The Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group

What are the key social issues of our time?  Is the social world in crisis?

The social sciences are at an important juncture, set within the context of international financial upheaval and retrenchment.  Social scientists are uniquely placed to analyse the current reconfiguration of relationships between the state, the public sector and the individual. Addressing the key social issues of our time requires an interdisciplinary approach, one which reflects critically on our role as social scientists, and on the conditions which structure our work.  It is in the spirit of proactive engagement with challenging times that the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences will be holding the new ‘Understanding the Social World’ conference.

The conference builds on the success of previous Understanding the Social World conferences held in 1995 and 2001, which supported the development of critical interdisciplinary scholarship.

The conference will provide a forum for critical thinking across a range of disciplines, with a view to informing the development of the Social Sciences over the coming period.

Convenors: Professor Jim McAuley and Dr Sharon Wray.

We invite contributions that speak to the following indicative themes:

• The Social Sciences in crisis
• Identities and social change
• Conflict transformations
• (Inter) nationalism
• Social movements
• Sexualities and Genders
• Crime
• Religion and secularism
• Health and (dis)ability
• Methodology

We invite abstracts for individual papers, panel proposals and poster presentations.

Individual papers: Each parallel paper session in the conference will last for 90 minutes, and will include three presenters (20 minutes each for presentation and 10 minutes each for discussion).

Panels: Each panel will include 3-4 papers.  Panel convenors will be free to decide on the format for their panels but it is recommended that plenty of time is left for discussions.

Posters: These will be displayed in the conference venue.

Instructions for submission

For all individual papers and posters please submit an abstract of up to 250 words together with:

• A title
• Name of the presenter(s)/authors(s), institutions(s)/organisations at which you/they are based and contact details
• Description of the contents of the paper/poster (please indicate which preferred)
• A list of any references mentioned in the abstract

Panel submissions should include a 250 word abstract for each presenter who wishes to be included in the panel (please see guidance above) and a further abstract (maximum 400 words) which outlines the aims and objectives of the session and the ways in which the papers fit together under the theme.

Please email your abstracts and details including the last name of the lead presenter in the subject of your email. The deadline for submission of abstracts and panel submissions is 18 March 2011.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The British Psychological Society’s History & Philosophy of Psychology
Section invites submissions for its 2011 Annual Conference to be held at
Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford.

We invite proposals for individual papers or symposia in any area dealing
with conceptual and historical issues in psychology, broadly defined.

The conference’s Keynote Speakers will be Professor Graham Richards
(Section Founder Member) and Professor Dan Robinson, University of Oxford.

The conference is open to independent and professional scholars in all
relevant fields, not just Section or British Psychological Society
members. A limited number of bursaries will be available to students who
have had their paper accepted for presentation.

Presentations will be limited to 25 minutes. For individual papers,
abstracts should be up to 200 words. For symposia, the submission should
include details of the convenor, the speakers, the theme and abstracts of
the contributing papers.

All submissions should be sent via email to Dr Geoff Bunn:
The deadline for submissions is MONDAY 13th DECEMBER
2010.

You can download the Call for Papers from the
website.

We look forward to meeting friends old and new in Oxford in April.

The deadline for PsyPAG’s Outstanding Masters Research Award has been extended until Monday December 13th. The aim of the award, which is in its second year, is to provide recognition of the excellent research that is conducted at Masters level, which is sometimes overlooked. The award is open to anyone who has completed a masters degree within the last 18 months. For more information, see our Awards page.

The Post Graduate Occupational Psychology Conference, which has been running successfully since 2004 is the ultimate professional development conference.
The conference is tailored towards the interests and needs of MSc students, graduates and practitioners from the field of Occupational Psychology and related areas (HR and Management Consultancy).

The conference provides an excellent opportunity to catch up on the latest occupational psychology research, listen to inspiring speeches from high profile key note speakers, develop essential work- related skills, network and meet potential employers. The conference dates are 11-12 January, 2011, and it takes place in Stratford-upon-Avon.

For submissions, registration, and more information, please see the conference website.

We currently have six vacant committee positions:

- Representative to the Division of Teachers and Researchers in Psychology
- Representative to the Psychology of Education Section
- Representative to the Transpersonal Psychology Section
- Representative to the North East of England Branch
- Representative to the Wessex and Wight Branch
- Representative to the London and Home Counties Branch

Details about the roles and how to apply are shown here. The procedures the PsyPAG committee follows for co-opting people onto the committee between AGMs are also attached here.

If you have any questions, and to submit an application statement, please contact: vicechair@psypag.co.uk

Any Master’s students  or recent graduates looking for a PhD position in psycholinguistics? Plymouth University is offering a full-time, fully funded studentship, to start January 2011.

This PhD position is supported by a 3 year joint ESRC/ANR Bilateral grant held between the Universities of Plymouth and Paris Descartes, designed to investigate this language processing disparity in a cross-linguistic study of English and French. This studentship provides the opportunity to expand upon the main project by exploring this area of research using adult behavioural, developmental, and neuroscience paradigms. The student would have the full support and training from of the highly active Plymouth Babylab and EEG/ERP Lab, and would benefit from close collaboration with the main project both in both Plymouth and Paris. This also provides the opportunity for regular visits to Paris to investigate the cross-linguistic implications of the differing roles of vowel and consonants in English and French.

For more information, contact Caroline Floccia.

On behalf of the ESRC, the National Centre for Research Methods  is inviting researchers to take part in a consultation exercise on research methods training in the social sciences.

Participation involves completion of an on-line questionnaire which can be accessed via this link and takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.

As a researcher this is an opportunity for you to express YOUR views on current training provision and new requirements for research training. This consultation will inform the strategic thinking of ESRC with regards to the future provision of training.

Further details about this research project can be found here.

For all who participate we are holding a FREE prize draw for £50 worth of Love2Shop Vouchers.

The deadline for receipt of responses is Friday 12th November 2010.

We hope that you will be willing to share your views with us.

All personal information will be processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act. Any queries regarding the processing of personal information should be directed to ESRC’s Data Protection Officer (Information.Charter@esrc.ac.uk)

There is a vacancy for an associate editor on the editorial board for the Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) Section publication – the QMiP Bulletin. Applications from postgraduate students are welcome, and it’s a great opportunity to get involved, and fill out your CV. Please see the Word document here for more information.

This BPS Division of Neuropsychology Post-Qualification day, taking place on November 26th, on the ethical
Interface between psychology, neuroscience and the law brings together experts
who deal with neuroethical questions on a daily basis. The experience they bring
from the fields of neuropsychology, neurology, neuroscience and the law will
provide insight into the neuroethical questions faced by all those who work with
individuals with acquired brain injury.
The day will be of interest to neuropsychologists, medics and lawyers and it is
hoped to address the ethical, political and policy issues that these professions
now deal with on a regular basis, in a multi-disciplinary way.
You can get Early Bird Registration up until October 30th. For more information, check out the website here, or download the programme and registration here (.pdf file).

Papers are now being accepted for the March edition of The Quarterly. To find out more, check out the Quarterly Submissions page, and submit your article online.

The Centre for Psychological Services Research would like to invite you to join us on November 30th.

Please find attached a flyer announcing a Master Class to be held in
Sheffield entitled ‘Developing clinically relevant theory and research in routine NHS practice’.

The presenters for the day will be William B Stiles (Miami University, USA) and Louis G Castonguay (Penn State University, USA). Both are world leaders in area of building theories and research from practice settings and there will be an emphasis on how to support practitioners in developing an evidence-base that is directly relevant to their individual practice. In a climate where practitioners are required to provide evidence for their practice, this Master Class is very timely.

This event follows on from our successful Master Class held last year on Routine Outcomes and Feedback.

I am keen for this opportunity to be made available to colleagues in the region and would like to encourage anyone who is interested to attend.

The attached flyer provides information and anyone interested should contact Abby Constantine by email (a.constantine@sheffield.ac.uk) or telephone: 0114 222 0753.

With many thanks

Michael Barkham
Director, Centre for Psychological Services Research
University of Sheffield

Researchers in Residence have several training days coming up over the next couple of months; if you’d like to get involved in this innovative scheme to teach school-kids about various aspects of research, you can find out more here.

Would you like to get involved with the PsyPAG committee and the BPS’s Developmental Section? The role of PsyPAG representative for the Developmental Section is becoming vacant and we’re looking for someone to fill it. If you’re a psychology post-graduate at a UK institution and you have an interest in developmental psychology, you could be our new rep! Please contact Alana James for more information.

To support UK doctoral researchers who wish to present their work at the 12^th European Congress of Psychology 2011 the Research Board is offering three £500 bursaries.  The Congress is being held in Istanbul, Turkey, 4-8^th July 2011 and is organised under the auspices of the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA). For further details see the Congress website (http://www.ecp2011.org/). The bursaries will cover Congress registration fees and contribute towards travel and accommodation costs.

Don’t forget, the deadline for submissions for the BPS Division of Sport and Exercise Psychology’s annual conference, which will be held on the 9th-10th December 2010, is next Wednesday, September 15th.

The conference welcomes empirical, theoretical and experiential submissions in the following formats:

Individual Papers: Papers are allocated to 20-minute slots, of which 15 minutes is for your talk and 5 minutes for open discussion.

Symposia: Symposia will be allocated 1.5 hours for four 20 or five 15-minute papers plus discussion.

Workshops: All workshops will be allocated 1.5 hours unless you specify a different time frame (please outline this at the bottom of your abstract).

Posters: The conference will include timetabled poster sessions providing an opportunity for presenters and participants to discuss work and findings.

For further information and to register or submit, please visit the conference website.

We are delighted to announce that the PsyPAG Annual Conference 2011 will be held
at Bangor University in Wales!

Bangor University is a well‐respected research institution, housing a large and active
psychology postgraduate community. The School of Psychology is the 3rd largest
in the UK, and was ranked 7th for research power in the RAE2008. Key areas of
research interest include Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology,
Health Psychology, Consumer Psychology, Bilingualism and Mindfulness.

Keep an eye on the Conference page for further information and updates as they arrive!