CAGE Summer School fills the skills gap in social and economic research

How do you make the jump from being a consumer of knowledge to a producer of it? What are the skills needed to practise social and economic research?

Many taught undergraduate courses miss out on the practical skills needed to be a researcher.

Thirty-five undergraduate students from across the country took part in the CAGE summer school from 1^st to 3^rd July where they discovered the tools and systems needed for applied research.

Economics students from the London School of Economics (LSE), University of Central London (UCL), Milan University, Birmingham, Nottingham, Kent, Oxford and Warwick universities accessed a series of seminars and workshops which addressed the topics often skipped in the standard university curriculum.

Understanding coding workflows and implementing econometric methods on actual, messy, ‘real’ data were key areas covered in the event hosted by Mirko Draca, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick.

He was joined by Arthur Turrell, Economist at the Bank of England who started the event with a practical session on ‘Coding for Economists’ which highlighted the necessity of coding for analysis and insight.

This was then followed by a presentation from Mirko Draca on ways to work with microdata, and Eric Melander demonstrated systems for using and presenting geographic information.

During the event students heard from Peter John Lambert, PhD Candidate at the LSE on cloud computing and how essential it is when working with big datasets.

Marie Segger, Data Journalist at The Economist brought her expertise in data analysis, journalism and coding to deliver a session on data storytelling and how the magazine uses visualisation to make complex topics more understandable.

The students were able to access a range of resources including a detailed worked example of a canonical beginner research task which involved assembling information from a decade of ‘repeated cross-section’ micro data and understand how to develop their own research projects.

On the final day they heard from Peter John Lambert on using large language models and Eric Melander on cutting edge ways to digitise historical maps and transcribe historical documents.

Ella Okko, student at the University of Oxford said:

“I’ve just finished studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford and the course didn’t include much methods training – especially putting the cutting-edge methods into practice.

“It’s been a very packed programme and I’m looking forward to further develop some of the coding skills I’ve learnt into specific projects.

“Everyone on the summer school has been at different stages of their career and it has been great to exchange research ideas with participants and speakers.”

Mirko Draca, Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and Director of the CAGE Research Centre said:

“This has been a unique opportunity for us to fill the skills gap we often see in undergraduate economics teaching. I have been delighted with the engagement we have seen over the past three days from the students and hope our summer school has gone some way towards building up their experience and confidence.”

Eric Melander, ex Warwick economics BSc/MRes/Phd student and now Assistant Professor of Economics at Birmingham Business School said:

“It is amazing what we have been getting the summer school students to work with at such an early stage in their careers. Being given access to such cutting-edge tools and methods is really important in such a fast-moving space. This has been an opportunity to ensure that economists of the future are very much at the forefront of these tools and techniques.”

Peter John Lambert, Economist at the London School of Economics said:

“It has been great to be able to present an overview of cutting-edge research methods made available by AI and Large Language Models. This is an exciting new space and the students starting out are incredibly well placed to exploit these tools for their own future projects.

“It has been wonderful to see the new ideas that the younger students bring to the table. Talking about my work with the summer school participants has also been a great opportunity to codify things I have learned along the way, to try and distil some key lessons for those wanting to pursue research topics in economics.”