May was a particularly busy time at CIM with regular academic events, such as a Research Away Day or Grant Sprint. This year we also organised a Writing Retreat for Early Career Researchers (ECRs).

The retreat was a three-day log event where junior members of academic staff gathered to work simultaneously on their writing projects. On top of the packed agenda of writing sessions, the retreat was an opportunity to meet in person for the first time since Covid-19.

The group of ECRs at CIM includes Research and Teaching Fellows. The group was established to create a space for peer collaboration and interdisciplinary exchange, on top of daily research projects and teaching duties that ECRs are engaged within. The Writing Retreat was designed collaboratively, and the organisation was led by Dr Chiara Poletti and Dr Zofia Bednarowska-Michaiel, with a great support of professional staff at CIM. We implemented an open-ended form of collaboration for writing, peer-led discussion, and exchange so that the retreat can take place in an iterative way and in a collegial environment.

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CIM Early Career Researchers working on their writing projects. Author: Dr Daniele Pizio

A new special issue of Revista Dígitos has just been released. The issue is edited by Janna Joceli Omena (University of Warwick, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies), Beatrice Gobbo (Politecnico di Milano, Density Design Lab), Lorena Cano-Orón (Universitat de València) and Ana Marta M. Flores (NOVA University of Lisbon). The monograph section reunites articles addressing research experiments, protocols and knowledge creation through data sprints. It explores and unpacks sprints as an interdisciplinary collaborative space while presenting data sprints' purpose, advantages and concrete results for different fields of study. This collection builds on research developed for, in and after data sprints. The articles expose the potentials and challenges of data sprints for teaching-learning digital methods research and as reflective devices for producing scientific knowledge yet for methods and tools creation. See the articles below.