In the fifth edition of Beyond the PhD, we welcome Dr Beth Brockett, a Social Science Senior Specialist in Natural England (NE). Beth is a human geographer and in her current role, she provides social science evidence and related advice to colleagues within NE and broader within a growing team of social science specialists who…
Postgrad Life: The Blog
Postgraduate Events and Activities
This page brings together events and activities for post-graduate geographers organised by the 31 RGS-IBG Research Groups as well as external organisation. Want to add your event? Email rhed@rgs.org.
Belonging, Research and Changing the Narrative: In conversation with Iram Sammar
Iram Sammar is a PhD Student at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society – she is researching anti-racism and decoloniality in school Geography education in England, which will take an autoethnographic methodological approach. Iram is an experienced Geography school teacher and has taught in a range of secondary schools after completing her PGCE in…
Reflections on the Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2022
By Andy Harrod, Blog Coordinator The aim of this year’s Mid-Term Conference was to provide space for postgraduate researchers to think openly and collectively, in critical and reflexive ways, about the process and nuances of doing geographical research. In a time of ‘Zoom fatigue’, as a committee we were concerned about how a PGF tradition…
Beyond the PhD – A compassionate way of being in academia with Dr Sarah Bell
In the fourth edition of Beyond the PhD we welcome Dr Sarah Bell, a Lecturer in Health Geography at the University of Exeter. Sarah’s research “explores the role of everyday ‘nature’ encounters in shaping experiences of health, wellbeing, mobility and disability through the life course”. Sarah completed her PhD at the European Centre for Environment…
Academic Conferences: What to Expect and How to Prepare (The Unfiltered Version)
Dr Catherine Oliver is a geographer currently working with urban chickens and keepers in London at the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge. She published her first book, Veganism, Archives and Animals, with Routledge in 2021. Since 2018, she has been leading a project exploring academic conferences as sites of identity formation, exclusion, and power…
RGS-IBG Postgraduate Forum Mid-Term Conference 2022 – Schedule now live!
The schedule for this year’s PGF Mid-term Conference, entitled Postgraduate research in Geography: challenges and encounters in and beyond the field, is now available. The conference will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday 27th and Thursday 28th April, 2022, 10am – 5pm. You can download the schedule from here. If you haven’t already, you can also register…
Running a Reading Group and Creating Care Spaces during Covid-19
Olivia and Poppy share with us the joys and challenges of setting up and running an online reading group. Olivia Fletcher is an ESRC funded Human Geography PhD student at the University of Liverpool, researching young people’s use of self-tracking devices and the geographies of surveillance. Poppy Budworth is a Postgraduate Researcher in Human Geography…
Beyond the PhD – Pivoting in your Career with Dr Katy R Mahoney
In the third edition of this ‘Beyond’ series, we welcome Dr Katy R Mahoney VRDF RGSF, an accredited executive coach at Researcher Coaching. Katy provides specialist professional development and coaching for researchers and academics. Katy has a PhD in Geography from Coventry University. Here she writes for the Postgraduate Forum about the series of pivots…
(New) PG Researcher Wellbeing
As a new academic year begins and new starters aim to settle in, as well as those in the midst of their research consider a new year and possible returns to the office, I wanted to share some thoughts regarding wellbeing. I believe I am not alone when I say postgraduate research is challenging.