Love, death + robots is one of the greatest shows ever. Short films at their best. Only allowed one per night! love-death-and-robots.com/episodes

The ACMD has just published its call for evidence on cannabis-based products for medicinal use in the United Kingdom, as part of its ongoing review. www.gov.uk/government/c...

Mobile drug consumption units could be introduced in Scotland The Scottish Affairs Committee found smaller mobile facilities - like those used in Portugal and the Netherlands - could be more cost-effective, while reaching a greater number of drug users. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today marked the launch of the Screens, Safety and Social Media Report by Prof Michelle Butler, Prof Dirk Schubotz and Dr Martina McKnight from @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social Access the report ➡️ www.ark.ac.uk/ARK/sites/de... Find out more about the report ➡️ www.qub.ac.uk/News/Allnews...

Just watched Elisabeth Sandkey's documentary, The Witches. Unbelievably powerful documentary about mental health. It's a must watch, seriously. Unique use of archival film. Features one off my all-time favourites, Angel at my table. m.imdb.com/title/tt3214...

I'm part of an #ESRC grant exploring #homicide trends in #England&Wales . We have a #dissemination event on the 22nd Sept. Please register/send on to interested colleagues. @bschcnetwork.bsky.social @britsoci.bsky.social @ukri.org @uniofnottingham.bsky.social www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/40-years-o...

Not entirely unrelated – I would love UK political accounts to get off Twitter. They should do this, even if they don't set up on any alternatives. But it's not that hard to see why many of them won't move here: small, self-selecting, often hostile audience. bsky.app/profile/step...

Deadline is 31 August 👇

I'm just finishing @naomiaklein.bsky.social wonderful book - Doppelganger. If you want a book to help you make sense of a world on fire, this is it. I've only just realised that Northern Ireland is another mirror world,a shadow land full of doppelgangers.

University rankings have little meaning, are highly subjective, promote a competition frame, and thwart our academic freedom, as commercial ranking organizations dictate what constitutes “a good university.” - www.socialsciencespace.com/2025/08/stop...

Evaluation is important and we have good ways of evaluating instructors (observations, audits, mentoring). But the evidence is clear that asking students to Yelp review their instructors the week before exams yields no valuable information on teaching or learning--just customer satisfaction.

New how-to guide now available on the European Network for Open Criminology website. This time @asiermoneva.com shares advice on writing reproducible and readable analysis code. Highly recommended! esc-enoc.github.io/how-to/repro...

And no chance the AI will produce anything meaningful because it is AI not CI. The former without the latter can only forecast & never understand what causes what. Profit is made from predictions but healthcare requires intervention, which requires CI. Perfectly obvious to those in the know.

We are still taking applications for our PGDip/MSc in Youth Justice and our PGDip/MSc Children's Rights. We're profiling some past students this month. Read Ciara's experience of completing the MSc Youth Justice. More details on the course here - www.qub.ac.uk/courses/post...

Do we know if the decline in youth drinking follows through into people's 20s? Learn all you need to know about the decline in youth drinking in our latest podcast with Prof @jholmessheff.bsky.social and Dr @amypennay.bsky.social Listen here: www.ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

Transporting the effect of the ASSIST school-based smoking prevention intervention to the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England Survey (2004–2021): A secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial buff.ly/CMFv4x4 @ctrcardiffuni.bsky.social

We are still taking applications for our PGDip/MSc Children's Rights and PGDip/MSc in Youth Justice. We'll be profiling some past students this month. First up is Jonas who completed the MSc Children's Rights. More details on the course here - www.qub.ac.uk/courses/post...

Graph of British Rivers

On this July 4, liberate the field from cross-sectional “mediation analysis” - check out this new paper discussing an alternative. I bet it’s an instant classic. My sense is that folks continue bad practices bc they don’t know what else to do. This solves that psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

Jamie-Lee Beggs is graduating today with a degree in Social Policy with Quantitative Methods, having balanced her studies with being a full-time carer to her daughter Freya, who has autism and learning disabilities. Read Jamie-Lee's story ➡️ ow.ly/4WGp50WhuWP #LoveQUBGrad

Tony Seddon provides a whistle stop tour of key points in UK cannabis policy history, including the little known fact that the development of the MDA1971 was intended as a more progressive and consistent approach to drug control.

Here’s a screenshot of the “addictive use” trajectories from the JAMA paper cited below. My educated guess from the details of the measure is that none of these lines comes close to bona fide “addictive” use 🧵

What's up with the B&I Lions jerseys?. When did we start to play in burgundy? #lions

It does my head in that universities, of all institutions, get caught up in this ranking nonsense. I realise that there are financial implications of where you place in the rank, but that's only because we play the game, and it is just a game.

We are on the look out for our next PGT Editor in Chief! If you are a current PhD student in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen's University and interested in volunteering, email [email protected] @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social @childrensrightsqub.bsky.social

This is one of the greatest #SQM1001 #dataviz

Just read an article researching the rate of behavioural infractions of inmates who were in extended solitary confinement. They found misconduct was way below baseline when inmates were in solitary. Ok, but they don’t account for the fact that of course it’s lower? They’re in solitary with nothing.

The association of parental or caregiver alcohol use with child maltreatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies buff.ly/wTMtMHA

This is an important replication of an significant paper on sexual violence. The replication study found substantial coding errors in the original analysis. Analysis undertaken didn't match that reported in the published paper. Criminology, as a discipline, needs to be more active in this area!!

A suggestion for those who need to engage with statistics as clinical researchers - commit to reading one of these short papers each week. These are not written for statisticians and they are highly digestible. Hop on to bsky with any specific questions.

I know this might seem crazy, but PhD students should be provided high quality training in the research methods that are critical for their work. This might even include training in study design, statistics, and data analysis.

Pleased to have been able to make a modest contribution to this piece about the genetic contributors to and consequences of socioeconomic status, initiated and led by @dr-appie.bsky.social . Share with your social science friends!

Longitudinal network analysis of teen drinking harms shows central role of getting more drink than they planned to the emergence of all more serious harms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

1/2 In our new Lancet Psychiatry paper on the brain disease model for addiction, we discuss -its weak empirical support -its downplaying of psychosocial causes & maintenance factors -issues with the definition of 'brain disease' -numerous ways forward www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

They do, they "feed and thrive".

I argue that, given that we've now had the results of several high quality trials, the field is at a fork in the road. We know that current universal interventions often don't work well, and can sometimes make things worse. Do we refine them further, or stop them and focus on alternatives?

New paper - Recommendations for future research exploring vaping and later smoking in young people. @addictionjournal.bsky.social @jhb19.bsky.social @drnlindson.bsky.social @jlivbanks.bsky.social @drsarahejackson.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

👥The #AtlasLongitudinalDatasets is a fantastic resource for people from all sectors. Use the Atlas to find datasets for external validation, guide future funding calls, and convey the richness of the longitudinal data landscape! 🧵1/2 @popres-uk.bsky.social @mqmentalhealth.bsky.social

Domestic abuse guidelines launched for journalists as survivors tell their stories at Queen’s University Belfast conference - viewdigital.org/domestic-abu...

” Methods Matter" workshop, and the do!

📯📯 The call for papers for the North /South Irish Criminology Conference is now out! It s in Maynooth University -🌸

Just a few weeks left to apply for our PhD studentship focusing on understanding poverty from children's perspectives 👇 Apply by 31st March! @savethechildrenni.bsky.social @childrensrightsqub.bsky.social

The 16th North South Criminology Conference will be hosted by @maynoothuniversity.ie this year - call for papers open now so get your abstracts in, you have until 4th April! forms.office.com/pages/respon...

Criminology people with interest in experiences of families of people in prison! I am keen to finally get this idea moving: an edited collection of chapters on stigma. Quite a lot to explore and lots of policy interest. Get in touch and pls share! docs.google.com/document/u/1...

***New SARG report*** Our review of Northern Ireland's alcohol licensing system led by colleagues at ISMH at University of Stirling is now out. You can read the full report here: www.communities-ni.gov.uk/publications... And there's a nice write-up on the BBC here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In partnership with the All-Ireland Network for Sexual Violence Research we are hosting a hybrid seminar on 26/02 2pm with Prof. Helen Beckett ‘Journeys through justice: children’s experiences of criminal justice processes following sexual abuse’. See below for registration details

With university departmental closures are we seeing the emergence of geographical 'cold spots' for social science/humanities/arts (SHAPE) subjects? We've developed a new beta mapping tool using HESA data to enable you to explore the situation by subject www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

A recording of Paddy Hillyard's talk on 'The Stalker Affair and its legacy' (17/2/25) is now available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFZk...

Need to get my students to engage with content such as this.

Brilliant to see this kind of social media research published - using actual smartphone usage data, very frequent real-time measuring of wellbeing (via ESM), and individual difference measures - with the conclusion that people who are already lonely may be more negatively affected by social media