Category: Calls for participants

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Doctoral Conference: Wednesday 19 June 2024

We are pleased to call for contributions in the form of talks and research posters. If you have any queries please email graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk.  This update includes information about:

  • A Call for PGR student talks  
  • Call for PGR Posters  
  • Call for Steering Group Member

Call for PGR student talks

Deadline Tuesday 14 May

Why present a talk?

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Doctoral researchers are invited to propose a talk to present at the conference. This is an opportunity for you to make your doctoral research visible and gain experience presenting your work. 

What sort of talks are invited?

We intend student talks to be up to 15 minutes in duration including questions but we may need to adjust the timings slightly depending on the number of speakers. 

Suggested talk structure 

If you are unsure about what to present you are invited to consider the following structure for a talk. Please aim to make your talk accessible to a non-specialist. 

1. Introduction (2 minutes)

  • Greeting and Opening: Start by introducing yourself and you could thank those present for the opportunity to speak.
  • Introduce yourself: You could introduce yourself and say which doctoral programme you are enrolled on. It would be interesting to hear why you chose to study a PhD and why you chose Birkbeck. State the focus of your doctoral research and what you aim to prove or discover. 

2. Research Context and Relevance (3 minutes)

  • You could briefly summarise your chosen field of research including why it is of importance to you and to your field of study.
  • Field Overview: Briefly describe how your research fits into the current state of the field related to your research.
  • Gap Identification: Highlight what’s missing in the current research landscape and how your work addresses this gap. Highlight which part of your work you will be speaking about today.

3. Methodology (3 minutes)

  • Research Design: Outline your research design, including the type of research (qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, etc.) in relation to your talk. You could highlight whether ethical approval was required.
  • Data Collection: Describe how you collected or will collect your data.
  • Analysis Techniques: Briefly mention the analysis techniques used/ to be used, ensuring to clarify any complex methods in a way that non-specialists will be able to understand.

4. Key Findings (3 minutes)

  • Major Results: Present the main findings of the research you are sharing. Use visuals like charts, graphs or images if they help clarify complex data.
  • Interpretation: Provide a brief interpretation of what these findings may mean for your project and/ or for the field.
  • Limitations: Quickly note any limitations of your study to anticipate potential questions.
  • If you haven’t yet reached the stage of research findings you could speak about  some of the questions you hope to answer.

5. Conclusion and Future Research (2 minutes)

  • Bring your talk to a conclusion by summarising key points covered and what further work you plan to do during your doctoral studies.
  • Summary: Recap the main points of your research and your findings.
  • Future Directions: Suggest how your research could be expanded or what future studies could explore further based on your work.

6. Q&A Session (2 minutes)

  • Thank the audience for their attention. One of the event organisers will invite questions from the audience. 
  • You may find it useful to have prepared responses for likely anticipated questions, especially regarding your methodology and your conclusions.

How to submit your proposed talk

You are invited to submit your proposed talk using this brief form. 

Will all talks be selected?

We aim to involve as many contributors as possible but in order to include a balanced range of talks we may need to be selective. We plan to offer parallel sessions in order to accommodate as many talks as possible so please do be encouraged to submit a talk proposal. 

The choice of talks will be decided on by a steering group for the conference which will include doctoral student members. This group will meet soon after the deadline for proposals so that we can confirm arrangements for speakers in the week commencing 22 May.

Call for PGR Posters

Deadline Friday 7th June

The opportunity to present your work through a research poster, practise your communication skills, network with other doctoral researchers and to celebrate your work is available to all BAME Doctoral Researchers at Birkbeck at the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Doctoral Conference.

Your research poster should explain your research to a mixed audience of non-subject specialists and should be formatted for printing as A0 in size and in portrait orientation.

Instructions for poster submissions

Please complete this brief form about your research poster.

All poster contributors will be asked to submit their poster as a .pdf file by 7 June so that the BGRS can arrange for them to be printed.

Call for Steering Group Member

Deadline 14 May

We are looking for a self-funded BAME student to join the Steering Group for this conference. 

The group will meet on the week of the May 14th (date TBC) to help decide on which PGR Student talks will be selected for the Conference. This is a great opportunity to be a part of the planning of the first BAME Doctoral Conference as well as helping with arrangements on the day of the event which may include introducing speakers or helping with question and answer sessions.

The group will consist of:

  • Dr William Ackah (Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences)
  • Tim Hoe (Graduate Research School Manager)
  • Sabrina Bowen (CHASE EDI Ambassador)
  • Diversity 100 Doctoral Researcher
  • CHASE Doctoral Researcher
  • Self-Funded Doctoral Researcher

How to express interest:

Please send the following to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk:

  • A copy of your CV
  • A brief statement outlining why you would like to join the steering group (no more than 150 words)

Media & Democracy Reading Group: Invitation and First Meeting

We are pleased to announce the new Media & Democracy Reading Group. This interdisciplinary and cross college reading group is being convened by Birkbeck’s Media and Democracy Working Group, and is open to all interested academic staff, as well as post graduate research students (e.g. MPhil, MRes, PhD).

The reading group will discuss selected readings, with the aim of working through shared and diverging conceptions and concerns about the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships of ‘media’ and ‘democracy’. Readings will be selected meeting-to-meeting by reading group participants and may range from the conceptual or philosophical to the empirical or data-driven.

The first meeting will take place on 10 May 2024, 3-5pm, room TBC. It is intended that most meetings (including this first one) will be in hybrid format, allowing for in person as well as online participation.

The first reading is a chapter from Clive Barnett’s 2003 book Culture and Democracy (please see Barnett_2003_Ch_1.pdf for link). In this chapter, Barnett puts forward representation, mediation and media as central to understanding democracy and publicness. As a political geographer, Barnett pays particular attention to the trouble that ‘scale’ (numerical, spatial and functional) presents for ideas and ideals of democracy, and how representative mechanisms appear to manifest as both poison and cure. The reading provides an interdisciplinary starting point for the reading group, since it works through a dual conception of ‘representation’, as both practices of depiction (i.e. standing for), as well as practices of delegation (i.e. speaking or acting on behalf of others).

To sign up for the reading group (either/both the first meeting or future meetings) please email the reading group lead, Scott Rodgers, at s.rodgers@bbk.ac.uk.

2024 Birkbeck 3-minute Thesis competition: Join the audience on Thursday 16 May

  • The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2024 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 16 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!
  • £500 to the overall winner
  • £250 to the runner-up

Find out more about entering the competition

If you would like to participate in this year’s competition please see this post for more information.

This is the headline BGRS event of the year

This is an event for all doctoral researchers and also for anyone interested in studying for a PhD. The event will be followed by a drinks reception.

During the reception prizes will be awarded to the 3 Minute Thesis Competition winners.

Register to join the audience

You can be part of the audience for this year’s Three Minute Thesis Competition.

Registration is now open for this event

As part of the audience you will have a vote to decide who is the People’s Choice. You can also join the Birkbeck postgraduate community in celebrating the diversity of research interests undertaken here, and raise a glass to that with a drinks reception after the winners have been announced.

Three Minute Thesis Training sessions

The BGRS is pleased to announce the 2023 Birkbeck 3 Minute Thesis Competition, which will take place on Thursday 25 May from 6pm. Please mark this date in your diaries!

Birkbeck 3MT: Thursday 25 May 2023

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.

Training Sessions

As part of our support for the competition, a free programme of training sessions has been arranged. All potential 3MT competitors should attend these sessions. However, any or all of them are open to any doctoral researcher at Birkbeck who would like to gain skills in these areas:

What is it like to take part in 3MT?

Some of last year’s contenders have kindly shared what they gained from partaking.

Marie Houghton said that it ‘helped me to clarify exactly what I think the main message of my PhD is’ and that she ‘would definitely recommend taking part in the 3MT to any other PhD students.’

Hannah Reeves also said that the competition allowed her to ‘think about what matters most about my research – what do I care about, what do the community I’m working with care about, and what will this audience care about.’ She also described herself as nervous about the experience of being on stage but ‘the training helped to develop a mutually supportive atmosphere.’

Doyin Olorunfemi described how ‘the exercise of delivering a concise speech gives you clarity of mind as a researcher and clarifies your contribution.’ She would ‘highly recommend the competition.’

Audio-Visual Skills Workshop – Urban Margins

You are invited to apply to a student-led training in audio-visual research techniques. This series of four workshops and related events will be facilitated by The Derek Jarman Lab in collaboration with BISR Urban Intersections Working Group and Corkscrew Practice-Based research network.

Over the course of this free four-week course, you would be one of up to eight participants receiving a practical introduction to audio-visual skills PGR students can incorporate into their research. PGR students from any department can apply. You will learn basic tools to enable greater innovation within your research data collection and dissemination.

The course will be organised around a shared theme of “urban margins”, inspired by a related event taking place the week before the workshops start, titled ‘Urban Intersections at the Margins’, which you would be invited and encouraged to join. The notion of urban ‘margins’ arguably invokes a stigmatised frame: one in which subjects, bodies or sites are located ‘on the margin’ of the city; or on the fringes of a hegemonic urban social order. But what if urban margins were reimagined beyond such stigmatised frames, as a space of hybridity, where new dynamics might arise, demanding new ways of knowing and intervening in urban realities? This broad theme will provide a thematic and conceptual context through which you will develop your audio-visual skills.

The weekly, day-long Friday workshops will be delivered through the Derek Jarman Lab. Each week’s workshop will focus on a different set of skills. We will begin with still photography, then sound recording, then moving image, and finish with a session on how to organise shoots, plan equipment and cover some of the legal aspects of using found/archival material. The mornings will be practical, and you will get hands-on experience with how to get the best out of one’s chosen piece of equipment. The afternoon will be spent using editing software, where you will learn how to get the best from your recordings. Baseline knowledge of editing software is also key to producing high-quality output from documentation collected during research.

You do not need to have any kind of prior audio-visual experience, and “urban margins” does not have to be a focus of your research. You simply need an interest in developing skills and knowledge in audio-visual techniques. Following the workshop, you will have the opportunity to show and discuss your work in progress at an event organised with the Urban Intersections Working Group and Corkscrew (likely to take place in late June or early July, more details to come).

To apply, please write a short paragraph (up to 300 words) on why this course interests you and how you would use the skills gained in relation to your doctoral research. Please note that applicants are required to attend all workshops and are advised to attend the sessions on the 26th of May and the 30th of June. Please do not apply if you cannot attend the session on the 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd of June from 10 am to 4 pm

The deadline for application is the 24th of March 2023. You will hear back by 24th April 2023.

Timeline

DATE: 26th of May

Urban Intersections at the Margins, an informal workshop bringing interdisciplinary approaches and methods of seeing urbanisation at the ‘margin’, both in the Global South and North. 26 May 2023, afternoon, 43 Gordon Square. 

A screening of Baronesa (Brazil, 2017), co-sponsored by the Birkbeck Institute for the Moving Image, followed by a roundtable discussion with Dr Louisa Acciari (UCL), Dr Gracia Ramirez (UAL) and Dr Mara Nogueira (Birkbeck). 26 May 2023, 6 pm, Birkbeck Cinema. 

[These events are not obligatory for the workshop participants but are strongly encouraged]

#1 Stills

DATE: 2nd June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#2 Sound

DATE: 9th June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#3 Moving Image

DATE: 16th June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

#4 Planning and Collaboration

DATE: 23rd June 2023

Time: 10 am to 5 pm

Location: Derek Jarman Lab, 43 Gordon Square

DATE: 30th June 2023

An informal event where workshop participants can share their work in progress with members of the Corkscrew practice-based research network and the Urban Intersections working group. Location: TBC

British Federation of Women Graduates Awards for doctoral students 2023

Applications for British Federation of Women Graduates Academic
Awards are now being sought. The Awards are made to women doctoral students who will be in, or going into, their third year (or part time equivalent) of work for a doctorate in the autumn of 2023.


Awards are, in effect, one off prizes varying in value from £1,000 to £6,000 and are given for outstanding academic excellence coupled with the ability to communicate to an educated but non-specialist audience.
50% of the award will be paid in the autumn of 2023, near the start of the academic year, with 50% on receipt of a progress report in spring 2024.
For further details please go to:
www.bfwg.org.uk

and look up under ‘Awards/Scholarships’ where more information,
including criteria for eligibility, can be found.
Closing date for applications is:
5pm on Friday 3rd March 2023

BRITISH FEDERATION OF WOMEN GRADUATES
RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS DAY
Saturday 13th May 2023
10.30am – 4.00pm


Venue: Institute of Archaeology, UCL, Gordon Square, London WC1 0PY
The Research Presentations Day is when BFWG invites doctoral students to present their research to a general, i.e. not subject specialist, audience.


• Are you a woman doctoral student?
• Do you have research you would like to present to a discerning audience
– and have the chance of winning a small prize of £120 for the best presentation?
• Or would you like to join with us, just to meet and listen to other postgraduate women students presenting their research?


Our Research Presentations Day (RPD) offers these opportunities. Past attendees, both presenters and audience, have found the Day thoroughly enjoyable and helpful in developing presentation skills.
The day will also involve an introduction to the 2022 BFWG Scholarship Fund Academic Award winners.
If you think you would like to submit an abstract please look at BFWG webpages
www.bfwg.org.uk or contact rpd@bfwg.org.uk for further details. Closing date for applications is: March 31st 2023.
All -students, academics, anyone else interested (male or female) – are welcome to attend as audience. Lunch is included and there is a door charge of £10 but no charge for bona fide students whether attending as presenters or as audience.

CHASE Feminist Network: Open Forum Meeting 2023

Join us in this open discussion to find your place in the CHASE Feminist Network, now rescheduled for 12 January 2023, 16:00 GMT.

The CHASE Feminist Network invites you to an open forum meeting to discuss the future of the network. Help shape this important and impactful network and come discuss what events you’d like to attend, participate in or organise. 

On the agenda: We will be reviving the CHASE Feminist Network Conference this year, a popular and successful in-person event in pre-pandemic years. If you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see for this conference, ideas for themes or any other suggestions, please bring them with you to the Open Forum.

Beyond that, we’re looking for input on how the network should be run, what kind of events you’d like to see, and most importantly, how we can bridge the incredible programmes of CFN’s past archives with our promising next chapter.

About CFN: The CHASE Feminist Network has been facilitating incredible events and projects since 2016. From small project grants to interdisciplinary conferences, this inclusive space offers a breadth of opportunities to explore new ways to engage with and advocate for feminism in all its varieties. Now, after a short hiatus, we’re starting afresh with new ideas and a new cohort. And we want you to be a part of it.

All are welcome, see you there!

2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal

Deadline for entries extended to midday 14 October

The Birkbeck Graduate Research School (BGRS) aims to highlight the activities and successes of our research student community. We are pleased to announce the 2022 Gwynne-Vaughan Medal which is awarded to Birkbeck Doctoral students able to demonstrate the most notable contribution to their field while undertaking their research degree. The winners will be awarded a £250 prize, a formal certificate and a distinctive medal.

Eligibility

There are two categories for entry:

Current doctoral students

  • This category is open to all current part time and full time doctoral students enrolled at Birkbeck in academic year 2021/22
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place while you were registered as a Birkbeck Doctoral student up to 31 July 2022

Doctoral awardees

  • This category is open to any student who was enrolled in academic year 2019/20, 2020/21 and who has already been awarded their doctorate.
  • Any achievements you include must have taken place before your doctorate was awarded.

How to enter

Applicants must complete the following Gwynne-Vaughan Prize form which includes a statement from the student and a supporting statement from the supervisor.

Gwynne-Vaughan-prize-entry-form-and-guidanceDownload

Your completed form should be sent by email to graduateresearchschool@bbk.ac.uk

Deadline for entries

Friday 14 October, midday

Consideration of entries

All entries will be considered by the Research Student Sub-Committee (RSSC). The winners will be announced at the end of the Autumn term at a BGRS event that will be open to all research students at Birkbeck.

Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – call for lightning talks: Tuesday 1 November 1-5pm

Birkbeck Library is pleased to announce its first Birkbeck Open Research Symposium which this year is themed “Open for Climate Justice”, in line with International Open Access Week

The event features a keynote from Dr Caroline Edwards, and an afternoon of speakers and lightning talks, aimed at discussing the crossovers between open access and climate justice. This will be a hybrid event, with attendees both online and in person.

Themes could include but are not restricted to: open access, climate change, environmental and climate justice, environmental issues, climate activism, open climate data, international inequalities in climate action.

  • Talks will last 10 minutes each, with 5 minutes for questions to follow.  
  • Talks should include at least one slide as there may not be a camera for online participants to view the speaker. 
  • Talks can be delivered online (MS Teams) or in-person.

To participate, please submit a brief lightning talk outline with title and all author affiliation(s) and indicate your preference for an in-person or virtual format via the lightning talk submission form. The deadline is Friday 23 September. 

If you have any questions please contact David McElroy, d.mcelroy@bbk.ac.uk  

Submissions will be reviewed by a non-expert panel.  Submission form: Birkbeck Open Research Symposium – lightning talks submission form

This call is open to Birkbeck staff and postgraduate students, and non-Birkbeck colleagues in relevant areas.​​​​​​​