Newer & Early Career Researchers Conference

SRHE Newer and Early Career Researchers Conference 2016: 6 December 2016
Celtic Manor, Newport in South Wales, United Kingdom

Exploring Freedom and Control in global higher education

Keynote speaker:

Professor Helen Walkington Oxford Brookes University Conference Presentation

Keynote Address	Post-keynote Address Interview

Biography

Helen Walkington is Professor at Oxford Brookes University where she teaches Geography, carries out research into higher education pedagogy and manages a university-wide student experience project called Get Published! She is a National Teaching Fellow (2009) and Principal Fellow of The UK Higher Education Academy (2012). Helen is an experienced presenter of educational workshops and seminars and has given 11 conference keynote speeches, including 2016 Forschen@Studium in Oldenburg, Germany; the 2014 HEA STEM conference and 2014 British Conference of Undergraduate Research. In addition to her discipline research, Helen has written papers, chapters, books and guides relating to teaching and learning in education. She has worked as an advisor to universities, examination boards, The Higher Education Academy and Quality Assurance Agency on aspects of teaching and learning. Helen has established numerous undergraduate research conferences and journals and has been a steering group member of the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR) since its inception in 2010. She is editor of the journal GEOverse, and an active editorial board member of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education. Helen is co-chair of the International Network for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and has recently become a convenor for the academic practice network of the Society for Research in Higher Education.

Knowledge creation - a dialogic approach: the power of networks and networking, mentors and mentoring.

Helen will outline her own journey as a higher education researcher, highlighting some of her key research findings and how a long standing interest in a 'students as researchers' pedagogy has developed her career. Woven into this journey Helen will explore how networks and networking have created supportive communities of practice. Conference participants will be encouraged to actively engage in networking during the session. Conceptualising research as a process, rather than a product, opens researchers up to developing a dialogic approach to research communication. Delegates will be invited to share their experiences of the research process with others during the session. Excellence in research mentoring is a current research interest of Helen's and she will outline characteristics of award winning mentors. Engaging with mentors and in mentoring activity is a further aspect that Helen will explore with participants, challenging newer researchers to identify the people that they need to engage in dialogue.

Poster Competition

We had a wonderful array of research posters on display this year’s conference, and our thanks go to all delegates who prepared posters and those who took time to view, give feedback and vote in this competition. Delegates’ votes were equally split between the following two entrants:

Michelle Grue from the University of California, Santa Barbara for the poster entitled: Doing what it takes: Black women surviving and thriving in academia

And Joan McLatchie from Edinburgh Napier University for her poster entitled: The power of relationships: making transnational collaborations work

The separate Judges award went to Jacqueline Laverty from the University of Wolverhampton/Oxford Brookes University for the poster entitled: Reflecting on experience during the transition into professional practice: what does this indicate/illustrate about the development of identity in novice Healthcare Science Practitioners?

All three posters are also now proudly on display at the SRHE office here in London.