The University of Sussex’s Student Union’s (USSU) The Network is currently recruiting 4 Network Ambassadors for a brand new volunteering opportunity!

Network Ambassadors are postgraduate students (Master’s or Doctoral) who act as advocates for The Network events. Throughout the year they run the weekly postgraduate Network coffee meetup events and use social media to engage Sussex postgraduate students online and create a postgraduate community on campus.

More Info and to Apply. The deadline to apply is Monday 4th November at 10 am.

The Sussex Research Hive is calling all doctoral researchers to join peers for a few hours of dedicated writing. Shut Up and Write! is back and will be running regularly throughout the year.

The first event is on 1st November and will give doctoral researchers a kick start to Academic Writing Month, or #AcWriMo! The Hive Scholars will be tracking the word count written in the Hive for the month of November, so any words written at the events will be added to the total.

Taking place in the Research Hive, the schedule on the 1st November is as follows:

10:00 – Meet and coffee
10:15 – Writing session 1 starts
11:15 – Break
11:30 – Writing session 2 starts
12:30 – Finish

N.B. There will be tea, coffee, and milk provided, but feel free to bring your own from the library cafe!

Register here.

SMaRteN is a national research network funded by UK Research and Innovation, led by King’s College London, focusing on Student Mental Health in Higher Education.

They are now recruiting members for their next Student-Led Research Team. They believe that in order to effectively understand student mental health, they need to work with students; students need to be part of the network, part of the management team and part of the research team.

The role of the Student-Led Research Team is to support the network’s activities and to ensure representation of the student voice across the network. The Student Team will be involved in research projects within the network, as well as providing advice and insight for SMaRteN events.

More Info and to Apply. The deadline is 17th November 2019 at midnight.

Epigeum, part of Oxford University Press, is seeking postdoctoral researchers, PhD students and early-career researchers for filmed interviews (to be held at the University of Sussex in the first week of December) to be featured in an upcoming online learning course about Research Integrity.

Researchers will be expected to talk about their own experiences in a variety of areas, including research planning, data management and publishing.

A £50 honorarium is available to participants selected for filming. If you would like to take part, please email rachael.grant@oup.com for further information, including ‘Research Integrity Filming – University of Sussex’ in the subject header.

Cumberland Lodge is an educational charity that seeks to tackle social divisions by promoting creative thinking and inclusive dialogue. They have two upcoming opportunities for international students: an Emerging International Leaders Programme on Freedom of Religion or Belief and their annual Commonwealth & International Student Christmas Conference.

Emerging International Leaders Programme on Freedom of Religion or Belief

The Emerging International Leaders programme equips future leaders and opinion-formers with the skills and insight necessary to drive debate, influence policy and build a powerful global network.

This programme focuses on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) and responds to the fact that around three-quarters of the world’s population live in countries which restrict such freedoms or fail to protect them. Over three residential retreats at Cumberland Lodge, stent will form an in-depth understanding of the importance of FoRB, and will be empowered to become an advocate of human rights in your university and home country. This renowned programme addresses questions such as…

• Why is FoRB important?
• How does FoRB intersect with other freedoms?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of existing national and international policies on FoRB?

The programme flyer can be found here, and the application form can be found here.

Commonwealth & International Student Christmas Conference

For over 70 years Cumberland Lodge has extended a warm welcome to university students from all over the world who are currently studying in the UK, to join in December and experience a traditional British Christmas. In December 2018, there were 43 students from 21 countries, representing 19 UK universities.

This year’s programme features workshops led by guest speakers and facilitators on the theme of ‘Digital Society’, exploring relationships with emerging technologies at both a societal and individual level. This year, Cumberland Lodge are pleased to announce that they will be joined by:

• Professor Lionel Tarassenko CBE, Professorial Fellow, St Johns College, Oxford
• Inna Thalmann, DPhil student, University of Oxford, Cumberland Lodge Scholar
• Kal Turnbull, CEO and Co-Founder, ChangeAView.com
• Dr Neil Sadler, Lecturer, School of Arts, English & Languages, Queen’s University of Belfast
• Marceline Bresson, Undergraduate student, University of Oxford

As part of the programme, students will also have the chance to experience a traditional British Christmas, including:

• A Christmas carol service in the Royal Chapel of All Saints
• A winter trail through Windsor Great Park
• A traditional Christmas dinner, with a visit from Father Christmas
• Festive evening games and entertainment

The poster for the event can be found here, and the Facebook event can be found here.

All new international and EU students at Sussex are warmly invited to the historic Brighton Dome for an evening of celebrations to mark the beginning of your time at Sussex and in the UK!

The International Student Support‘s annual International Students’ welcome party is being held at the Brighton Dome on Sunday 20 October 2019. The event will start at 7pm (ending at 9.30pm) and you can enjoy some food, drinks, live music and dancing alongside special guests, Vice-Chancellor Adam Tickell and the Mayor of Brighton & Hove.

If you are able to join, please book your tickets here. Entry is free but by ticket only.

The Brilliant Club’s The Scholars Programme recruits, trains and places doctoral and post-doctoral researchers in state schools across the UK to deliver programmes of academic enrichment to small groups of pupils. Through a combination of university trips, in-school tutorials and online resources, they support pupils aged 10-18 to develop the knowledge, skills and ambition needed to progress to highly-selective universities.

The programme offers PhD and Early Career Researchers a meaningful, enjoyable and professionally developmental, paid tutoring opportunity. Researchers are supported, through training and individualised guidance, to deliver a course of university-style tutorials to small groups of pupils.

A recent survey of researchers showed:

• 85% of tutors reporting that “working as a PhD tutor has boosted their employability skills”
• 96% agreeing or strongly agreeing that their latest placement “provided me with a meaningful opportunity for public engagement.”

For further information about The Scholars Programme and to access the online application form, visit the website and look through the info-graphic poster.

The Brilliant Club will be on campus on 26th November to discuss the Scholars Programme & Researchers in Schools initiatives. For more info and to book your place, click here.

The Channel, Sussex University’s creative, critical writing, and arts magazine, is looking for submissions both for their Spring 2020 edition and for their website.

This includes: Short fiction, poetry, abstractions, photographs, other visual projects designs, comic strips/excerpts from a graphic novel, paintings, scripts, sketches, essays, excerpts from a novel, basically any form of expression.

Submissions don’t have to be political but the organisers hope to share creative and critical work that can challenge the norms and structure of society and open alternative visions for the future.

Anyone affiliated with Sussex – whether a student, a staff member, an alumni or a staff member of a third party organisation that works on campus – can submit.

Submissions are open until the 31st January 2020. For more information, visit the guidelines page.

The following training opportunities from the University of East Anglia (UEA) are available for doctoral researchers from Sussex:

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Participatory Research Approaches in Global Contexts

Workshop Leader(s): Dr Esther Priyadharshini, Dr Catherine Jere, & Dr Sonja Marzi;
Dates: Wednesday 6^th November 2019, 10.00am-4.00pm;
Venue: UEA Norwich, BDS 0.29
Free of charge to all PGR students; Early-career researchers/academics = £60

Participation, transformative action, impact and engagement are central to a wide range of research methods and approaches in the social sciences and beyond. This workshop will focus on the purpose and processes of constructing knowledge through participatory research in diverse cultural and political contexts. The assumptions of conventional research approaches will be interrogated, particularly around issues of fieldwork practice, multiple accountabilities and dissemination. It will also consider the implications of adopting participatory research approaches within a doctoral study, where the individual scholar’s agenda and time are necessarily constrained, the practicalities of using participatory methods within more conventional designs and with different kinds of participants and communities. The workshop will conclude with an opportunity for participants to reflect and discuss ways of integrating participatory aims and methods within their own doctoral study. 

BOOKINGS CAN BE MADE BY E-MAILING: SSF.ADVANCEDTRAINING@UEA.AC,UK

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Epistemological Issues in International Development

One-day Workshop
Date: Sat 23rd November 2019, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Venue: School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich
Free of charge, lunch and coffee/tea provided!

The School of International Development at the University of East Anglia will organise a workshop on epistemological issues in international development.  This workshop at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, targets PhD students of development.  There is no registration fee.

The workshop will outline the specific epistemological issues of prominence in development studies and presents three separate sessions:

• Epistemologies and debates in social analysis
• The epistemology of natural science
• Epistemologies in economics

Experienced researchers in the respective fields lead the three sessions: Professor Cecile Jackson (social analysis), Professor Mark Zeitoun (natural science) and Professor Bereket Kebede (economics).  Each will give constructive and critical accounts of strengths, weaknesses, and debates around those forms of knowledge, relevant to development studies.

Current PhD development students from any university can register for the workshop by sending an e-mail to Elizabeth Monahan at <dev.general@uea.ac.uk>. Please indicate your university, year and topic of your thesis, and insert <Register for epistemology workshop> in the Subject box of your e-mail.

Places are limited; register as early as possible!

Are you a late-stage doctoral researcher?
Struggling to finish your thesis?
Do you keep putting off your writing? Finding it tough to get motivated?
If so, Thesis Boot Camp is for YOU!

The next Thesis Boot Camp has been confirmed and will be taking place on Saturday 30th November and Sunday 1st December. 

Thesis Boot Camp is an intensive and supportive writing environment for late-stage doctoral researchers. The core idea is to give you the necessary time, space, and encouragement to make significant progress on your first draft. It’s not designed to provide specific advice on editing, restructuring, or polishing a thesis – the focus is on overcoming writer’s block to produce a large number of words.

Support is provided through short tutorials, group discussion, and 1-to-1 consultations with the facilitator. Attendees are required to complete preparatory tasks to get the most out of the weekend.

The weekend is fully catered, but no overnight accommodation is available.

To apply for a place, please visit the Thesis Boot Camp website for full details and eligibility criteria, and fill out this application form before Wednesday 30th October.