COVID-19 Update

You will all have hopefully seen the update sent earlier today to NWSSDTP Students. I wanted to reiterate that your universities will be your main source of information in the coming weeks, regarding safety measures and procedural concerns. The NWSSDTP will defer to local HEI decisions in these matters.

We understand you may be concerned about your progression in these circumstances, and while we cannot yet advise explicitly what measures the ESRC will put in place, please rest assured we will do whatever we can to mitigate the impact of these disruptions. In the meantime, we would encourage you to continue working on your research as far as possible within University and Government guidelines, while staying in regular contact remotely with your supervision team to plan your time and activities in the interim.

In addition, we ask that you please submit any RTSG Expense claims by email (including photos or scans of tickets and receipts) to ensure we can pick these up even if working remotely.

We’ve decided to put out this month’s newsletter as normal, and hope to continue doing so throughout, so we can continue to highlight the excellent work being done by our NWSSDTP students.

Best wishes from all the team – we hope that you are all keeping safe and well.

Hayley (NWSSDTP Manager)

Photograph : Fiona Potter

NWSSDTP Student Photo of the Month

All opportunities posted here are correct at this time, but could be subject to change.

Home Office Analysis and Insight is a Directorate within the Home Office employing more than 350 analysts, including social and operational researchers, economists, statisticians and data scientists. Their role is to provide the best possible evidence to underpin policy-making, working in high profile areas such as crime and policing, counter-terrorism, extremism, borders and migration.

This would be a good opportunity for doctoral students to help shape their research to be of use to policymakers and impact critical decision making which ultimately benefits the public and gain experience of presenting research to a policy-focused audience. It could also provide useful networking opportunities for their future careers.

Lancaster University’s postgraduate social science community would like to invite other PhD students to an Intellectual Party/Summer Conference. We are tweeting @LUsummerconf #IPLancs2020.
Supported by the NWSSDTP, Lancaster University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences & Lancaster University Management School this event is a brilliant opportunity to meet and collaborate with research students from around the world, to present your work in a friendly and encouraging environment, and to meet and engage with some of Lancaster’s renowned academic staff. The Intellectual Party is more than just another conference – it combines academic challenge with a lot of fun as well !

The conference invites papers from a broad range of disciplines that combine theoretical analysis with empirical research. We encourage submissions which reflect on histories of capitalism; the legal
structures which create, perpetuate and enforce capitalism; capitalism and imperialism; sociology of
work; the creation of precariousness; and other relevant themes. The perspectives we seek to bring together are studies of capitalist political economy, historical inquiries into development and
transformations of capitalism, and explorations of social and economic relations in capitalist societies.

Lee Wainwright, Business and Management, University of Liverpool, 2019 Cohort

As the subject of my PhD research regards how entrepreneuring can help groups in at-risk circumstances, I wanted to ground the research in evidence and opinion by those on the front line of service provision. With the support of my supervisor Prof Munoz and funding from the Centre for entrepreneurship, we arranged for five local organisations who work with ex-offenders, homelessness, drug addiction, reemployment and a young person advisory service, to take part in a three-hour focus group session. We wanted to hear first-hand what the front end of service provision thought were pressing issues, rather than start the PhD based on presumptions. Read more about Lee's research here

Student Activity

Conference attendance 'The Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum' 2019

I love conferences. This was only my third time attending one, but I know that I feel much more at ease in a room full of impassioned, like-minded researchers working on untangling the same mysteries and sharing a joint sense of wonder than I do in a library. No hate to libraries – they’re full of wonderfully interesting books. But the fact is that those books were written by wonderfully interesting people, and I just prefer learning about ideas from people rather than paper. Perhaps anomalously for a PhD student, I’m not the world’s biggest reader. I’m slow and sometimes my eyes get hot or tired. I’ve been known to fall asleep and drool on many a monograph and besides, I can never really get comfortable holding a book or a tablet for hours on end. If there’s someone in front of me, talking animatedly and pointing at a screen with colourful pictures on it, that’s a different story. Read Fiona Potter's full report here.

Attending the Research Methodology in Urban Planning Winter School, Florence

At the beginning of this year I attended the 7^th Annual Winter School in Florence. This event offers PhD students from across the world the valuable opportunity to develop their research skills within the field of urban and spatial planning. Experienced academics based at institutions across Europe deliver a variety of lectures and workshops. Read more about Charlie Cullen's experiences here

Viva Survivor - One Student's Experience of Completing her PhD.

When I first started my PhD, the word ‘Viva’ would send chills down my spine; it sounded terrifying. I never thought I would be in a position to defend my work against two experts in the field. But as the three years went by, so did my doubt in myself and my research.
Read Eloise Symonds' full report here.

Additional Funding Opportunities

PSA/House of Commons Committee Office Internship

Aiming to gain some practical experience in policy alongside my doctoral studies, I decided to apply to the Political Studies Association’s/House of Commons Committee Office internship. A large part of my doctoral research focuses on analysing policies in a British context, so the chance to witness government scrutiny first-hand sounded like an invaluable opportunity. Read Anna Sander's full report here

The next deadline for all NWSSDTP Additional Funding Competitions is 5th June 2020.

Submit an item ... To submit an item to appear in the Newsletter please email nwssdtp@liverpool.ac.uk