CHASE Annual Review 2015
Contents
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Welcome from the CHASE Director
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CHASE student engagement
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Student news
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10Training and Development Group
11 Partner Engagement
12 Placements
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13 Encounters
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14 Realising the vision
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15 CHASE in numbers
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For more information about CHASE please contact
[email protected]
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Welcome from the CHASE Director
I’m delighted to introduce the first Annual Review from the Consortium for the Humanities and
the Arts, South-East England (CHASE). The CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership is funded
by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support doctoral researchers across our
institutions: the Universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex, the Open University, The
Courtauld Institute of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, Birkbeck, University of London and
SOAS, University of London.
We currently offer up to 75 doctoral awards per year,
with our first cohort of 73 doctoral researchers arriving in
October 2014. Our success in gaining AHRC recognition
as a Doctoral Training Partnership was the result of more
than two years of strenuous work across institutions and
among faculty and colleagues in the creative and cultural
sectors as well as professional service colleagues and
doctoral candidates (who advised on us on their views
of what it takes to support a researcher at this crucial,
but sometimes daunting, stage of a career). I would like
to thank everyone who has been involved in bringing
CHASE to its first forms of fruition. Above all, CHASE is a
platform for its researchers. It is an opportunity for faculty
and doctoral researchers to continue to explore emerging
forms and objects of knowledge with the support of a
research environment attuned to the value of intellectual
ambition and of engagement with institutions and publics
beyond the university. Across CHASE there are over 1,000
academics in the arts and humanities, many of whom
are also leading practitioners (artists, curators, novelists,
poets, musicians, lawyers). Equally, the intellectual
passion, initiative and diversity that our doctoral
researchers are bringing to CHASE is vital to our ongoing
collaboration: we are privileged to have an extraordinary
cohort of researchers, many of whom are working ‘on the
edge’ of disciplinary boundaries and established forms of
intelligibility.
In its first year, CHASE brought its cohort together
at two Encounters conferences; we launched our
interdisciplinary, inter-institutional training programme,
and pursued our dialogue with our growing, and diverse,
network of strategic partners. Our first placement started
in July 2015: a CHASE student is working with the
Corinium Museum, using her research expertise in Roman
history to help curators redevelop collections and improve
visitor experience at the museum. In January 2015, we
welcomed two new Associate Members to CHASE:
Birkbeck College, University of London and SOAS,
University of London. Both bring unique cultures and
strengths to CHASE and we are delighted to be working
with them.
This is a moment of significant change in the postgraduate
landscape, with national and international discussion
on the future shape of the PhD. CHASE is committed to
making a distinctive contribution to those discussions.
I look forward to working with colleagues to take the
consortium forward over the coming year.
Professor Vicky Lebeau
CHASE DTP Director
October 2015
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CHASE student engagement
As Chair of the Student Advisory Group, I am delighted to report on
CHASE student engagement to the first CHASE Annual Review. The
Student Advisory Group (SAG) is perhaps the most prominent example of
student engagement. We formed in January 2014, following institutional
elections. We are currently a team of eleven from across the original DTP
institutions, and look forward to welcoming representatives from SOAS
and Birkbeck in the coming year.
SAG has engaged directly with students from
across the consortium. We have raised student
concerns, and sought feedback on CHASE
initiatives directly from students, an example
being when the Training and Development Group
wanted to know what students thought of CHASE
training workshops. Our email bulletin helps
ensure students are aware of our key role in the
development of the DTP, and we publish the
minutes of our meetings on the Virtual Research
Environment to ensure transparency.
Our largest project to date has been the
organisation of the student-led sessions at the
Summer 2015 Encounters conference. Students
previously reported that they wanted time to
spend with other members to get to know
individuals in the cohort and learn about their
research interests. As a result, we organised
two research-networking events, entitled “We
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built too many walls”. This provided dedicated
time for students to discuss their research
interests in interdisciplinary themed groups, and
form connections with other members of the
consortium. It is early days for these networks,
but I am certain they will develop over the coming
years; there are already plans for further studentled symposia. In the meantime students have
reported that the event was a success and that
they found the time engaging with fellow members
of the consortium to be engaging, productive and
enjoyable.
Emma Milne
Chair of the Student Advisory Group
October 2015
Student News
Danielle Redd
University of East Anglia
Eleanor Careless
University of Sussex
Project Title:
Chasing Fragments, Writing the
Island: A novel, Bodeg, and a critical
essay, Female Artists and Castaways
in Contemporary Island Literature
Project Title:
Serve your Own Sentences:
Incarceration and Shared Language
in the Poetry of Anna Mendelssohn
“I feel incredibly fortunate to have received a CHASE
studentship for my PhD in Creative and Critical writing. It
has two components: a critical thesis on the way in which
islands are constructed in postmodern fictional narratives,
and a novel set on an imaginary island within the Arctic
Circle, entitled Bodeg, where an impending volcanic
eruption echoes the emotional lives of the inhabitants
building towards a climax. Earlier this year I earned a place on The Old Schoolhouse
art residency programme, based on Hrisey, a small,
teardrop-shaped island off the north coast of Iceland. I
spent the month of March on the island, working on my
novel, gaining inspiration from the surreal landscape and
the isolated settings. Following the completion of the
residency, I travelled to the Westman Islands off the south
coast of Iceland, where I interviewed survivors of the 1973
volcanic eruption.
The experience proved invaluable to my writing. Being
able to gather sensory data, to record the subtle changes
and variation and landscape, has made the chapters of
the novel I’ve written so vivid and richly textured; more so
than if I simply imagined an island. Some of my personal
experiences - such as being trapped inside during a seven
day snowstorm - will now be included in the novel.
“I have had a rich and varied year of research activity, in
which I’ve given papers at conferences in London and
Belfast, worked as an assistant archivist, published articles
and reviews, and held a monthly feminist reading group —
all of this enabled by my CHASE funding. Most excitingly,
through the CHASE-facilitated AHRC International
Placement Scheme, I’ve been awarded a four-month-long
fellowship at the Library of Congress which I’ll take up in
January 2016. As the Sussex representative on the CHASE
Student Advisory Group, I’ve also been involved in the
organisation of the second CHASE Encounters conference,
and am looking forward to bringing this experience to bear
on the next CHASE event. Currently, I am working with the
Institute of Contemporary Arts in London to curate a panel
discussion as part of their upcoming Buñuel retrospective.”
I have CHASE to thank for funding my flights, the residency,
and transport costs whilst in Iceland. Without this support
the trip would not have been possible.”
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Marc Farrant
Goldsmiths,
University of London
Project title:
Stirring Still: The Writing of Life, Time
and Politics in Samuel Beckett and
JM Coetzee
Marc applied for and was awarded an AHRC fellowship
under the International Placement Scheme to spend
research time at the Harry Ransom Centre at the University
of Texas.
“My experience as a CHASE student during my first year
of research at Goldsmiths has been both intellectually and
personally enlivening and fulfilling. The two Encounters
events have enabled myself and others to network across
disciplinary and, more importantly, institutional boundaries.
As a direct result, I have participated collaboratively with
students from the University of Essex through the form
of an informative and stimulating reading group in central
London.
More broadly, the sense of security and belonging has
been a beneficial and appreciated secondary structure
throughout this year, contributing to my focus and
confidence and, therefore, providing the backdrop to my
success in attaining an AHRC IPS fellowship with the Harry
Ransom Center in Austin, USA.”
Edwin Coomasaru
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Project title:
Contested Bodies: Northern Irish
Masculinities and the Legacy of
the ‘Troubles’
“In the first year of my CHASE-funded PhD, I undertook
a Curatorial Training Programme with the Brighton Photo
Fringe. For the 2014 festival, I co-curated three exhibitions:
one solo and two group shows. The former, situated in the
Grade II-listed Regency Town House museum, featured
work by Peter Watkins. A text I wrote for the exhibition was
published in Issue 18 of 1000 Words magazine.
Other curatorial work included Ronnie Close... ‘We Are
Here’ at the International New Media Gallery, an online
exhibition platform I run. The show was accompanied by
a catalogue, free to download, with contributions from
Graham Harman and Stephanie Schwartz.
Other activities have involved editing the upcoming edition
of The Courtauld’s research journal, giving a paper at a
conference on Art & War at Oxford University, and sitting
on CHASE’s Student Advisory Group. More recently I have
been producing a short documentary on my research; for
which I travelled to Belfast to film paramilitary murals, and
also interviewed curators, academics and archivists.”
“Support from CHASE gave me the opportunity to undertake a placement at
the Corinium museum in Cirencester, reinterpreting their early Roman display.
This experience has expanded my research horizons giving me new ideas and
perspectives on how people interact and interpret the past. It has also increased
my awareness of the vital role museums play in educating and developing public
interest in ancient history.”
Catherine Hoggarth
University of Kent
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Thomas Hewitt
Open University
Catherine Hoggarth
University of Kent
Project title:
Cyborg Music: A Future
Musicotechnographic Aesthetic
Project title:
Bridges and the City of Rome: The Life
and Landscape of a River Crossing
(300BC to 150AD)
“It has been a busy first year of my CHASE studentship.
On the personal front I have spent a good deal of my time
involved in a fairly extensive literature review in order to
provide a firm theoretical foundation for the data-gathering
phase of my research in this coming academic year. I
am pleased to report that I passed my probationary ‘mini
viva’ assessment at the end of August. That process gave
me some very useful feedback from my assessors and
supervisors to hone my research going forward.
I have attended and presented at a number of conferences
and seminars. I was particularly grateful to CHASE for
giving some essential financial support to the conference
I co-convened at the University of Sheffield last May. This
was the second Royal Musical Association, Music and
Philosophy Study Group’s workshop on the Philosophy of
Human+Computer Music. Without the support of CHASE
and one other sponsor, it is doubtful that the workshop
could have gone ahead.
The number of Open University students in the cohort is
small, but I have been pleased to represent our views on
the CHASE Student Advisory Group. It has been good to
be able to reassure the student body that their concerns
are seriously considered by the CHASE management
apparatus through the consultative medium which
SAG provides. It has also been good to work with such
enthusiastic students and staff, particularly in formulating
the programmes for the Encounters conferences.”
Catherine has made an exceptional start to her PhD
research at Kent. Within two weeks of registration, Dan
Simpson (poet in residence at Canterbury’s Roman
Museum) was inspired following discussion with Catherine
to write a poem about the content of her thesis
(Please see: https://canterburyromanresident.wordpress.
com/2014/10/06/poem-bridges)
Over the year, Catherine has gained proficiency in Italian
Language to access archaeological reports published
in Italian, had her first academic conference paper
accepted for the 2016 Archaeological Conference at
‘La Sapienza’ (University of Rome), started a CHASE
placement at Corinium Museum (Cirencester) to
work with them on an HLF funded redevelopment
project (http://coriniummuseum.org) and attended 29
seminars, conferences or training events. Catherine is
being co-supervised by supervisors from Kent and the
Open University which has aided the development of
collaboration between the OU and Kent in the area of
Roman History. The OU and Kent will be jointly holding
the Classical Association annual conference in Canterbury
in 2017. The collaboration in Classics also underpins the
current collaboration in Digital/Spatial Humanities that has
included a CHASE doctoral training workshop over 4 days.
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Azelina Flint
University of East Anglia
Emma Milne
University of Essex
Project title:
Project title:
Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti:
Male Individualism and the Identity of the
Female Artist
Infanticide and Newborn infant death:
A feminist analysis of the social and
legal responses to mothers who do
not conform
“In the first year of my PhD I have embarked on a number
of projects that have both supported my research and
provided me with personal and professional career
development. When I was accepted to present at a
conference at Temple University, Philadelphia, CHASE
provided me with the funding to carry out archival research
during my trip to the USA. I accessed important resources
in Princeton and Harvard universities, and was able to
make many useful contacts for my Fulbright application.
The CHASE Material Witness program has also enabled
me to broaden my theoretical knowledge as a researcher
in the humanities. This program introduced me to the field
of Material Culture Studies and allowed me to consider the
wider conceptual implications of my research techniques.
We were given the opportunity to access many rare and
special collections first-hand that are not open to the
general public, such as the Canterbury Cathedral Library,
the Lambeth Palace Library and the British Museum’s
archive repository at Franks House. I was also provided
with the funding to convene a workshop, ‘NineteenthCentury Visual Culture’, at the Royal Holloway Picture
Gallery. CHASE funding has also allowed me to broaden
my specialist knowledge and make important contacts
within my research area through supporting attendance
at the International Centre for Victorian Women Writing
Conference, which is one of the most important in my
field. In addition to this, CHASE has enabled additional
supervisory support with Professor Wendy Parkins
(University of Kent), a specialist in Pre-Raphaelite Studies
who is able to guide the aspects of my thesis that are
centred in English literature, as opposed to American
Studies. CHASE has also supported archival research trips
to Oxford, professional training in the Digital Humanities at
the British Library, and a conference presentation at Bristol
University.”
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“To be awarded a CHASE studentship was not only a great
honour, but an amazing opportunity. Being part of CHASE
means being part of a network of academic researchers
in the consortium. This network facilitates discussion with
scholars from disciplines across the arts and humanities.
I am part of the Gender and Intersectionality network
who are hosting a symposium in November, Challenging
Gender, Embracing Intersectionality? A One-day CHASE
Symposium. I also have plans to produce a paper with a
student from the University of Sussex, drawing on similar
themes from our research. This community of researchers
is a joy to be part of for the exchange of ideas, and for the
opportunity to discuss my research and develop my ideas.
In January I was elected Chair of the Student Advisory
Group. This role has allowed me to develop skills outside
of my PhD, such as leadership, management, team work
and communication. I have thoroughly enjoyed working
with other students and the CHASE Management Board to
resolve queries that have been presented by students, to
contribute to the development of the consortium – writing
the student handbook and proposing the creation of the
CHASE alumni – and organising the Encounters events.
Possibly the biggest impact CHASE has had on my PhD is
creating the opportunity for me to expand my research to
incorporate an international comparison to my English data.
I research the responses by the criminal justice system in
England and Wales to women who are suspected of killing
their newborn children. Through the AHRC International
Placement Scheme, I have been awarded a research grant
to allow me to spend four months in the Kluge Center at
the Library of Congress researching the responses by the
criminal justice system in the State of Maryland and US
Federal law.”
Peter Nicholls
University of Kent
Rachel Stratton
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Project title:
Project title:
The Seychelles Islands and
Forced Migrations in the Indian
Ocean during the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries
The Artist as Mirror of his Time: Art,
Mass Culture and the ‘Dialogic’
Relationship between Surrealism in
Britain and the Independent Group
During the first year of his PhD, Peter has been
exceptionally proactive in terms of his primary research.
Not only has he spent a number of days in the Archives
Nationales in Paris (where he has consulted 18th-century
colonial reports documenting the initial settlement of the
Seychelles), but he has also carried out extensive work in
the National Archives of the Seychelles.
Over the course of an 8-week long stay in Victoria, Peter
has accumulated an impressive amount of largely untapped
material pertaining to the slave trade of the western Indian
Ocean between the late 18th and the early 19th century.
Having established a solid working relationship with the
management of the National Archives of the Seychelles,
Peter has now been asked to play a central role in the
setting up of a museum exhibit dedicated to slavery at
the National History Museum of the Seychelles. Peter
has assisted the National Archives in the process of
digitising their collection and contributed digital copies of
important records of the Seychelles’s history that he had
acquired from archives in London, Paris and Birmingham.
Information Peter has gathered from the Church Missionary
Archives in Birmingham is being used by Seychelles
Heritage in a UNESCO dossier applying for the ruins of
a school for liberated slaves to be recognised as a World
Heritage site. In the furtherance of this important cultural
activity, Peter is expected to take advantage of CHASE’s
placement scheme and take a short break from his PhD
research in early 2016.
Rachel has been responsible for organising three seminars
for 2015/16 on ‘Art and Vision Science’ for the Courtauld
Research Forum. She is organising an interdisciplinary
workshop at the Courtauld entitled Culture, Perception,
and Consciousness, to take place in summer 2016, and
is also organising an event to coincide with the Ben Uri
Museum’s centenary exhibition, taking place at Somerset
House in 2016. In January 2015 she organised a panel of
academics to discuss the subject of William Blake and
his visions, part of the Inspired by Blake Festival for the
Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and has organised two
panel discussions in May 2015 for the Southbank Centre’s
‘Web We Want’ festival, on ‘science fiction turned reality:
art and the internet’ and ‘brain plasticity and the web’. As
well as this extensive involvement in academic and wider
reaching public symposia, she is very active as a curator.
Projects she has worked on this year, in her role as Director
and lead curator of AXNS Collective, include ‘Fractured
Visions: To See Again’, a month long augmented reality
installation about visual perception disorder Palinopsia, the
result of a collaboration between a scientist and an artist,
and funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain; in Jan-Feb
2015 she curated ‘Sculpting Motion: the Fickle Screen’, a
solo exhibition of installations by Madi Boyd, for which she
wrote the catalogue essay and conducted an interview with
the artist.
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Training and Development Group
The entire 2014 student cohort have
attended two ‘Encounters’ one-day
conferences. The first took place at The
Courtauld Institute in November 2014.
Members of the Management Board and
CHASE supervisors also attended this
exciting event so as to welcome the first
cohort to CHASE. The morning sessions
explored the nature of interdisciplinary
study and the ‘CHASE ethos’. During the afternoon,
students and staff participated in action learning sets and
then met with an external speaker (Matthew Taylor, Chief
Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of
Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) prior to a reception in the
Courtauld Gallery. Student feedback indicated they thought
the event ‘energising and exciting’ and ‘very positive’, and
that they felt ‘supported and special’.
The Student Advisory Group (SAG) is also represented on the
TDG, alongside the CHASE institutional contacts, and was
closely involved in the planning for the second Encounters
conference which took place at Goldsmiths, University of
London in June 2015. Here the morning explored the nature
of doctoral training and the acquisition of key networking
skills. The afternoon consisted of student-led discussion
groups, particularly appreciated as they foregrounded
‘the chance to meet other students – either in one to one
conversations or small groups’. There was a real sense at
the event of a scholarly community being built, and the
conference was rounded off by an engaging presentation
from Bill Thompson (Head of Partnership Development at the
BBC).
Through the academic year 2014/15, the TDG has used
the Cohort Development Fund to launch four training
programmes: ‘Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age’,
‘Material Witness’,’ Intimacies’ and ‘Oral History for
Public Culture’ (launching in autumn 2015). Planned to
work alongside the existing training offered by CHASE
institutions (to which the cohort also have access), these
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CDF programmes have been enthusiastically-attended
and well-received. ‘Intimacies’ consisted of a series of
interdisciplinary workshops exploring the way in which
different creative and critical practices impact upon the
representation of the personal. ‘Arts and Humanities in the
Digital Age’ taught students how to integrate sophisticated
digital methodologies and media with discipline specific
research questions, and featured hands-on sessions with a
number of external partners (such as the British Library UK
Web Archive). ‘Material Witness’, which introduced students
to the complexity and excitement of interrogating objects of
all types, took place in a range of external venues including
Canterbury Cathedral and Albion Quarries, Portland.
Students particularly appreciated the exceptional breadth
of the programme, with one declaring it ‘one of the best
experiences of my PhD so far’.
These CDF training programmes were backed up by online
provision via the CHASE VRE, and the TDG has also been
involved in approving the first placements with external
partners. Additionally, our Academic Fund has enabled
students to take a wide range of skills development courses,
including Russian language and culture, oral history, digital
scholarship, public speaking, and researching cultures in
the field. Looking ahead, new CHASE associate members
Birkbeck and SOAS are both now represented on the TDG
and are keen to assist in the development of new and
innovative training for delivery in 2016 and beyond.
Dr Paul Lawrence
Chair of Training & Development Group
October 2015
“
CHASE fosters an environment encouraging arts and
humanities doctoral researchers to engage with organisations
outside of academia; in the cultural sector and beyond. ”
Partner engagement
CHASE partners are planning to contribute to training for CHASE funded students.
The National Archives plan to re-run their Postgraduate Archival Skills Training (PAST)
programme. The British Library are currently developing a range of PhD placement
opportunities for 2016, to which CHASE students will be encouraged to apply. The
Victoria and Albert Museum are hoping to make their doctoral training, currently
focused on collaborative doctoral award students, available to CHASE students.
The British Library hosted a CHASE training day in May 2015 on the CHASEcommissioned Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age training programme. Canterbury
Cathedral hosted a workshop on the history of books and manuscripts as part of the
CHASE-commissioned Material Witness training programme.
Bloomsbury hosted a recent meeting for CHASE staff and students working on a
CHASE handbook. Bill Thompson, Head of Partnership Development at the BBC, gave
the keynote address at the CHASE Encounters conference in June 2015. Bloomsbury,
the BFI, the British Library and the Victoria and Albert Museum are hoping to make
their doctoral training, currently focused on collaborative doctoral award students,
available to CHASE students.
CHASE is in contact with all strategic partners to maximise the mutual benefits of
our partnerships.
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Placements
CHASE fosters an environment
encouraging arts and humanities
doctoral researchers to engage with
organisations outside of academia;
in the cultural sector and beyond.
This year we have supported
CHASE funded student Catherine
Hoggarth (University of Kent) to
start a placement with the Corinium
Museum in summer 2015. Catherine is working with
museum curators to redevelop their collections and
improve visitor experience at the museum. This
experience will complement her PhD research on the
‘Bridges and cities of Rome’. Johanne Porter (University
of East Anglia) plans to start a placement at the British
Museum in January 2016, working with the museum’s
curator of ‘medieval coinage’.
A number of CHASE funded students are targeting our
strategic cultural partners. Emily Bartlett (University of
Kent) has discussed an Editorial placement in a meeting
with Bloomsbury. Stephen Fortune (University of
Sussex) is in contact with Intel Labs to discuss potential
projects, Fred Francis and Rebecca Pope (both
University of Kent) sent placement proposals currently
being considered by the Victoria and Albert Museum
and British Library respectively. CHASE students are
also looking beyond our strategic partners. Phoebe
Patey Ferguson (Goldsmiths) is exploring developing
her current work with LiFT into a placement project.
CHASE funded students have successfully applied to
the AHRC International Placement Scheme. Eleanor
Careless (University of Sussex) and Emma Milne
(University of Essex) will be going to the Library of
Congress next academic year and Marc Farrant
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(Goldsmiths) will be going to the Harry Ransom Center.
They will represent the AHRC, CHASE and their
institutions whilst benefitting from privileged access to
resources and materials at these organisations that will
strengthen their research.
We have been particularly impressed by the ambition
of CHASE funded students. They are targeting our
strategic partners and national organisations but also
displaying an international mind-set. Peter Nicholls
(University of Kent) is doing his research in the
Seychelles and the CHASE team is helping him explore
working with the government to establish a museum at
a UNESCO world heritage site there.
CHASE ensures that placement projects are engaging
to students and host organisations by making
the process student-led. CHASE facilitates the
development of these projects whilst also highlighting
the opportunities available with our strategic partners
and the natural fit they have with the strategic aims
of CHASE. We expect that CHASE students will be
ambassadors for their institution, the consortium and
the AHRC, and encourage more students to develop
future placement projects.
Dr Steven Colburn
CHASE DTP Partnerships & Placements Officer
October 2015
Encounters
Encounters is the biannual conference
for the entire CHASE community.
The inaugural Encounters conference took place in
November 2014 at the Courtauld Institute of Art. The first
cohort of CHASE-funded PhD students and their supervisors
were greeted by the CHASE Director Vicky Lebeau. The
day continued when Alixe Bovey (Kent), Maria Lauret
(Sussex) and Jan Plamper (Goldsmiths) participated in a
panel and roundtable on the theme of ‘Interdisciplinarity
and Collaboration’. This discussion explored new ways
of conducting research in the arts and humanities and
encouraged the audience to break away from the traditional
conception of the ‘lone scholar’.
The next session was on the subject of working with non-HEI
partners. Kristian Jensen, Head of Arts and Humanities at the
British Library, spoke about what students could expect from a
placement at the British Library. The experience of a placement
was then explored from a different perspective by Kate De
Rycker, a PhD student on the ‘Text and Event in Early Modern
Europe’ (TEEME) programme at the Universities of Kent and
Porto, as she recounted her experiences of a placement at
Shakespeare’s Globe, London.
Throughout the day students took part in Action Learning
Sets, designed by Tim Le Lean, a leadership development
and organisational change consultant. These groups brought
together students from across the cohort and allowed the
participants to explore ways in which research collaboration
could take place across the borders of disciplines and
institutions.
The keynote address was given by Matthew Taylor, Chief
Executive of the Royal Society of Arts.
“...groups brought together students
from across the cohort... to explore
ways in which research collaboration
could take place across the borders of
disciplines and institutions.”
The second Encounters took place in June 2015, hosted by
Goldsmiths, University of London.
After a welcome, Paul Lawrence, Chair of the CHASE Training
and Development Group, introduced a session exploring
different strands of CHASE training. He and programme leaders
Francesca Benatti (Open University), Paddy Bullard (Kent)
and Andrea Phillips (Goldsmiths) reflected on the value and
importance of training and development for PhD researchers
and discussed the future of the arts and humanities PhD.
In the afternoon, the students organised two sessions called
‘We Built Too Many Walls’. These 60-minute sessions were
intended to help enable the development of thematic networks
across the cohort. For each of the sessions, students chose a
theme with a bearing upon their own research. They then spent
the sessions meeting with fellow students and were joined by
supervisors and representatives from CHASE non-HEI partners
in spaces that facilitated discussion and fostered connections
across disciplinary borders.
The final session of the day was a keynote address given by
Bill Thompson, Head of Partnership Development at the BBC.
Bill spoke about the impact of changing technology on the
research environment focusing particularly on those concerned
with the arts and humanities.
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Realising the vision
Since the AHRC announced the DTP award in November 2013, the CHASE
community has worked hard to make its collaborative vision a reality.
Student recruitment and selection
Sharing research
The CHASE Management Board designed and
implemented a thorough two-stage selection process,
ensuring that the very best projects were funded.
After the awards were made, the Board reviewed
the process, both to test whether the approach had
been the right one, and to suggest ways in which the
system could be streamlined. The second selection
round benefited from the introduction of marketleading application management software, which
reduced the administrative burden considerably.
The Management Board was able to provide 17
small grants to enable scholars from across the
consortium to develop subject networks. As well as
supporting ground-breaking research in areas across
the arts and humanities spectrum, and facilitating
cross-institutional it is hoped that these networks
will lead to further funding bids from CHASE.
New Members
Communications
Communicating with staff and students across
CHASE is a top priority for the team. A new website
was launched in October, followed by a monthly email
bulletin circulated to all involved with CHASE, which
gathers together news, notices and opportunities from
across the consortium. CHASE contributes to the
lively discussion on ‘academic Twitter’ as @CHASE_
DTP, and the Virtual Research Environment provided
by the Open University serves as an ‘intranet’ for
CHASE documentation, discussion forums and
online training courses.
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CHASE welcomed two new institutional members,
SOAS, University of London and Birkbeck,
University of London. Doctoral researchers from the
new members will participate in cohort training and
development from 2015-16. The new members are
fully integrated into the CHASE governance.
Working together
CHASE has enabled professional services staff
to meet and share best practice around doctoral
research support. As well as forming a close team
of administrative leads (many of whom are based in
doctoral or graduate schools), CHASE has facilitated
discussions between research support officers and
careers services. The benefits of the consortium
extend across the university community.
CHASE in numbers
In 2014-15 CHASE supported 73 doctoral researchers
University of East Anglia
University of Sussex
12
15
Open University
4
12
13
University of Kent
6
11
Courtauld
University of Essex
Goldsmiths, University of London
73 further awards were made to doctoral
researchers to start in 2015-16
48 CHASE-funded doctoral researchers
attended conferences in the UK, of whom 20
presented their work
22 CHASE-funded doctoral researchers
attended international conferences, of whom
12 presented their work
18 students undertook research visits
or fieldwork overseas
Students engaged with 27 non-HEI
organisations (including 10 of the CHASE
strategic partners) via training and placements
CHASE ran 27 days of training, attended by
55 funded students as well as 30 additional
beneficiaries
CHASE engaged directly with more than 200
faculty members as supervisors, training
leaders, committee members or through
subject network events
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15
www.chase.ac.uk
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