Ben Baumberg Geiger

Research into disability, work and benefits

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I have a continued interest in thinking about what we do as social scientists — what does ‘trustworthiness’ mean when we can no longer talk about ‘value-free’ social science? How do we think about ‘integrity’ in social scientists’ public role? What are the trade-offs that social scientists make in terms of values and credibility when they choose one path over another?

Having spent over a decade thinking about these issues, I finally had a chance to take this forward during a period of study leave in . One day I will bring all these issues together into a book, but in the meantime, these are the bits of work I've had a chance to develop:

The limits - and enduring value - of lived experience in social research

I have worked with experts by experience for a long time (probably first of all with the Spartacus campaigners on disability & welfare reform), and the WelfareExperiences project is trying to do coproduction across five countries. But while I'm completely convinced about how essential lived experience is to understanding anything, I've also been increasingly frustrated at how the limits of lived experience are often glossed over. This has so far involved two discussions:

In 2023, me, Kate Summers and Steve Crossley set up a symposium at the 2023 Social Policy Association conference, called "A critical perspective on ‘lived experience’ in social security research: creating a space for discussion" . Within this, I did a talk on "The limits of ‘lived experience’ research, and how to overcome them".

Then in 2024, and again with Kate Summers, we set up a one-day workshop on 'Critical perspectives on lived experience in social security policy research', funded by the Social Policy Association and the Centre for Society & Mental Health. This was a fantastic event including academics and experts by experience, and you can read a detailed summary of the event here. When events allow, I will try to write a paper about this...

A new perspective on mixed methods research

I am convinced that mixed methods research is essential to understand anything, for reasons that are not clearly set out in the existing literature. I hope to write a paper on this soon! But in the meantime, I've refined my views in a series of presentations (thanks in particular to Conrad Heilmann, Katherine Furman, Jon Williamson and Yafeng Shah for the invitations to develop my thinking):

  • Why evidential pluralism is needed to avoid wishful thinking: An example from social policy.. Invited plenary lecture within the online conference, Evidential Pluralism and the Social Sciences, University of Kent, 16/7/2020. You can watch a recording of the talk here.
  • RCTs, mixed methods, and the trustworthiness of social science. Invited presentation to the Evidence Amalgamation Workshop, University of Cork (organised by Katherine Furman with the Knowledge for Use project, 10/5/2019.
  • When qualitative and quantitative methods collide: How stigmatised are benefit claims in Britain?. Invited presentation to the Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS), Durham, 7/6/2017.
  • When qualitative and quantitative methods collide: How stigmatised are benefit claims in Britain?. Invited presentation to the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE) workshop on qualitative and quantitative research, Erasmus University, 16/12/2016.

Trustworthiness, credibility & integrity: the role of social science

This was my first main interest in this area, having had a bruising time in my first job in the alcohol field (as I describe here), and trying to make sense of how values and politics play a role in social science. The first publication from this is now available, looking empirically at whether social scientists do ‘credibility work’.

There’s still lots more to come from this though — initial thoughts from some of these ideas can be see in the following talks:

  • Activism in the academe: 'Radical Politics and Sociological Research' revisited. Invited presentation to the Ruth First in the North: Understanding activist research conference, University of Durham (organised by Katherine Furman and Nancy Cartwright), 11/10/2021.
  • A manifesto for a trustworthy (yet value-laden) social science. Presentation to the Methodshub, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, 31/5/2018.
  • Is there such a thing as a 'bad impact' of social science?. Presentation to Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE), Erasmus University Rotterdam, 15/1/2018.
  • Statistical Catfights and The Spirit Level (Baumberg & de Vries). Invited debate alongside Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett to the Radical Statistics conference, 23/2/2013, York. Video and slides of the debate are available from Radstats or YouTube.
  • Should researchers make policy recommendations at all? Paper presented at the Social Policy Association conference, Edinburgh, 30/6/2009
  • Should researchers make policy recommendations at all? Paper presented at 'Informing Public Policy: New Agendas for Social Research' (organised by NatCen-LSE), London 23/4/2009
  • Against evidence-based policy: over-claiming social research and undermining effective policy. Paper presented at the Social Policy Association conference, Edinburgh, 25/6/2008

The best starting place, though, is the Queens’ Anniversary Prize lecture I gave at York in Feb 2014, available via YouTube.