Hazel Booth is an ERSC-funded student about to enter her final year of PhD studies with the Faculty of Social Science at Stirling University. Interested in the ways that madness has been constructed in society, her topic considers how issues of power and understanding shape the policy and practice of self-management. To the topic, she brings her training as a registered mental health nurse and her lived experience of mental difference. In Summer 2019 she was awarded funding which enabled a very exciting month-long stay in Canada where she was able to connect with some of the Canadian scholars that are conducting vital work in her field. Hazel has been keeping a blog which gives an open and personal account of this, and her continuing voyage on the choppy seas of PGR study. 

In May this year, Professor Arthur McIvor of the University of Strathclyde was successful in securing funding to deliver training through our Spring into Methods programme,jointly funded wit the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities. The proposal was to deliver Advanced Oral History Theory and Practice training to PhD students from both Social Science and Arts and Humanities disciplines. Here, Lorna Barton, a PGR Training Assistant and facilitator of the workshop gives a detailed account of the training. 

In August, SGSSS funded two ESRC Researchers to participate in the first annual summer school of the Aarhus University Big Data Centre for Environment and Health (BERTHA). This five day course on the theme of Personalised Sensors introduced a small group of PhDs and Post Docs to the application of state-of-the-art research using personalised sensors to measure environmental exposures, fitness, health, and wellbeing. The course also provided an excellent opportunity to understand the responsibility and ethical considerations in research involving protection of personal data and the involvement of participants in campaigns or fieldwork.

Here, Katie Riddoch, a 2nd Year Doctoral Student at the University of Glasgow (Social Brain in Action Lab, Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology) funded by an ESRC Industrial Strategy Studentship, shares her reflections on the experience.