Celebration Event

On July 2^nd the Society and Culture Spotlight invited Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers to showcase and celebrate their interdisciplinary writing and research interests.

The morning consisted of stimulating discussions surrounding Warwick’s research culture. A topic of particular discussion was the importance of making research accessible, creative, and above all interdisciplinary. Participants commented on how being given the platform to express their interdisciplinary research freely and without academic restraints on how to communicate themselves added ‘richness and nuance’ to their writing. This, in turn, led to what many deemed to be a clearer form of expression on societal and cultural issues in their work.

Consensus surrounding the University’s role in encouraging the continuation of interdisciplinary research was clear; participants felt the university, as a publicly funded institution, should be required to contribute to the ‘common good’ of research. This ‘common good’ included suggestions such as public engagement with local communities, investment in the cultural capital of children in the area, resource hubs for interdisciplinary research, and methodology workshops for the cross-pollination of ideas from different faculties and departments.

The Spotlight Celebration event was an important and necessary meeting of minds between researchers at Warwick who see beyond the binaries of subject delineations. It seems to have established the beginnings of a network committed to bringing themes of society and culture to the four corners of Warwick’s research community.

A warm congratulations to PhD student Naomi Williams, winner of the Spotlight writing competition, and to all those researchers who submitted work and whose papers will be published this summer. Finally, many thanks to Dr Briony Jones, Dr Rebecca Morris and Dr Davide Piaggio for chairing and organising the event.

View the competition booklet