UOIT’s Social Research Centre opens its doors

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s (UOIT) Social Research Centre (SRC) is now open for business.

Housed within the university’s Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, the interdisciplinary, market-oriented research and training centre will focus on sharing learning and knowledge in the field of social science, offering high-quality, cost-effective research services to university faculty and administrators, as well as to private, non-profit and public-sector clients outside the university.

“Our mission is to provide high-quality social science research services and related scholarly activities within and outside the university,” said Dr. Jessica Gonzalez, Director, SRC. “Our guiding principles are to plan and conduct high-quality social science research, provide services that fulfill our partners’ needs, and support the development of methodological skills and tools for students and professionals.”

Customized research services for all phases of research projects include:

• Focus groups (in-person and virtual)
• Interviewing (in-person and virtual, telephone)
• Literature reviews
• Observational/ethnographic  research
• Program evaluation (front-end, formative and summative)
• Secondary data analysis
• Surveys (mail, in-person, web-based and telephone)

“Our staff members work closely with partners and clients to develop customized research solutions that employ best practices in social science research methodology and analysis to produce high-quality results,” explained Dr. Gonzalez. “In this way we can help them collect and interpret the data they need in order to make informed decisions.”

In addition to serving internal university clients, the SRC can also be engaged by external groups and individuals. It offers an in-house workshop series, which is open to the public. Attendees from private, non-profit, and public sector organizations are welcome to enrol. The workshops cover a broad range of contemporary social science research skills and techniques UOIT faculty members use in their own research and evaluation projects.