This is a forum for discussion of issues relevant to current higher education and research policy. The Group draws on expertise from within the Academy’s Fellowship and more broadly across the UK higher education sector, to explore developments in policy and society which relate to universities, researchers, students and staff, with particular reference to SHAPE disciplines (Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts for People and the Economy).

The Group’s discussions inform the development of the policy positions the Academy takes in its role as the voice of the humanities and social sciences, and guide the projects and activities the Academy carries out to build its evidence base and stimulate debate on topics which affect the health of our disciplines.

More details will follow

Time of conference: Friday 23^rd April 2021, 12:00pm to 5:00pm UK time, and Saturday 24^th April, 9:00am to 1:00pm UK time

Theme of keynote sessions: ‘Frontiers of Education and Activism’

We are pleased to announce the release Dr Emily Henderson's new edited book:

Exploring Diary Methods in Higher Education Research
Opportunities, Choices and Challenges

Many congratulations to Education Studies PGR graduate Dr Xuemeng Cao, who has been selected for a highly competitive postdoctoral fellowship at one of China's top universities, Tsinghua University. Xuemeng will be starting on the “Shuimu Scholar Scheme" in March 2021 and will be continuing her work in the field of Higher Education Studies. Xuemeng completed her doctorate (supervised by Emily Henderson and Ian Abbott) in 2020.

Education Studies, University of Warwick – Book Launch/Webinar Invitation

Gender, Definitional Politics and ‘Live’ Knowledge Production: Contesting Concepts at Conferences (Routledge, 2020)

by Emily F. Henderson

16^th July 2020, 10:00-12:00 UK time (GMT+1), on Teams (here)

You are cordially invited to the book/launch webinar.

About the book: Gender, Definitional Politics and ‘Live’ Knowledge Production

Waking up to the reactivity of concepts, to their myriad possibilities for signification, to the range and strength of affective responses they provoke, can happen at any time, in any place. Conceptual contestations shake up the comfortably consolidated foundations of sociological knowledge production, but they also have consequences for the ways in which lives are understood, researched and legislated for. This book is dedicated to exploring the definitional politics which surround the concept of gender in ‘live’ knowledge production. While conferences remain an under-researched phenomenon, this volume places conference knowledge production under the spotlight; conferences, in particular national women’s studies association conferences in the UK, the US and India, are explored as sites where definitional politics play out. The cumulative theorisation of ‘live’ conceptual knowledge production that is developed throughout the book draws on established constructs such as performativity, citationality, intersectionality, materiality and events, but works with them in combination in a new, unique way. The book as a whole calls for more attention to be paid to conceptual knowledge production, so as to make more space for potentially transformative conceptual change.