This is a Cross Network Event: HEC19 & PG Issues

Overview

Our Summer cross-network research showcase will focus on postgraduate issues and experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The programme will feature two or three short autobiographical accounts presented by recent PGRs who did their research during the Pandemic.  Following them, there will be two papers inspired by the theme of a special issue of the journal Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education: “Revitalising the Doctorate Post-Pandemic”: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2398-4686/vol/15/iss/2.

This collection offered some review of the immediate effects of the Pandemic but its main aim was to present reflections on what is valuable and what to champion in and around the doctorate in post-pandemic times, to be looking beyond the situation in 2020-2022 and to remain topical, since the ongoing response of the world’s higher education systems to the Pandemic can and should come under continuous longer-term critical scrutiny.  The Pandemic offered the jolt to thinking ‘normally’ which has allowed us to consider how the management and general conduct of the doctorate post-pandemic need not be, and is better not, returning to ‘business-as-usual’, but should re-imagine beyond that. 

The event format will also include time for Q&A and debate. Participants are welcome to introduce themselves on the dedicated padlet site: https://padlet.com/srhe/research-showcase-postgraduate-research-education-post-covid-xyjncks90vfd1saj

Schedule

Speaker bios

Dr Charlotte Verney is currently employed at Bristol University, and is also Co-Convenor of SRHE Newer Researchers Network.  She was a part-time PGR student during the Pandemic, not based locally to her university, and completed after a remote viva in late 2022.  For her, the Pandemic turned out to be a panacea for FOMO!

Dr Amanda Anderson is currently employed at Anglia Ruskin University, and is also co-convenor for the BERA SiG Education for Environmental Sustainability.  She was a full-time PhD student who started her studies in 2021 (interviewed for a scholarship in the thick of the Pandemic) and completed this year, thesis title: 'Ethnographic account of faith-based environmental and sustainability education'.  Previous jobs include working for the QCA and she was the first technical attaché for education, youth and culture for Malta (after joining the EU), based in Brussels. 

Dr Gill Houston is an independent researcher. She has worked extensively in doctoral education, culminating in the roles of vice-chair and chair of the UK Council for Graduate Education. Recent (2024) publications include:

• Clegg K, Houston G and Gower O., Doctoral Education and Research Culture, Routledge, 2024.
• Houston, G and Lunt, I, The final examination of the UK PhD: fit for purpose? Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2024.2364026

Dr Martin Gough is one of the Co-Convenors of the SRHE Postgraduate Issues Network.  He is a Lecturer in Higher Education Studies at the University of Liverpool, where he has been supervising many Doctor of Education thesis students, and examining a number of others, and held the role of institutional lead for PGR Supervisor Development for a number of years.  He was the main Guest Editor of the journal special issue, and a recent publication of his own is: “Dimensions of Wellbeing in the Doctoral Research Environment: Implications for Quality”, in Marie-Louise Österlind, Pam Denicolo & Britt-Marie Apelgren (ed.), Doctoral Education as if People Matter: Critical Issues for the Future (Critical Issues in the Future of Learning and Teaching series vol.24, Leiden: Brill, 2022)