Postgraduate Training Symposium at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference

Posted on 28 May 2013 by bdp.smith

Postgraduate delegates are invited to attend a training and networking symposium on Tuesday 27 August 2013 (the day before the Annual Conference begins), hosted and subsidised by the RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum.

PGF-ACTS is organised jointly by the PGF and the RGS-IBG to provide a training and networking opportunity for postgraduates attending the RGS-IBG Annual Conference. As it is held the day prior to the start of the Annual International Conference, it also provides an opportunity for postgraduates to get to know other delegates and the conference venue before the start of the full conference.

Workshops, panel discussions and opportunities for Q&A, led by established professional geographers and other experts, will enable postgraduates to develop transferable skills, whilst also enriching the experience and value of attending the conference.

Programme

The symposium will run from approximately 1.00pm to 6.00pm on Tuesday 27 August 2013.

A full programme will be published shortly, but the symposium will include:

A workshop on publishing strategies will explore elements such as: splitting a PhD into a series of journal articles, getting networked for/with academics, and getting your name recognised in the post-doc market
A workshop on the identification and use of the transferable skills from a PhD and how they match to the graduate job market inside and outside academia
A facilitated World Cafe networking session to share experiences on topics such as social media, job applications, research methods, dissemination and getting your research out beyond academia

Registration

The cost of the symposium is £15 (in addition to the conference registration fee), which includes lunch on arrival and an evening drinks reception on Tuesday 27 August 2013.

Due to high demand, attendance is limited to those postgraduates who are attending the conference. To register, please add the ‘PGF-ACTS – Postgraduate Forum Annual Conference Training Symposium’ session option when you register for conference. For more information about registering, please refer to the registration page.

Influencing Policy on Climate Change

Posted on 28 May 2013 by bdp.smith

Influencing Policy on Climate Change: an interdisciplinary workshop for early-career researchers. 1st Oct 2013, Cumberland Lodge, Windsor

How does academic research influence policy? What are the obstructions which prevent research from driving policy? How can academics most effectively engage with each other, and with policymakers? Climate change researchers need to know the answers to these questions to maximise the chance that their research has policy impact.

In the run up to the next general election in 2015, the policy landscape is ripe for evidence-based political engagement on important matters like climate change. But with competing claims on policy-makers’ time, and competing claims within academia, how best to get your research heard and have impact? What do policy cycles look like and how can academic research fit into these effectively? And how can researchers between disciplines work more collaboratively and efficiently to this end?

This is a one-day workshop and networking event for postgraduates and early career researchers from any discipline working on climate change issues. The event has a twofold objective; for ECRs to:

•Develop strategies for talking productively about climate change between disciplines (interdisciplinary exchange)

•Learn more about talking to policy makers and influencing policy decisions (policy influence)

Each participant will be expected to give a 1-slide, 2-minute presentation on their research that is accessible to researchers in other disciplines and policy-makers. Participants will hear from key speakers about how to maximise policy impact in government and NGOs, and how to work work more productively together.

Climate change research is too important to be obstructed by disciplinary barriers or poor communication. This workshop offers the space to reflect on how to overcome these problems. For full details including booking please see the website.

Call for Conference Papers: Rurality – New perspectives and Themes

Posted on 23 May 2013 by bdp.smith

Bamberg, Germany, 15-16th November 2013

Deadline 31st May

Profound conceptual arguments about the status of the rural have been rare in German geography: is the rural concerned with economic, population or settlement structures of particularly typify able spaces – by way of a contrast to the urban? Do semantics, ideas or discourses stand as proxies for the good, harmonious or authentic, but also oppositional themes of life? Are localised practices or lifestyles what are meant? Is the rural a selective destination for stressed city-dwellers, or a synonym for emptied regions suffering under shrinking infrastructures, poverty and the changing realities of life?

The conference has two main emphases: firstly, rurality should be conceptually observed from differentiated social space relationships. How can the term conceptual be described? What does it mean to undertake geography(ies) of rurality (and rural space)? Through which indicators can rurality be described? How does the rural reflect the dialectic of the relationship between space and society?

Secondly, empirical themes and questions relating to rural research of a social- and cultural- geographical nature emerge: where and how does rurality reveal itself as a cultural constellation, as communicated and as practiced? What role does rurality play in the context of globalisation? Which future social and political-economy processes do rural spaces enhance in order to produce a diversity of ruralities? How does the composition of rural places change? Which contributions emanate from agriculture and land speculation in creating changes to the rural?

We welcome contributions from the following research spheres:

History of rural geographical space/history of scientific engagement with rurality
Rural theories
Communicated rurality
Rural practices
Rurality as a cultural constellation
Rurality in the global context/context of globalisation
Rurality of migrations, emigrations and isolation
The rural as a resource and subject of speculation

As an international conference, the language of presentation is considered to be English. Nonetheless it is possible to give talks in German (please note your possibilities of presentation in terms of language in the abstract).

Please send an abstract (about 300 words) by the 31st May to the following email: neuelaendlichkeit@uni-mainz.de. Each presentation should be no longer than 30 minutes in length. The time could, for example, be split into 15 minutes presentation and 15 minutes discussion or 20 minutes presentation and 10 minutes discussion. Email Dan Keech for any questions on UK contributions: mdk1g09@soton.ac.uk.

RGS Annual Conference Programme

Posted on 7 May 2013 by bdp.smith

The provisional programme for the RGS Annual Conference is now online and searchable by session and by presenter. This really is a conference with something for everyone, with all of the research groups involved in running sessions on everything from Affordable Housing to Open Data to Climate Change and Resource Conflict. The earlybird booking deadline is the 14th June, and you can register here. The conference will be held at the RGS and Imperial College, London, from the 28th-30th August.

If you need any more tempting the postgraduate forum will be running our annual training workshop on the 27th. The symposium is a half-day networking and training event led by established geographers and other professionals and hosted by the Society’s Postgraduate Forum, covering such topics as publishing, career planning, and an opportunity to get advice from recent graduates, early-career scholars and senior academics across a range of topics. The £15 fee includes lunch, workshop costs and an evening drinks reception.

Play in Times of Austerity

Posted on 20 February 2013 by bdp.smith

Call for contributions – Play in times of austerity: A seminar for play service providers, practitioners and researchers.
Date: Wednesday 22 May 2013
Location: University of Leicester
Cost: £20 waged; £10 postgraduate researchers/unwaged

The Geographies of Children, Young People and Families Research Group is convening a seminar to bring together play providers, practitioners and researchers to discuss the prospects for play in 2013 and beyond. The recent history of investment in children’s play in the UK is a good news story that now risks turning bad. Following the growth of private sector investment in the 1990s and Noughties, came public sector investment on an unprecedented scale. Rising to a challenge set by the UK Government, through Making the Case for Play (2003), the play sector presented a compelling case for public sector investment. After the Dobson report (Getting Serious About Play, 2005), this investment materialised with £123 million of Big Lottery funding for children’s play in England between 2006 and 2012. The end of this Children’s Play Programme has coincided with an economic downturn and public sector cuts, both of which threaten to unravel the advances of the recent past.

This seminar addresses the key issues that face the play sector of 2013. Contributions are welcomed from play providers, practitioners and researchers. In addition to offers of short papers, proposals of workshop topics and suggestions of themes for small group discussions, the organisers are open to contributions in a wider range of formats.
Questions likely to be addressed will include:

- Impact of budget cuts on play provision
- Making the case for investing in play
- Surviving budget cuts
- The role of the academy in supporting children’s play

The organisers will offer limited bursaries for travel to support postgraduate/unwaged attendees (please discuss details with Stefanie when registering).
Interested in speaking at the event? Contact John McKendrick (Board of Directors, Play Scotland and Glasgow Caledonian University) (Tel – 0779 311 3785). Please register expressions of interest by 1 March 2013.

Interested in attending the event? Contact Stefanie Gregorius (University of Loughborough). Please register to attend the event by 12 April 2013.

DARG Postgraduate Workshop 2013: Publishing and disseminating your research

Posted on 19 February 2013 by bdp.smith

Friday 26 April 2013, University of Manchester

The RGS-IBG Developing Areas Research Groups’s next postgraduate workshop is a great opportunity for new researchers to learn more about getting their ideas out there!

The focus is on publishing and disseminating ‘developing areas’ research, both in academic journals and beyond the academy – through press and broadcasting, social media, non-academic publishing and community engagement. The workshop combines presentations from a range of professionals, alongside postgrads talking about their experiences, with practical advice and lively discussions.

The workshop is on Friday 26 April 2013 at the University of Manchester. Registration opens at 9.00 for a 09.30 start, and the workshop ends at 17.00.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL!

Places cost £12 and must be booked and paid for by Friday 5 April 2013. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, and will be confirmed upon payment. Participants must be members of DARG but can join when they book. The annual student-rate subscription is £2. Membership is free of charge to RGS-IBG Postgraduate Fellows.

Travel bursaries are available for postgraduate contributors willing to talk for 10 minutes about their own experiences (good and bad!) of publication and dissemination. Please ask for details when you book. Lunch and tea/coffee are included in the workshop fee. There will be optional drinks and a restaurant dinner in the evening, not included in fee.

For further information, bookings and how to pay, please contact:

Gemma Sou, University of Manchester, gemma.sou@manchester.ac.uk

International Benchmarking Review of Human Geography: Launch Event

Posted on 15 February 2013 by bdp.smith

On the 4^th March at 5.15 pm, the official report of the first ever International Benchmarking Review of UK Human Geography will be launched at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Commissioned by the ESRC, in partnership with the AHRC and the Society, the review was chaired by Professor David Ley (University of British Columbia) and undertaken by a panel of international experts drawn from Europe, Singapore, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. They examined a wide range of evidence with input from more than 160 members of the Human Geography scholarly community, university senior managers and users of research to evaluate the international standing of UK Human Geography, including consideration of its use beyond the academy.

Over wine, short presentations will outline the main findings and recommendations of the review, followed by time for questions and networking.

On behalf of the Society’s President, Professor Judith Rees, we have pleasure in inviting you to the launch and to the lecture that follows at 6.30pm by Professor Paul Boyle, CEO of the ESRC. He will be giving a lecture entitled: ‘Measured, recorded and then what?’ in which he considers the uses that can be made of routinely collected data to give new research insights in the UKs changing society.

We do hope you will join us in celebrating the discipline and the contribution that it makes to the wider world.

If you are interested in attending please RSVP to Rachel Langley in the Director’s Office (r.langley@rgs.org).

Final Call for papers: Sessions sponsored by the Postgraduate Forum at the RGS-IBG Annual Conference

Posted on 6 February 2013 by bdp.smith

New Frontiers in Postgraduate Geography

RGS-IBG Annual Conference, London. 28-30^th August, 2013.

Submissions are invited for paper presentations that cover new and emerging themes in postgraduate geography. Although not restricted to, presentations are welcomed that address the conference theme of New Geographical Frontiers. In particular this session welcomes presenters wishing to share ideas about making use of different media in research, different ways of presenting and disseminating research findings and new frontiers in interdisciplinary research. Presenters are particularly encouraged to raise theoretical or methodological challenges associated with their research as these sessions provide an unique opportunity for new researchers to present work-in-progress in an open and supportive environment and to gain individual feedback on their research from those with similar experiences.

This session provides a friendly and supportive space to present and explore the innovative and exciting geographical research being done by postgraduates and early career researchers. The format consists of a series of 15-minute presentations summarizing either a completed research project or research in progress followed by the opportunity for questions and a general discussion of new and emerging themes coming from the sessions. They also provide participants with a rapid and intensive update and overview of emerging postgraduate geographical research.

Please send a title and short abstract (max. 250 words) by 10^th February 2013 to the session organiser Sophie Yarker (s.k.yarker@newcastle.ac.uk)

Extended deadline Friday 8th Feb – RGS-IBG: Emerging Themes in Postgraduate Population Geography

Posted on 4 February 2013 by bdp.smith

RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2013, London 28-30 August 2013

Deadline: Friday 8th Feb

Sponsored by the Population Geography Research Group

Organisers

Suzanne Beech (Queen’s University Belfast)

Stacey Balsdon (Loughborough University)

Population Geographies continue to develop theoretically, conceptually and empirically – building upon previous calls to refine the sub-discipline (e.g. Boyle and Graham, 2001). Postgraduates are often at the forefront of these ongoing debates, and this session aims to explore the diverse, yet inter-related, nature of studies within this sub-discipline. It is hoped that this session will be both stimulating and thought-provoking, while providing a friendly and supportive forum for postgraduates to present at a major international conference. We welcome submissions that are pushing the frontiers of postgraduate population geographies forward, and they can be variously theoretical, empirical and/or methodological in their orientation.

Please send abstracts (max 250 words) to sbeech01@qub.ac.uk and s.l.balsdon@lboro.ac.uk by Friday 8th February. Paper presentations are intended to be 15 minutes in length, with 5 additional minutes for discussion.

Landscapes of Conflict

Posted on 1 February 2013 by bdp.smith

7-8th June 2013,
The Centre for Environmental History and Policy, University of Stirling

Conflict, physical or intellectual, constructed or natural, has for millennia shaped human experience and perception of and interactions with land. From military, political or legal struggles over real property and the resources in, on and below the land, to antithetical perceptions such as agrarian utility versus wasteland or aesthetic beauty versus horror; landscapes have driven human conflict from the individual to international scale throughout history.

The two day ‘town hall’ meeting, to be opened by Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, is designed to bring academics and a wider public audience together to explore facets of such conflict on different scales, at different times through the lens of environmental history. Many contemporary conflicts over space and place have deep historical roots. These can be witnessed at many levels and across many perceptions. It is possible to consider many facets of conflict, from local to global, from individual to common culture, from hedgerows to national boundaries within a common historical framework in order to work towards resolutions of contemporary conflict.
The meeting comprises of a series of three themed interdisciplinary sessions opened by a keynote speaker; Access and Resources, Heritage, Identity and Place and Military Spaces, each followed by round table discussion. A corresponding series of printed works (cyanotype images) by Orkney-based artist Alistair Peebles and collaborator Alec Finlay entitled ‘Tags/Tags’ will be exhibited by Stirling Art Collection.

If you would like further information or would like to present a paper/attend the event could you please register your interest (places are limited) by contacting Paul Adderley, w.p.adderley@stir.ac.uk or Catherine Mills, c.j.mills@stir.ac.uk. Post-graduate participation and contributions from outside academia are particularly welcome.