I’m not sure if academia has a conference season as such but I’ve had the pleasure of attending and presenting at not one, but two postgraduate events over the Easter period.
The first of these events was the Royal Geographical Society Postgraduate Forum (RGS-PGF) Mid-term Conference, which was held at the University of Birmingham from the 25th-27th of March. An early highlight was being greeted with “You’re the car guy!” at registration – I must have made some kind of impression at last year’s RGS-PGF. Post-registration, the first evening of the conference consisted of a wine reception, plenary welcome speeches and an impromptu curry somewhere in Selly Oak, which went some way to setting conversations and affiliations for the next couple of days.
On the day of the conference itself, a quintet of Coventrians represented both the Department of Geography, Environment and Disaster Management and the Applied Research Centre for Sustainable Regeneration (or SURGE). My presentation about the background and some early findings of my research was one of five in the Transport, Mobilities and Movements session and, thankfully, was seemingly quite well received, prompting a couple of questions and the odd chuckle too. It’s the way I tell ’em, apparently.
The conference must have taken some planning, with 81 presentations over 19 sessions on the day itself, plus a session with 15 poster presentations. With so many presentations and posters, there was something for everyone, which is as it should be – after all, geography is everything and everything is geography. With up to five sessions within each of four ‘blocks’ throughout the day, some clashing was inevitable, though there were plenty of interesting presentations to be had over the day, ranging from Confucian environmental philosophies to the human, material and natural geographies in Svalbard.
Huge thanks and congratulations must go to Megan Ronayne, Colin Lorne and their team – it was a frankly corking postgrad conference, and it was great to catch up with folk from last year’s RGS-PGF again, and to meet new people too. Next year’s hosts have got a very hard act to follow.
The second event in this conference mini-season was the Tyndall Centre ‘Climate Transitions’ PhD Conference, held at Cardiff University on 3rd-5th of April, and was a very cosmopolitan affair with students from universities all over Europe in attendance. Proceedings were opened with a brilliant lecture by Professor James Scourse of Bangor University on observations and evidence of climate change, which was followed by a session of 26 poster presentations. With 11 paper and 15 speed presentations taking place over just 4 sessions – Land & Water, Energy & Emissions, Coasts & Cities and Governance & Behaviour – it was possible to attend every session, three of which were held on the second day, along with a talk about science communication (particularly blogging) given by Dr Warren Pearce of the University of Nottingham. The second day culminated in a dinner debate about fracking, with speakers from Friends of the Earth Cymru, the Tyndall Centre and a pro-fracking body called No Hot Air, which was … interesting, shall we say. In the end, hands raised in favour of, or unsure about, fracking were rather in the minority.
A souvenir of my adventures (Picture source: authors photograph)
My turn to present opened the final day of the conference in the Governance & Behaviour session, where I gave an ever-so-slightly amended version of presentation I’d given at RGS-PGF the previous week. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of questions asked and comments received afterwards, and really quite chuffed at my presentation being one of four ‘best in session’ winners at the conference prize-giving afterwards, netting me a £25 Amazon voucher. The ‘best in conference’ prize deservedly went to Alexandra Gormally from Lancaster University for her presentation about community-owned renewable energy generation in Cumbria.
It was great to meet lots of new people at Climate Transitions and, again, thanks and congratulations must go to the organising committee at Cardiff University – Catherine Cherry, Erin Roberts and Sam Hubble – who, under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre, organised a brilliant and wide-ranging event. An imaginative aspect of the conference was the provision of dedicated mugs to be used during breaks between sessions, and which we were told we could take home afterwards – a brilliant idea!
PhD research can be a solitary experience (especially if one lives 120 miles away from uni…), and I find that the great thing about conferences like RGS-PGF and Climate Transitions is meeting so many other students to learn about each other’s research, share experiences and chew the academic fat, even if I do feel a bit thick sometimes. As postgrads, we’re perhaps all kindred spirits, with the same problems and same joys inherent within PhD research, and coming together at conferences like RGS-PGF and Climate Transitions is palpably uplifting – indeed, the ‘fizz’ of ideas and potential around Birmingham and Cardiff was almost tangible. It was all very inspiring, reassuring and (re)affirming; re-energising, even.
And so, suitably re-energised and with morale duly boosted after two conferences in a fortnight, I feel like I’m more than ready to get back to work – well, maybe just after this next brew in my new mug…
autohabitus 