Q-Step is a community of students, teachers, researchers and external partners who share an interest in using data to understand society.

A welcome from the Q-Step Director

Q-Step is about adding another way of seeing the social world. Students keep the political and social questions that interest them and learn how to investigate those questions using data, evidence and computational methods.

Our aim is to build an active undergraduate community around those skills—through teaching, placements, policy challenges, visits, talks and connections across Edinburgh. Whether you are a student, colleague or external partner, there should be a way for you to take part.

Adam Chalmers
Director, Edinburgh Q-Step Centre

Students

Students are at the centre of Q-Step. They bring together substantive knowledge from politics, international relations, social policy and sociology with practical training in quantitative and computational methods.

Meet students through their placement projects

Teaching and research

Q-Step is based in the School of Social and Political Science and connects teaching across degree programmes. Students learn from researchers who use quantitative evidence, coding, visualisation and computational methods to investigate important social and political questions.

Faculty, researchers and teaching staff

Colleagues from across the University connect social science questions with quantitative methods. Listed alphabetically by surname; follow each name for the full university profile.

Emily Adrion

Senior Lecturer in Global Health Policy. Uses administrative data to study healthcare costs, ageing and brain health.

Shaun Bevan

Professor of Comparative Public Policy. Studies public policy agendas, opinion and political attention using time series and other quantitative methods.

Orian Brook

Chancellor’s Fellow. Uses linked and administrative data to study social and spatial inequalities in creative careers and cultural participation.

Adam Chalmers

Q-Step Director · European Union politics. Studies lobbying, corporate sustainability and political communication, including natural language processing of text.

Roxanne Connelly

Sociology and quantitative methods. Uses survey, longitudinal and administrative data to investigate social class, education and inequality.

Adriana Duta

Lecturer in Quantitative Methods. Uses large-scale data to study inequalities in education, work and life chances.

Ozan Evkaya

Lecturer in Mathematics. Works on data science and the teaching and assessment of coding.

Ginevra Floridi

Sociology and quantitative methods. Studies families, intergenerational support and inequality through quantitative social and demographic research.

Vernon Gayle

Chair of Sociology and Social Statistics. Uses social surveys and large, complex datasets to study social stratification, education and young people.

Antonia Gieschen

Lecturer in Predictive Analytics. Applies computational statistics and machine learning to social and policy questions.

Victoria Gorton

Lecturer in Data and Society. Studies data science education, public engagement with statistics and policy.

Ailsa Henderson

Professor of Political Science. Studies elections, public opinion, political identity and territorial politics.

P M Krafft

Lecturer in Sociology. Studies AI, misinformation and the making of truth using computational and mixed methods.

Lukas Lehner

Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy. Studies unemployment, inequality and worker bargaining power.

Rhodri Ivor Leng

Lecturer in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies. Uses citation networks and text analysis to study how scientific ideas spread.

Marion Lieutaud

Lecturer in Social Data Science. Studies platform, migrant and gendered labour with quantitative and participatory methods.

Kristina Lindemann

Lecturer in Education and Social Statistics. Uses longitudinal and comparative data to study educational inequality, school-to-work transitions and family change.

Sarah Liu

Senior Lecturer in Gender and Politics. Uses comparative analysis, survey experiments and multilevel models to study political participation and gender.

Alan Marshall

Professor of Social Research on Inequality. Uses longitudinal surveys and social statistics to study health inequalities in later life.

Fraser McMillan

Lecturer in Scottish Electoral Politics. Studies devolved voting, party politics and election pledges.

Franziska Meinck

Senior Lecturer. Studies violence against children, prevention and measurement with longitudinal and mixed methods.

Paul Norris

Senior Lecturer in Social Policy. Uses large-scale surveys to study crime, policing and the links between social policy and criminal justice.

Ugur Ozdemir

Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Political Science. Studies comparative political behaviour and political psychology using quantitative methods.

Helen Packwood

Lecturer in Social Research Methods. Links administrative and census data with mixed methods to study educational inequality.

Fiona Pashazadeh

Research Associate · Education. Studies longitudinal survey methods, especially missing data and participation in biological data collection.

Kevin Ralston

Sociology and quantitative methods. Applies social statistics to health, families, labour markets and inequality, and researches statistics teaching.

Charlotte Rommerskirchen

Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy. Uses mixed methods to study sovereign debt and the global political economy.

Daniel Shephard

Lecturer in Comparative Education and Education Policy. Studies education policy and comparative education.

Valeria Skafida

Senior Lecturer in Social Policy. Uses longitudinal survey data to study inequalities in children’s health, wellbeing and family experiences.

Patricio Troncoso

Lecturer in Youth Studies. Studies young people and education using quantitative social research.

Tod Van Gunten

Senior Lecturer in Sociology. Uses social network analysis and computational methods to study economic and political sociology.

Gil Viry

Senior Lecturer in Sociology. Uses surveys, social network and sequence analysis to study mobility, families and social ties.

Christos Vrakopoulos

Lecturer in Politics with Quantitative Methods. Studies elections, far-right support and attitudes to climate policy; teaches quantitative methods.

Jasmin Wertz

Lecturer. Studies child development and family influences on behavioural and emotional outcomes.

Christopher Wretman

Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods. Applies quantitative research methods to questions affecting vulnerable populations.

PhD researchers

Philippa Costello

PhD student. Uses the Millennium Cohort Study to investigate inequalities in teenagers’ educational and occupational aspirations.

Explore Q-Step degree programmes

Partners and connections

Our wider community includes public bodies, employers, research centres and organisations across Edinburgh and beyond. These connections create opportunities for placements, guest talks, policy challenges, visits and collaborative projects.

Explore student opportunities | Work with Q-Step

Join the community

Come to an event, take part in a student challenge or follow Q-Step to hear about new opportunities.

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