Big Data and Open Access projects win British Academy Rising Star Engagement awards for Goldsmiths psychologists

Goldsmiths, University of London psychologists Dr Sophie von Stumm and Dr Caspar Addyman have been awarded Rising Star Engagement research awards 2016 by the British Academy.

Now in its second year, the British Academy's Rising Star Engagement (BARSEA) Scheme provides funding of up to £15,000 to 29 distinguished Early Career Researchers to assist their career development through organising interdisciplinary events for other Early Career Researchers.

Dr Caspar Addyman is a developmental psychologist with research interests in learning, laughter and behaviour change in infants. A member of the Department of Psychology's InfantLab, he joined Goldsmiths in 2015 from Birkbeck.

Open Access is one step in a bigger journey that researchers have been slow to take, Dr Addyman explains. His award of £10,682 will allow him to organise a one-day workshop with a strong practical element that will inspire and educate researchers across all social sciences disciplines on how to do better.

"Our research is publically funded and is supposed to have an impact on the world,” he explains. “I strongly believe that the whole process should be open to more scrutiny and outputs shared more freely. Open Access is just one small part of this. It also requires sharing code, data and materials to improve reproducibility.

There should be greater public engagement before, during and after research is conducted. And we should write and communicate without jargon in venues beyond traditional journals and monographs.

"The workshop will be led by experts already doing these things. The support of the British Academy and of Goldsmiths as hosts is hugely important in getting these ideas out beyond STEM into the wider research community. It is, of course, free and open to everyone."

As a lecturer in psychology and head of the Hungry Mind Lab, Dr Sophie von Stumm's research focuses on individual differences in cognitive ability and personality traits. She has received £14,801 from the British Academy for work empowering early career researchers to collect 'big data' with innovative assessment tools.

Recent technological advances have led to a vast number of research tools that enable collecting 'big' high-quality data. However, many early career researchers lack expertise and resources to apply these tools in their own studies, which creates a loss for their individual careers and for science in general.

Dr von Stumm and her Hungry Mind Lab team will organise a showcase event at which established scientists, technology companies, and media and crowd-sourcing experts will introduce early career researchers to the latest assessment tools from different scientific disciplines.

She explains that it's an exciting time for early career researchers in the social and behavioural sciences: "Modern technology has opened an unprecedented wealth of possibilities to produce innovative and high-quality research – but this also comes with challenges. What are the latest methods available for collecting 'big data'? How do we best engage the public to participate in research? And who can we consult on modern assessment technology?”

Find out more about this year's BARSEA award winners on the British Academy website.