Last year, for the first time, the College of Arts and Law ran a PGT Research Placement scheme where Taught Postgraduate Students could assist academics on projects and develop as academic researchers. Four projects ran on a wide range of topics, from Wetlands Archaeology to Medieval women and the book, all from research centres within the College of Arts and Law.
The activities the students on the placements undertook last year included setting up web pages, social media accounts, and mailing lists as well as supporting the COVE grant applications for the 19th Century Studies Centre, which were all carried out by Harriet Walters (a former UG Research Scholar). Other activities included helping the Centre for Modern British Studies run their conference ‘MBS 2017’, being part of the editorial process on a collaborative paper, and helping to draft a Heritage Lottery Fund application to support the ‘Selly Oak activism’ project. As the ‘Selly Oak activism’ project had an undergraduate research scholar, the Placement holder, Jacob, was able to mentor and support them as well. If you’d like to see more about what one of last year’s placement holders did then go and check out Adnan Khan’s blog posts for the Centre for the Study of the Middle Ages (CeSMA).
This year the scheme has been expanded to ten projects with any academic in the College of Arts and Law now able to put in a proposal. Applications for academics close on the 18th of March and we will be opening applications from students to the successful projects in late April. These placements involve working for up to ninety hours, to a maximum of 15 hours a week, as a proper job alongside academics on a research project over the summer. There are no restrictions on which projects you can apply for, but make sure that you read carefully the job description and required skills sections for your chosen project to make sure you fulfil all the criteria the academic will be looking for. As with the Undergraduate Research Scholarship scheme (UGRS) you’ll only be able to apply for one of the projects, so make sure you know which one you want to apply to and that it is the best application you can submit!
The 2018 PGT scheme will also run in much closer co-operation with the UGRS, as some projects will have both a PGT and a UG. This will ensure that those on the PGT scheme will benefit from the UGRS’s developed structure which includes research skills training, meet-up events, and from having the opportunity to help mentor the UGRS students. There is a dedicated canvas page with useful information and advice which all successful applicants will be invited to and there will be events across the summer to help you get the most out of the scheme, including the best ways to use your experiences in future applications.
This year we will be encouraging the students who are awarded a placement to showcase the activities they undertook, whether that is through a reflective report, a blog post, a poster or even a short video. These will be displayed at the celebration event after the placements have finished so that you will get a real sense of what you and your fellow placement holders have achieved.
We’ll be announcing which ten projects we are running and opening them to students’ applications in April so make sure to keep an eye out for announcements about it then or on the PGT Research Placements page. In the meantime if you have any questions contact me (Edward Mushett Cole – PG Student Experience Officer) at e.j.mushettcole@bham.ac.uk.