Lincoln School of Geography and Lincoln International Business School hosted the RSA’s Annual Early Career Conference on 31st Oct – 1st Nov 2019. It was with bated breath that we anticipated the opportunity to examine the overnight impacts of a “no-deal Brexit” but, for better or worse, that was not to be!
This was one of the first conferences to test the “carbon choice offer” being pioneered by the RSA where 8 presenters joined via video-conference. These included speakers from Germany, South Africa and Portugal and Chile.
The “best paper award” went to Rossella Moscarelli from the Politecnico di Milano in Italy for her innovative work on slow tourism as an opportunity to regenerate marginal areas. This was particularly fitting as the topic truly crosses over research in fields of business and geography.
It was particularly interesting to see how PhD and early career researchers are already having significant impact through a number of channels. We saw delegates working with diverse stakeholders including planning professionals in Nigeria, health services in England and regional development agencies in Lithuania.
The take-home message for PhD students as they look for their first post-doctoral academic position was that, while publication is essential, so too is networking and recognising multiple audiences for their research. In a world of “fake news”, we must all strive to promote the value of robust research evidence.