News

This innovative eight-week seminar series hosted by the Nuffield Politics Research Centre at Nuffield College, Oxford has given a varied audience the opportunity to listen to expert insight on a number of important topics in the lead up to the next general election.

We talk to co-organiser Dr Zack Grant about how this series was developed, who has been involved, what difference it has made, and when there might be another series.

Q What is the British Politics Election Year seminar series about?

We aimed to challenge our speakers to apply their expertise on different subject matter, such as the British constitution, or public attitudes to immigration and environmental spending, to the upcoming general election. Each of our speakers was asked to explain how their chosen theme might impact the conduct, outcome, and potential aftermath of the next election.

Q Why did you choose to organise this?

This year (2024) marks both the centenary of the birth of Nuffield’s Sir David Butler, who did so much to bring political science research and methods to the general public, as well as (almost certainly) a new general election. We felt that this was the perfect time and Nuffield the perfect location, to invite ‘informed speculation’ from an excellent array of guest speakers. Our seminar series has provided expert commentary which takes stock of our existing knowledge in political science and explains how it can be used to generate insights on real world questions and contemporary events.

Q Who is the audience for the seminar series?

Whenever an event is held at Nuffield College, it is a given that there will be a choice pick of world-leading social scientists in the audience. However, we instructed our speakers to make their talks accessible to a lay audience who might not be familiar with the electoral studies literature or recent methodological innovations. This might include undergraduates, journalists, think tank representatives, as well as members of the public. While descriptive statistics and a limited number of experiments and scatterplots were welcomed, we wanted to offer an event free of Greek letter equations and regression discontinuity designs! The crucial point is to make political science research relevant to an audience that might never have firsthand experience of our academic journals. 

Q Do you think the audience has learnt from these events?

We have received positive feedback from participants at our events throughout the series. Audience numbers have been high, with both in-person and online joining options available. I believe that those who attended have been treated to highly informative and entertaining whistle-stop tours of contemporary political science knowledge, as well as the latest (occasionally previously unseen) survey data on British voters’ attitudes and behaviour as we approach the next election. I think that these talks will have made our audience more savvy and critical consumers of the latest news, as the election approaches. I am sure it will have also inspired our graduate student audience to focus on their own research as we continue to push the boundaries of knowledge in our discipline.

Many of our speakers have also mentioned how much they have enjoyed the challenge of communicating their specialised knowledge in political science to such a diverse and engaged audience. We have been lucky to benefit from the presence of many undergraduates who have pushed our speakers with ‘big’ questions that perhaps would not occur to audience members more entrenched in the received wisdom and methods of our discipline. The challenge of making our findings interesting and relevant to such a non-specialist audience is important, particularly as we are publicly funded researchers.

Q When will the next series begin?

The beauty of building our seminars around themes is that there are always more topics that we could include next time. While there may not be another election for some time – although recent experience suggests we cannot rule it out! – a fresh seminar series in 2025 constructed around ‘eight challenges’ for the government and opposition parties during the next parliament is something that we are seriously considering.

We live in a highly volatile era in British politics and there is certainly no shortage of potential fractures in public opinion and party coalitions that we might explore.

Audience members said:

'Thoughtful, rigorous, and engaging. Each week, the speakers addressed some of the most important questions in contemporary British politics and helped us make sense of the complex political landscape as we approach the next general election. It was great to see insights from political science made accessible and highly relevant to a wider audience.'

(Politics DPhil student)

'The sessions were engaging and thought-provoking, I appreciated that presentations were accessible for audiences coming from outside political science! It would be great to see the seminars return to get some reflections on, and analysis of, the general election results.' 

(History DPhil student)

'I really appreciated the diversity of topics, the clarity of the speakers, and the smooth administration of the seminar.'

(Associate Professor of Quantitative Political Science Research Methods)

If you would like to join a mailing list to be informed about a future seminar series, please email nprc@nuffield.ox.ac.uk with your name, job title, and organisation.