Category: BGRS training/ event announcements

Academic Open House

The Access and Engagement Department sits at the heart of Birkbeck’s commitment to improving the access and success of non-traditional students in London. We work with groups who may otherwise feel excluded from taking a step into higher education, including trade union members without a formal qualification above level 4; FE and adult education college students; forced migrants and those who have been out of education for a number of years.

Birkbeck’s academic and research community can support our work in a range of ways, including:

  • delivering free community lectures and/or learning activities;
  • running workshops to support those facing organisational change at work;
  • helping people to develop the skills they need to successfully navigate structural inequality;
  • offering insights into community priorities through their research.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Find out more

To find out more and discuss possible collaborations, the Department is holding an Academic Open House event on Thursday 26th September from 3-5pm in Malet Street B02. The event is open to PhD candidates, Early Career Researchers and academics at Birkbeck. We will present further information about our work across London and our priorities for 2019/20, and there will be the opportunity for discussion with other academic colleagues and members of the Department.

Big IdeasDownload
Academic Open HouseDownload

Register to attend here

To register your interest, please complete the following short form: https://bbk.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/open-house-register-of-interest
For refreshments purposes it would be helpful to know how many are able to attend the Open House event, but even if you are unable to join us on the 26th, we’d still love to hear from you so please do complete the form so we can keep in touch about future opportunities.

CHASE Essentials

CHASE Essentials

CHASE Essentials training is available to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether you they are funded by CHASE or not.

About this training

CHASE Essentials is a year-round programme of training and development workshops and residential programmes and is part of the training opportunities available to all arts and humanities doctoral researchers at CHASE institutions.

Arts and Humanities PhD students at CHASE member institutions can apply for expenses using the form here (Word document, best viewed on a laptop or desktop). Approval for the travel claim must be sought in advance.

Other training opportunities are available here www.chase.ac.uk/development

Highlighted AHRC CHASE Training Opportunities

Mining Back: Data Skills for Researching Corporations and Governments

Saturday 14 September | 12:15-13:25
Goldsmiths, University of London | RHB 307  

Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, Principal Academic in Digital Storytelling, Bournemouth University (designed with Tom Sanderson, The Centre for Investigative Journalism)
 
While corporations and governments gain more and more access to our data, ‘researching up’ or investigating governments and corporations is often riddled with obstacles. While the move in recent years toward open data has brought with it increased transparency and information access, not all information is equally available. Critical documents remain hidden behind paywalls, blocked by confidentiality agreements, or deemed too sensitive to be brought into public view. Even when Freedom of Information requests return results, they can come back worded in generalisations or dressed up in retractions.
 
These challenges prompt researchers and campaigners to employ creative methods for legally obtaining data from governments and corporations. In this workshop we bring together key strategies for investigative research, showcasing a range of data sources, as well as freely available and easy to access tools that can be used to ‘mine back’ or obtain and analyse data of government and corporate elites. Geared toward non-coders, qualitative researchers and those with limited budgets and resources, these strategies for ‘mining back’ include advanced searching techniques, data scraping from a webpage, liberating PDF tables, and creating visual power-maps.  
 
This workshop will focus on the reproductive technologies industry in the UK, but most of the skills and resources we will introduce are adaptable across any research project engaged in investigating corporations or governments. 

Students wishing to attend please email with confirmation: grace.tillyard@gmail.com

CHASE Latin for Medieval and Early Modernists 2019/20

Monday 4 – Friday 8 November 2019 & Monday 10 – Friday 14 June 2020 (plus two single day workshops – TBC)

The CHASE Latin for Medievalists and Early Modernists course is a series of workshops and residential weeks designed to provide Latin tuition from beginner to intermediate levels, as well as facilitate the discussion and development of Latin methodologies and research practice. A grasp of Latin is essential to cutting-edge work in medieval and early modern studies but tuition is often hard to come by – we aim to provide CHASE scholars with the necessary skills to produce top-quality research and to form a network of Latin scholars throughout the academy.

Residential week 1 will be held from Monday 4th to Friday 8th November 2019 and residential week 2 will be held from Monday 10th to Friday 14th June 2020, both at UEA. Two single-day workshops will take place in London between the residential weeks with dates TBC. Please note that accommodation for the residential weeks is booked in advance, and so if you subscribe to a residential week and are subsequently unable to attend it is important to notify us as soon as possible.

The skills developed in this course over the past two years have enabled CHASE researchers to pursue previously unavailable avenues of research, and besides structured language tuition we include classes on palaeography and archival research to ground our linguistic work in practice.

Although this course primarily teaches on classical Latin it will feature texts from a wide range of historical periods and is suitable for medievalists, early modernists, and scholars from any background whose research engages with the language.

Register here

A new call for student-led training initiatives

expression of interest invited

Propose your own training initiatives

The BGRS is pleased to announce a call for current Birkbeck research students to seek funding and support to pilot training initiatives in 2019/20. This call offers current Birkbeck PhD students the chance to propose training that will benefit themselves and their peers and to develop and deliver them with support from the BGRS. Funding awarded will be used to support well-defined initiatives which will deliver training accessible to all Birkbeck PhD students.

Submit an expression of interest

Current PhD students are invited to submit a brief expression of interest by 27 September. If you think of a training idea after this date you can still submit an application but we suggest that you contact the BGRS so that we can provide advice and support.

Develop a proposal

BGRS support in October will give you the chance to consider your ideas in more detail and will provide you with the support needed for you to prepare and submit a full proposal by 15 November.

In developing their own training initiatives those awarded funding will be able to build professional relationships with other research students and staff, improve their organisational skills and meet the training needs they identified.

If you have any queries about this call for student-led training proposals please do contact the BGRS in the first instance

When considering your training ideas it is recommended that you look at previous events listed on the BGRS and BPSN timetables to see whether any similar training has been run before and to get ideas about the format and type of training that you think would be useful.

Further information and how to apply

Further information about this call and the expression of interest form are available below:

BGRS Student-led training initiatives – overviewDownload
Expression of interest formDownload
BGRS-Student-led-training-initiatives-full-application-formDownload

If you would like your proposal to be considered please submit the form by 15 November to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk

Highlighted CHASE opportunities

The following events and opportunities are available via the AHRC funded CHASE Doctoral Training Programme. All of the opportunities below are open to all Arts and Humanities PhD students at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded or self-funded.

+ 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century – Placement available

Applications for this placement are open to all arts and humanities PhD student at Birkbeck, regardless of whether they are funded by CHASE. The successful applicant will receive a stipend, fee reimbursement and the opportunity to claim expenses. The deadline for applications is 29 March.

Art at the Frontier of Film Theory: Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen

22 March – 25 May 2019

From 22 March to 24 May, Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image and the Essay Film Festival is hosting a unique programme of research events about the work of filmmakers and film theorists Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen. The programme comprises an exhibition at Birkbeck’s Peltz Gallery, a film season, a series of ‘In Conversation’ events and Gallery Workshops, a Curators’ Talk, and a student-led Symposium.

 CHASE training opportunities

Media Skills Training – 5 spaces available

19 March | 0900-1700 | Camden, London

This interactive workshop leads from identifying the elements of a good media story in academic research, through the challenges of dealing with the media and the competing pressures of academic and journalistic methods to final on-camera interviews and playback analysis. Run by Media Players International, this one-day workshops will help you understand what makes for good communication through the general media. It also directly address the issues of impact and media strategy required by the Research Excellence Framework.

Performing Theory: Speaking in Tongues

Friday 29 March | 1400-1700 | Birkbeck Cinema

This series of Master Classes aims to present a wide variety of approaches to the artistic production of ideas in audio-visual form.  We are inviting performance artists and moving image makers whose work (written, performed, filmed) manifests theoretical innovation.  The latter part of the 20th century produced body of Anglo-American writing and work that are recognised today as canonical as with Hollis Frampton, Maya Deren, Peter Gidal for example.  With this series we want to produce a sample of this kind of interplay between ideas and creating that are underway today.  In so doing, we hope to open the field of play between theory and works to create new conversations.

The inaugural session in the series is Speaking in Tongues: a lecture-performance by Christopher Harris. Throughout his career artist and filmmaker Christopher Harris has used film and video installations to re-stage and explore African American accounts of history. Using experimental film techniques, Harris brings disparate mediums into dialogue with one another, in order to present multiple perspectives highlighting experiences of the African diaspora.

BAME Creative Writing Masterclass Series – further session added: Sabrina Mahfouz

Wednesday 27 March | 1400-1600 | The Enterprise Centre, UEA, TEC 0.02

Sabrina Mahfouz has recently been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is the recipient of the 2018 King’s Alumni Arts & Culture Award. She has been shortlisted for The Stage Award for Best Solo Performance, a Women in the Creative Industries Award, an Arts Foundation Award for Performance Poetry and has won a Sky Arts Academy Award for Poetry, a Westminster Prize for New Playwrights and a Fringe First Award. She also writes for children and her play Zeraffa Giraffa won a 2018 Off West End Award.

Sabrina is the editor of The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, a 2017 Guardian Book of the Year and currently nominated for The People’s Book Prize. She is an essay contributor to the multi-award-winning The Good Immigrant and is currently writing a biopic of the legendary ‘Godfather of Grime’, rapper and producer Wiley, for Pulse Films.

2019 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition announced

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2019 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 2 May from 6pm. You are invited to mark this date in your diaries!

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 2 May 2019

Join a selection of Birkbeck PhD students as they compete to communicate their compelling thesis topics in just three minutes. This event is a fantastic opportunity to share and celebrate the interests and successes of PhD researchers from across the College and we invite all current Birkbeck PhD students to take part. The winner of the Birkbeck competition will be chosen by an expert panel of judges who will award:

  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner up
  • The audience will also have their say by picking a people’s choice winner who’ll win a special prize.

Register to attend

If you would like to join the audience please register here to attend. Following the competition there will be a drinks reception for all attendees.

How to compete

You can read more about what it was like to take part in the 2018 3MT competition in these BGRS blog posts from Cathy Rogers and from winner Keith Jarrett.

All potential competitors for the Birkbeck Three Minute Thesis Competition must attend one of the following training sessions – if you think you would like to compete this year, please do sign up. This training is provided by Birkbeck’s Public Engagement Team and will enhance your presentation skills as well as preparing you for the competition.

This is an international event and the Birkbeck winner will have the opportunity to continue on to the UK semi-finals later in the year.

CHASE Training Opportunity | Doctoral and Early Career Researchers

How to collaborate: an introduction to working with external partners

Monday 19 November, 11.15am-3.30pm Barbican Centre, Silk St, London EC2Y 8DS

Led by Dr Keith M. Johnston, UEA Arts & Humanities Associate Dean for Innovation & Paul Roberts, University of Sussex Head of Business Engagement

Do you want to develop your research beyond the university, but not sure where to start? Do you think your research could help an existing company or sector? Working with organisations – be they commercial, arts funded, third sector, governmental – can be an incredibly rewarding experience, helping you translate your research and/or research skills to a different environment, with different demands and expectations. Working with non-HEIs is also becoming more important across the UK research landscape, with the KEF (Knowledge Exchange Framework) being mooted to start in spring 2019.

This session will offer expert advice and practical tips on identifying, approaching and working with organisations, and on the opportunities available for collaborative work. Topics to be covered will include:

• Why work with partners – what do they add?
•  What do partners want?
•  How do you get started – who makes the first move?
•  What timescales and demands are suitable for these projects?
•  What ethical / legal implications might there be?
•  What happens if it all goes wrong?
•  Will this help me get a job?

This session, part of the CHASE Encounters conference, is open to doctoral and early career researchers from CHASE member institutions.

Register here

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Call for Papers: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region Second Biannual Postgraduate Conference

The School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at SOAS University of London invites proposals for paper presentations at a forthcoming postgraduate conference, to be held at SOAS on the 1st and 2nd of May, 2019.

The conference is designed as a forum that brings together UK-based PhD students working on the MENA region from any perspective. MENA here is defined in the broadest possible terms and includes the countries of the Arab world, Israel, Turkey, Iran and the central Asian states. The School particularly welcomes proposals that
• adopt interdisciplinary approaches
• reflect critically on the process of conducting interdisciplinary research
• engage with a combination of textual, visual, aural and digital sources

However, the School welcomes any proposal that is pertinent to the study of MENA. Presentations will be recorded on video and uploaded to the web.
The conference will be the second on this theme organised and funded through the Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE), the first having been hosted by the Middle East and North Africa Centre at Sussex (MENACS) of the University of Sussex in April 2017. Faculty members from across the CHASE group of universities will participate in the conference as panel chairs and commentators. This will ensure doctoral students receive critical feedback on their work from leading scholars who work on the MENA region from a variety of viewpoints.

Abstracts of 300 words with CHASE CONFERENCE in the subject bar should be sent to Marlé Hammond (mh93@soas.ac.uk) no later than 31 December 2018. Students from CHASE institutions (The Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths, Open University, University of East Anglia, University of Essex, University of Kent, University of Sussex, Birkbeck, and SOAS) may apply for reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses through their institutions. See https://www.chase.ac.uk/hb-funding#apply

The conference organisers will be able to offer successful candidates from other UK institutions some funding for these costs. There is no registration fee.

The British Library Doctoral Open Days

The British Library is again running a series of Open Days for Doctoral Students, running from December 2018 – March 2019.

The British Library on April 5, London, England.

 

The British Library Doctoral Open Days are a chance for PhD students who are new to the Library to learn how to make the most of the Library’s research materials, get to grips with the practicalities of using the Library and its services, and find out how to navigate their physical and online collections. They are also a great opportunity to meet our expert and friendly staff and other researchers from all disciplines.

Each day concentrates on a different aspect of the Library’s collections and most take an inter-disciplinary approach.  Students are invited to choose the day they feel is most relevant to their studies.

All events take place in the British Library Knowledge Centre at St Pancras, London, except for the event on Wednesday 30 January 2019, which takes place at the Library’s site in Boston Spa, Yorkshire. This event is suitable for researchers of all disciplines and subject areas as speakers will also provide an overarching introduction to the Library that will be of interest to anyone planning to explore our collections for PhD research – whether that is in Yorkshire, in London or online.

For further details of the all Open Days and how to book please see the British Library website. Places cost £10.00 including lunch and refreshments.

Open Access Week 2018: (22 – 28 October)

open access week

Throughout 22-28 October Birkbeck PhD students are invited to attend events organised by the Birkbeck Library as part of International Open Access Week.

These events will let you learn about developments which are of increasing importance to your current and future research. The programme includes the following events:

Using Open Access resources

Malet Street G20, Birkbeck, 1–2pm, Tuesday
23 October 2018

We often think about Open Access in relation to publishing and disseminating research, but this session considers how you can use open access resources in your search for information whether that’s to write an essay, complete an assignment or as part of your literature review. This session aims to give an introduction to open access resources as a source of information rather than as a publishing option.

Open Access board game

Malet Street G20, Birkbeck, 2.30–5pm, Tuesday 23 October

open access board game

Come and play the Open Access board game to get a better understanding of what Open Access is and how it works. You are welcome as a team of up to 4 people or as an individual to join others.

Open knowledge: process, ethics, possibilities – Panel discussion

Keynes Library, Gordon Square, 7-9pm, Tuesday 23 October

Open Knowledge: process, ethics, possibilities; an International Open Access Week panel of speakers from Birkbeck, SOAS and LSE, brought together by Birkbeck Library.

The speakers are drawn from academic, publishing, library and scholarly communications communities, and will investigate the practicalities and ethics of opening up access to knowledge, as well as the potential to widen engagement with research and to experiment with publishing.

Understanding Green and Gold Open Access

Malet Street B04, Birkbeck, 3–4pm, Wednesday 24 October 2018

What is Gold Open Access? How does it differ from Green? And where on earth do Diamond and Platinum fit in? We will try to clear up confusion about the range of Open Access options available to you as both a researcher and author.

Get a DOI for data, or a ORCID id for your publications

G20 Malet Street Birkbeck, 3-4pm, Thursday 25 October 2018

If you are creating data and publishing articles, you may have considered creating a researcher identifier, such as an ORCID iD.
ORCID iDs allow you to connect all your published material, back to you.
We can also help you create digital object identifiers (DOIs) for your research data.

You are welcome to this drop-in session to get a DOI for your data or to create an ORCID iD. Read more about research data management, ORCID and other researcher identifiers.

Your views: “What would the world look like if access to knowledge was free?”

open access word cloud

As part of Open Access Week, the Birkbeck Library are looking for your views on the theme above.

  • Would your research or studies be easier?
  • How would this impact the developing world?
  • Do we need to be more radical to achieve this?

To take part, you can fill out a postcard available in the library, or via Twitter using @BirkbeckLibrary #OAWeek