New head and goals for ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods

Professor Matthew Gray has spent months assembling a cracking team of some of the country’s best economists, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and social research practitioners at the Australian National University.
 
Professor Gray has been developing the new centre since July 2015 when he was appointed Director of the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, formerly AusCen.
 
“There’s a real need in Australia for research on social research methods and their application to social issues and social policy,” Professor Gray explains.
 
“This new centre will have a focus on both development of new methods and techniques, including the collection of data, and then their application. It will also have a role in providing training in survey methods and techniques.”
 
The team involved includes Deputy Director, Dr Nick Biddle, a joint appointment from the university’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) and economist and sociologist Rob Ackland, a joint appointment with the School of Sociology.
 
Joining them is Dr Sriram Shankar, an econometrician, former public servant turned research fellow Rob Bray and Dr Naomi Priest, a population health and racial bias expert who is part of an ARC-linkage project. Emeritus Professor Toni Makkai, who was previously the Dean and Director of the College of Arts and Social Sciences until June 2015, is also involved.
 
The centre runs the university’s influential ANUPoll, the Australian Election Study and Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, and also performs research projects for the Commonwealth government.
 
Professor Gray says the centre is expanding ties across the campus, with areas including the Crawford School of Public Policy, the Social Research Centre, and specialists like Professor Simon Jackman, the Vice Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Social Science Data Analytics, formerly at Stanford.
 
The centre has also tapped the Australian public service, with two PhD students on Sir Roland Wilson Foundation Scholarships.
 
“We’re about building links with the public service and increasing the skills base of the future leaders of the public service,” Professor Gray says.
 
“What we’re trying to do is bring the methods and how you do rigorous empirical social science research on important national and international issues.”
 
In addition to convening the Master of Social Research degree, the centre also houses the Australian Data Archive, the country’s premier collection of social scientific data.
 
One goal is to further develop the archive and make better use of the data, which Professor Gray stresses is becoming more difficult and expensive to collect.  Until now, accessing that data has carried fees, but Professor Gray says the information will from October be free. When the British government tried a similar approach in recent years, it led to benefits including public transport apps being created for phones.
 
“There’s all sorts of benefits which will happen when that data is released, which you can’t predict but have potential,” Professor Gray says. “Data for data-informed decision-making is going to be increasingly important.”
 
Professor Gray for several years ran the university’s Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, and was with the Australian Institute of Family Studies for almost a decade. He studied his PhD in economics at ANU and has long been fascinated by economic policies, particularly those affecting children.