Over the summer we ran two competitions linked to our RGS-IBG Annual Conference Events.

Our first competition was the ‘reproducible map competition‘ we launched alongside the ‘Geocomputation with R’ session led by Dr Robin Lovelace of the University of Leeds. The winners were:

• Olivia Horsefield, Data CDT student at the University of Liverpool, for their map of crime patterns in Merseyside
• James Herring, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, for their map of broadband connectivity for England and Wales.

Congratulations to both Olivia and James who both receive a hardback copy of Robin’s (with Jakub Nowosad, Jannes Muenchow) book ‘Geocomputation with R’ .

The second competition followed our group’s sponsored sessions and the Annual General Meeting at this year’s annual conference.

For our Future of Quantitative Geography session for young/early career researcher,  we held a best paper award.  The joint winners of this competition are:

• Sarah Gadd and colleagues from University of Leeds for a paper on ‘Combining network methods with longitudinal data analysis to examine spatio-temporal variation in bike sharing data’
• Hannah Budnitz from University of Birmingham, for her paper on ‘Travel Behaviour, technology and weather resilience’.

Congratulations to Sarah and Hannah, who each win £75 and a copy of ‘Geocomputation with R’.

Thanks too to Dr Helen Packwood (University of Edinburgh) for helping judge the papers.

We were also very pleased with the strong level of interest in all of our events over the summer. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Help needed please!

Ever wanted to help lead debates in Quantitative Methods in Geography? Interested in improving the support, provision and future of the field?

Following on from the QMRG annual general meeting, at last month’s RGS-IBG annual conference, we are now seeking nominations for two openings on the QMRG committee:

• Postgrad Rep – main responsibilities are for promoting postgraduate interests and needs to the wider Research Group and helping develop QMRG-sponsored activities, both at the RGS-IBG conference and at other times.  This vacancy has arisen due to Emily Eyles of Bristol University completing her term: with sincere thanks to Emily for all her efforts.
• A new position; inclusivity and diversity officer – providing ideas and guidance in these areas and promoting activities QMRG could undertake to enhance diversity and inclusivity.

In keeping with RGS-IBG practice the committee positions normally have a 3-year term, though the Postgrad Rep position may be shorter than this and we are also very happy to consider this position being shared.

Nominations may include self-nominations, and should be sent along with the name of a seconder and a brief statement of suitability.  Enquiries and nominations should be sent by email to Dani and/or Alistair (see table below).  We would like to receive nominations no later than Friday 11^th October.

We are particularly interested in supporting applications that will diversify our committee.

Please help us by circulating this notice among your colleagues and students – and/or by nominating yourself!

With thanks, Alistair Geddes (QMRG Secretary)

RGS-IBG Quantitative Methods Research Group – current committee at Sep. 2019

This event, sponsored by the Quantitative Methods Research Group and led by Dr Robin Lovelace from the University of Leeds, will provide an introductory, hands-on, and fun session getting started with spatial data in R. The workshop will bring together data, maps and R (soon-to-be) enthusiasts to demonstrate the ‘power of the command line’ to solve geographic challenges using open source software. Critically, the ‘data science’ approach demonstrated in the course enables reproducibility, something that geographers have recently started to address with a shift to open source, community-driven tools. The workshop will be based on the recently published open source book Geocomputation in R the contents (https://geocompr.robinlovelace.net/) and source code (https://github.com/robinlovelace/geocompr) of which is freely available worldwide, to minimise barriers to participation in geographic research.

You need to have prepared three things before the course:
1. A decent, charged battery
2. The software needed for the course, meaning a recent version of R (at least R 3.6.0) and RStudio (installed within the past year)
3. Spatial packages installed on your computer. See here for more on the pre-requisite packages: https://geocompr.robinlovelace.net/spatial-class.html#prerequisites

Places are free and must be booked in advance. You can sign up for the workshop here.

Location: RGS-IBG Drayson Room

Time: Tuesday 27 August 2019, Afternoon 13:00 – 17:30.

We are inviting proposals for Special Sessions for the forthcoming RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, which will take place from 28-30 August 2019 at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

We would be particularly interested in sponsoring sessions which illustrate how various types of data (from census to micro-data and new sources of big data) and cutting edge analytical methods can help us understand the different Geographies of Trouble and Hope, following the conference’s theme. We are also open to other session proposals, which are within the remit of QMRG.

The proposals can lead to paper sessions, poster presentations or panels. We would encourage proposals for sessions led by post-graduate students.

QMRG has access to a limited number of passes for non RGS members, and this might be an opportunity for session organisers to invite non-academics (e.g. from industry) as presenters or discussants.

How to submit your proposal

Please use the RGS-IBG Session Proposal form available here and send it to Emmanouil Tranos (e.tranos@bham.ac.uk) and Dani Arribas-Bel (d.arribas-bel@liverpool.ac.uk) by 14th January 2019. We will assess all the proposals and get back to you by 21st January.

If your session is accepted for sponsorship by the QMRG you need to secure participants and complete the required paperwork by 15th February 2019 as indicated in the RGS-IBG relevant page.

Records of QMRG-sponsored sessions at recent conferences may be found via the links below (for each one choose ‘Browse by Affliation’ then ‘Quantitative Methods Research Group):
http://conference.rgs.org/Conference/Sessions/Search.aspx?conference=AC2018
http://conference.rgs.org/Conference/Sessions/Search.aspx?conference=AC2017
http://conference.rgs.org/Conference/Sessions/Search.aspx?conference=AC2016
http://conference.rgs.org/Conference/Sessions/SearchResults.aspx?conference=AC2015

We run an annual dissertation prize open to any undergraduate dissertation that displays an aptitude for quantitative methods within Human and Physical Geography. Check out the twitter page or announcements for latest calls (occurring roughly summer time each year).

Here is a list of past winners of the prize.

2018
Winner: Simon Herd, University of Manchester – “Reef island stability under rising sea levels? Assessing the eco-morphodynamics of a lagoonal platform island in the South Maldives”.

2017
Winner: Laurence Day, University of St Andrews – “The relationship between forest cover and malaria incidence in Bangladesh: A spatio-statistical analysis”.

2016
Human Geography Winner: Emily Ellis, University of St Andrews – ‘A Geographically Weighted Regression of Domestic Heat Demand in Glasgow’
Physical Geography Winner: James Kirkham, Durham University – “Magnitude-frequency relations of iceberg disintegration in Vaigat, West Greenland”

2015
Human Geography Winner: Chris Moore, University of Bristol – “The Economic Impact of the Naxalite Insurgency on Indian States, 1982-2007: Evidence from a Synthetic Control Approach”
Physical Geography Winner: Fergus McClean, University of Dundee – “A New Approach to Index Flood Estimation for Ungauged Catchments”

2014
Winner: Gareth Griffith, University of Bristol – “Behind the aggregate curtain: developing an advanced modelling approach to investigating health segregation”
Runner up: James Brennan, University College London – “Validation of a spectrally invariant model of canopy radiative transfer with MODIS data and its application to canopy dynamics in Amazon Forests”
Runner up: Benno Simmons, Oxford University – “Geodiversity and biodiversity: evaluating the predictive power and surrogacy performance of abiotic heterogeneity in the United Kingdom”

2011
Winner: Tadas Nikonovas, Swansea University – “Dynamics of night time emissions in Europe”

2010
Winner: Laura Steele, University of Bristol – “A Multilevel Modelling Approach to Ethnic Residential Segregation in Urban England, 1991-2001″
Runners up: Tim Foster and Robin Wilson’s entries, from University College London and the University of Southampton respectively.