North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership
Overseas Institutional Visit: OIV to the University of British Colombia
Matthew Perry, Politics, University of Manchester (2018 Cohort)
One of the challenging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the lack of conference and networking opportunities. With in-person events cancelled or replaced by zoom alternatives, there were few chances to see how universities run in other countries, to network, build skills and talk informally with other researchers. I was grateful for my OIV to the University of British Colombia in Vancouver, Canada, because it gave me the opportunity to do the things that I couldn’t during the pandemic. I stayed in Vancouver for three months from September to December 2023. I loved my time there – British Colombia is a stunningly beautiful area. With beaches, mountains, and the famous Stanley Park, it was the perfect location for an enthusiastic runner and hiker like me to visit for a few months.
Read MoreSymposium : (Il)liberal Nation Projection Through Sport, Culture, Entertainment, and International Broadcasting
Callum McCloskey (1st year PhD student at University of the West of Scotland)
On the afternoon of Wednesday 19th October, I travelled to Manchester with colleagues Professor Gayle McPherson and Solomon Ilevbare, a fellow PhD student.
After checking in to our hotel, we headed out for a bite to eat in Chinatown, sampling a ‘Hot Pot’- safe to say some can handle spice more than others! After dinner, we retired to the hotel, in preparation for an early start.
Read MoreSafeguarding Children in the Digital Age Conference
Daisy Harvey, Health & Wellbeing, Lancaster University (2020 Cohort)
I recently attended the Safeguarding Children in the Digital Age online conference, which included two afternoons of talks related to the threats that young people may encounter online and how online safety can be improved. For me, this conference demonstrated how the research that is conducted at an academic level can be implemented in practice and demonstrated the importance of knowledge sharing beyond the institutional level. I learned a lot about how young people explore their identities online and the types of content that they might be exposed to and was particularly interested in how linguistic analysis can help to identify online harms such as grooming, radicalisation and misogyny. The conference provided a lot of insight into the difficulties faced by parents and educators as the boundaries between the online and offline realm become more and more blurred, and also suggested methods for developing resilience and technology-based solutions to improve online safety. I attended the conference because I’m interested in pursuing a career related to countering online harms and wanted to understand how my research methodology aligns with the research and work taking place beyond academia. It was a really valuable experience and provided me with new perspectives that will be useful when thinking about the direction of my research and life after my PhD, and it was really inspiring to hear about all of the amazing projects that people are working on internationally to try to make the world a safer place.
My overseas institutional visit to Case Western Research University
Jingwen Zhang, Social Statistics, University of Manchester (2020 Cohort)
From the end of September to November 2022, I visited Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in the United States funded by the NWSSDTP (Overseas institutional visits/OIV scheme). This visit was one of the most fruitful and valuable experiences that I have had since my PhD started. In this blog, I would like to share some tips for the application process and my experiences during the visit.
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North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership 