tour around the city, helping to foster connections between researchers.

Students came away from the week feeling uplifted and motivated, with one student commenting: “Just knowing that there are other people interested in this and that course facilitators are there to support you makes you realise that you can do it and that there’s a whole community behind you.”

To find out more about the Summer School and the courses that were on offer, visit the Schools and courses section of the Methods@Manchester website.