## Tuesday, 27 November 2012

### Grant (and missing data)

Today has been quite an interesting day. First of all, we finally heard from the MRC and we got the Grant! (I actually mean money to do our research on the regression discontinuity design, not fellow Fulham FC fan Hugh $-$ but he arguably looks better than a graph with dots and lines...).

We had put quite a lot of work on the write up (actually since the moment Sara pitched the idea and we started discussing it), especially as we were really close to be funded, when we first submitted it last year. The panel liked the idea but asked us to change a few things and re-submit it, which we did. This time around we've been luckier and I'm really pleased. The research group is fantastic and I'm really looking forward to starting it!

As for the rest of the day, I spent it in seminars/workshops, mainly about missing data. In the morning I went to one of our monthly seminars with the PRIMENT people; today's talk presented the statistical plan for a trial that they are developing. Some of the discussion was on how to deal with the expected, relatively large proportion of missing data.

This linked nicely with the LSE workshop I went to in the afternoon (I nearly managed to make it on time for lunch, but as it turned out, I got there a bit too late, so I ended up not eating). The focus of the workshop was on linking survey weights and methods for missing data (specifically multiple imputation); this is interesting as I'm trying to include missing data in my revised lectures for Social Statistics (which will be in the next term).