Dear List Members,
Apologies for filling in-boxes; hoping this version comes through with promised
attachments.
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The British Academy and the Joint Initiative for the Study of Latin America and
the Caribbean are working together to collect data on the current scenario of
studies, teaching and research on the region, within the UK. It will provide
information for prospective students and academic users, and will be used to
identify current trends and challenges within these area studies.
The results and findings will be produced in two outputs that involve the
following parallel activities.
1. The circulation of an electronic survey to all departments/faculties,
researchers and research students to obtain information primarily on teaching
activities and studies. This asks for the names of academic staff working on
the region, with their country and research interests and selection of their
publications, degree programmes on or relating to the region, and lists of PhD
theses (completed and in-progress) on related topics. You may have already
received this in the last month. If you have not yet received a letter inviting
you to complete the survey we may have missed your details and would
appreciate hearing from you (contact details: Christy Palmer,
[log in to unmask]).
This data will be entered into the Latin American and Caribbean Research
Portal, known as ‘the Handbook’, which is hosted by the Institute for the
Study of the Americas and can be viewed at
http://handbook.americas.sas.ac.uk/. This is an online networking resource
and database of UK expertise on Latin America and the Caribbean focusing on
the humanities and social sciences. It currently has information based on data
collected in 2003. The data needs to be updated and a system is being
established which will provide comprehensive information on academic offerings
in relevant programmes.
2. The dissemination of the attached surveys (one for academics, the
other for postgraduates) which are being distributed via membership lists. This
focuses on research and seeks to identify the various institutional
configurations of those academics who focus on Latin America and Caribbean,
their scholarly networks, collaborative relationships and publishing strategies.
This will be incorporated into a report that has been commissioned by the
British Academy, with a view to generating recommendations for future
support of research and for presentation to, among other bodies, research
councils.
In order for this to capture the varied experiences of active researchers
across the country, we need your inputs and would really appreciate it if you
could take the estimated 15 minutes that are required to complete the survey
and send it to Diana Pritchard ([log in to unmask]). Dr Pritchard is
preparing the report, under the guidance of the Latin American and Caribbean
Panel. In addition, she will be requesting personal interviews with a selection
of scholars from a sample of UK institutions in order to capture more detailed
views and the range of experiences regarding the opportunities created by
scholars and the obstacles they face.
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