Innovation in Qualitative Research Methods: Possibilities and Challenges

1. Innovation in Qualitative Research Methods: Possibilities and Challenges Chris Taylor and Amanda Coffey Cardiff University

2. Innovation mission of the NCRM To provide a strategic focal point for the identification, development and delivery of an integrated national research, training and capacity building programme aimed at: promoting a step change in the quality and range of methodological skills and techniques used by the UK social science community; and providing support for, and dissemination of, methodological innovation and excellence within the UK (ESRC 2005b: 63).

3. Innovation in social research • Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-14 (HM Treasury and OST) • A desirable and necessary part of ensuring the sustainability of UK social science within global knowledge economies • HEFCE Strategic Plan (2005:5) ‘Those who produce leading-edge research, and work to disseminate and apply its findings, should expect to receive recognition and support’ • Innovation referred to 15 times in ESRC 2005 Delivery Plan; 27 times in ESRC Annual Report 2004-5

4. Innovation in social research - ESRC • A necessary condition for responding to the growing and rich data that are now being collected • A matter of survival – not only in the production of new knowledge, but also in the capacity of future generations of the academic labour market to produce this knowledge • Training and capacity-building are seen as essential to the development of innovative research tools and techniques

5. Defining innovation • DTI Innovation Report (2003) • New designs, concepts and ways of doing things • Successful adoption and subsequent diffusion • (Benefits and beneficiaries)

6. Innovation in Qualitative Research (New ideas) New designs • New ways of collecting or generating data • New analytical techniques • New representations of qualitative research Methodological concepts • Generating new ways of thinking about research • Developing new methodological concepts New ways of doing research • Working with new participants or new groups • Combining methods and methodologies • Cross disciplinary research • Responding to a changing research landscape

7. Innovation in Qualitative Research(adoption and diffusion) • Diffusion of the ‘new idea’ or potential innovation (primary innovation claim) • Utilisation of ‘new idea’ or innovation by early adopters • Utilisation of ‘new idea’ or innovation by second adopters –providing a critical mass for wide acceptance of the new idea or innovation • General ‘consumption’ of ‘new idea’ or innovation

8. Innovation in Qualitative Research(Benefits and beneficiaries) For example… • Greater or different data • Researching new settings or populations • Greater efficiency • Greater impact • Better understanding • Improved / different knowledge(s) • Better or enhanced research relationships • Improved ethical practice

9. Challenges for Methodological Innovation • Repair and maintenance (the routinisation of innovation) • The ‘problem’ of methodological failure • Taking risks (trial and error) • Consumption (readers and users) • Interdisciplinarity • Transparency and clarity

10. Innovation and research capacity building • A support culture in which experimentation and creativity are both welcomed and critically appraised • The communication and dissemination of both ‘good ideas’ and innovations that fail • Creating opportunities for working at and across conventional disciplinary boundaries • The development of frameworks and protocols to facilitate methodological transparency • Accumulating and disseminating a critical mass of exemplary work • Collaboration with research users and consumers • Opportunities for gaining, absorbing and exploiting new methodological practices and knowledges