Geography & Environmental Science Seminar Seminar

Rachel Houweling - Population, Health and Wellbeing, School of Geography and Environmental Science
Title: Parenting Places (and a pandemic)

Geographers have a long-held interest in the places of parenthood; how they are experienced, how they shape parenting behaviours and how they change over time.  This research is interested in how places of parenthood influence parent mental health and wellbeing amongst people raising children/ hoping to raise children in the UK and what inequalities may exist.  "Plan A" had been collaboration with a mental health service, but the COVID-19 pandemic made this unfeasible.  Methods changed in response and the first phase, using social media data, will be presented.  The presentation will include an overview of the ethical decision-making process used to develop the method.  It will then share preliminary findings from early analysis, which reveal many pressures experienced by UK parents (before and during the COVID-19 pandemic) and barriers to support.

Jon Lawn - Environmental Change and Sustainability, School of Geography and Environmental Science
Title: Supporting international research collaborations: reflections and recommendations from GCRF GROW programmes

Programme support staff from the GCRF Grow programmes reflect on the role of project support activities and how they contribute to the overall success and impact of a multidisciplinary international partnership. In October 2019 programme managers from all 37 GCRF Grow programmes were offered the opportunity to respond to a survey on their experience in providing project support across the six GCRF reporting areas . Detailed responses were received from 14 programme managers. Four themes emerged from the survey: culture and context; organisations; working in teams; and communication and interaction.

We address each theme in turn, highlighting what worked well and the challenges faced by GCRF Grow programmes – as the pioneer cohort; identifying successes and issues spanning the project design, initiation and implementation stages; and concluding with recommendations in each case. It is hoped that the lessons distilled from these experiences will be of use to future applicants to GCRF calls (both in the UK and overseas) who are looking to build international collaborative partnerships that go beyond traditional research.

Speaker Information

Rachel Houweling - Postgraduate research student within Geography and Social Science Department at the University of Southampton

Jon Lawn - BRECcIA Project Manager within Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Southampton.