SeNSS Director's Bulletin - February 2020
Dear SeNSS community
I’m very pleased to announce that three SeNSS HEIs (Essex, Sussex and Surrey) have been awarded £100k each in the second round of IAA DTP Business Boost funding, which, this time, is named the ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaboration fund. As last time, the IAAs and SeNSS will ensure that these activities benefit SeNSS as a whole. Further details will be announced shortly.
This year’s SeNSS summer conference will include the theme of ‘Social Science and the Climate Emergency’. I’m very pleased that we’ve secured two leading speakers to address this:
Prof Loraine Whitmarsh, Director of CAST, the ESRC-funded Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (a partnership that involves UEA among others);
Dr Sara Venturini, of the Geneva-based Group of Earth Observations (GEO), Sara trained as a development economist and now specialises in climate change science and management.
Our students have already been invited to attend this conference. Further details for all other members of the SeNSS consortium, including how to register, will follow shortly.
Sara Venturini has indicated that she and the GEO are looking to establish links/partnerships with UK universities ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be held in Glasgow in November 2020. For this and other reasons, I’d like to set up a new SeNSS Climate, Environment and Social Change Network to bring people together working in these fields – more details to follow.
Please could you share the call for papers for our Sentio journal as widely as possible? The call is available here, with a deadline of 4pm on 20 March 2020.
Our four current competitions (student-led; collaborative; SeNSS-Aries and PDF) are in full swing, attracting a good number of applications. We have made contingency plans for the UCU strike, and ask for your understanding and co-operation as we implement these.
Our work on widening participation continues to attract outside interest. Gina Reinhardt and I have spoken on the SeNSS WP report and strategy at a number of HE events and have also, together with other members of the SeNSS WP group, had a recent e-meeting with Frances Burstow (the ESRC’s Deputy Director for Skills and Strategy) exploring ways of advancing this work across ESRC and other DTP networks.
Following the success of our SeNSS Digital Social Research series last year, we are soon to launch a successor series – SeNSS Sensory Social Research which will offer practical training in using sensory methods. Details will follow in March.
As you know, I will step down as Director this summer. The process for appointing my successor is well underway and we expect to be able to share the outcome with you all by the end of April at the latest.
With best wishes,
Pamela Cox
SeNSS Director