Other News
PAIS Academics Hyams and Capriati speak at Westminster
PAIS academics Associate Professor and Dr Marinella Capriati have been invited to speak at Westminster on October 26th to a cross-party group of MPs on their project ''.
The project, which runs until 2016, is funded by an ESRC Impact Accelerator Grant.
Prof. Nick Vaughan-Williams Awarded Prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize
, Professor of International Security and Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of 糖心TV, has been awarded a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize worth £100,000.00 by The Leverhulme Trust.
Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is judged to be exceptionally promising. Each year the scheme awards up to thirty Prizes across a range of disciplines and in 2015 the selected subject areas are: Classics, Earth Sciences, Physics, Politics and International Relations, Psychology, and Visual and Performing Arts.
The Prize is in recognition of Nick’s research at the intersection of international security and border studies. Drawing together his long-standing interest in the international politics of border security with more recent work on vernacular theories of security threats, he will use the Prize to launch a new three-year project (2016-19) entitled ‘Everyday narratives of European border security and insecurity’.

The project will investigate how European citizens narrate their own experiences and understandings of border security and insecurity against the backdrop of the on-going Mediterranean migration and refugee crisis. In-depth critical focus group research across major cities affected by the crisis – with groups varied according to age, ethnicity, socio-economic background, religion, and gender – will generate rich qualitative insights into how diverse publics make sense of the crisis, the kinds of stories they tell about how it affects their own lives and others’ including migrants and refugees, and the impact of EU border security and migration management policies and practices on ‘regular’ populations.
Aside from several scholarly outputs including a research monograph, the Prize will generate an open access data archive of vernacular theories of everyday border security and insecurity, and research findings will be disseminated via a bespoke project website, targeted media interventions, and engagement with end-users (citizens, migrant and refugee activist groups, governments, the EU Commission, and media) throughout the lifecycle of the research.
Further information about the Philip Leverhulme Prize can be found here:
PAIS IPE researchers win IATL Strategic Project Grant for I-PEEL
IPE researchers from PAIS have won the IATL Strategic Project Grant for I-PEEL: International Political Economy of Everyday Life.
This innovative teaching project aims to create an online teaching tool for use in political economy modules. Its content will be steered by students and geared to their development as self-directed learners. The central format will revolve around a set of front page 'tiles' (i.e. clickable squares) presented on a webpage, which will feature an image or object such as a cup of coffee, a bar of soap, or a development charity poster. Our pedagogical purpose is to provide students with an accessible route into the study of the global economy; a topic which is complex and can often feel like it is far removed from the realities of people’s daily existence. The project will achieve this by producing a platform website which will host a series of short academic reflections on the political economy of the objects and events of everyday life. Taking advantage of the online format, the text will also be supplemented with pictures and podcasts, hyperlinked sources, feeds on further reading, and linked forums for online discussion.
The project is funded by the . Project team members are: James Brassett, Juanita Elias, Lena Rethel and Ben Richardson (all PAIS). The online platform will be developed in collaboration with .
We are currently in the process of recruiting volunteers for our student advisory board. Please email Lena at L.Rethel@warwick.ac.uk if you want to get involved.
We also gratefully acknowledge the support from colleagues in CAL, CIM, English and Comparative Literary Studies, Film and Television Studies, History, Law, Sociology, Theatre Studies and WBS.
Dr. M. Koinova Wins International Studies Association Workshop Grant
Dr. , Reader in International Relations at PAIS and Principal Investigator of the together with Gerasimos Tsourapas (SOAS) won a highly competitive International Studies Association venture research workshop grant (10,310 USD).
The workshop is titled “Unpacking the Sending States: Regimes, Institutions, and Non-state Actors in Emigration and Diaspora Politics.” It will gather fifteen scholars from prestigious universities in Europe and the US to discuss how regimes, institutions and non-state actors shape sending states’ extraterritorial engagement with migrant populations abroad. The workshop will take place at the ISA convention in Atlanta in March 2016, and a small follow-up workshop will be conducted at 糖心TV University in the fall of 2016. Edited special journal issues are envisaged as a result of this workshop.
PAIS Honorary Professor addresses UN Summit
PAIS Honorary Professor, Her Excellency Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta, has recently met with the UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, and has also addressed the UN Assembley in New York.

On 24 September, UNESCO Director-General met H.E. Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of the Republic of Malta, in New York, in the context of the UN Summit on Sustainable Development and the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.
President Coleiro Preca spoke of the importance of bridging exclusion, living together and dialogue in all societies today. She underlined the activities of the newly launched Foundation for Well-Being in Society, in Malta, with a focus on providing spaces for children of all backgrounds to exchange and share.
Whilst addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals summit, attended by more than 150 world leaders, President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said "Global solidarity and a renewed commitment to safeguard human dignity and rights were needed now more than ever before."
“As leaders, we cannot look away. As leaders, we must be steadfast champions of social, economic, and political inclusion. As leaders we must always give voice to the shared truths of our global community. As leaders, we must become advocates for peace and the wellbeing of all,” the President said.
Although, at times, this might not be the most popular position “we must be bold, and defend the rights of vulnerable people wherever they are found”. She added “human dignity, integrity and freedom should be at the heart of our concerns”.
Her Excellency also attended the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York for the speech of Pope Francis the First.