Language and Learning Group Away Day for Facilitating Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Centre Grant Application - Dr Suzanne Aussems & Dr Matthew Mak
This project involved an event, namely the “Language and Learning Group Away Day for Facilitating Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Centre Grant Application”.
We have organised this event on campus in Radcliffe space 12, on Monday the 9th of June 2025, from 9am – 5pm. The event brought together researchers at the University of Warwick, working on the topic of Language. The event counted 34 participants, with participants from 6 different Warwick Departments, including Psychology, Applied Linguistics, Philosophy, Warwick Business School, Italian Studies, and Computer Science. Among the participants, there were 18 postgraduates and 16 staff. Among the participants, there were 20 females and 14 males. Furthermore, the speaker programme included 11 postgraduates, 5 academic staff members, and an invited talk from Research & Impact Services (RIS) about large centre grant applications, focusing on the upcoming centre grant call of the ESRC in 2026. We ended the day with generating ideas for new research, in small groups, which could become part of the large ESRC centre grant application.
Our event was very successful, and all the objectives we set out to achieve have been achieved. With 34 participants on the day, we exceeded the expected 30 participants.
We had a full day of speakers and connected and networked with colleagues from across the university, working on the topic of language. Speaker topics varied from language development in infants and children, to adult-adult and adult-child interaction, great ape communication, evolution of language, prediction errors in language, social tinkering theory of language, syntax, bilingualism, gesture and nonverbal communication, language change, and dialect. We will continue our discussions for a large centre grant application from the ESRC.
The event was reported on live during the day, via BlueSky, using the hashtag #LLGAwayDAy. All 23 original posts can be seen here:
https://bsky.app/profile/suzanneaussems.bsky.social
Pictures of the event were also posted on BlueSky, with permission of those appearing in the pictures.
We will continue the discussions around a large centre grant application, for which a call is anticipated via the ESRC in 2026.