Month: April 2019

The recruitment process has been an incredibly long and complicated journey, and for the right reasons. The ‘live ethics’ approach of this research (an emergent approach where the research ethics constantly evolves and is re-evaluated) has certainly guided which schools should be approached and asked whether they would like to take part in this project.

After carefully selecting and writing letters to around 300 state-funded secodnary schools in England to take part in this project, I quickly started to receive positive replies and interest. Those schools who have shown interest have now been sent particpant information packs along with consent forms. I look forward to visiting them for a pre-visit.

We are still recruiting members from parts of England, specifically, London, North West and South West of England.

I will be ethically assessing another 300 schools to maximise recruitment and to have a fair representation across England in the next 4 weeks.

I am very happy to announce that I will be charing the South West Doctoral Training Partnership (SWDTP) Conference 2019.

The SWDTP  is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)– a new organisation comprised of the seven UK research councils, Innovate UK and Research England. As the biggest investor in Social Science Research in the UK, the ESRC supports “independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and civil society”.

The 2019 SWDTP Conference committee was established in our first meeting in April and we were all given our roles, where I was voted as this years chair. This role will involve:

• Chairing meetings effectively, drawing up and controlling the agenda
• Planning, keeping an eye on the bigger picture, while ensuring that tasks and details are on track
• Budget tracking
• People management (committee members, delegates and presenters), team building
• Working under pressure and leadership are important skills
• Providing monthly Chair’s updates for the SWDTP newsletter
• Public speaking, giving opening and closing address
• Liaison with SWDTP team
• Co-ordinating post conference evaluation and write-up

I am hoping to be able to invite participants as guests to attend the 2019 conference. More on this to come.