Q-Step works with public bodies, employers, charities, research organisations and other partners to give students experience of using data on real social and policy questions.

Have an idea already? Email Q-Step to discuss it.

Ways to work with us

Host a student placement

Offer a student the opportunity to contribute to a focused project involving data, evidence or quantitative research. Placements help students connect academic learning with professional practice while giving organisations additional analytical capacity.

Contribute a policy or data challenge

Bring a real question for students to investigate in a workshop, policy challenge or short collaborative project. Partners can help students understand the practical constraints involved in turning evidence into decisions.

Speak to Q-Step students

Share how your organisation uses data through a guest talk, careers conversation, workplace visit or skills session.

Explore a wider collaboration

We welcome conversations about projects that connect undergraduate learning with Edinburgh’s wider community in data, policy and computational social science.

What could a placement project look like?

A strong project has a focused question, useful evidence and a realistic output. Recent Q-Step placements have included:

• analysing Scottish Health Survey data and producing statistical tables;
• building reproducible validation and GIS checks for Scotland’s vacant-land data;
• combining survey analysis with qualitative research on students’ use of translation and AI tools; and
• mapping evidence about poverty, family support, children’s rights, and play and leisure.

Explore previous student placement projects

Why partner with Q-Step?

• Connect with students who combine substantive social-science knowledge with quantitative skills.
• Develop mentoring and project-supervision experience within your team.
• Strengthen links with the University of Edinburgh.
• Help students understand how evidence is used outside the classroom.
• Contribute to the development of work-relevant data and research skills.

What students can contribute

Depending on their experience and the project, students may be able to support data cleaning, exploratory analysis, visualisation, survey research, evidence reviews, reproducible workflows and communication of findings. The project scope should be agreed in advance and matched to the student’s skills.

Start a conversation

If you have a placement idea, a policy question or another opportunity for collaboration, email Q-Step to discuss the possibilities.