ÌÇÐÄTV

PAIS has made significant gains moving up four places to 3rd in the rankings in Politics in .

We are also placed at No 1 for the student experience in the entire Russell Group of elite departments.

Head of Department, Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams is delighted with the rankings.

Professor Vaughan-Williams said: “This latest ranking in The Times/Sunday Times is yet further evidence of PAIS’ position as one of the UK’s leading Politics Departments. Research and teaching excellence are at the heart of who we are and what we stand for.

Staff and students should feel deservedly proud of this result. With a newly refurbished building and an ambitious agenda for the future, we look
forward to building on this success in 2015/16 and beyond.”

Thank you to all our students and staff for our continued success.

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is an open access collection from Punctum books.

Edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari, it includes a piece by PAIS Professor entitled 'Writing by Accumulation'.

The aim of the book is not to offer advice on how to write, but for academics to share stories of how they actually write, with techniques, rituals, frustrations and horror stories.

"The contributors range from graduate students and recent PhDs to senior scholars working in the fields of medieval studies, art history, English literature, poetics, early modern studies, musicology, and geography. All are engaged in academic writing, but some of the contributors also publish in other genres, includes poetry and fiction. Several contributors maintain a very active online presence, including blogs and websites; all are committed to strengthening the bonds of community, both in person and online, which helps to explain the effervescent sense of collegiality that pervades the volume, creating linkages across essays and extending outward into the wide world of writers and readers."

The book is free to download, but physical copies are available to buy. is a small, independent publisher that only produces open access material, and relies on sales and donations to enable projects such as this one.

(PAIS, ÌÇÐÄTV), with Co-Is Dr Dallal Stevens (Law, ÌÇÐÄTV), Professor Nick Vaughan-Williams (PAIS, ÌÇÐÄTV), Dr Angeliki Dimitriadi (ELIAMEP, Athens), and Dr Maria Pisani (Malta), have been awarded over 150K for an project entitled 'Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by boat: Mapping and documenting migratory journeys and experiences.’

While migrant deaths en route to the European Union are by no means new, the level and intensity of recent tragedies is unprecedented. More than 1850 deaths were recorded January-May 2015, demanding swift action on the part of EU Member States. This project produces a timely and robust evidence base as grounds for informing policy interventions developed under emergency conditions across the Mediterranean. It does so by assessing the impact of such interventions on those that they affect most directly: migrants or refugees themselves. This project undertakes such an assessment by engaging the journeys and experiences of people migrating, asking:

• What are the impacts of policy interventions on migratory journeys and experiences across the Mediterranean?
• How do refugees or migrants negotiate complex and entwined migratory and regulatory dynamics?
• In what ways can policy be re-shaped to address migrant deaths at sea?

The project focuses on three EU island arrival points in Greece, Italy and Malta. Qualitative interview data, both textual and visual, is produced through an interdisciplinary participatory research approach. The project contributes: an interdisciplinary perspective on the legal and social implications of policy interventions in the region; a comparative perspective on migratory routes and methods of travel across the Mediterranean; a qualitative analysis of the journeys and experiences of refugees and migrants; and methodological insights into participatory research under emergency conditions.

Well done to Stephanie Ifayemi, PAIS student, who attained 4th place out of the top 10 in the 2015 Rare Rising Star Awards in recognition of her impressive achievements.

Now in its seventh year, Rare Rising Stars showcases the incredible achievements of the best black students in the UK.

We would like to thank all of our students, recent graduates and staff for our excellent results in the 2015 National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS is completed by finalists, throughout the UK, and is a key component of league tables published in the media.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved an overall satisfaction rating of 92 per cent. This was achieved through a 93 per cent response rate - the highest turnout rate out of all academic departments at ÌÇÐÄTV. We have been commended by the University for this amazing achievement.

Other key NSS headlines include:

• PAIS are rated No 1 in the University for assessment and feedback.
• PAIS are joint 1st in the University for organisation and management.
• Now in the Top 3 for overall satisfaction in terms of academic departments at ÌÇÐÄTV with large conventional undergraduate cohorts.
• Taking the average scores across all categories and overall satisfaction, we are now the 2nd placed department at ÌÇÐÄTV.
• We are now the leading department in the Faculty of Social Sciences in terms of those with conventional undergraduate degrees
• Our departmental scores have gone up in EVERY SINGLE category of the NSS (e.g. teaching, assessment and feedback, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, personal development and overall satisfaction). In some cases, our scores have increased significantly. For example, assessment and feedback has increased by 13 per cent and academic support by 11 per cent.

And, in terms of our Russell Group competitors (a group of 24 leading teaching and research universities in the UK):

• Politics at ÌÇÐÄTV is rated No 1 for feedback
• And No 2 for organisation and management.
• And No 2 for personal development.
• Politics at ÌÇÐÄTV is No 1 in the Russell Group for fair assessment arrangements and marking, efficient timetabling and access to specialised equipment, facilities and rooms.

We look forward to working with our fantastic students and staff in partnership to sustain and build on these great results. We will feedback these results in more detail to our students at the start of the next academic year; and we’ll discuss and take forward with our SSLC.

To all of our current and incoming students, we hope you enjoy the rest of the summer vacation and we look forward to seeing you all in October!