Ben Clift has written a new piece for LSE blog (along with Sean McDaniel, formerly of PAIS) on the politics of productivity and the failings of Prime Minister Truss’s thinking about reviving Britain’s economic fortunes. This draws on their research published in BJPIR. This paper was recently selected by the editors as part of a virtual special issue on British Politics in times of crisis.

You can read Ben's piece here.

Saadia Gardezi, co-founder of Project Dastaan and PhD student in PAIS, is experiencing wonderful success with public engagement and impact. Her films for the 'Child of Empire' and 'Lost Migrations' projects are exhibiting throughout the UK in August, travelling between the V&A museum and the British Film Institute (London), Birmingham Museum, Bradford Museum, Derby Museum and the Wolfson Gallery at SOAS, before moving on to venues in India and Pakistan.

https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/project-dastaan-exploring-75-years-of-partition-and-migration-child-of-empire-vr-film-lost-migrations-animation-series 

This is the first UK tour of Project Dastaan's award-winning Virtual Reality film "Child of Empire" and the three part animated series "Lost Migrations". Explore our postcolonial identity, the aftermath of partition and forced migration and the effects of colonisation as told by those who experienced it. Child of Empire, an animated virtual reality (VR) docu-drama experience immerses viewers in one of the largest forced migrations in human history: the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. Earlier this year, Child of Empire was awarded the very first Körber-Stiftung XR History Award. Lost Migrations is a three-part animated series that tells the stories of three communities of 1947 whose voice has been lost to history, even in the subcontinent. Please find attached a tour card for all the UK dates and venues.

Find out more about Project Dastaan's work here: https://projectdastaan.org/

Professional photographs from our Graduation Reception on July 25th are now available to view from this page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/news/graduation2022/

The Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) is thrilled to announce that, for the third year in a row, we are placed 1^st for “overall student satisfaction” among Russell Group Politics Departments in the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS). This is a position that we are proud to have held for 5 out of the past 7 years.

In the NSS 2022, PAIS came top in every category among Russell Group Politics Departments for the second year in a row.

• 1^st for Teaching
• 1^st for Learning Opportunities
• 1^st for Assessment and Feedback
• 1^st for Organisation and Management
• 1^st for Learning Resources
• 1^st for Learning Community
• 1^st for Student Voice
• 1^st for Academic Support

The 2022 results show that we are 1^st in the Russell Group on 20 of the 27 NSS questions and in 2^nd place on a further 5 questions.

For seven years in a row, PAIS has ranked either 1^st or 2^nd on overall student satisfaction amongst the Russell Group. The 2022 outcomes reflect our best ever performance across all categories in our peer group; they demonstrate our close and effective partnership with the student body and our sustained commitment to the student experience.

Across all programmes with which we are involved - both single and joint honours - we achieved 87% overall satisfaction (an increase of 3% on last year). The Russell Group average for Politics was 73%.

These impressive outcomes are due to an outstanding team effort among our fantastic students, academics, and professional services colleagues, and demonstrate a partnership which we are extremely proud of. Thank you to everyone for all your hard work and support for our teaching and student experience during a very challenging few years for all concerned. We are pleased that our approach to blended delivery during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with our move back to in person teaching, was appreciated by our students and we will continue to learn from student feedback to further enhance the student experience in 2022/23.

We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with our amazing students and dedicated staff to sustain and build on these strong results, which reflect our deep commitment to research-led teaching excellence. At the start of the new academic year, we will feed back in greater detail to all students and we will discuss and take forward ideas for further enhancement of the PAIS student experience via our Student Staff Liaison Committees (SSLCs).

In particular, we will intensify our work on liberating and decolonising the curriculum, employability and skills, and building a sense of community and belonging. We will work with partner Departments to ensure continued excellence across all programmes, in particular joint degrees.

*See the Office for Students websiteLink opens in a new window for more details and the full data. The results are based on the official Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH) subject breakdowns and the 21 Russell Group institutions which met the publications threshold for Politics.

The PAIS Research Conference on 29 June, 2022 offers a rich and diverse programme, reflecting the research power of our Politics and International Studies department! The conference is taking place in person with 58 participants listed on the programme. Faculty, early career researchers and Ph.D. students are presenting together on thematic panels. Panel topics include Brexit discourses and their afterlives, international politics of migration, the future of democratic design, counter-terrorism, endogenous challenges to European convergence, race, gender and politics in the Middle East, and two round-tables on Russia’s invasion and the war in Ukraine, and on Global South-North partnerships. We are also celebrating published field-defining books and seeking to develop new ones in the spirit of the Warwick manuscript development initiative. A speed mentoring session continues our tradition to support early career researchers. At the end of the day, a tribute panel for our late colleague, Tim Sinclair, is organised as a hybrid event to give all staff and students the opportunity to join if they wish.

Logistically, for the first time this year the conference is co-organised with volunteers from our early career researchers and Ph.D. student community. 12 panel sessions are running in three tracks in parallel throughout the day. This year we have also invited interested MA and UG students to join, besides Ph.D. students and early career researchers, to get insights into our vibrant research culture! We are reconnecting in person to celebrate achievements, support colleagues in their ongoing work, and embark on new research journeys!

Please click here to see the full PAIS conference programme.