More Information: https://datacdt.org/projects/student-led-projects/

Our Centre funds student led projects that:

• Promote the creation and analysis of new longitudinal and streamed data resources for socio-economic investigations. Create new methods (e.g. scaling up existing methods for real time big data analytics; explore new approaches for estimating intersectional inequalities),
• Investigate social processes (e.g. virtualisation of retailing; data-driven decision making and social behaviours; quantify the dynamics of ethnic and socio-economic segregation)
• Facilitate interventions (e.g. create decision support tools for policy makers; resource targeting, network planning, social media apps for diet, travel, lifestyle planning).

The projects must be social science-led and at least 50% within ESRC’s remit; but could be collaborative.

The following papers give some specific examples of the types of collaborative projects that might be in scope:

• Singleton, A., Arribas-Bel, D., Murray, J., & Fleischmann, M. (2022). Estimating generalized measures of local neighbourhood context from multispectral satellite images using a convolutional neural network. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 95, 101802. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2022.101802

• Palmer, G., Green, M., Boyland, E., Vasconcelos, Y. S. R., Savani, R., & Singleton, A. (2021). A deep learning approach to identify unhealthy advertisements in street view images. Scientific Reports, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-84572-4

• Comber, S., Arribas-Bel, D., Singleton, A., & Dolega, L. (2020). Using convolutional autoencoders to extract visual features of leisure and retail environments. Landscape and Urban Planning, 202, 103887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103887

• Singleton, A., Alexiou, A., & Savani, R. (2020). Mapping the geodemographics of digital inequality in Great Britain: An integration of machine learning into small area estimation. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 82, 101486. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2020.101486

If you are a student with an interesting idea, then please drop me an email to discuss: alex.singleton@liverpool.ac.uk.

Application deadline: 4th July 2023

Partners: Nominet

Supervisors: Simeon Yates, Alex Singleton

This PhD programme will utilise the NOMINET Digital Youth Index, alongside datasets held by the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) and public data (e.g. Ofcom), to develop a rich description of the digital lives of young people in the UK. At present work on digital technologies and young people tends to focus in two areas: safety and wellbeing online and role of digital in education. This project will take a much broader look at the social, economic, cultural and regional aspects and determinants of young people’s use of and experiences via digital media and systems. The programme will include work to curate and link available data sets covering young peoples use of or experience of digital systems and media. The research will have a strong policy focus linking up with the policy and advocacy work of both NOMINET and the DMS Institute. The PhD programme will be run jointly by the CDRC and the Digital Media and Society Institute with support from NOMINET. This will allow the Post-graduate Researcher to access both the data analytics expertise of the CDRC, Data Analytics & Society CDT and the DMS research programmes. The DMS currently has projects covering Minimum Digital Living Standards, Data use in organisations, Disinformation online, Computational Social Science, and Digital Exclusion. Training support will be provided by Data Analytics & Society CDT and the DMS Institute.

Full details: https://datacdt.org/projects/understanding-the-digital-lives-of-young-people/

Application deadline: 4th July 2023

Apply Here: https://datacdt.org/entry-criteria-applying/

Project Partners: Merseycare

Supervisors: Mark Green, Carmen Cabrera-Arnau

The UK has some of Europe’s highest level of common mental health disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder). 1 in 4 adults will experience a mental health problem each year, with 1 in 6 experiencing a problem weekly. Who experiences poor mental health is not evenly felt across the population. There are wide inequalities across sex, age group, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This complex interplay of factors means that the geography of mental health is also uneven, with the spatial determinants of mental health under-researched. Improving our understanding of the reasons behind these inequalities is paramount for designing effective policies for tackling poor mental health. This PhD project will utilise electronic health records from NHS Digital (small area medication dispensing records) and CIPHA (secondary care linked records) to examine the drivers of common mental health disorders across Cheshire and Merseyside. Through identifying which neighbourhoods across the region have higher incidence of common mental health disorders (including by type), we will assess the role that neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation plays in explaining patterns. Through modelling this relationship, we will focus on the ‘residuals’ which correspond to areas where deprivation does not explain common mental health disorders. The project will characterise the types of people and areas (e.g., accessibility to services, features of built environment) that explain these residual neighbourhoods, to identify opportunities for intervention.

Full details: https://datacdt.org/projects/social-and-spatial-inequalities-in-common-mental-health-disorders/

Application deadline: 4th July 2023

Apply Here: https://datacdt.org/entry-criteria-applying/

Project Partners: Pets at Home

Supervisors: Alex Singleton, Patrick Ballantyne, Alan Radford

During the pandemic rates of pet ownership grew significantly, enlarging the total number of pet owners and diversifying their characteristics. As a result, and across both consumer and health channels, there have been a range of changes to pet owner behaviour that have impacted the types and breeds favoured, consumer preferences for products or services and health related decisions that can impact animal health. This rapidly evolving and expanded ownership has created a range of challenges for consumer and health professionals to best meet market needs and ensure provision of the best environment for animal health. This project will integrate consumer data from Pets at Home, the largest pet retailer in the UK alongside data from the Small Animal Veterinary Surveillance Network (SAVSNET), which is an initiative from the University of Liverpool. A geodemographic model will be developed as part of this research that provides new insight into the diversity and geography of pet ownership and health.

Full details: https://datacdt.org/projects/pet-ownership-and-health/

Application deadline: 4th July 2023

Apply Here: https://datacdt.org/entry-criteria-applying/

Project Partners: Greater Manchester Mayor's Charity

Supervisors: Elisabetta Pietrostefan

Rates of homelessness are acute across Manchester city region, with rates in Manchester being among the highest in England. Such an extreme manifestations of social inequality has been identified as a key area for policy intervention by the Mayor of Greater Manchester: Andy Burnham. In 2018 he setup the Greater Manchester (GM) Mayor’s Charity which funds a range of interventions that aim to reduce homelessness across the city region. The function of any charity requires revenue to be generated that enable support of a programme of activities, services or interventions. For many, a key component of such revenue includes philanthropic giving, both from commercial entities such as businesses or directly from the public. Within the context of Greater Manchester this project will explore how theories of charitable giving and volunteering consumption can be understood within a geodemographic framework to produce new insights into the philanthropic geography of Greater Manchester

Full details: https://datacdt.org/projects/the-geography-of-charitable-giving-and-volunteering-consumption/

Application deadline: 4th July 2023

We do not currently have any research positions available, but watch this space for new adverts in the near future!