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Hi there, In the spirit of the more content-based postings recently (which I have incidentally really valued), I have a specific question that maybe people might be able to help me with. The reason for asking it comes specifically from a critique that has been made of the recent habits of research councils (funders) in the UK using 'sandpits'- for allocating research funding; the idea of a sandpit is there is a theme, you write a short proposal, and then over a one week residential, all the successful applicants come together to agree a programme that is then funded on the basis of who turns up (cf http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/routes/network/ideas/Pages/whatisasandpit.aspx.) That is not ideal if you have family responsibilities - or indeed other responsibilities that mean that being away from home is a real problem, so you are restricted in doing one part of your job as an academic - winning research funds - not because of excellence but because of your personal characteristics. So potentially problematic. But following debates around the 'sand pits' makes me think I need to avoid a similar problem when planning an event that is intended to benefit potential academics, namely a Ph.D. summer school My question is slightly different - running a summer school for Ph.D. students from different countries - and what can we do to make it family friendly and generally more accessible? The idea would be that it is a one-week residential for students studying a similar theme (from different perspectives in different places) to come together and have a series of formal and informal academic conversations, so present papers-get feedback, have high-level skills classes and do some public engagement work, as well as informally to share experiences, and for there to be mentoring, both from more senior academics as well as from students on the Ph.D. The issue for us is that it will clearly be best for the course to get the greatest diversity of students attending the course, because of the clear benefits of sharing of experiences from different perspectives and positionalities, as well as from the more general social justice position that the social capital that you build up during your Ph.D. helps your subsequent trajectory, so we don't want to run the risk of being exclusive or exclusionary. So - to my question: does anyone have any experience of the kinds of things that we could do to make a one-week residential more accessible and inclusionary? I am happy to collate and post back any responses I receive if other people might find it helpful. With best wishes Paul. ------------------------------------------ == CHEPS 30th Anniversary Conference, 25 June 2014 == ------------------------------------------ Dr. Paul Benneworth, FeRSA, Senior Researcher 1 Room 5135, Ravelijn. Center for Higher Education Policy Studies University of Twente PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands T: 00 31 53 489 3271 F: 00 31 53 434 0392 M: 00 31 62 686 4190 E: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ------------------------------------------ Deputy Editor in Chief, Early Careers Section, Regional Studies, Regional Insights<mailto:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsrs20> An Open Access journal, a section with a unique constructive review process. Call for abstracts available here.<mailto:http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cfp/rsrscfp2.pdf> [Regional Studies, Regional Science]<mailto:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsrs20> ------------------------------------------