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This year’s prize winner is Felicity Butler (RHUL), for her research in Northern Nicaragua on Including Unpaid Labour in Community Fair Trade Products.  Congratulations to her: this year’s competition saw a very high-quality list of applications.

 

As many members may already know, Rob Potter, Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading, and a leading academic in the areas of urban and development geographies, has died. Rob was an active member of DARG, serving on its committee, and co-editing The Contemporary Caribbean (Pearson/Prentice-Hall, 2004) within the Group’s series of regional geography books. Previously Professor of Geography and Head of Department (1994-1999) at Royal Holloway, University of London, he joined Reading in 2003 and later became Head of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences. An elected Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, Rob was awarded the higher doctorate degree of DSc by the University of Reading for his contributions to the fields of geographies of development and urban geography, with particular reference to Caribbean development studies.

Rob had a long and distinguished research career, with more than 30 books and monographs and over 250 journal articles and book chapters, and was founding editor of the journal Progress in Development Studies from 2001.  He also supervised over 30 PhD students, and was in constant demand as PhD examiner, journal manuscript referee and as external assessor for senior appointments both in the UK and overseas. He particularly enjoyed being in the field, whether on undergraduate fieldtrips or in the Caribbean.  He had over 30 years’ research association with the Eastern Caribbean, researching principally on urbanisation, housing  and planning, but also on, among others,  tourism, gender, returning migrants and human aspects of environmental hazard.   Rob always insisted on publishing not only in ‘high impact’ international journals, but also in Caribbean journals and other locally-accessible outlets.  Even during his illness, he continued working on the third edition of the Companion to Development Studies, which arrived just two days before he passed away.  This last publication was a fitting tribute to his contribution to scholarship in, and of, developing countries.

Rob was always very supportive of junior colleagues and especially of women in academia.  He maintained high moral standards and was a person with great integrity. He was very fond of his text books and worked very hard in getting them published and they were very successful.  He privately and bravely battled with cancer since 2009.  He will be greatly missed. If anyone is wishing to make a donation in memory of Rob can do so by sending a cheque made payable to either ‘The Pilgrims Hospice’ Canterbury or the Royal Free Trustees Grant (311) “The Quiet Cancer Appeal” at the Royal Free Hospital, London.

 (with thanks to the RGS and Vandana Desai)

Tuesday 26^th August 2014

Venue: Education Centre, Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1 Kensington Gore, London, SW7 2AR

Organised by RGS Research Groups: EGRG, DARG, SCGRG and PolGRG

This workshop will take place on the day before the annual international conference of the RGS (with IBG). It brings together academics, including postgraduates, from across human geography to facilitate a critical focus and debate on the nature and implications of research impact, from research group perspectives across the discipline, including thinking more broadly and critically about what research impact means to us, and how it affects our work. The event includes group and roundtable debate, facilitated by five keynote talks.

Programme:

10:00-10:30     Registration & coffee

10:30-10:45     Welcome from Alex Hughes & introductions

10:45-12:00     Session 1: Tracking & Embedding Impact (Chair: Steve Musson)

Dr Martin Walsh (Global Research Adviser, Oxfam GB, & Member of REF Main Panel C): Researching impacts: emerging lessons from the development sector

Group discussion: How do we embed & track impact? How might we work with organisations to do this, and what are the challenges?

12:00-13:00     Lunch

13:00-14:30     Session 2: Politics, Consequences & Communication of Impact (Chair: Rebecca Sandover)

Professor Kevin Morgan (Cardiff School of Planning & Geography): The politics of sustainable school food reform (project recognised in ESRC Impact Annual Awards 2013)

Hazel Edwards (Senior Engagement Manager – Arts & Humanities, Durham University): Research impact through partnership: the case of a Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum project

Group discussion: How do we conduct research that shapes public policy/engagement? How do we address the political challenges associated with the generation & consequences of research impact? How do we communicate research impact?

14:30-15:00     Tea/coffee

15:00-16:30     Session 3: Conceptualising Impact & its Pathways (Chair: Karen Lai)

Eloise Mellor (ESRC): Overview of ESRC’s current visions of impact

Professor Nina Laurie (Newcastle University): Conceptualising impact in the global South: the case of a trafficking project

Group discussion: How do we conceptualise and create pathways to impact? What kinds of skills are required to foster impact?

16:30               Workshop closes

18:15               Annual conference opens

The event is free to students (current, registered graduate or doctoral studies), and £16 for all others.

To register for the event, you can book in one of two ways: (i) through the RGS website and online booking system (to add the workshop to your RGS annual conference booking) at  www.rgs.org/AC2014Workshops or, if you are not attending the annual conference, (ii) by e-mailing Alex.Hughes@ncl.ac.uk and sending a cheque (if you are paying) for £16 made payable to ‘EGRG’ to Alex Hughes, School of Geography, Politics & Sociology, 5^th Floor Claremont Tower, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU by 6^th August.

The results of the 2014 DWS essay competition run by DARG and sponsored by Routledge publishers are:

Winner:  William Nicolle  Exeter School

Highly Commended:  Noah Lipschitz, St Albans School and Tom Blackshaw  Exeter School

The essay title was: ‘Examine the view that levels of inequality are increasing within cities in the Global South’

Well done!

Congratulations to Dr. Aditi Chatterji who has been awarded a second Senior Fellowship by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) from 2013 to work on ‘Landscape and the Bengali Diaspora’.

Purpose.

This seminar is about the place and importance of agriculture and aquaculture in the developing south.  Comments at the AGMs of DARG and RGRG at this year’s RGS-IBG Annual Conference indicated postgraduate students are looking for opportunities to present their work and develop a network with others in this field.  This seminar is intended to create space for postgraduate research students and early years researchers to present their work and network.

In many so-called developing countries, particularly in Asia, rural livelihoods are changing rapidly and agriculture is often only one part of a suite of activities; in parallel the scale of farm–based aquaculture is increasingly rapidly and projected to rise sharply in sub-Saharan Africa. However, many households are still highly dependent on the use of natural resources and much potential exists for the development of both agricultural and aquaculture.  In Africa in particular, the attainment of many millennium development goals is problematic, while population growth and climate change are all predicted to impact negatively.  This event is an opportunity to present work, work in progress, that addresses this field.

Key note speakers will be Prof Dave Little, Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, an expert in rural aquaculture, and an agriculturalist (name to be confirmed).

Registration.

I hope many of you will wish to make a 15 minute presentation, please submit your abstract of 250 words to me, Charles Howie, chowie@rau.ac.uk by 15/1/14.  I will be in touch with you by the end of January. Please register your intention to attend with Karen Rial-Lover Karen.Rial-Lovera@student.rac.ac.uk  by 1^st March 2014.  Karen will supply details of how to reach the University.  The nearest train station is Kemble, if several people all arrive at the same time, around 10am we will try and provide transport to Cirencester.  Alternatively, there is a regular and frequent National Express coaches service from Victoria coach station, via Heathrow central bus station.

Cost

We expect the day to cost £12, inclusive of buffet lunch, teas and coffees. This will be confirmed at the end of January. Looking forward to hearing from lots of you, Charles Howie, Visiting Fellow, RAU. Adviser Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, An Giang University, Vietnam.