Social Media and Offline Violence Research - Early Market Warming Session

The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) would like to invite your organisation to a market scoping & information session. The session will discuss the upcoming commissioning of a research provider to investigate the relationship between social media and offline physical violence affecting children & young people in London.

The research specification, currently in development, aims to:

- Investigate high level trends exploring the links between instances of offline physical violence affecting young people in London and social media content & interactions online.

The VRU wishes to explore the potential for quantitative analysis to support this question - for example, drawing on sentiment analysis of social media content, analysis of reported/ flagged content and crime data.

- Conduct in depth analysis of specific instances of offline violence to understand the role social media content and activity may have played.

The VRU wishes to explore various sources of data relating to violent incidents - for example, looking at data collected through schools or the justice system.

Objectives of the Market Scoping Session

Discussion of methodology: During the session the VRU will present their scoping work and invite a discussion from researchers on feasibility & methodological approaches.

Networking & Partnership Building: The VRU encourages partnership approaches to commissioning, for example, a university or research consultancy pairing with grassroot community groups, or peer research groups. We intend for the session to also act as a networking space for potential collaborations.

Q&A/ Approach to commissioning: The VRU procurement team will be available to discuss the commissioning process and guidelines.

Research outputs

The research will also be included in the VRU's Evidence Hub https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/communities-and-social-justice/londons-violence-reduction-unit-vru/our-research/vru-evidence-hub, a bank of London-specific evidence around the root causes of violence and what works to prevent and tackle it. The hub is used as a resource by local authorities, schools, statutory bodies, community groups and academics

We will be holding an online information session on the 15th October from 13:00-14:30 where VRU will present further information on the rationale behind commissioning this research, before gathering views from attendees on the different methodological approaches that could be taken to investigate this topic.

If you would like to attend, please sign up via this link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/social-media-and-offline-violence-research-early-market-warming-session-tickets-1034846934037?aff=oddtdtcreator

Feedback Questionnaire

A questionnaire will be circulated during/ after the session for prospective bidders to feedback. This will cover:

- Reflections on scope of research

- Feasibility of methodology

- Barriers to bidding

- Feedback on pricing