PA (Peter) Tamas

Primary research: Qualitative research often requires customised operationalisation of fieldwork and analysis methods appropriate for each intersection of theory, question and context. I support the development and testing of these qualitative fieldwork and analysis methods. My own background is in international development studies and I have a particular interest in supporting research on difficult questions that need interdisciplinary study in very complicated places.

Systematic(ish) review: There is a great deal of interest in using systematic review to identify evidence arising from interdisciplinary research undertaken within the socio-ecological systems implicated in climate change (SES-CC). Research in SES-CC is heterogenous in ways that frustrate simple transplant of systematic review. Over the last few years, I have been working with a few peers to carefully test each of the steps required for the use of review within interdisciplinary study of socio-ecological systems. My own interest is in the uses of systematic(ish) approaches for the study of qualitative questions, such as 'what conceptual models are used', 'what methods are used' and 'what is the diversity of evidence produced' as these must be solved before it is possible to move to the question  'what is known'. Providing this evidence will require cooperation and support from across the university as the quality of each study must be tested by subject-matter competent scholars and these studies are very diverse.