SRA Training course – Understanding Statistics – An Introduction – London 20.03.09

This course, to be held in London on the 20th March 2009 covers the essential requirements for working with statistical information, and is intended to raise skills and confidence of people working with statistical outputs in reports. By the end of the course, participants will:-

1. Be able to check and work with descriptive statistics
2. Have good understanding of the aspects that affect data quality
3. Be able to critically analyse the use and representation of data
4. Have increased confidence in using statistical terms relating to reliability and inference.

Full details and booking is now available at: http://www.the-sra.org.uk/training/training20032009.htm

POSTGRADUATE ENGLISH: The University of Durham’s Online Literature Journal

Postgraduates studying in the UK and Europe are invited to submit papers of not more than 7000 words on the topic of ‘Artifice’ within the broad range of English Studies for Issue 19 of this fully refereed online journal.

 

Papers MUST conform to the MLA guidelines for presentation and be received no later than February 15th 2009.

 

e invite papers from every area of English studies considering this theme and related issues in literature. Areas of interest may

include:

 

• Authorial authenticity and textual ‘sincerity’
• Performance and theatricality
• Intertextuality (including ekphrasis)
• Literary depictions of superficiality and insincerity throughout the ages
• Reader reception (including responses to artistic deception and questions of complicity)
• Literary artifice, self-conscious fictionality and the postmodern
• Editorial and commercial implications of the ‘artificial’ text

 

In addition, you are invited to send 1000-word papers on the topic of ‘Beginning your PhD: What You Wish They’d Told You.’ The paper should offer practical and friendly advice on how best to make a start on a PhD project, covering such topics as planning your thesis, goal-setting exercises and managing your time in the early stages of study. What are the tips and recommendations that have worked best for you? These papers are intended to offer helpful advice and support for new PhD students and postgraduate students considering doctoral study. Papers on all topics pertinent to the issue will be considered.

 

Visit the journal’s website at:

 

www.dur.ac.uk/postgraduate.english/journal1.htm

Can you write about science accurately, clearly and engagingly?

Communicating the latest research developments to a broad audience is a special skill. Journalists sift through an avalanche of information, distilling out what’s news and turning it into readable copy. Spend 3-8 weeks with a media host on a summer placement, working with them to produce the news. Return to work understanding the media world, with more confidence about future forays into it. Develop your writing skills. Imagine producing reports that are more concise, more readable and completed quicker!

 

For details about the Media Fellowships scheme, including an online application form, visit

http://ww.britishscienceassociation.org/mediafellows

 

Application deadline: 10 March 2009

 

Sponsored by BBSRC, EPRSC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, The Royal Academy of Engineering and The Royal Society.

 

Download the flyer
http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/forms/scicomm/mediafellows/download/MF2009_flyer.pdf

‘Charity and Community’: Roehampton University History Postgraduate Conference 2009

This innovative conference will bring together postgraduate students and early career historians with professionals from the charity and policy-making sectors to discuss and debate the themes of charity and community within both historical and contemporary contexts. Approaches will include: how do and how have communities responded to social, political, economic and cultural initiatives aimed at tackling poverty or providing charity; what can be learned from history in terms of the successes and failures of such initiatives and their effects upon communities; and how does knowledge of the relationship between such initiatives and communities make us better able to respond to contemporary and future challenges?

 

Call for papers:
This two-day conference aims to take a very broad and interdisciplinary approach to the themes of charity and community in Britain across the medieval, modern and contemporary periods. Proposals are invited from postgraduates and early career historians for papers of c. twenty minutes. Wide ranging and imaginative approaches to the two main themes are welcomed, but research presentations in the following areas are particularly encouraged:

• charitable organisations, their initiatives and their relationships with communities
• state initiatives and relationships with communities
• community policies and initiatives
• reactions from and within communities to policies and initiatives

 

Proposals for papers, including a 300-word abstract, should be emailed or posted to:

 

John Price
School of Arts
Roehampton University
London SW15 5PH
Email: j.price@roehampton.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8392 3731

 

Closing date for proposals is 1st April 2009.

Beyond the PhD – A Career Resource for Arts and Humanities PhD Researchers

‘Beyond the PhD’ is a new website that provides resources for PhD students in the arts and humanities thinking about their careers after they have finished their doctorate.

 

The website can be found at: http://www.beyondthephd.co.uk/

Blended Learning Researcher

The University of Worcester is offering a part time post as a Blended Learning Researcher.  This might be of interest to a part time PhD student.

 

The researcher will undertake research in the area of the use of film and video teaching within three key areas: Media and Cultural Studies, Languages and Geography.  The project is funded by Herefordshire and Worcestershire Lifelong Learning Network.

 

Full details can be found here: http://cook.worc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/personnel/displayvac.pl?refno=IHCA0902

British Federation for Women Graduates – Research Presentations Day

Women students doing a PhD may be interested in the opportunity to present their findings at an event organised by the British Federation of Women Graduates. The day is Saturday May 16th in Battersea.

More information from:

http://www.bfwg.org.uk/bfwg4/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=18&Itemid=24

or by going into NEWS from www.bfwg.org.uk.

UKCGE Winter Conference 2009 The Future Re-sourcing of Postgraduate Study

This year’s UKCGE Winter Conference at The British Library on March 9th focuses on issues associated with ‘Future Re-sourcing of Postgraduate Study’. There will be plenary session presentations from The Hon David Willetts MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities & Skills), Professor Paul Wellings (Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University) and Professor Ian Diamond (Chief Executive of ESRC) who will give respectively a political view and research council perspective on issues surrounding the resourcing of postgraduate study given the recent changes in the global economic situation.

 

The meeting programme will also contain breakout sessions covering: The soon to be launched Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey; FEC and Cross Subsidies in Postgraduate Provision; The Payback to Students from Postgraduate Training; Resourcing of Postgraduate Students in the Digital Age. Finally delegates will have an opportunity to take a guided tour of the British Library to become fully acquainted with the support facilities that it can provide for postgraduate study.

 

Confirmed speakers include:

 

Professor Ian Diamond Chief Executive, ESRC

Professor Paul Wellings Vice-Chancellor, Lancaster University

David Willetts MP Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities & Skills

Joanna Newman Higher Education Services, The British Library

Professor Chris Park Senior Associate,The Higher Education Academy

 

The cost of the Conference is £200 for UKCGE Members and £250 for non-members. This includes lunch and refreshments.

 

For bookings and further details, please visit:

http://www.ukcge.ac.uk/events/eventsarea/wc09.htm.