Professor Barbara Simpson, Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, hosted a workshop funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) that was open to postgraduate research students from across Scotland on September 5 and 6.
The workshop was led by Professor Simpson and Professor Ann Cunliffe who is Professor of Organisation Studies at Fundação Getulio Vargas-EAESP in Brazil, and ably supported by two of Strathlcyde’s own PGR students, Anne Augustine and James Bonner.
The theme of the workshop was ‘Designing rigorous and reflexive research’, giving participants the opportunity to explore in some depth what reflexivity is, what it has to do with research in general, and how it might arise in their own individual research projects. An audio podcast about this event will be published on the SGSSS website.
Recognising the university’s commitments to sustainability, the organisers were keen to apply some practical initiatives in the organisation and running of the workshop to reduce its environmental impact. James Bonner commented, “In particular, and in consultation with Sustainable Strathclyde and the university’s in house catering service Nourish, we developed a mixed vegan and vegetarian menu for all meals, while we sought to ensure waste was minimised by requesting only reusable crockery and utensils to reduce consumption of single use plastics. With very positive feedback from workshop participants about the quality and variety of the catering provision, while recognising the sustainability efforts we had incorporated, we would hope that such practice can be applied in future events.”