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Postgraduate Researchers in Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities (PRASH) Conference 2006

University of Central Lancashire, Preston
Wednesday 16 January 2006

The inaugural PRASH conference attracted 72 delegates attending from 8 regional institutions. The conference was organised by Prof Anne Wichmann and Margaret Fisher of CL&SS at UCLan, David Bagley and Sarah Dickinson of CETH at UCLan, Prof John Joughin of UCLan, Dr Richard Hinchcliffe of the University of Liverpool and Dr Sarah Ashworth, Postgrad Talent NW.

Clive Goodhead, talk prize winner and delegate at PRASH offers his account of the event.

See the programme for the day.

Keynote Presentations

Dr Libby Raper, Chief Executive of Culture Northwest offered an insight into the cultural strengths of the region and highlighted how she felt research can and does support this.

Mr Andy Lovatt, Director of Creative Industries at the North West Regional Development Agency offered a summary on the key opportunities available within the NW creative industries.

Prof Kelvin Everest, Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool and Professor of English offered an insight into the value of PhDs to society, and the value to individuals of completing a PhD.

Researcher Presentations

Delegates were invited to give presentations as either 10 minute talks or as a poster on aspects of their work or the process of completing a PhD. Talks were streamed into four groups, and delegates voted for the person they felt provided the best presentation in each group. Delegates were also asked to vote for the best poster presentation.

The poster prize book token was awarded to Neus Torres-Tubau of the University of Sheffield for a poster entitled "Older people and their image: a social construction". Poster abstract available here

Conference workshops

Workshop A: PhD Planning and the Writing Process

Prof Anne Wichmann, UCLan

Drawing on participants' own experience, this workshop examined a number of issues involved in thesis writing, from writing style to the overall plan of the thesis. It is important to distinguish between the product (thesis) and the process of creating it. The product is subject to constraints, some imposed by your institution and others by convention. These were examined, along with the needs of the consumer of the final product, i.e. the reader(s). How do you write for your readers and what do they need to know?

Looking at writing as a process, on the other hand, includes considering what to do when you are stuck ('writer's block'), how to organise what seems like an unmanageable amount of material, and how to maintain an overview of the 'big picture', i.e. where your thesis is going.

Workshop B:Publishing your research

Prof John Kimmons Walton, UCLan

This session offered advice from an experienced practitioner on how to publish research to best effect in a range of outlets, from refereed journals and conference proceedings to the popular dissemination of research beyond the academy in which many funding bodies are taking a growing interest.

The presenter, a historian of nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain, Spain and the United States, has interdisciplinary interests reaching out to geography, cultural studies, tourism studies and the history of medicine, and extensive experience in research management.

Workshop C: Handling your supervisor

Dr Adrian West, University of Liverpool

In this session we looked at the things that people enjoy about working with their supervisor, and the things that they don't. The supervisory relationship is frequently a very live issue for people doing a Ph.D.

This session focused on what you would like to be different, looked at a concrete way of working with that - based on the work of the psychologist Marshall Rosenberg. When things are not going as we would like, we tend to interpret the situation in terms of the wrongness of other people's behaviour - or our own. For example "they should give clearer guidance" and so on. Seeing it this way reduces the likelihood of the person we see as 'wrong' helping us - because it invites a defensive response. But other ways of looking at the situation are more effective at getting our needs met, and closer to the truth. In the session we tried this out to see if we could find a way of communicating what you want, that makes it easier and more enjoyable for the other person to help.

Workshop D: Work life balance

Dr Richard Hinchcliffe, University of Liverpool

This session focused on the processes and the practices required in order to maintain a healthy work/life balance during your PhD. In particular this session looked at some effective time and project management issues alongside how to be assertive with supervisors and staff.

It is also important to elicit support from family, friends and partners and how creating effective but realistic objectives for your research gives a new perspective on what it really means to do a PhD.

Workshop E: Archivists don't bite (getting started with primary resources)

Dr Aidan Turner Bishop, UCLan

Indexes of many primary sources, including images, films and other media, are searchable on the web, often on freely available sites. This session explored some of the keys to research collections as well as offering an insight into the skills of archivists and librarians, and how to develop these skills as a researcher.

Workshop F:Oral testimony

Dr Steve Caunce, UCLan

For any investigation dealing with people, whatever its nature, the recovery of personal experience and perceptions ought to be central. The obvious way to discover them is to ask, but academic researchers have always looked for ways to prevent this simple step destroying the verifiability of their work. Effectively, by turning to oral testimony they may hand control to others who may consciously or unconsciously pass on misrepresentations. On the other hand, in recent decades there has been a growing interest in the process of creating and using testimony in a cultural sense, and here factual accuracy is no longer the issue. This workshop considered the strengths and weaknesses of such testimony in its many forms, and looked at what steps can be taken to guard against error and manipulation when collecting and analysing it.

Workshop G: Careers in the Creative Industries

Jenny Rutter, Creative Industries Development Officer, Preston City Council

This interactive workshop offered a realistic insight into the careers opportunities within a range of creative and cultural industry sectors. It will covered issues such as CV development, focusing on key skills, understanding the nature of creative businesses and what they want from their employees, as well as exploring opportunities within the public sector.

Workshop H: Employability and Enterprise

Ros Healy and David Bagley, UCLan

This workshop investigated the questions:

What are the options for researchers both within and outside academia?
How can researchers make to most of the range of diverse skills they have developed?
Where can researchers get information, advice and guidance on their careers and life development?
What are the opportunities for entrepreneurial researchers?

This workshop gave an overview of the current state of Employability and Enterprise as they impact upon postgraduate career planning.

Useful links

Royal Society of Arts events are available at www.theRSA.org/events.

Postgrad Talent NW is supported by the NW Regional Hub of the Research Councils’ UK GRAD Programme.
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