Sheffield Institute for Policy Studies postgraduate research poster showcase celebrates its return to an in-person event!

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The Sheffield Institute for Policy Studies (SIPS) was pleased to host its 6th annual postgraduate research poster showcase, a competition open to postgraduate research students across all disciplines within Sheffield Hallam University. This fantastic annual event provides a collegial environment for presenters to discuss their ongoing research projects, network with peers and receive constructive and meaningful academic feedback. This event provides a space, in particular, for first-year PhD researchers to disseminate early findings of the research they are conducting, and showcases the broad range of research undertaken by postgraduate researchers across Sheffield Hallam University. Following the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the importance of events such as this for postgraduate researchers has been noted, particularly as a way for PhD students to combat prominent feelings of isolation that notably arose as a result of pandemic-related lockdowns.

THE BROWN COMMISSION REPORT – An assessment of its proposals for local and regional economic development

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On 4 December the Labour Party published A New Britain: renewing our democracy and rebuilding our economy, the report of a commission chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  The report had been requested by Labour Leader Kier Starmer, who welcomed the recommendations and called for their implementation by a future Labour government.

Studying foundation professionals highlights the internal dynamics of philanthropic foundations

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Philanthropic foundations, as institutions, are attractive options for donors seeking to perform their philanthropy while living and to extend their individual or family legacy posthumously. Policymakers also see the attractiveness of these institutions by creating policies to shift private resources to public purposes. These policies have spurred the development of foundations in several parts of the world (Toepler, 2018). As a result, foundations have become the “fastest-growing nonprofit form” in the past decade (Jung and Harrow, 2016:162). However, despite the attractiveness and growth of these institutions, what is known about them remains incomplete, inconsistent, and often anecdotal.

The role of higher education in Levelling Up: reforming or subverting the market?

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Why isn’t higher education seen as playing a role in levelling up? On first reading the Levelling Up the United Kingdom White Paper, there appears to be a 'higher education' sized gap in the middle of its argument, between where it talks about the need for more 'skills' (without specifying the levels of study required) and where it identifies the need to grow 'research and development clusters' in left behind areas. It manages to do this without reference to where highly qualified researchers are educated and choose to live, or the relationship between where those researchers live and where hi-tech companies choose to locate.

What does the rainbow mean to you?

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This is the question being asked in new research by Jen Slater, Eleanor Formby and Drew Simms in a project funded by BA/Leverhulme. The rainbow flag is often synonymous with LGBT+ people and/or Pride, and we’re interested in exploring how LGBTQIA+ people relate to the rainbow personally, and their views on the ways that rainbows are used within institutional settings – both as symbols of LGBTQIA+ inclusion and, since COVID-19, as a symbol of the NHS. Currently, we’re focussing on the use of rainbows in higher education, but in future we hope to broaden this out to also look at other intuitional settings.