April 2016
On 22 and 23 March 2016 the British Conference of Undergraduate Research was held in Manchester. Some of our LSE students who participated in LSE GROUPS 2015 were there presenting their research, which was very well received.
March 2016
Reachout Research is a new initiative delivered jointly by Dr Will Venters from the Department of Management, the LSE Volunteering Centre and the LSE Teaching and Learning Centre. Based on the idea that many MSc students need access to organisations to carry out their research and that third sector organisations have research needs/questions but not the resources to fulfil them, it aims to connect students working on their MSc disseration thesis with organisations looking for high quality research.
MSc students can find out more, and information about how to apply, at LSE CareerHub's Reachout Research page.
February 2016
Posters in Parliament
Undergraduate research is increasingly an integral part of students’ educational experience at LSE and, happily, the opportunities for showcasing it beyond the School are growing too.
On 2 February, two recent graduates from LSE shared their research at ‘Posters in Parliament’. Organised annually by the British Conference of Undergraduate Research, the event brings together undergraduates from dozens of UK universities to present their work visually and conversationally to MPs, academics and members of the public in the Palace of Westminster.
The posters presented by Sophie Donszelmann (BSc Government) and Matthew Pennill (BSc Government and Economics), based on their third year dissertations, attracted a lot of attention. Sophie’s work focused on ‘Social movements against mining in Guatemala: a case study of static political cultures and fluid civil societies’. Matthew's study, ‘Expectations, preferences and voter turnout: an application of prospect theory to the calculus of voting,’ was an exploration of the application of behavioural economics to voting behaviour. Both Sophie and Matthew were on hand to answer questions about their research, and to discuss the wider implications and applications of their findings.
LSE staff from the Department of Government and the Teaching and Learning Centre were also in attendance to find out about the outstanding undergraduate research taking place across the UK. You can listen to Sophie and Matthew talk about their projects in a podcast available at the LSE Department of Government blog.
January 2016
HEA report co-authored by Dr Claire Gordon published
A Higher Education Academy report written by our own Claire Gordon and UCL’s Dilly Fung has been published. Rewarding educators and education leaders in research-intensive universities (PDF) analyses promotion and reward practices across the UK’s Russell Group institutions to address whether and how those practices are changing to meet the needs of such institutions in the coming years.
Claire shared some of the report's early findings in a post on the LSE teaching blog, 'The future of research based education', late last year.