Category: Uncategorized

  • Dr Abi Dymond Impact Interview

    Dr Abi Dymond was an ESRC funded PhD student from 2013 to 2016.  Abi’s PhD research drew on elements from criminology, sociology and law, used quantitative and qualitative techniques, from binary logistic regression to actor-network theory, to examine the controversies around tasers and less lethal weapons in the UK.

    Abi won the ESRC Impact Prize for Outstanding Early Career Impact in 2018 and is now a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the University of Exeter.

    Have a look at the video below with Abi detailing the impact of her research.

    Check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSInMQMudEo

  • Black Future Doctor podcast on Acast – Nina Higson-Sweeney

    Black Future Dr is a podcast dedicated to showcasing the experiences of black and black mixed doctoral students in the UK (including those pursuing PhDs, as well as professional and medical doctorates).

    Episodes were released weekly from April to July 2021, and featured a different student, studying a different doctorate, at a different university. Every episode is hosted by an SWDTP student Nina Higson-Sweeney, a black mixed student currently studying towards a PhD in Psychology at the University of Bath. 

    Each episode featured an informal interview between Nina and a host of guest speakers. Topics discussed range from supervision to mentorship; from non-traditional pathways to mental health; from the application processes to future careers.

    You can keep up-to-date with Black Future Dr and Nina on Twitter (@BlackFutureDr and @n_higsonsweeney).

  • Experience of COP26 – Emily Marsay

    Emily Marsay is a part-time PhD researcher in Politics & international studies at the University of Exeter. For the past 7 years, she has been volunteering with a climate change campaigning organisation: the ‘UK Youth Climate Coalition’ www.ukycc.com.

    This organisation sends a youth delegation to the COP negotiations every year, and Emily was fortunate enough to get her accreditation to COP this year through them. COP26 was largely considered to be the most exclusionary COP yet, with many activists from the Global South not being able to join the negotiations due to vaccine inequity, uncertainty and the high costs of travel and accommodation. Emily joined a sponsored bike ride Glasgow from London to raise money for youth climate justice activists from Brazil to be able to come to the negotiations. Find the fundraiser here!

    Upon finishing the sponsored bike ride, Emily attended ‘COY16’ the – ‘Conference of Youth’ that took place before the official COP26. While at the COP26 negotiations, Emily protested in actions in the Blue Zone, an interview from one of which got picked up in the Irish Times! See the link here. 

  • ‘An Unequal Playing Field’: Social Mobility Commission Report – Sam Whewall and Kaylan Kumar

    Sam Whewall and Kalyan Kumar were both part of the the team who co-authored a report for the Social Mobility Commission. 

    ‘An Unequal Playing Field‘ delves into extra-curricular activities and highlights disparities in children’s participation rates depending on their social background. It includes recommendations made by the Social Mobility Commission for government, schools and voluntary organisations, including the introduction of a national extra-curricular bursary scheme for disadvantaged families. 

    Sam wrote about the report in an article for the blog Transforming Society titled ‘Summer holidays and the geography of extra-curricular activities’ here.

    The study has also been covered in a variety of media outlets, including The Guardian, Classic Fm and Phys.org. You can see the full report on the Gov.uk website here

  • CIES Outstanding Early Career Paper Award – Kalyan Kumar

    In April 2019 Kalyan Kumar was invited to San Francisco to attend the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) conference themed on ‘Education for Sustainability’. 

    This was in order for him to present his paper, “Effects of Decentralisation in School Management on Student Learning: Empirical Analysis of Young Lives Survey Data Using Multi-Level Modelling”, to the international audience

    Kalyan with his award

    His research was chosen from the many presenters to win the Outstanding Early Career Paper Award, an award that comes with a £500 prize fund! 

    His paper is currently in the submission process and should be published soon! 

  • New Ways of Being Together: A co-produced mindfulness 8-week course and ‘a little book of wisdom’ impact project – Chloe Asker

    Utilising the SWDTP Impact Fund, Chloe Asker organised a very successful 8 week mindfulness course. The sessions were run together as a group. allowing for bespoke classes that suited the needs of all of the members perectly. Throughout the course, the importance of group dynamics were heavily focused on, leading to strong sense of community.

    This lead them to creating a zine based around the themes of acceptance, compassion, suffering and gratitude, a reminder of the work that they had done together.

    Read more about Chloe’s experience and what she learned and read the completed zine in our news post, New ways of being together.

  • Let’s Collaborate with Faisal on the policy and economic implications of energy transitions from fossil fuels to green energy

    In Episode 6 of our podcast, recorded at the SWDTP’s Collaboration and Connectivity Conference in 2022, Faisal Sharif from the University of Bath tells us about his PhD research on the policy and economic implications of energy transitions from fossil fuels to green energy. 

  • Journeys with Mindfulness – Chloe Asker

    Chloe’s doctoral research (funded by the SWDTP) was based on the lived experiences of and ‘journeys’ with mindfulness. As part of the research Chloe worked with a group of participants, tracing their experiences of mindfulness as both a meditation practice but also as a way of living. Over the course of two mindfulness courses and follow up interviews, she witnessed the transformative effect that mindfulness had on their lives.

    Frustrated with the unreadability of a 100,000 word PhD thesis, Chloe was keen to create something accessible that could communicate the transformative experiences that the participants had shared and decided on a zine based on a chapter of her thesis. 

    To make the booklet interactive and mindful in its format, the zine includes a colouring page in the centre fold, along with three illustrated postcards.

    Journeys with mindfulness is free to download here as a pdf, or you can read it on issu here. You can also request a printed copy of the zine and postcards here (these are free with a postage contribution).

  • Dr Abi Dymond Impact Interview

    Dr Abi Dymond was an ESRC funded PhD student from 2013 to 2016.  Abi’s PhD research drew on elements from criminology, sociology and law, used quantitative and qualitative techniques, from binary logistic regression to actor-network theory, to examine the controversies around tasers and less lethal weapons in the UK.

    Abi won the ESRC Impact Prize for Outstanding Early Career Impact in 2018 and is now a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at the University of Exeter.

    Have a look at the video below with Abi detailing the impact of her research.

    Check it out here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSInMQMudEo

  • Let’s Collaborate with Beth on 24 hour movement behaviours and their impact on children’s health

    In Episode 4 of our podcast, Beth Taylor from the University of Bath discusses her PhD research looking at how children’s 24 hour movements, including sleep, sedentary behaviours and physical activity impacts their health.