Keele Postgraduate Conference 2022

This is an opportunity to showcase your research in a visually impactful way i.e. strong images with an easy to read layout. 

It should also be accessible to a non-specialist audience with engaging language.  

Your abstract should be a single paragraph, no longer than 200 words and you should clearly draw out the relevance of your research, highlighting why it is important and interesting to someone who is not a specialist in your area.

Previous conferences have showcased the fantastic research being undertaken across all three Faculties.

We want this competition to bring our interdisciplinary research community together and for attendees and presenters to discover more about the huge range of postgraduate research projects being carried out across Keele.

Click here for Poster Guidelines.

You can apply using the button below and you should submit your poster entry, initially as a PDF to ilas@keele.ac.uk and then be prepared to display it on the poster boards provided in the Ballroom on the day of the conference.

As part of Keele’s commitment to Open Research, we are again running an Open Research Award, to recognise and reward postgraduate research students who have made—or who demonstrate concrete plans to make—strong contributions to the principles of Open Research in their doctoral studies.

Applicants have been invited to prepare a written case study of no more than 2 pages. Each case study should describe how the applicant has engaged in (or plans to engage in) one or more of the Open Research practices.

Further information is available here.

You can also watch a short video here from Dr Jim Grange (Academic Lead for Research Integrity & Improvement) about why you should engage with Open Research.

A panel of judges will assess the applications prior to the conference, and summaries of the shortlisted and winning entries will be given at the conference, with a presentation of the winning entry.

The goal is to advertise your research to the general public. It needs to be communicated in a novel, non-traditional format and might suit individuals involved in practice-based research. Think creatively! 

You could write a poem or a short piece of music or animation. You could draw a picture or capture an image. 

We're looking for people to think of something a little different from posters but if your've got something in mind, like a magazine advert, this would work just as well. However you choose to advertise your research, it should be less than 150 words or no longer than 2 minutes in length.

Audio and visual entries will require an accompanying statement (150 words maximum), to connect with the image/audio. Ensuring viewers/listeners, who know nothing about the research topic, understand the research presented.

You can view last year's entries here.

Could you describe your research in just three minutes with one PowerPoint slide?

Why not challenge yourself and practice your public engagement and transferable skills i.e. presenting, speaking in front of the public and communicating complex ideas and theories to a non-specialist audience.

As with the poster competition, your presentation should explain what your research is about and how you plan to carry it out but also why it matters and who it affects. 

This year each Faculty we will be running 3MT heats with winners and a runner up put forward to present at the Postgraduate Conference in June.

The heats are as follows:

Natural Sciences: 3rd May
Health: 4th May
Humanities and Social Sciences: 5th May

Students interested in competing should contact their Faculty Postgraduate Research Administrator, to apply to their Faculty heat. There is no need to apply to ILAS/KDA as well.

Two semi-finalist from the PG Conference will be put forward to the KPA Bob Beattie Awards evening - date to be confirmed. The overall winner will be put forward to represent Keele in the national competition, competing against postgraduate researchers from across the UK.

You can view videos of the amazing entrants from the 2021 competition here.

Click here for Three Minute Thesis Guidelines.

#DoWhatYouLove – public engagement and the joy of having an impact

In 2014, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), in its formal review of the quality of research conducted in higher education institutions in the UK, included ‘impact’ as a measure of the value of research outputs for the first time. Then a PhD researcher, I witnessed first-hand the reaction of a staff-student board to this, which included responses that found this to be very ill-judged; why should research have to have an impact? The impact agenda has only grown in recent years, furthered partly by the role that knowledge exchange now plays in higher education and related metrics, and the expectation that those working in our sector will engage with stakeholders outside of their own institutions.

In this talk I will outline my own perspectives on the question of why the notion of impact is important in research, not only in terms of the (very convincing) arguments for research to be useful, and of public value and interest, but also from a very personal point of view; sharing knowledge with, and working collaboratively, with communities, including children, museum visitors, underrepresented groups, and others, leads to job satisfaction, yields belief in the value of your research, and ultimately, brings joy. I will discuss various projects that I have set up and been a part of which involve working with the public, including music and time workshops in schools, ‘science busking’ with my ‘Music and Mutation’ research at the New Scientist Live! event earlier this year, advising museums in Russia and the UK on their music and science exhibitions, and writing shows for family days and science festivals about how musical instruments work. I will focus on two current research projects in which members of the public are collaborators, and at the heart of the research: 1) a project in collaboration with Manchester Camerata and the Universities of Manchester, Salford and MMU on a listener’s behavioural, neurological and physiological response to live and recorded music, 2) an upcoming ‘Playlist for Parkinsons LIVE’ concert at the RNCM, during which myself and colleagues will share our research relating to the role of music listening in the lives of people with Parkinsons’ (PwP), followed by a free public concert of this music, performed by RNCM students and introduced by PwP for whom these tracks are meaningful.

Bio:

Michelle is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Head of Undergraduate Programmes at the Royal Northern College of Music. Her research interests include music and time, perception of contemporary music, audience response to live and recorded music, entrepreneurship, and music and Parkinson’s. She is Principal Investigator of the cross-institution StART Entrepreneurship Project, and is co-lead with Manchester Camerata for a project examining physiological, behavioural and neurological response to live and recorded music, a project funded by the Centre for Cultural Value, University of Leeds.

All three competitions will have prizes associated with them (£25 - £100) and winners can choose a voucher from a selection of suppliers from Love2shop.

Prizes will be announced during the day and we encourage all postgraduates (PGR/PGT) to get involved.

The deadline for poster and advertise your reseach entries is midnight on the 12th May 2022.

The deadline for the open research entries is midnight on the 9th May 2022.

The deadline for three minutes thesis entries will vary within each Faculty, please contact your PGR administrator for further information.