Social work research is currently in the midst of a pervasive and portentous identity

conflict that could pose existential problems vis-a-vis its future viability. The digital
revolution and the information age it wrought have contributed significantly to the
growth of social work science between 1984 and 2014. A contemporaneous Era of
Emulation arose in social work, involving the widespread Importation of research
and statistical methods of more advanced social and health sciences (along with the
researchers themselves in these fields) into schools of social work. Digital age
developments and Emulation Era benefits led to substantially increased production
of social work research as compared with the past scientific generation, in the
absence of scientific growth in the number of social work earned doctorates. Still,
much could be done to improve the quality and increase the quantity of social work
research. This article presents a host of proposals to improve social work doctoral
education. Publication practice, research funding and infrastructure and
performance appraisal that could do much to advance the research mission of the
profession. Worrisome developments in science generally - the replication crisis.
Fraud, problematic peer review and predatory publishing - with implications for
social work research are also discussed. Current efforts to resolve social work's
identity crisis by defining a science of social work and identifying a set of grand
challenges for social work research are critiqued.
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Taking the panel report on social work submissions to the British 2001 research
assessment exercise as a starting point, I comment on some of the central
questions facing social work research. These include social work research
methodology; social work's relationship to science; the relationship between social
work practice and research; governance and research ethics; building research
capacity; and establishing research quality. I outline action that is needed by social
work academics and researchers, social work agencies and government
departments.

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