Event Bursary
The BERA Early Career Researcher Network offers a limited amount of bursaries to the value of £75 towards travel for BERA Student Members only.
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Online registration has now closed. If you want to attend this event, please email events@bera.ac.uk for details of how to register onsite.
Calling all researchers who work in Further Education and schools, educational publishing and assessment (including educational technology), or outside of HEIs as self-employed independent researchers (IRs)! This is a key event for you. It is an opportunity to help resolve an anomaly: the world of research lacks a system for IRs to gain ethical approval for research. This dilemma potentially affects the quality and range of research.
BERA is best known for its ethical guidelines and commitment to advancing research quality. Within HEIs, ethics panels regulate the quality of research and ethics. More generally, the increasing trend is for research proposals to be subject to robust scrutiny, ensuring best ethical practice. Within BERA, and beyond, independent researchers increasingly find it difficult to access ethical approval for research proposals. IRF convenors are approached by IRs who express the problems they face and ask how BERA can help. Discussions at conference with BERA members and elsewhere have highlighted both the issue and the need for this event.
Linked to BERA’s strategic objectives this round-table event will involve BERA’s Executive Director, interested BERA members and others to present and explore the issues. An IR will speak of her experiences of the challenges. Another speaker with broad experience of ethical processes in HE will consider possible options and we will all work towards solutions!
To round off the event, an opportunity to share current research will inform planning a BERA blog about IR’s research.
10.30 | Registration and refreshments |
10.45 | Welcome and introduction to the day Dr Carrie Birch, Co-convenor IRF |
11.00 | Keynote speaker: The unique problems faced by IRs seeking ethical approval Jocelyn Bailey Ambition and Ethics: An Independent Researcher’s Dilemma Dr William Wadsworth, independent researcher and entrepreneur Keynote speaker: Options and possible solutions Dr Sarah Hamilton, Research, Evaluation and Participation Manager at UNICEF UK |
12.00 | Small group discussions of dilemmas raised and possible resolutions offered in speaker contributions and discussion paper |
12.45 | Full group discussion to discover the range of perspectives on this issue and to outline and add to options for resolving dilemmas |
13.15 | Lunch |
14.00 | Taking it forward: round table discussion Nick Johnson (Executive Director, BERA) Agree actions to take forward |
14.30 | Refreshments break |
14.45 | Opportunities for IRs to talk informally about their current work, research and projects – next steps include possible BERA blog on IRs’ work |
15.25 | Completion of evaluation forms and suggestions for future events |
15.30 | Close of event |
The BERA Early Career Researcher Network offers a limited amount of bursaries to the value of £75 towards travel for BERA Student Members only.
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