{"id":370,"date":"2020-03-09T09:47:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T09:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/?p=370"},"modified":"2020-03-10T07:19:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T07:19:27","slug":"cre-pgr-symposium-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/2020\/03\/09\/cre-pgr-symposium-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"CRE PGR Symposium 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the latest CRE blog, PhD students Hannah Budge<\/a> and Ivy Matoju talk through their experience of organising the annual CRE postgraduate student symposium.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PhD student Ivy Matjou presents an overview of her research<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Each\nyear the students from the Centre for Rural Economy (CRE) organise a symposium\nto showcase the research they are working. It also provides a fantastic\nopportunity to receive comments on their work from their peers and colleagues\nin CRE. This year the symposium was held in the impressive surroundings of the\nHowden Room on campus, which really helped to add to the occasion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nyear we took a slightly different approach to the symposium, with the day was\nfilled with a combination of rapid 3-minute presentations by the first year PhD\nstudents, insightful talks from staff based on their own research experiences, 10-minute\npresentations by the second year and above students, as well as the usual short\npapers submitted by students for staff to peer-review prior to the day itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the introduction by Hannah, the talks took the audience across a range of subject areas and geographical ones too: from the development of Responsible Research and Innovation frameworks, understanding place attachment in the era of mobilities, to the aspect of human rights, and to women in agriculture, and; from as close to home as the north-east of England, to the Islands of Scotland and as far away as Mexico\u2019s Valle de Jovel, Southeast Nigeria and West Papua (Indonesia).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PhD student Hannah Budge presentsing at the CRE symposium<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The\n3-minute presentations by the 1st<\/sup> years were exceptionally detailed\ngiven the time constraints they had (it was amazing just how much could fit\ninto such a short space of time). They outlined providing outlines of the ideas\nthey will be following through their years at the university, including room\nfor change and adaption required when conducting research in the field. The remaining\npresentations focused on the results obtained so far in the students\u2019 studies,\nhurdles they had encountered and changes they had to put in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exchanges between the presenters and the audience were viewed as beneficial by both groups with the exchange of thoughts, ideas, concerns and interests amazing to witness. Participants in the symposium stated that the event had allowed them to see new links between the topics presented and their research areas of interest or more generally other opportunities to consider throughout their PhD, thanks to the inclusion of other talks such as the use of social media and experience of pursuing a PhD with CRE. The submitted paper was also deemed to be of the appetizing variety with the reviewers\u2019 keen to read the full version conference paper entered. The social at the end of the day provided a good way of winding down and further conversation on shared interests and future opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The symposium in full swing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflections <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We both enjoyed\nthe opportunity to organise the CRE PGR Symposium, and the final event itself. How\nsmoothly it ran reflected our combined efforts over the past few months. It was\nnot however without some issues along the way, we have summarised this below in\nthe form of some handy tips for those who are considering organising similar\nevents in the future, including next year\u2019s symposium;<\/p>\n\n\n\n