Connecting Research

Videographic Research Summer School - Closing Date for Applications
2025-01-15
The H&C Research Theme and the Screen Work Group are pleased to announce our fourth Videographic Research Summer School at the University of Reading, July 7th – 11th 2025. After successful workshops in previous years – which have included participants from Pharmacy, History, Archaeology, Theatre, Museums and Collections, Modern Languages and English Literature – we welcome expressions of interest from UoR colleagues working in all discipline areas who would like to develop their skills in making video essays.
Applications
If you are interested in taking part, please complete this EOI before the 15th January.
The form confirms your availability for the dates and duration of the workshop (July 7th – 11th 2025), provides us with information about your research context and proposed object of study, and addresses the potential for working with audiovisual approaches in this area.
Context
The digital reworking of sound and image is an exciting and rapidly developing research practice. This summer school is designed to make these methods available to colleagues at Reading across a variety of disciplines and research areas. Our ambition is to develop the videographic skills of researchers beyond film and television studies, where these approaches are now firmly established. We believe there are significant and underexplored opportunities in applying videographic approaches to research projects in every discipline, including collections-based research.

The Summer School
The workshop will take place in Minghella Studios, July 7th – 11th 2025. It will involve:

basic technical training in non-linear editing and related technologies
producing and sharing feedback on a series of exercises in response to briefs designed to engage with different aspects of video essay form
discussion of existing video essays and debates in the wider field of videographic scholarship
reflection on videographic analysis and archival material
planning a longer audiovisual essay, with opportunities for feedback later in the year

Participants will nominate and work with an item of audiovisual material or material object relevant to their research, as a means of ‘testing out’ how to develop critical ideas through editing. No prior experience or equipment is required (computers with appropriate software will be available at the workshop).
The workshop will be led by H&C APVC Research John Gibbs, an award-winning video essayist with extensive experience of teaching videographic criticism and FTT Lecturer in Filmmaking Andrew Philip, a documentary maker with 20 years of experience working in postproduction. It will also draw on expertise from colleagues in the wider videographic field, including Screen Working Group Director Adam O’Brien.

Testimonials
“The workshop exceeded my expectations! It was one of the best weeks of my professional life. I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“The workshop has opened up avenues to rethink project design, and project delivery. The videographic method allows also for a wider dissemination, and I like that a lot. In this sense, the workshop has extended my perception of reach and research design.”
“This was the most productive skills event I have encountered during my almost 15 years of working at the University. Its tight focus, collegiality, mix of academic and practical expertise, and its lecturer-centered approach were especially welcome.”
“The workshop surpassed my expectations and enabled me to develop new skills which will be useful in both teaching/research. The atmosphere was very supportive, constructive and encouraging. It was also beneficial to be able to engage with colleagues beyond my department and breakdown the silos that can characterize research at a university.”
“I had already heard from colleagues that the workshop was awesome. I have to say that the workshop went well above my already high expectations. It has been one of the most transformative and elevating intellectual experiences of the last few years.”
“I had been slightly worried that it might be beyond my technical capabilities and that the theoretical frames of such work might be too grounded in film theory and in disciplines beyond my area of expertise, but I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that the approach has a much broader range of applications and breadth of relevance. I would encourage people from any disciplinary background to try these approaches.”

Explore videographic methods…
If you are not yet familiar with video essays, these examples may help to illustrate the exciting potential and variety of the approach:
The Elephant Man’s Sound, Tracked (Liz Greene): A deep archival dive into sound design, David Lynch and creative-labour politics.
Creative Geography, Creative Connections: Candyman (John Gibbs): Explores the two films’ (1992, 2021) engagement with their location and the politics of urban space.
Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German colonial Namibia (Forensic Architecture): this extraordinary video work by the Goldsmiths team and their partners in the Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation indicates some of the potential of videographic approaches in different fields.
Nerdwriter on The Night Watch. We have significant reservations about this one – feeling it’s too pleased with itself and its claims to knowledge – but it does illustrate some of the kinds of analysis one might offer on an object / work / material in another medium.
xena’s body (a menstrual auto-investigation using an iphone) Watch this on your phone! An embodied investigation of the politics of menstrual tracking apps, among other things.

UoR - Natural History Museum - Evolution Day
2025-02-04
You are invited to a day of in-person talks and discussions with colleagues from the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Division, and the NHM’s Evolution of Life Theme – and the broader Science Group.
The aim of this event is to help us all learn more about our shared interests and expertise in the evolution of life, with the goal of initiating new collaborative projects between the NHM and Reading.
This event will be held on the Whiteknights Campus at the University of Reading on Tuesday 4 February 2025.
Please see here for more information and to register interest.

Where Context Matters: Multi-factor Research to optimise Resource Protection | My Climate Risk Interdisciplinary Learning Group
2025-02-10 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/London)
Managing protection areas efficiently and effectively to ensure resource protection is a difficult task. This session will highlight the different factors that play into developing these protection strategies. By understanding how distance costs affect both extractors and enforcement strategies, managers can enhance the efficiency of their protection measures. The work discussed serves to ultimately inform policies on buffer and no-take zones, promoting a balance between resource dependence and conservation efforts, highlighting the importance of context in empirical economic research.

Link:

https://walker.reading.ac.uk/my-climate-risk/interdisciplinary-reading-group/mcrilg-elizabeth-j-z-robinson/

Speaker note:

Professor Elizabeth Robinson is Director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. She is an environmental economist with over twenty-five years’ experience undertaking applied policy-relevant research, particularly in lower-income countries, including six while living in Tanzania and Ghana. Her research addresses the design of policies and institutions to reduce climate change emissions, protect the environment, and improve the livelihoods of resource-dependent communities. Her recent focus includes climate change and systemic risk; and tracking the co-benefits of climate change mitigation and health, oriented particularly around food security and food systems. From 2004-09 she was coordinating lead author for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, sub-Saharan Africa; and a Member of the global and sub-Saharan Africa design teams. She was on the UK Defra Economic Advisory Panel for five years; and in 2019-20, Specialist Advisor to the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health, and Environment. She was Working Group 1 lead for the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change (2016-2024), that addresses climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability. Before joining the Grantham Research Institute, Elizabeth worked at the University of Reading for ten years, and prior to that she has variously worked at the Boston Consulting Group, the World Bank, Rockefeller Foundation, Natural Resources Institute, and as a tutorial fellow in economics at the University of Oxford. She has a first class degree in Engineering, Economics, and Management from Oxford University, and a PhD in Applied Economics from Stanford University.

Translations’ copyright/translators’ copyright: a history of power imbalance in the Italian book trade
2025-02-13 17:00 - 18:00 | Edith Morley, 124
Speaker: Anna Lanfranchi – Teaching Fellow in Translation & Transcultural Studies & Italian at the University of Warwick

This research seminar is a hybrid event and is free & open to all.

To join us in person come along to Room 124, Edith Morley building, University of Reading (Whiteknights campus)
To join via MS Teams, please register here

Seminar topic:
In the second half of the 19th century, international legal frameworks gave to the authors of literary works a new level control over the translation and publication of texts across national borders. While recognising the status of translations as original works in their own merit, authors and translators faced different challenges in the rapidly changing transnational landscape. Drawing on research on the post-Unification Italian publishing industry, the paper discusses the different treatment of translations’ and translators’ copyright in the first half of the 20th century, and explores the consequences of such power imbalance for the structural and professional development of the Italian book trade.
About our speaker:
Anna Lanfranchi is a Teaching Fellow in Translation and Transcultural Studies and Italian at the University of Warwick (UK). Her research focuses on transnational book history from the 19th century to the present day. She has published on Italian translation and publishing history, wartime book programmes, and intellectuals in the book trade. Her first monograph, Translations and Copyright in the Italian Book Trade: Publishers, Agents, and the State (1900-1947) (Palgrave 2024) explores the legal frameworks and the professional networks informing the negotiation of translation rights to British and US works in Italy in the first half of the 20th century.

Details

Date:
February 13
Time:

5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Venue

Room 124, Edith Morley building, University of Reading (Whiteknights campus), RG6 6EL

Richard Bradley Lecture - The Past in the Present by Professor Laurent Olivier
2025-02-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Henley Business School, Room G11, Henley Business School, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
The Department of Archaeology is excited to welcome Professor Laurent Olivier of the French National Museum of Archaeology to deliver our inaugural Richard Bradley Lecture. The archaeological past continues to occupy the present, even though its time has long since passed. This talk will explore the idea of ‘transformission’, whereby the archaeological past is transformed as it is transmitted. It will also consider how the ‘Great Acceleration’ – the rapid increase in human activity which began in the mid-twentieth century – is crushing both past and future into a dead-end present.
Can archaeology, which restores the memory of people and places, become a tool of resistance the age of devastation introduced by the advent of the Anthropocene? This lecture will be held in honour of Richard Bradley, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology, whose work has transformed our vision of the archaeological past. We hope to see many of you there!
For more information contact: d.j.garrow@reading.ac.uk

Digital Humanities Reading Group
2025-02-17 13:00 - 14:00 | Edith Morley, 181
For this session, we invite you to read and bring your thoughts on one or both of ‘Bias in Big Data, Machine Learning and AI: What Lessons for the Digital Humanities?’ (a journal article by Andrew Prescott) and Klara and the Sun (a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro). You are very welcome to join us for a chat, even if you haven’t yet had the chance to read/finish the material. We would love to hear your thoughts on the theme of Artificial Intelligence, to hear about what you have been reading recently, and to know what you would like to read next or to see from the group in future. Please feel free to also bring your lunch!

The role of public engagement with research in REF2029
2025-02-20 10:00 - 11:00 | Palmer Building, Room 102, Palmer Building, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
Join the first Public Engagement with Research Community of Practice meeting for 2025!
We’re thrilled to welcome Sophie Duncan, Co-Director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE), for an interactive presentation on “The role of public engagement with research in REF2029”.
📅 Date: 20 February 2025
⏰ Time: 10:00 – 10:50
📍 Venue: Room 102, Palmer Building, Whiteknights Campus (and on Teams)
This session will explore:

UKRI policy and funding council priorities for Public Engagement with Research.
How PER will be integrated into REF2029 (People, Culture & Environment and Engagement & Impact elements).
Insights on fostering high-quality, impactful engagement activities.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A/discussion session chaired by Academic Champion for PER, Teresa Murjas.
Whether you’re a researcher passionate about PER, an academic with responsibility for REF, or a professional services colleague, this is a fantastic opportunity to gain insights from one of the UK’s leading experts in public engagement.

International Mother Language Day 2025: Linguistic Diversity in Reading
2025-02-21 18:00 - 19:15 | L22, G01, London Road campus
Find out more about which languages are most commonly spoken at the university and in Reading.
The Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism invites you to celebrate International Mother Language Day at a public lecture on 21 February 2025, where we will showcase and celebrate language diversity in Reading.
The event will start at 6pm and take place on the University’s London Road campus. We will share the results of our survey capturing the languages that Reading residents and University staff and students speak. We will also showcase our research projects and staff and student “linguistic journeys”, and do a linguistic bodymapping activity that everyone will be invited to take part in.
Attendance is free and everyone is welcome. If you wish to attend please register here.

Last year the centre collaborated with our community researchers to mark the day and brought together local people to celebrate Reading’s linguistic and cultural diversity through song, dance, poetry and other activities.

DIGITAL SPACE WORKSHOP - Digital Humanities Community of Practice
2025-02-26 11:00 - 14:00 | Whiteknights campus, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, RG6 6AH, United Kingdom
DIGITAL SPACE WORKSHOP – Wednesday 26 February 2025
Exploring Digital Space – Fostering Interdisciplinary Collaborations and Grant Preparation
The Digital Humanities CoP and Hub are hosting an upcoming event centred around the theme of Digital Space which aims to serve as a platform for developing strategic partnerships, encourage innovative ideas, and lay the groundwork for future grant applications. We invite interested colleagues from all disciplines to attend the event to discuss their work, to foster interdisciplinary collaborations and cultivate synergies between academics and our museum partners.
What is Digital Space?
Digital spaces may represent, interact with, or perform similar functions to, physical spaces. They may be virtual environments, and/or platforms for interaction, communication and collaboration. These spaces include digital repositories and archives, online communities and social media platforms, digital (re)constructions and virtual worlds, e-learning and collaborative working environments, and more. Digital spaces play a crucial role in social interactions, knowledge exchange, and cultural expression, while also raising important questions related to privacy, security, ethics, and governance.
The following examples indicate the type of thematic areas that could be considered under the Digital Space theme.
· Theoretical frameworks for understanding digital spaces
· The impact of digital spaces on social interactions, community building, and networks
· The design, architecture, and user experience of virtual environments
· Ethical considerations and privacy challenges in digital spaces
· The role of digital spaces in education, learning, and public engagement
· Artistic expression and the cultural significance of digital environments
· The intersection and blending of physical and digital spaces in museums, heritage, and the arts
· Policy-making, governance, and regulation of digital spaces
· Case studies involving museums and cultural institutions’ use of digital space
· Digital political space
· Threats posed to and by digital spaces
· Relationships between digital and physical spaces (replication, preservation, augmentation, competition…)
· Language for, and in, digital spaces
How to respond
We are inviting all attendees to do a short presentation to introduce themselves and address the following points:
1. What ‘Digital Space’ means to you.
2. An outline of any research, publications, collaborations (etc.) that you have already done in this field.
3. Your ideas for future activity in this area, including collaborations, expertise and knowledge that you need to find or identify.
If you would like to attend the workshop, please send a brief outline (up to 100 words) to cover the points above to Dr Mara Oliva (m.oliva@reading.ac.uk) by 1st February 2025.
Event Details:
Date: 26 February 2025, from 11.00 to 14.00 (coffee/ tea and lunch included)
Location: Whiteknights Campus
Format: Flash presentations followed by breakout sessions designed to facilitate networking and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Future Collaboration Opportunity: This event will be followed by a one-day Action Lab in June 2025, where participants will have the opportunity to further develop collaborative projects and prepare for upcoming grant proposals.
We look forward to hearing from you and sharing ideas at this workshop!
The DH CoP and Hub

'Since Yesterday - the Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands' Screening | Women@Reading
2025-03-06 13:00 - 15:30 | Minghella Building, Minghella Cinema, Whiteknights Campus, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
FTT colleagues Simon Knox and Trish Reid, together with the Women@Reading Network are hosting a special screening of a film of ‘Since Yesterday – the Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands‘ a 2024 documentary that tells the story of Scottish pop music from the 1960s onwards, via interviews with the visionary women who got on stage and made music together.
Join us in Minghella Cinema for a screening of the film, plus a Q&A panel with one of those visionary women, Prof. Trish Reid, Head of School, for Art and Communication Design, followed by tea/coffee. The Q&A will include Matt Worley. Robert is funding the refreshments. Press Team will be doing something to promote wider to the local community.

Watch this small trailer to find out more about the challenges faced by these women when working in the music industry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOYYmM7e0sw&t=7s
You can book your ticket here – for the showing on Whiteknights Campus
Women@Reading: Since Yesterday – The Untold Story of Scotland’s Girl Bands Tickets, Thu, Mar 6, 2025 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

Open Research and Digital Humanities
2025-03-12 13:00 - 14:30 | Palmer 103
This is a hybrid event.

The Digital Humanities CoP and Hub, in collaboration with the Open and Robust Research at Reading (ORRR) network, invite you to a lunchtime event on the theme of Open Research and Digital Humanities. The event will include a guest talk by Dr Christopher Ohge (Senior Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature at the School of Advanced Study, member of the University of London’s Open Research Group and School of Advanced Study’s Digital Humanities Research Hub) and a Q&A session. Tea/coffee will be available for those attending in person.

Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence | Community of Practices joint event
2025-03-12 13:00 - 14:30
More details to follow!

Through a decolonising lens? Exploring the connections between 'bereavement and grief' and the climate and ecological emergencies
2025-03-13 13:00 - 13:50 | Online event
You are warmly invited to an online Human Geography Research Cluster seminar on Thursday 13th March, 1pm- 1.50pm (Teams link for joining below).
Through a decolonising lens? Exploring the connections between ‘bereavement and grief’ and the climate and ecological emergencies.
Jane McCarthy, Honorary Associate, The Open University; Visiting Professor, Centre for Death and Society, Bath University; Visiting Fellow, University of Reading.
Abstract
The impact of the climate and ecological emergency creates a central threat regarding the polycrisis currently unfolding across the globe, rooted in colonial, capitalist, white, modernity. While many peoples across the world already experience catastrophic ‘losses’ of many kinds, the polycrisis gives rise to global issues of collective and individualised deaths, profound losses and endings of many kinds, raising existential threats to all life on earth. These are ’human’-made crises, though not made equally by all ‘humans’, requiring a sustained focus and concern, of and for the living, in both the anticipation and the aftermath of these deaths, losses, and endings. Yet, while death and bereavement studies as constructed in affluent Minority worlds has claimed an arrogant universality, the narrative and rhetoric of modernity is most profoundly challenged by human mortality. The Open University programme on Existential Dis/Connections aims to bring currently disparate bodies of work into connection, centring on our three core themes of death and loss, the CEE, and decolonisation. We seek to create new spaces for nurturing and embracing both epistemic and ontological justice, to enable a pluriverse of cosmologies, and ways of being and living alongside death, to be valued and heard through a decolonising lens that starts from ‘elsewhere’. Can death studies decentre the current dominant approaches rooted in modernity, to contribute towards an existential climate justice for the benefit all life and entities on earth?
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Disturbing the dead: Climate change and the potential relocation of Swedish cemeteries
2025-03-27 13:00 - 14:00 | Sorby Room, Wager Building
You are warmly invited to a Human Geography Research Cluster/ Global Development Research Division in person (Sorby Room 115, 1st Floor of Wager Building) / hybrid seminar (1-2pm on 27/3/25).
Disturbing the dead: Climate change and the potential relocation of Swedish cemeteries
Roger Marjavaara, Umeå University, Sweden.
Abstract
This presentation focuses on the contradiction of mobility and immobility in relation to interred human remains. While society generally embraces human mobility, once individuals pass away and are disposed of, mobility ceases to be the norm. Some counties, like Sweden, has a rigid burial legislation that prohibits the re-location of interred human remains. However, both society- and climate-related events are increasingly affecting the eternal rest of the deceased. Utilizing quantitative data on all cemeteries in Sweden, this study aims to assess and analyse the potential magnitude of future large-scale moves of human remains due to expected impacts of climate change, and to put this into a relational context of norms and laws. Results show that climate change poses an apparent risk to cemeteries in Sweden.
Biography
Roger Marjavaara is associate professor in human geography at the department of geography at Umeå University, Sweden. The main focus of his research is the driving forces and consequences of human mobility. Here, temporary mobility, or tourism, is of special interest, especially second home tourism and its impact on places and people. Dr. Marjavaara also has an interest in production and reproduction of places, and retail geography and mobile consumers. Further, post-mortal mobility is another field that has attracted his research attention.
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Colonies, Hives and Queens: Insects and Colonialism flash talks and discussion session
2025-04-03 10:00 - 13:00 | Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum, London, for 3rd April 2025 (10am–1pm, Flett Theatre)
Speakers and titles of flash talks
Diogo de Carvalho Cabral (History, Trinity College, Dublin), ‘At the Mercy of Ants: Colonial Anthropocentrism, Insect Agency and the Making of Brazil’s National Identity’
Sabine Marie Clarke (History, University of York), ‘Poisons, Productivity and Power: Making a Pest of the Desert Locust’
Rohan Deb Roy (History, University of Reading), ‘The White Ant’s Burden: Entomo-political Complex in British India’
Beulah Garner (NHM, Entomology), ‘“Our Boy has many Beetles”: Colonial Attitudes towards Describing the Insect Diversity of Central America’
Andrea Hart (NHM, Special Collections), ‘Insects in Art and Archives: A Quick Fly through of the Natural History Museum’s Library and Archive Collections and Resources’
Fiona Melhuish (The Museum of English Rural Life/Special Collections, UMASCS, University of Reading), ‘Bees Around the World: the Cowan Bee Book Collection at The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading’
Andy Polaszek (NHM, Entomology), ‘Are Post-Colonial Settlements now Fit for Purpose?’
Sue Ryder (NHM, Entomology), ‘Overview of the Entomology Historical Collections with regard to Exploration under the Auspices of Empire’
Jonathan Saha (History, University of Durham), ‘Of Bedbugs and Beri-Beri’
Claire Smith (Cole Museum of Zoology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading), ‘A Tanzanian Lucky Dip: Eric Burtt’s Collecting in Colonial East Africa’
All NHM and University of Reading Staff are welcome to attend. There will be an option to attend virtually, please put your email address into the registration form, to make sure you receive the link. To give us a broad sense of numbers please register here.
The Partnership can cover travel expenses for those who wish to attend in person, please register in advance.

Innovation Seminar Series 2025 | Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence
2025-04-03 11:00 - 12:00 | Edith Morley, G44

'Passages' Screen: Reading Latin American and Caribbean Network
2025-05-08 16:00 - 18:00 | Minghella Building, Minghella Cinema, Whiteknights Campus, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
And the excitement continues on 8th May: at 4pm Reading Latin American and Caribbean Network (R-LAC) are organising a screening of Passages (Nagib & Paiva, 2019) in the Minghella Cinema, followed by a Q&A with (our very own) director Lúcia Nagib and guest Tiago de Luca (Warwick), then conversation over refreshments. It’s very good!
Join us at the Minghella Cinema at the University of Reading, on Thursday 8th May 4pm, for an exclusive screening of the award-winning film Passages by Prof. Lúcia Nagib . This captivating 96-minute essay-documentary will be followed by an engaging Q&A session with our special guest, Dr Tiago de Luca from the University of Warwick. Check further details of the film and the event below and on R-LAC website.
Dive deeper into the making of this remarkable film and explore the rich tapestry of Brazilian culture. After the screening and discussion, we invite you to continue the conversation over pizza and drinks at the Green Room.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to enjoy a thought-provoking film and lively discussion in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
We look forward to seeing you there!
The R-LAC committee.
PASSAGES (directed by Lúcia Nagib and Samuel Paiva, UK, 2019)

Synopsis

Positioning itself between the essay and the documentary forms, the feature-length film Passages showcases a selection of Brazilian films in which intermedial devices, that is, the utilisation within film of artforms and media such as literature, painting, theatre, music, photography, radio and television, appear to function as a ‘passage’ to political and social reality. It interweaves these filmic examples with interviews with 15 exponents of the Brazilian film industry, including 11 filmmakers, one editor, one music composer, one producer and one curator, all of whom are strongly connected with what became known as the Retomada do Cinema Brasileiro, or the Brazilian Film Revival, starting in the mid-1990s, which brought back to the agenda the question of national identity and Brazil’s lingering social issues. The flourishing and diversification of independent filmmaking from the 1990s onwards favoured not only a new approach to reality, but also an emboldened use of the film medium that acknowledged and exposed its inextricable connections with other art and medial forms. Though the 1990s Film Revival involved production centres all over Brazil, Passages focuses on film practitioners from São Paulo and Pernambuco, who established a creative collaboration across the geographic, economic and cultural borders of their respective regions.

Interviewees (in alphabetical order)

Tata Amaral – Film director, producer, screenwriter
Hélder Aragão (DJ Dolores) – Composer, film director
Cláudio Assis – Film director, producer
Beto Brant – Film director, producer, screenwriter
Paulo Caldas – Film director, producer, screenwriter
Vânia Debs – Film editor, academic
Ana Farache – Curator, photographer
Lírio Ferreira – Film director, producer, screenwriter
Marcelo Gomes – Film director, screenwriter
Hilton Lacerda – Film director, screenwriter
Fernando Meirelles – Film director, producer, screenwriter
Kleber Mendonça Filho – Film director, film critic, screenwriter
Renata Pinheiro– Film director, art director, screenwriter
Adelina Pontual – Film director, producer, screenwriter
João Vieira Júnior – Film producer

Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence | Innovation Seminar Series
2025-05-13 11:00 - 12:00 | Edith Morley, 226
Come along!
This seminar series will continue on Tuesday 13th May from 11:00 – 12:00 in Edith Morley 226 and joining us will be Dr Maria Zachari, Deal Integration and Separation Manager at GSK. Maria will be speaking about her experience of transitioning from academic to industry research and within industry to a more commercial role. She can also give some insight into academia-industry engagement. Maria completed a PhD at the University of Dundee and has an MBA from the Quantic School of Business & Technology (WA, USA). Early in her career she took part in the YES competition, which influenced her career path. Please find her LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-zachari-lkd/
It would be immensely helpful if you could sign-up to the event (even if you intend to be online) so that we can have an idea of numbers: https://forms.office.com/e/brbhqhdtHB
What to expect
All staff and students across the University very welcome! These friendly in-person/hybrid seminars will look at the benefits of innovation from the perspectives of our speakers, many of whom started out as researchers at the University of Reading or are still here now! Speakers will talk about how their research and careers have been shaped and enriched through innovation, with time for questions and networking at the end.
Did you know?
Innovating, or taking a new idea and creating positive real-world impact and/or value, has many benefits for you and your research. Through innovation, you can learn new entrepreneurial skills and knowledge which will support you to secure research funding. Getting involved in innovation can also give you access to additional funding sources for your research, and through external partnerships, you can new perspectives or ideas for where to take your research next.
Future Dates:
We are so excited to tell you that this will be a series of seminars across the year, running from April to October. We will be back in touch with specific dates for these upcoming seminars, but we are pleased to announce that we will be joined by the following:

Dr Sam Decombel – CEO – Fitness Genes (former UoR PhD student), June 2025
Drs Oliver Hancox, Sarah Needs, Chris Jone and Jon Gibbins – founders of UoR spin-outs Astratus and HaemAnalytica, July 2025

Plus, more to announce!
We look forward to seeing you all there!

Making (slowly) as method in socio-environmental research?
2025-05-15 13:00 - 14:00
You are warmly welcome to join our online Human Geography Research Cluster seminar, in which Laura Pottinger, University of Manchester will present:
Making (slowly) as method in socio-environmental research?
In this talk, I draw on emerging ideas about ‘patchwork ethnography’, an approach mobilising the often multi-sited, fragmented, non-linear character of ethnographic research in practice. I share early findings from an extended six-year study that uses a range of creative and material methods to explore environmental understandings and people-plant relationships in the practice of natural textile dyeing. I ask how the ‘soft’ metaphors of piecing, steeping and stitching might be useful for cultivating gentle, creative and slowly-paced methodological praxis.
Biography:
Laura Pottinger is a research fellow in cultural geography at the University of Manchester. Her research is interested in everyday forms of social and environmental activism, people and plant relationships, craft and cultivation. She draws on creative, participatory and ethnographic methodologies to explore these themes. Her current fellowship research works closely with textile artists and makers to consider the potentials and challenges of slow making.
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Community Festival 2025
2025-05-17 | Whiteknights campus, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, RG6 6AH, United Kingdom
The University’s Community Festival returns to Campus this year on Saturday 17 May 12-5pm.
The Festival brings together local residents, alumni, community groups and small businesses for a programme of live music, theatre and performance, community stands, crafts, street food and research activities.
Last year’s research programme included a research exhibition featuring stands with hands-on activities, children’s talks, and research talks. The activities were popular and well received by both visitors and participants, and this year’s Festival aims to expand on these activities and attract new audiences.
Find out more here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uQiY7tLS_o

3rd Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing Post Graduate Symposium
2025-05-29
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing is delighted to announce the 3rd CBCP Post Graduate Symposium, scheduled for Thursday, 29th May 2025. This is an opportunity for PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers to present their research, engage in discussions on Book Cultures and Publishing, and connect with a broader academic community within the University of Reading (CBCP) and beyond.
This year’s symposium will explore the intersection of translation, cultural exchange, and linguistic diversity in print cultures. We invite PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers to submit abstracts for 15-minute presentations on topics related to this theme, including but not limited to:

Book production and distribution on a global scale

Readership in global and multilingual contexts

The printing and publishing trade in international and multilingual contexts

Comparative book history, typography, and design

The materiality of text and image (including digital formats) in translation or from comparative perspectives

Technologies (including AI) and their impact on translation, typography, and linguistic diversity

Translation as a profession: translators’ working conditions and role in the publishing industry, crediting and copyright, translators as mediators, advocates, scouts and agents.

The deadline for the submission of the abstracts is Monday 24th March 2023. Abstracts should not exceed 350 words in length (references and bio excluded) and should include short bio of candidates, mentioning their affiliation.
Confirmation of acceptance will be sent to delegates by the second week of April.
This is a hybrid event. There is no cost to attend. Lunch and refreshments will be provided for in-person attendees.
Abstracts should be submitted by sending an email to the cbcp@reading.ac.uk. Any queries should be addressed to Emma Page (e.d.page@pgr.reading.ac.uk) and Cristina De Luca (c.deluca@pgr.reading.ac.uk).

Reading Open Research Week
2025-06-09 - 2025-06-13
Reading Open Research Week, June 9-13.
To attend online, please register using this form. As we are still receiving submissions for contributions, we will email everyone closer to time with Teams links for every event.
Throughout the week, we’ll explore Open Research from multiple angles, reflecting different stages in the research life cycle:

Laying the foundations – pre-registration and transparent planning
Assessing with integrity – responsible research assessment
Opening the process – sharing at every stage, not just the end
Working with data – analysing, coding, and making methods open
Connecting beyond academia – public engagement and societal impact

Book Showcase: Memorias del Exilio: Los Niños Vascos del 37 [Memories of Exile: Basque child refugees in 1937]
2025-06-18 17:15 - 18:30 | Edith Morley, 230
Free and open to all to attend online/ in person University of Reading, Global Study Lounge (Edith Morley Building, Room 230), Reading RG6 6EL
Register to attend in person: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/centreforbooksculturesandpublishing/1725273
Register to attend online: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/centreforbooksculturesandpublishing/1723728
Memorias del Exilio: Los Niños Vascos del 37 is a graphic novel written by Begoña Garrido with images by Oskar Gorroño. It emerged from the fieldwork conducted by Begoña Garrido as part of her doctoral thesis at the University of Reading. While the thesis centred on female narratives, the more than thirty interviews carried out also included recurring testimonies about the mass evacuation of Basque children in 1937. These accounts, which fell outside the thesis’s academic scope, later gave rise to a public-facing project that brings these stories to life through an emotional and accessible visual format. This graphic narrative seeks to build bridges between generations and to reflect on the ongoing impact of forced displacement, both past and present.
This book has received much media attention in Spain since its publication in late 2024, including on Basque TV news, and pieces in national news outlets such as the major daily newspaper El País https://elpais.com/cultura/2024-12-13/un-comic-para-honrar-la-memoria-de-los-ninos-vascos-exiliados-en-la-guerra-civil.html. This event is the first English-language showcase with the author, and includes an exhibition at the University of Reading library of some of the research materials underpinning the making of the book.
About the speaker
Begoña Garrido holds a PhD in Spanish Cultural Studies from the University of Reading, where she was awarded an Anniversary Scholarship (2017) to conduct research on the daily lives of working-class Basque women under Franco in the 1940s. Her current work focuses on historical memory and intergenerational trauma, particularly the exile of the Basque ‘children of 1937’. She is committed to making academic research accessible through public engagement, using formats such as graphic novels, talks, and exhibitions to reach wider audiences.

Routes to Protest: the River, Vessels and People of 1381 | Estuary Festival 2025
2025-06-22 | Gravesend Pier, Gravesend, Kent, DA11 0BJ
As part of the Estuary Festival 2025, Professor Adrian Bell (Henley Business School) has collaborated with artist Sadie Hennessey to give a new voice to the key figures and the ordinary people involved in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 through the power of an interactive soundscape. Hear the sermons, letters and speeches that led to one of the most disruptive events of late medieval European history.
This event is founded upon Professor Bell’s research project ‘People of 1381‘, a collaborative and comprehensive online record of the participants, incidents, and historical sources of the popular uprising that still resonates with us today, over 600 years later.
MORE INFORMATION: estuaryfestival.com/event2025/detail/routes-to-protest.html#

Mediation of Medical Treatment Disputes – End of Project Conference
2025-07-01 09:30 - 16:30 | Meadow Suite, Park House, Meadow Suite, Park House, RG6 6UR, United Kingdom
This is a one-day conference reporting on the findings of the ‘Mediation of Medical Treatment Disputes: A Therapeutic Justice Model’ research project.
The aim of the research was to understand whether and, if so, the extent to which, mediation can and should be viewed as a form of therapeutic justice in medical treatment disputes.
This conference will be of interest to mediators, legal professionals, academics, policymakers and others working in health and care disputes resolution.
Find out more.

My Climate Risk Interdisciplinary Learning Group | July session - Dr Hannah Fluck
2025-07-14 13:00 - 14:00
Dear University of Reading community,
For the July session of the “My Climate Risk Interdisciplinary Learning Group” (MCRILG), we are delighted to be joined by Dr Hannah Fluck, Senior National Archaeologist at the National Trust.
Dr Fluck is an archaeologist, and her research is focusing on the relationship between the historic environment and archaeology, in particular about peatland restoration, tree planting and river management.
Dr Fluck will talk about her experiences of trying to get greater integration of cultural heritage not environmental policy and practice. The knowledge and expertise of cultural heritage have been absent from responses to the environmental crises, often cultural heritage is included as an afterthought, or viewed as an additional consideration once the core environmental matters have been addressed. In fact, cultural heritage is integral to not only our understanding of environmental crises, but to our responses.
We look forward to seeing you on Monday 14th July at 1pm GMT to learn more about this! The link to the Zoom session is on the Walker Institute March MCRILG session webpage. A calendar invitation will also be sent to you on Friday 11th July ONLY if you have joined our MCRILG.
You can find the highlights from our June MCRILG discussion with Will Shields on our webpage.
Having completed a year of MCRILG sessions we would love your feedback. We would appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and complete the feedback form: https://forms.office.com/e/Scc8j5YRcW

Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence | Innovation Seminar Series | July 2025
2025-07-15 11:00 - 12:00 | Chancellor’s Building GO8
Please sign-up to the event and let us know if you are planning to attend in person or online so that we can have an idea of numbers and send you the calendar/hybrid link. Thank you.

Maternal well-being, infant feeding and return to paid work - Report Launch
2025-07-16 13:00 - 14:00 | Online event
We are delighted to invite you to a special online event launching the findings of the Maternal Wellbeing, Infant Feeding and Return to Paid Work study funded by the Nuffield Foundation. This one-hour webinar will share key insights from the study, introduce our toolkits for parents and employers, and offer a space for interactive discussion about how workplaces can better support mothers returning to paid work while breastfeeding.
Register for the Event Here
Meet the team:
Professor Sarah Jewell, Dr Fari Aftab , Professor Marina Della Giusta, Professor Grace James, Professor Sylvia Jaworska. and Dr Sam Rawlings
About the Research
This UK study investigated the wellbeing, opportunities and experiences of mothers who wish to continue to breastfeed on return to paid work. Previous evidence found not meeting infant feeding goals (feeding in the way the mother wants to, for as long as they/their child wishes to) can have a detrimental impact on wellbeing for both mother and child. Further, it explored how employers can be better equipped to support their breastfeeding workers, and how workplace policy, and practice can evolve to support them.
Drawing on the lived experiences of mothers, HR professionals and line managers in the UK, the study provides practical, evidence-based recommendations for policy makers and for workplace policy / practice.
We will discuss some of our headline findings and policy implications and invite attendees to join a wider dialogue on promoting maternal wellbeing and inclusive workplaces.
We will be releasing the study’s final report prior to the online event.
If you have any questions about the event, please contact:
Professor Sarah Jewell – s.l.jewell@reading.ac.uk
The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social wellbeing. It funds research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare, and Justice. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. The Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation.
Bluesky: @nuffieldfoundation.org
LinkedIn: Nuffield Foundation
Website: nuffieldfoundation.org

Child Language Symposium 2025
2025-09-08 - 2025-09-10 | Palmer Building, Whiteknights Campus, University of Reading.
The University of Reading is pleased to host the 2025 edition of the Child Language Symposium on 8 – 10 September 2025.
This international conference will welcome leading researchers to discuss the latest in child language research, coinciding with both the 50th anniversary of Speech and Language Therapy and the 60th anniversary of Linguistics at Reading.
Keynote Speakers
Prof Chloe Marshall
Prof Jacopo Torregrossa
Prof Cristina McKean
Prof Catherine Davies
Dr Rowena Garcia

56th Annual Conference of the Money, Macro and Finance Society
2025-09-08 - 2025-09-10 | Henley Business School
The Money Macro and Finance Society is a registered charity, committed to the advancement of education in the fields of monetary economics, macroeconomics, and financial economics within the United Kingdom.
56th Annual Conference of the Money, Macro and Finance Society will be held at Henley Business School, University of Reading on 8 – 10 September 2025.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Ufuk Akcigit (Chicago) – Harry Johnson Lecture
Olivier Coibion (UT Austin)
Tommaso Monacelli (Bocconi) – Charles Goodhart Lecture
Loriana Pelizzon (Goethe, SAFE)

Registration is open until 31 August.
