Global Sustainable Development News

Our students have the chance to spend a semester abroad in their second year of study. In this post, Katharina Neisinger, Maja Voelkel, and Luke Netherclift reflect on their time at Monash University, and how it was cut short by the outbreak of COVID-19.

Applications for the International Conference of Undergraduate Research (ICUR) 2020 are now open!

ICUR is a great opportunity for you to present your research to a global audience. Sponsored by the Monash-Warwick Alliance, the video-linked conference will take place from 29-30 September 2020, connecting students at the University of Warwick, Monash University, as well as other institutions around the world.

The deadline for abstract submissions is Sunday 31 May 2020. You can submit your abstract here.

Congratulations to Maddie Booth, one of our final year Politics, International Studies and GSD students, for putting together an art exhibition throughout March to address the important issue of gender based violence (GBV).

Dr Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla, the Head of School for Cross-faculty Studies, has had her latest article on Cuban internationalism published by The Conversation UK. The article is titled 'By sending doctors to Italy, Cuba continues its long campaign of medical diplomacy'. You can read the article in full here.

"Cuba stresses its programme to send doctors abroad is based in solidarity. But there are diplomatic and economic reasons too."

You can also read Dr Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla's recent article published by The Oral History Review on laughter in oral history interviews with Cuban internationalist healthcare professionals here.

Congratulations to our students for securing funding for research projects over the summer!

The Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) enables undergraduate students to carry out an interdisciplinary summer research project. The scheme is open to any undergraduate student at Warwick. Research can be completed in the UK or abroad.

Four GSD students have successfully secured a bursary this year: Benjamin Georges-Picot, Angelo Balagtas, Cathy Dong and Tanyaradzwa Kasinganeti. Their research projects will be presented in the form of a poster showcase at the annual URSS Celebration and Research Showcase, which will take place at the start of the next academic year.

On Monday 24 February 2020, Warwick Cup launched its reusable cup sharing system at Curiositea, one of the food and drink outlets on campus. The launch was a great opportunity to celebrate the hard work put into this project by the students involved and to find out more about the initiative.

Warwick Cup has been founded by final year Politics, International Studies (PAIS) and GSD students Hollie Ryan and Maddie Booth, and final year Economic Studies and GSD student Ellie Church. The inspiration for the project came from their time at Monash University, where they had the chance to see how an idea like this would work across campus.

L-R: Seiwaa Osei Afriyie, H.E Samira Bawumia (Republic of Ghana)

On 25-26 January 2020, the Warwick Africa Summit 2020 took place in the Oculus Building at the University of Warwick. The Warwick Africa Summit is an interdisciplinary conference focused on African development and is solely organised by students. Students from the GSD Department were part of the team behind the Warwick Africa Summit 2020, including final year Sociology and GSD student Seiwaa Osei Afriyie (President of the Warwick Africa Summit), second year Single Honours GSD student Taigh Adebajo (Co-Director of Finance) and second year Single Honours GSD student Trinity Awelo (Logistics). As President of the Warwick Africa Summit, Seiwaa has put together her highlights of the event.

In November 2020, Head of School for Cross-faculty Studies Dr Stephanie Panichelli-Batalla will run a four-hour-long session on her research on Life Stories of Cuban Internationalist Healthcare Professionals. The session will be for a course titled "Fuentes orales para la investigación en artes y humanidades" (Oral sources for research in arts and humanities).

The course will be offered to PhD students of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid working in the Arts and Humanities field and who are interested in working with oral sources but have not yet received any training to do so.

The short course on oral history is a result of a successful funding application by colleagues at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Dr Particia Mayayo and Dr Neomi Deharo.

^{Photo credit: Marco J Haenssgen}

An inspiring session in the School for Cross-faculty Studies Research and Pedagogy Seminar was delivered last week by Assoc Prof Giacomo Zanello from the University of Reading. Highlighting research using novel FitBit-like accelerometer devices in Ghana, India, and Nepal, Dr Zanello demonstrated how new forms of digital and sensor-based data collection can improve our understanding of people’s energy expenditure profiles during a day and across the seasons.

Maddie Booth, a third year PAIS and GSD student was on Hillz FM radio station this morning on 'Kate's show' to discuss and promote her upcoming art exhibition titled: "Stand Up, Stand Back, Stand With". The art exhibition is going to be on from 3 March 2020 until 22 March 2020 at The Arts Trail Studio, Leamington Spa. The exhibition is surrounding the issue of domestic violence and seeks to raise awareness for the issue as well as raising money for three charities who support survivors: Coventry Haven, RSVP and The Survivors Trust.

 Find out more about the event here and you can also donate to Maddie's JustGiving page to help support her work.

 You will be able to find a recorded version of the live radio broadcast on Hillz FM soon!