School of Social and Political Science

Content

At the end of January we held our Network Launch event, and it was wonderful to see so many people come together and share ideas for the future of our network. 

The event took the format of two sessions of quick 5-minute discussions around four tables. Participants were asked to move to a different table every 5 minutes. The first session asked participants to talk about their research interests (“What do we do?”) and the second asked them to think about project formats they are interested in (“How do we do it?”). Following this, participants were asked to use the discussion sessions as a spur to deeper conversations with colleagues they share interests with. Finally we had a plenary discussion to discuss possible network directions.

The initial themes for discussion in the “What do we do?” session were: Politics and Economy, Energy and Infrastructure, and Health and Wellbeing. Participants were invited to discuss their relationship to each theme in turn, thinking about ways their research might intersect with others. As might be expected, there was quite a diversity of responses. Some initial themes that proved very popular were wellbeing economies, futures, access, transition, extraction, resistance, industry, and communities. 

Following this, in the “How do we do it?” discussions, participants were asked to think about practical projects they would like to undertake. The four themes under discussion were: Communities and Engagement, Publishing Projects, Events, and Grants and Funding. The final plenary discussion session focused on outputs from this, and quite a few ideas were generated and shared here. See below, according to the four themes from the roundtable discussions. In some cases there was one clear project that emerged as a popular idea, and in others there are some more general ideas or needs to think through. 

We are now working hard to figure out the next steps for the network, but ideas that had a lot of support were a distinguished speaker series and the possibility of an edited volume showcasing the expertise of the network. Watch this space and please get in touch if you want to get more involved in running an initiative under the Sus+ banner.