Category Archives: News
Images of Research 2025: voting now open!
The Graduate School’s 2025 Images of Research (IoR) is now open for ‘People’s Choice’ voting. This year we have a collection of 11 fabulous research images from across the university. IoR showcases research in a unique way – researchers produce an original image, which can be a photograph or artwork, and write a short, engaging summary describing how the image links to their research. This results in an exciting exhibition, showcasing UON’s research diversity.
To vote for your favourites, view the Images of Research Brochure, then choose your favourite two in the IoR 2025 Voting Form. Please vote for your favourite two in no particular order, taking into account BOTH the image and the abstract. As a guide, a winning image would be one that:
* Is visually appealing AND
* Has an accompanying abstract which is well written, clearly connects with the image and ensures viewers, who know nothing about the research topic, will understand and find interest in the research presented.
The People’s Choice closes on Monday 23rd June at 12pm Please note that there is only one vote submission allowed per person, and voting is restricted to the UON community.
We are also holding a second competition around Images of Research. Each year we invite guest judges to choose a winner. The winners of both competitions will be announced at the UON Research Conference at Waterside on Tuesday 24th June.
Good luck to all our entrants!
Images of Research 2023-24: Results!
Dr Cathy Smith, Dean of Research & Knowledge Exchange, announced the winners of the 2023-2024 Images of Research competition at the in person day of the Annual Research Conference on 25th June.
Out of a collection of 23 fabulous research images from across the University of Northampton, Lewis Collins and Sonika Divakar et al was chosen by guest judges, Dr Cathy Smith and Lorna Jowett, Professor of Media and Culture, as the overall winners of this year’s Images of Research with their image entitled ‘Interstitial Forms’. The Runner Up was Karen Anthony with her image entitled ‘How do you like your eggs in the morning?’.
A public vote where 115 members of the UON community voted for their favourite images saw Adil Farooq take home the People’s Choice award with his image titled ‘The Roots of Sustainability: Nurturing a Greener Future’.
IoR showcases research in a unique way – researchers produce an original image, which can be a photograph or artwork, and write a short, engaging summary describing how the image links to their research. This results in an exciting exhibition, showcasing UONs research diversity.
We would like to thank everyone who participated by sending us an image, and extend a massive congratulations to the winners!
All images and abstracts can be seen in the catalogue below.
UON Researchers showcase inspirational research at Annual Research Conference
UON’s Annual Research Conference 2024, “Strength in Diversity”, held on June 25th and 26th, featured a diverse range of inspirational and impactful research, showcased over a 2-day event. The first day, in-person at Waterside, kicked off with a research artefacts exhibition where people were encouraged to touch the exhibits; play games, wear scarves, look into microscopes and read a range of books authored by our researchers. Dr Cathy Smith, Dean of Research and Knowledge Exchange, opened the conference and announced the winners of the annual Images of Research Competition. Lewis Collins & Sonika Divakar won the Judge’s Vote, with a runner up place to Karen Anthony. The Public Vote competition was won by Postgraduate Researcher, Adil Farooq.
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UON Research Conference 2024 – call for submissions deadline extended to 13th May!
The call for submissions for our Annual Research Conference is open to all researchers at UON, so whether you are a PGR student, an early career or more experienced researcher you can apply to present your research on Tuesday 25th June (on campus) and/or on Wednesday 26th June (online). You have the choice of a 15 min oral presentation, chairing a round table discussion, facilitating a workshop, presenting a 20/20 Pecha Kucha (20 slides, each for 20 secs!), designing a research poster/infographic for an online collection or submitting an artefact/object for a ‘touch the exhibits’ display on campus. You can enter as many of these categories as you would like. The call closes at midnight on 13th May. To enter read on…..
Read the rest of this entryWelcome to the Academic Year 2023-24!
This year we have an exciting line up of transferable skills workshops planned for you as we continue to populate the Gateway Calendar with new and repeat sessions, confirming facilitators and dates for the autumn.
Dr Kate Mahoney will be joining us to deliver two different webinars, one on ‘High Intensity Productivity: Maximising the impact of short time periods or opportunities for progress’ in September and, in January, ‘Writing your thesis so your examiner can read it’. New workshops also include ‘Working with Long Documents in MS Word’, ‘Times Management Tips for PGRs’, and ‘Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding’. There is also a new workshop on getting feedback scheduled for November. Our repeat workshops include ‘Reference management in Zotero’, ‘Preparing for a successful Transfer’ and ‘Preparing for the Viva” the latter two of which would be added shortly so keep an eye on the Gateway Calendar. To help you plan your career we are running ‘Career Management Skills for Researchers’ in September, the first of 3 careers support webinars specifically designed for PGRs.
Already in the calendar are the dates for the Development Days on Campus, such as the ‘Finishing’ Development Day, though some are still to be assigned content. We recommend that you look through the dates in advance and plan for the ones that you would like to attend. Development Days are full days on campus, filled with exciting workshops, and give you the opportunity to network with your fellow PGRs.
Do take a look at the calendar (you may be asked to log into Gateway) and check back regularly as new workshops are still being added. Book your place on a workshop by clicking on the green button on the workshop page. Get in touch with Simone if you have any questions about or suggestions for the skills development programme. We would love to hear from you and are open to suggestions for new workshops and webinars.
If you are a PGR student and would like to talk to someone about the upcoming academic year please get in touch with us via graduateschool@northampton.ac.uk. We wish you a pleasant and productive academic year and we look forward to seeing you at our programmes!
BFWG Annual Academic Doctoral Awards 2023
The British Federation of Women Graduates (BFWG) Academic Awards for outstanding academic excellence
Closing date is 5pm on Friday 3rd March 2023.
BFWG Research Presentations Day
This one day meeting in London, on Saturday 13th May 2023, is a good opportunity for postgraduate doctoral students to present their work to a general audience with a small prize offered for the best presentation.
Follow each link above to documents with more information. For further information wisit the website BFWG – The British Federation of Women Graduates or email awardsqueries@bfwg.org.uk
Student Union Elections are open for nominations
Postgraduate Researchers are encouraged to take part in the nominations for the SU Executive Team – for all roles, including a part time Postgraduate Research Students’ Officer. You can read more about it at the link above.
The Officers have regular meetings with decision-makers at all levels of the University and the Students’ Union, including the Vice Chancellor, and sit on some of the most important committees that have a direct impact on your experience as a student.
As well as this opportunity, the Graduate School are also looking for Representatives to sit on some of our Research Degree and Ethics boards. If you are interested in doing this please contact Matthew McCormack.
The nominations are open! Key Dates around Elections
Nominations Open Monday 13th February 2023 at 9am
Nominations Close Sunday 26th February 2023 at 5pm
Voting Opens Monday 13th March at 9am
Voting Closes Wednesday 15th March 2023 at 2pm
NVivo license renewal codes
We would like to let you know that the new license renewal code is available for NVivo. NVivo is a software program used for qualitative and mixed-methods research. Specifically, it is used for the analysis of unstructured text, audio, video, and image data, including (but not limited to) interviews, focus groups, surveys, social media, and journal articles.
The information is posted in Student Hub where you can download the software and find the license code. If you have downloaded NVIVO in the past you may be able to use the new license code without a new download being required. For new uses, the downloaded package will include the installation file for Nvivo. If you have any problems downloading this software, then please phone IT Services – www.northampton.ac.uk/unit or 01604 89 3333.
Graduate School Workshop No-Shows – active from January 2023
The Graduate School is implementing a no-show policy for signing up to but not attending workshops that will take effect from January 2023.
We understand that plans change, and that you might no longer be able to make it to a workshop or an event you thought you would like to attend. The aim of the policy is not to discourage you from registering for events you might be interested in. Instead, if your plans change, we ask that you simply let us know that by cancelling your registration.
Read the rest of this entryCall for Abstracts – Journal Of Imaginary Research Volume 8
The call for fictional abstracts for the 2022 Volume of the Journal of Imaginary Research is open!
The Journal of Imaginary Research is now accepting submissions of new short fictional pieces for their annual volume produced each November to celebrate Academic Writing Month. The Journal publishes short works of fiction in a familiar format—that of the research abstract. Follow the link above for the why, what and how of making a submission.
Read more: Call for Abstracts – Journal Of Imaginary Research Volume 8The 2022 theme
This year the theme is ‘service’. It’s an old word that first related to ceremony or worship, like a church or wedding service. Servants are engaged in service, but so too are leaders. Service means giving time or performing duties for a person, idea or cause. There is sometimes a sense of loyalty, duty and length, but also the quick and easy service of consumerism, of waiting tables, selling with a smile, emotional labour. It’s a word deployed by the armed forces and department stores. We can service abstract things like education or science, people, institutions, or appliances like washing machines. It is both a euphemism for sex and also the word used to describe delivering a ball over the net to start a game of tennis.
The Journal would like you to interpret the theme in your own way so that your submission relates somehow to service.
A key aim of the journal-zine is to encourage academic colleagues to embrace writing simply for enjoyment, as an act of care, or as a reflective act. The Journal also hopes that reading and writing their imagined works, will bring an enjoyable diversion into your work lives.
The deadline to submit is 5pm Friday 2 December. More information and details on how to submit can be found here. Previous Imaginary Research abstracts are available here.
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