All 10 entries tagged Culture

Attending the Third International Conference on Sustainability Culture

An early start for a truly international event on sustainability culture is well worth the effort

This morning I had a super early start…at 4am…in order to be up, ready and chirpy enough to attend the 3^rd International Conference on Sustainability Culture#mce_temp_url#. This event, hosted by Dr Theodoor Richard and the National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan was, naturally, running on their local time for an afternoon’s event. While I’ll confess it was a bit of a challenge to rouse myself to alert status in the dead of night [1], I was really glad I did – not least because the event ties into a future special issue of Exchanges.

Mostly I was delighted to be there because the speakers and topics of discussion were fascinating ones. Perhaps I was a little spoiled because the topic of sustainability and environmentalism have long been close to my heart, but it was superb to hear such a variety of topics and insights too. The speakers were drawn from around the world, although I believe I was the furthest west of all the delegates for once. A refreshing change! Thankfully, most of the speakers are going to be (hopefully) appearing in the special issue, so it’ll be a pleasure you’ll all be able to enjoy once that comes out next year.

The event opened with a welcome from Professor Jen Ming-Song, a university dean of our hosts for today. This was followed by a keynote talk from Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Scott (WSU, Australia) who spoke with such a casual but engaging style that I found myself quite envious of his aplomb. Geoffrey shared many thoughts about enabling sustainable cultures within higher education institutions, and how to affect change from both a top down and bottom-up approach. As someone with a long and storied career his candid insights were useful – especially when it came to dealing with and influencing your university vice-chancellor (or similar) and their often-entrenched perspectives![2]

This rousing intro was followed by four shorter papers from Duncan Furquhar, Maria Giovanna Cassa, Graham Wood and Lucy Sabin. The topics were varied, from soil carbon capture to ethnographic studies of permaculture in Sardinia, through philosophical considerations of ‘sustainability culture’ and finally a fascinating look at the fusion of art and science in an over-agrochemicaled world. There was something to consider or be enlightened by in each of these talks, and I think what I liked the most was how genuinely interdisciplinary this made the event. Indeed, it reinforced for me that the topic of sustainability culture is an excellent match for Exchanges’ publication mission too.[3]

After a short break we went into an hour-long discussion, drawing in the other eager participants as we explored contrast viewpoints – not least of which being the tensions between expansion versus contraction as a key aspect of sustainability. Alongside this there was naturally, no pun intended, the extant tensions between industrialisation, expansional and economic factors vs traditional, local, and desirable lifestyles. There was much debate around agency and power relations, a long-time keen interest of mine, and while there was some common ground among the delegates, there’s also a fair bit of disagreement on where (and with whom) the power for change lies: be it the economic overlords, political actors or strongly networked communities.

For me, I certainly think one of the key takeaways from the discussions was that while much of is what is traditional (be it in agriculture, society or life in general) IS sustainable. Yet, the tensions arise, and the environment is impacted, because these aspects are not scalable or even maintainable at current levels. Food production and related security issues being just one such exemplar of this concern.

As I say, this was an excellent event and with lots to chew over for everyone in attendance – me certainly among them. I shall be reflecting on the lessons for some time, and no doubt once the special issue comes to publication, there will be more to be said by scholars better informed on the topics than I!

My thanks to Theodoor and colleagues for organising the event, and of course everyone who contributed to it!

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Endnotes

[1] I was up with my alarm, but how I made breakfast and tea beforehand, was pretty much on autopilot.

[2] Strong resonances here with our Research Culture issue(s) too.

[3] For more of my thoughts on the event – see the @ExchangesJournal Bluesky profile, or indeed follow the #tag #SustainabilityCulture.

Gareth Johnson : 26 Nov 2024 10:41 |  Tags: Conference Culture Event Icsc Issue Special Sustainability Taiwan |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Episode: Teacher Practitioners as Researchers

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

A second episode promoted by the research culture special issue of the podcast is released.

After many months of it being rather quiet on the podcasting front, I’m genuinely pleased we seem to have moved into a fruitful period of production. With the third episode in as many weeks now live, listeners have a chance to take a deeper diver into the paper by Elizabeth Hidson (Faculty of Education and Society, University of Sunderland) which featured in our research culture special issue just over a month ago. Elizabeth, or Liz as she prefers, works in the area of educational research and teacher training, with a particular interest in international teaching experiences.

Listen in here: International Teacher Practitioners as Researchers: In Conversation with Elizabeth Hidson [24:21]

Her paper (Developing a Research Culture with Trainee Teachers on International Initial Teacher Training Programmes) talks about ideas of installing research culture ideas into a community of practitioners who might not normally consider themselves as ‘researchers’. As such, our conversation looks at the challenges she and her students face, not least of which come from the changing environments, perceptions and insights which arise when we step outside our western educational cultural norms.

We move on then to talk about some of Liz’s other work and forthcoming publications, touching on I’m pleased to say ideas around the benefits of open access publishing – to authors and readers around the world. Naturally, we also explore some of Liz’s experiences in publishing, and the advice she has to offer others approaching their earliest formal publications: not least of which being her suggestion to ‘find your tribe’ in creating an effective research discourse.

I hope you enjoy the episode, because I’m recording three more episodes next week – so there’s plenty more to come this year in terms of episodes. And naturally, if you’re a past author of Exchanges and keen to appear as a guest to talk about your work and publications, then get in touch, as we’d love to have you on the podcast show!

Gareth Johnson : 09 Oct 2024 15:20 |  Tags: Culture Episode New Podcast Practitioners Research Researchers Teachers |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Attending the International Research Culture Conference 2024

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/research/ncrc/ircc/

Second research culture conference is a time to celebrate and look to the future.

Yesterday I went along as Exchanges Chief Editor to attend the second International Research Culture Conference(IRCC '24), hosted at Warwick once more. As readers will remember at the 2023 event we launched our collaboration with the National Centre for Research Culture and the work began towards producing our first research culture special issue. That came out last month, and if you haven’t read it yet – you really should.

Yesterday was a chance, alongside listening to a range of informative and engaging speakers, to celebrate this publication a little. More importantly thought it was a chance to announce the call for the next research culture special issue – arising from this year’s conference. That, and of course my call for more associate editors to get involved. Delegates to the event will soon have a mailshot with more information about that.

It was a long day, but another one where I spent most of the moments between sessions talking to various delegates about the journal, our plans and how they can get involved. My thanks to everyone who stopped by our stall for a little chat – and I hope you enjoyed our little bits of promotional merchandise too. And my thanks to the NCRC for working with us once again in launching this second exciting issue call.

Next up though, my focus will be swinging firmly back onto the MRC @ 50 special issue – coming very, very soon to your screens.

Gareth Johnson : 17 Sep 2024 09:23 |  Tags: 2024 Conference Culture Ircc Issue Launch Ncrc Research Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Research Culture Special Issue Goes Live

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/99

August brings with it the biggest ever issue of Exchanges

I was writing my Linked.In post about the new issue of Exchanges, and I realised for once there was no hyperbole in what I was writing. I am most certainly genuinely thrilled to announce the culmination of 11 months of work with some fantastic authors and editors to bring our first ever Research Culture special issue to publication. You can read the issue with its 32 articles inspired by or drawn from the International Research Culture Conference (IRCC) 2023 here:

• https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/99
• (or once the DOI has fully registered - https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v11i3)

I am also not exaggerating when I say there are some very preeminent scholars, thinkers and practitioners represented in this issue, which makes it all the more exciting to have them in our pages. Working with the editors, and of course our issue partners at the National Centre for Research Culture (NCRC) at Warwick has been a lot of hard work, but mostly a very efficient process. While this is a HUGE issue (and achievement) it has by no means been the most challenging special issue to have worked on, and for that I am grateful.

While this publication marks the culmination of nearly a year of activity, I’m already in the early stages of preparing the way for the IRCC ’24 conference and the special issue which we’ll be producing from that too. Thankfully that issue will be 12 months from now, and I’ve around 4 or 5 other issues to support in the meantime (MRC@50 especially as that’s hopefully coming out next month). Will the next issue be as big – or as Prof Kita Sotaro (NCRC Director) suspects even bigger? I can’t say for sure right now, but going on my experiences with this one – it wouldn’t be much of surprise if it is!

Guess I’d best get recruiting some more associate editors soon then…

Naturally, my gracious thanks to the NCRC, all my editors and every single contributing author for their efforts!

Gareth Johnson : 08 Aug 2024 10:38 |  Tags: Announcement Culture Issue Publication Research Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sustainability Culture: Announcing Special Issue Call for Participation

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/announcement/view/61

Our latest international special issue collaborative project launches

Delighted to formally announce once again we're making a call for expressions of interest for a future special issue of the Exchanges interdisciplinary research journal. This time the theme is on and around ideas of Sustainability Culture. This is a topic which gloriously resonates with or earlier volumes on the Anthropocene and climate fiction, not to mention being a domain where interdisciplinarity is absolutely at the core of related research.

I am especially excited as we are preparing this issue in collaboration with the National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR), Taiwan. My special issue lead, Theodoor Richard who has previously published with us, is almost as delighted as I am by this issue – so we both have high hopes for some excellent pieces to appear in it. Interesting the impetus for this special issue comes from a highly successful series of conferences run at the NCHU/CANR in ’22 and ’23 (and forthcoming in 2024), so we have been able to specifically invite contributors to these events to submit work for consideration. However, the call is open to scholars around the globe, giving everyone a great opportunity to get involved and contribute to what is sure to be an exciting volume.

As a result, Theodoor and I have high hopes that we'll be able to incorporate some challenging, heterodox, cross-disciplinary and non-Western perspectives within this volume. Naturally, as with all special issues we shall have to wait and see who will be appearing in the pages, as we are currently waiting on expressions of interest, before we move to invite full submissions.

You will be able to read the full call via the link at the bottom of this post, but the key dates you might want to remember are:

• Expressions Deadline: Sunday 16th June 2024.
• Paper Submission Deadline: Sunday 15^th September 2024

As always, we invite emails with questions or points of discussion with potential authors at any point during this process.

• CFP: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/announcement/view/61

Gareth Johnson : 11 Apr 2024 10:53 |  Tags: Announcement Call Collaboration Culture Issue Papers Special Sustainability |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Special Issue Call Launch (Almost) Closes Research Culture Conference

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/special-issues

Second special issue launch for September sees the focus turn to research culture.

This week saw the hosting of the International Research Culture Conference 2023 at the University of Warwick. Naturally Exchanges was in attendance, and not simply to listen to the fascinating range of talks and speakers. This conference, which was open to attendees around the UK and across the world, followed a more local event which was hosted in 2022 for Warwick staff. The success of this event plus moves at Warwick in founding its National Centre for Research Culture, demonstrated the value in throwing the doors open to the wider community – and hence the broader remit of this event.

From the journal’s perspective of course, the most important development revolved around the Centre and Conference partnering with Exchanges to produce a special issue. This will be, we hope, launched over summer 2024 with content based on and around the papers delivered at the event. Hence, towards the conclusion of the conference[1], I was able to address the delegates to formally announce the opening of the call for participation.

Now, while Exchanges relatively brief talk [2] the conference’s end was naturally a focus for your Chief Editor, I was there throughout the day on a stall. This gave me the opportunity to talk to various delegates and prospective authors about Exchanges, our work and importantly how they can contribute to the special issue. I’m delighted to report I enjoyed a considerable number of highly energised conversations with some lovely, and thoughtful, colleagues and look forward to continuing some of these over the coming weeks. Even more so I am looking forward to reading the submissions as they come in.

Now, as the special issue will capture the discussions and presentations, and as other material is available on the conference site itself, I won’t try and recreate the event from my notes. That’s certainly something you will be able to enjoy without my filter. Nevertheless, I am sure there will be many other delegates with something to say, so keep an eye out on social media for initial reflections from the event.

In the meantime, my thanks to Prof Sotaro Kita and Dr Rika Nair for their invite to collaborate on this special issue, not to mention participate in Warwick’s ongoing research cultures work.

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For more information on the special issue, and its call for papers, contact the Editor-in-Chief at exchangesjournal@warwick.ac.uk or see our announcements page. A copy of the call for papers is now available.

Endnotes

[1] I wasn't quite the final talk, as there was an address from Warwick's Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), Prof Caroline Meyer, which formally closed the event.

[2] I was offered 10 minutes, but suggested a modest 5 with questions would be best. Certainly, at the end of a long day, when I’m between the delegates and freedom, I didn’t think it was a good idea to build my part up too much.

Gareth Johnson : 27 Sep 2023 10:43 |  Tags: Call Culture Issue Participation Research Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

New Special Issue in Research Cultures Announced

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/research/supporting-talent/research-culture-at-warwick/

A new special issue project represents an exciting long-term collaboration between the journal and Research Culture programme.

We are delighted to let you know that we have partnered with Warwick’s Research Culture programme and the forthcoming Research Cultures Forum to produce a special issue. This issue, which we hope will mark the first of a series of annual collaborations, aims to comprise a range of critical reflections drawing on the sessions and speakers contributing to the conference. The conference itself is to be held Mon 25^th September 2023, details of which can be found via the link above.

One reason I am especially delighted to announce this collaboration, is due to the centricity of research culture work at Warwick at the moment. Personally speaking, research cultures were the area which triggered my PhD studies a decade ago – in my case relating to open access publishing habitus of scholars in the UK.

Naturally myself and the rest of the Editorial Board are looking forward enormously to working closely with the Research Cultures team over the coming months. With any luck, the issue itself should be out in the first half of 2024, and naturally I’ll be updating readers about progress both here, in the journal editorials and our monthly newsletter too.

Meanwhile in the background, the reviewers, authors, associate editors and myself are working feverishly to bring you the long-anticipated Pluralities of Translation special issue in the latter half of 2023. More concrete news on that exciting issue, as soon as I know more.

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For more on special issues and how they come about - visit our IAS pages. Or to see the past and future special issues programme, see the journal site itself.

Gareth Johnson : 04 Jul 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Announcement Collaboration Culture Issue Research Special Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Planning Peer–Reviewer Development & Future Training

Discussions and planning point towards a potentially exciting new endeavour in peer-review training for active researchers.

Yesterday, on a sunny drenched forecourt of Warwick’s fabulous arts building I had the pleasure of a lengthy and exploratory chat with my sometime collaborator – and collage as research expert – Dr Harriet Richmond. Over the last year I’ve co-facilitated a session for Harriet’s early stage researcher programme, around the areas of peer-review and editing, and it is always a pleasure to talk over professional matters with her. Albeit with the occasional segue into tangentially related topics too! I should note, each of the sessions this year was a wonderful and eye-opening opportunity to exchange insights with the delegates around their own publishing experiences – and my thanks to them all for their contributions.

Yesterday’s meeting arose on the back of these sessions, but more broadly is looking towards something which is loosely or even more directly aligned with Warwick’s increasing focus on developing effective research cultures [1]. What we were discussing was in fact our plans for future publishing related training – and specifically that relating to the topic of peer-review. One thing that’s been evident in our discussions with delegates this past year around peer-review is how clearly there is a need to offer some form of development or training for researchers, especially those earlier in their careers. However, that doesn’t mean they’re the sole potential audience!

Most of we scholars, when we perform peer-review early in our career, and are especially lucky will find a friendly editor willing to spare a few moments to offer some guidance. More likely many of us will be left reading a journal’s online reviewers’ guide and simply conducting ourselves as professionally as we can. I can say as a journal editor over the years the variance between practices I’ve witnessed from peer-reviewers has been considerable, although virtually everyone who’s contributed to the journal has risen to the challenge admirably.

What Harriet and I are thinking about here is producing a training session – or sessions – which takes a broader look at the wider realm [2] of peer-review. I should add, that currently the whole enterprise is very embryonic at best, and the focus of our discussions yesterday was to find if such an enterprise would be worthwhile, and what elements we’d both like to explore within it. Hence, yesterday's meeting saw us bounce around our outline ideas, explore a bit about how we might seek to formulate an effective session and especially identify those key areas we think would comprise a valuable, impactful and interesting session. Thus, while currently absolutely nothing is set in stone – not even how I’m writing peer-review [3] –as I said in my note to Harriet this morning the session clearly has ‘legs’. That is to say, a strong potential to be well-received by our researcher community.

Thankfully though, we’re looking to develop this session – as part of a broader envisaged developmental programme – over the next year rather than rush to present it after the summer. Partly, this is because as reflexive practitioner scholars, Harriet and I want to let the content develop organically – something which requires time, introspection and internal debate. Additionally, it also gives us both space and time to perform some background research into the literature and praxis of peer-review. As this is something I’ve been meaning to give over some serious time to for a while, it is nice to have some greater motivation now!

I anticipate too I may well ‘field-test’ some elements of the potential session within my own anticipated [4] training schedule over the next 12 months. This will be useful in using live subjects – sorry, delegates – to help refine, refocus and augment the content and emphasis of the session to better meet scholar’s authentic needs.

As always, watch this space – and elsewhere – for more news on this exciting and I interesting proposal as it develops. Naturally, if anyone reading wants to share their thoughts on peer-review training, related dynamics and normative practices, you are warmly invited to use the comments below. Alternatively, if you prefer, drop me a line and arrange a chat as I am always happy to hear from those reviewers on the front line about their experiences: especially those reviewing for titles which aren’t Exchanges…

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Endnotes

[1] Watch out for something exciting relating to this in an announcement next week.

[2] Dare I say field, in a Bourdieulian sense? Yes, I probably can.

[3] Peer-review or peer review? Is it a personal preference or should I be following strict grammatical rules? Your answers on a postcard too…

[4] My event, workshop and teaching diary for academic year 23/24 is looking very spartan currently – I’ve only one event fixed. So, I’m open to offers or requests…

Gareth Johnson : 15 Jun 2023 09:09 |  Tags: Collaboration Culture Peer-Review Programme Research Training |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Special Issue Call Announced Nerds, Culture and Loneliness

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/announcement/view/20

Hopefully by now you’ll have seen the announcement from Exchanges about our latest call for papers. This time we’re teaming up with SOAS and the University of Oxford to produce an issue with papers which ‘explore fictional representations of nerds and loneliness across various media and culture’. Naturally, those of you who know me in real life, know this is a topic very close to my heart and lived-experience. Unlike earlier calls, we’re only seeking abstracts in the first instance (300 words by 6^th April), so hopefully this’ll net us a rich range of potential contributors.

If you’ve been keeping track, this represents the third of our special issues we’ve formally launched preparations towards: with the recently published Cannibalism issue being the first and the pending CliFi issue the second. Interestingly, with each of these issues we’ve followed a slightly different pattern for submissions. For Cannibalism, we had a preselected number of authors who had already contributed to a conference, who were directly invited to submit. For CliFi, while we were associated with last year’s European Utopian Society’s conference in Prado, the call for contributions was very much open to any scholar globally. This time we’re almost blending these prior approaches, by starting with a call for abstracts, which will be followed by a workshop event (in early 2021), and then expecting contributors to the workshop to contribute a paper to Exchanges’ special issue.

In many respects, I think this last model may be my favourite, as it embeds Exchanges in the workshop processes and discourse from the outset. It’s not to say it’ll be the only model we’ll use in the future. I’d be lying if I suggested that. Certainly though, given a free hand with future collaborative special issues, I’d hope we can emulate as many elements as possible of this approach, as I believe it’ll serve to offer dividends in thematic coherency and editorial efficacy alike.

I should note at this point, my big thanks to Dr Filippo Cervelli (SOAS) and Dr Benjamin Schaper (Oxford) who came to me with this proposal a few months ago, and following some enthusiastic discussions on both sides, have helped guide us to this point. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what sort of material this call elicits, and working with Filippo and Ben over the months to come.

Gareth Johnson : 03 Mar 2020 12:13 |  Tags: Abstracts Culture Deadline Issues Nerds Special Submissions |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Special Issues are Like Buses

Behind the scenes at Exchanges right now we’re working hard on preparing for the launch of our first ever special issue, scheduled for very early in 2021. We’re also on the cusp of closing the call for contributions to our second special issue, but it’s not too late (yet) to submit! Meanwhile, I had the pleasure this week to travel down to meet with a couple of friendly academics from SOAS and the University of Oxford (hello Ben, hello Filippo), who wanted to propose a third special issue of Exchanges. This is rather exciting as while we’ve been thoroughly enjoying working with the Warwick and Monash scholars in preparation for the first two special issues, this time the approach has come from outside of Warwick and the IAS’ direct collaborating institutions.

We’re still in the process of finalising the exact theme, although I can reveal that broadly it will fall into the area of ‘interdisciplinary representations and evolutions of narratives of loneliness and nerds’. As a somewhat geeky nerd at heart [1], this rather appealed to me on a personal level. Moreover, the underlying plans to tie this proposed issue into a mid-2020 symposium and ongoing research work from an intrinsically diverse research community forms an especially welcome prospect. Diversity, in terms of geographical origin, research domain and seniority are also another core component of the proposed issue, which should add a wonderful diversity of voice, insight and opinion to the issue.

Incidentally, for Exchanges, working with these scholars absolutely resonates with our desire to continue to evolve away from our early Warwick-centric roots, and become a more integral part of the national and international early-career researcher publishing culture [2].

There’s also the additional bonus, that we will likely be able to engage with external post-graduate researcher communities to join us as associate editors for this issue. Hence, this very much matches our second core mission, to enable developmental experience within scholar-led publishing practice for emerging scholars. It also answers our third, and oft unnoticed, mission – to experiment and explore new publishing models and patterns that are attractive to our contributor community. Someone should really remind me in the new year to get round to formally publishing more about our experiences in this domain.

For Exchanges, this development chimes agreeably with our shift in 2019 towards publishing special issues. We have, in the past, published themed sections, but I strongly believe through offering these focussed individual issues, we’re witnessing the slow evolution of the journal into its second phase of existence. As our esteemed Institute Director, Prof Peter Scott said this new development is very much ‘Taking things to another level again’. It’ll also keep me surprisingly and gainfully busy alongside the day to day running of the title, I can assure you.

That said, it is currently early days for this third special issue. Indeed Ben and Filippo’s anticipated timescales are such that we’re likely looking towards a 2021 publication date, something which seems a vast time away right now, but doubtless will be upon us all before we know it. I’ll continue to update our readership and contributor community of developments as we move in to 2020.

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[1] Something painfully obvious I’m sure to anyone who’s met me in the flesh, or listened to one of my (near) countless science fiction podcasts and videos!

[2] I include those scholars I’ve worked with on the other two special issues as well, it’s been a wonderful experience for myself as well as (I hope) for them.

Gareth Johnson : 28 Nov 2019 13:06 |  Tags: Culture Issue Loneliness Nerd Oxford Soas Special |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem