Festival of Research 2023

Silhouette of a face on a green background

Monday 22 May – Friday 2 June 2023

Festival of Research is an annual series of events committed to stimulating discussion around topics of interest to the researcher community and a platform to showcase research and future plans, celebrate successes and facilitate networking opportunities. 

Co-convenors Professor Iain Docherty, Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies and Professor Rachel Norman, Dean of Research Engagement and Performance, are delighted to share plans for this year’s Festival, which will take place from Monday 22 May to Friday 2 June with sessions spread across the 2 weeks to provide a greater opportunity for colleagues to engage with the programme.  

“Our aims for Festival 2023 are to encourage awareness of the diverse nature of research taking place at Stirling; enable collaboration both internally and externally; and provide a platform to embed the principles of strong leadership in research and enhance our research culture.  This year we are focusing on interdisciplinary research and our current and future research which contributes to reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We are interested in both established projects and new ideas,“ - Prof Rachel Norman. 

Sign up for events by downloading the Festival of Research programme below.

Programme

The Opening Plenary (Monday 22 May) and the Research Culture Awards (Friday 2 June) are confirmed dates.
 
The programme will also include a series of events dedicated to research at Stirling and expressions of interest are now open. To showcase the breadth of research and relevance to international challenges the 17 Sustainable Development Goals have been grouped into 6 main clusters aligned with recent IAS studentship clusters:

  • Healthy Living and Ageing
  • Improving resilience and finding solutions to conflict in an era of unprecedented change
  • Deploying rationality, reason, and risk management to support equality and human rights
  • The role of heritages, legacies and mobilities in understanding socio-economic transitions in space and time
  • Behaviour change in our approach to food and healthy eating
  • Novel methodologies to support future research and better-informed policy

We are interested in showcasing established projects and building on the collaborations and new ideas emerging from the IAS studentship clusters and welcome contributions from all active research staff and postgraduate research students. 

Contributions to the research focussed sessions will be in the format of a three-minute thesis style presentation (one slide in 3 minutes) - submissions for expressions of interest are now closed.

Research Culture Awards 2023

First introduced in 2020 by Prof Rachel Norman, Dean for Research Engagement and Performance, the Research Culture Awards are a way to recognise and encourage collaborative and supportive behaviour by celebrating staff members who demonstrate good role modelling across the career spectrum; increase visibility of efforts and place value in often-hidden contribution; and to create a shared understanding of what we value at Stirling.

The Festival will conclude with the Research Culture Awards on Friday 2 June and are an opportunity to collectively celebrate examples of good research culture as an institution.

PGR Images of Research Competition

The Images of Research competition offers postgraduate researchers an opportunity to showcase their research in a creative and innovative way.

All that is required to enter is to compose an image (photo, graphic or illustration) and submit it to us with a short supporting description, explaining your image and how it captures your research.  

From your entries, the Images of Research panel will decide on a set of finalists and Judges awards, People's choice awards will be decided by a public vote to win cash prizes. All finalist entries will be displayed as part of the Festival of Research in May and presented in the competition brochure. Finalists will be invited to attend prize-giving during Festival of Research.

Submissions for the PGR Images of Research Competition are now closed. For full information see our Images of Research competition page.

Further details

Updates on Festival plans and links to register will be released closer to the event. For any questions on the Festival of Research please contact ias@stir.ac.uk.