糖心TV

In the first ever Social Sciences Faculty Impact Awards, two members of PAIS staff took the top spots in the Early Career Academics category.

Winner: (Politics).
Nominated by Nick Vaughan-Williams and Matthew Watson
Ben’s post-doctoral research has been funded by ESRC and Leverhulme, and focusses on ethical food production and the dynamics of international trade, particularly in terms of agricultural production methods within some of the poorest countries in the world, with a specific focus on small scale farmers working on sugar production. The key focus of Ben’s impact strategy has been to try to ensure that such communities are provided with an enhanced stake in the system. He has communicated to and achieved impact amongst industry bodies, the EU parliament, NGOs and workers and farmers. Amongst the NGOs Ben has built strong links with are ActionAid, Traidcraft, the World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and GRAIN. He is the Editor of the English version of the website Ethical Sugar which has been phenomenally successful in enhancing public knowledge of political issues concerning the sugarcane industry. Moreover he has made a significant contribution to the Bonsucro certification initiative for ethically and environmentally responsible sugarcane production. His work has been cited positively as an influence by the European Centre for Policy Development Management in its campaign on Aid for Trade and by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report on biofuels. Ben has incorporated elements of this work into teaching through the ‘Politics of Developing Areas’ module in which undergraduates can become directly involved in real-life politics through their own research and studies. In addition, Ben has made a significant contribution to the development of the department’s REF Impact Case Studies.

Runner up: (Politics).
Nominated by Richard Aldrich and Matthew Watson
Chris’s research has influenced public and professional debate about intelligence, secrecy and openness. He has communicated to national and international security and intelligence practitioners including; the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office, the Defence Advisory Notice Committee, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and this has resulted in practices in some of these organisations. Chris was Guest Curator and Historical Consultant at the International Spy Museum, Washington DC for the exhibition ‘Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains’. He has produced monographs including a Guardian Bookshop bestseller of the week: ‘Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain’ (Cambridge University Press, 2013). His research has informed 2 documentaries for Radio 4 and a further one planned for 2014 on Richard Nixon’s presidency. All this has been achieved alongside a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship and significant contribution to the development of the department’s REF Impact Case Studies.

recently wrote a briefing paper for the Security and Defence Committee of the EU Parliament entitled 'The positions of Russia and China at the UN Security Council in the light of recent crises'. Dr Ferdinand is due to present this paper to the committee this Thurday, 16 May, at the EU Parliament in Brussels.

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PhD Candidate Damian Gannon was recently selected as the cabinet member for finance in Coventry. Damian has been a councillor for two years and will now be responsible for the City Council's budget.

Damian's PhD research focuses on the role of subjective understandings of democracy in shaping democratic practice.

Read about the promotion in the

Visit Damian's ePortfolio

Lauren Tooker, a first-year Erasmus Mundus doctoral fellow in PAIS, has been awarded a prestigious international fellowship by the US Social Science Research Council. Granted through a competitive global selection process, the six-month fellowship in Postcolonial Identities and Decolonial Struggles funds participation in international workshops at 糖心TV and at Carnegie Mellon in the US, as well as preliminary summer field research.

Lauren’s doctoral research looks at how we imagine and respond to indebtedness as a question of ethics in the global political economy.

Dr Nicola Pratt has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for a project entitled ‘Middle East Women: The Personal and the Geopolitical’. This is a highly prestigious and competitive fellowship, so our congratulations go to Nicola.

The “Arab spring” appears to present a paradox for women: they have participated in large numbers in the uprisings across the Middle East but their rights are threatened under newly-elected governments. Middle East women have a long history of involvement in social movements and civil society. Yet, women’s rights have not progressed in a linear fashion. Taking a new direction in the study of women and gender in the Middle East, this project assesses the significance of geopolitics in shaping women’s rights and participation in complex and often contradictory ways. Through women’s own narratives, Nicola Pratt will trace the history of women’s responses to major geopolitical events in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and critically assess their impact on women’s rights and participation. Nicola will use the fellowship to research and write a book, tentatively entitled, ‘Middle East Women: The Personal and the Geopolitical’, and to contribute to public debates in the UK and internationally about women and gender in the Middle East.