This year's virtual Oxford Spring School in Advanced Research Methods offers graduate students and researchers from universities across the UK and abroad a unique opportunity to learn cutting-edge methods in Social Science.

The week-long Spring School programme is organised by the Department of Politics and International Relations and consists of five advanced courses in quantitative and qualitative methods. These five courses will run concurrently from 2pm-5pm, Monday 18 to Friday 22 April 2022.

Do we need to rethink the way we do democracy? In her recent book, 'Open Democracy', Hélène Landemore (Yale University) argues that there are deep problems with the standard model of representative democracy. Landemore argues for an alternative model of ‘Open Democracy’ which gives less of a role to elected politicians and a much greater role to the general public through institutions such as Citizens’ Assemblies.

The shocking scenes in Ukraine have alarmed the West, compelling unprecedented responses to Russia’s invasion and the humanitarian crisis it has inspired. Russia’s war in Ukraine has also shone a light on the evolving relationship between President Putin and China’s President Xi, after a new international cooperation pact was agreed in Beijing in the weeks immediately preceding the invasion.

As experts argue in a forthcoming series of essays from the International Forum, 'Waking Up to Reputation Laundering as a Mechanism for Transnational Kleptocracy,' reputation laundering and transnational kleptocracy inflict a serious threat to democracy around the world. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, democracies have begun to respond by proposing unprecedented sanctions of oligarchs living abroad who have begun to step down from long-standing positions of prestige as board members for businesses and cultural institutions.

Commissioner Gentiloni will discuss the impact of the Russian aggression against Ukraine for the EU’s policy priorities in a range of areas. What must be done to ensure that the post-pandemic economic recovery is not derailed? How can we reduce our dependence on Russian oil and gas while maintaining our commitment to the climate transition? And what are the implications for European defence and the transatlantic alliance?

The panel includes Prof Petra Schleiter, Prof Andrea Ruggeri and Dr Matteo Garavoglia, and there will be a Q&A session at the end of the talk.

Members of the University are welcome to attend online.

Please contact graduate-studies@sociology.ox.ac.uk to request the link to attend via MS Teams.

This roundtable revisits the perceived ‘truthfulness’ of imagery in the face of decisions–intentional or not–that omit, edit, and erase elements. These practices potentially matter for how people make sense of issues, yet are not always apparent in visual outputs’ final forms. By considering the notion of truth-telling via a range of images and settings–including artificial intelligence, urban development, and data journalism–this event aims to highlight how visuals and their creators relate to facts, misinformation, and yet-to-be-realized realities.