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NEWSLETTER
Summer 04
INTRODUCTION
The
future of the Centre has also been an important concern during the
first half of 2004, following the first formal visits of the AHRB’s
Director of Research Centres, Professor Nigel Llewellyn. At meetings
with the Master of Birkbeck, Professor David Latchman, on 2 Feb and
with the Vice Chancellor of Lincoln, Professor David Chiddick, on
13 May, Professor Llewellyn heard at first hand about the strong commitment
of these two institutions to the work of the Centre and its federal
structure. Sylvia Harvey and I both attended the Board’s London away-day
for Centre directors, at which experiences were exchanged and new
guidelines for centre management vigorously debated. Finally,
at the end of June, details of the competition for Phase 2 centre
funding were released. Partners have been preparing for this opportunity
to develop our centre for some time, devising new strands of research,
considering how these could deliver synergy and greater critical mass,
and how the Centre might respond to approaches from other institutions
who are interested in joining forces with it. The initial ‘expression
of interest’ has now been sent, and we look forward to laying out
plans for the Centre’s future in greater detail. - IC NEWS One
of the Centre’s original architects, Professor John Hill,
is leaving the University of Ulster, where he has been based for
over twenty years, to take up a new chair at Royal Holloway. He
intends to maintain close links with the Centre at RHUL as well
as continuing his association with Ulster. Following
the appointment of Luke McKernan as Senior Research Fellow
and Jonathan Davis as Senior Research Advisor to the London
project at Birkbeck, Simon Brown will be joining the project
as a part-time Research Fellow from August. The
Broadcasting Policy Research group led by Professor Sylvia
Harvey at Lincoln has made a number of recent submissions
to the government’s new super-regulator Ofcom. For details see
p.3. Birkbeck’s
new Film and Media Research Centre moves on, with the recent appointment
of Surface Architects, whose partners have been involved with
innovative conversion and extension of historic buildings at Queen
Mary, and previously with Will Alsopp’s landmark Peckham Library.
The new extension to 43 Gordon Square will house the Centre’s
headquarters and provide research offices, a seminar room and
a digitally-equipped screening auditorium.
Postgraduate training has become a steadily increasingly priority
for the Centre, responding to the AHRB’s own initiatives in this field.
With institutions under pressure to mount substantial research training
programmes and form consortia to develop these, as a condition of
receiving bursaries for research students, the Centre has taken a
lead in experimenting with new ways of giving students ‘real world’
experience. In April, the Centre mounted two innovative postgraduate
‘sidebars’ within existing events. Students working on early British
cinema were funded to participate in the Nottingham British Silent
Cinema Festival and benefit from the array of specialists attending
through a series of special lunchtime seminars. Meanwhile, the University
of Ulster organised a special forum for postgraduates working on ‘National
and Regional Film and Television’, attached to its annual cross-border
Irish Postgraduate Film Research Seminar. Feedback from both events
indicates that such initiatives are welcomed by research students
seeking experience in presenting their work publicly.
The Centre is applying for Phase 2 funding, with a range of new
projects and, potentially, additional partners. The second phase
of application will be completed by 1 October with interviews and
results of the competition for Phase 2 funding expected by the end
of the year.
