Is Social Science Useful? Roundtable, King’s College London, 14 June

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This roundtable will feature eminent social scientists and practitioners discussing the ‘usefulness’ and ‘practical relevance’ of social science research, beyond its intellectual and theoretical contributions, addressing themselves to questions: How useful is social science? Could it be more useful? Are there costs in pursuing usefulness?

  • Philip Tetlock is the Leonore Annenberg University Professor in Democracy and Citizenship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has published widely on political psychology, especially on bias and prediction in politics and public policy. He is the author of the award-winning book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
  • Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at UCL. She works on corruption, economic crime, corporate governance and the informal economy in Russia and other postcommunist countries. Her books include How Russia Really Works (2006) and Can Russia Modernise? (2013).
  •  Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey is Reader in Political Science at the LSE. She works on the interplay between interests, ideas and institutions in legislative politics, trade and monetary policy, and political rhetoric. Her most recent book is Deliberating American Monetary Policy.
  • Patten Smith, is Director of Research Methods at the Research Methods Centre of Ipsos MORI, one of the UK’s largest research companies. He is the author of ‘Survey research: two types of knowledge’, which explores the divide between the kinds of knowledge held by survey experts in research agencies and in academia. He is currently the Chair of the Social Research Association.
  • Nick Butler is Chair of King’s Policy Institute. Between 2002 and 2006 he was Group Vice-President at BP and has since worked as a Senior Policy Adviser at 10 Downing Street. He is the author of The Future of European Universities: Renaissance or Decay?

To attend, please sign up at the Eventbrite page.

For any questions or queries about the event please email Adrian.Blau@kcl.ac.uk.

The venue is King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS.