U21 Early Career Researcher (ECR) Workshop
The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) is pleased to announce this limited opportunity which arises as part of our membership in Universitas 21 (U21), a leading international group of research-intensive universities (see: https://universitas21.com). Limited participation workshops allow only a select number of nominated researchers from each institution. In order to determine which researchers will be nominated as the official participants from UConn/UConn Health, an OVPR internal competition may be necessary (full process is described at our website).
All researchers who wish to be considered for this opportunity must submit a notification of interest (NOI) through the UConn Quest Portal (https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/U21) by August 10th. Researchers must be selected and approved by the OVPR to be nominated for participation in this Workshop. If the number of interested and eligible ECRs exceeds the number of places available (10), then those who submit an NOI will be contacted and asked to provide a statement of interest and eligibility together with a full current resume by August 24th (guidelines for documents TBA). These materials would then be used to select the 10 nominees for participation in the Workshop.
Please contact Dr. Matt Mroz (matthew.mroz@uconn.edu) with questions about the submission process. Please contact Dr. Mark Aindow (m.aindow@uconn.edu) with any questions about this workshop, the selection criteria, or Universitas 21.
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Modern Slavery, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking: Research Roadmaps to 2030
U21 Early Career Researcher Workshop
30 November - 4 December 2020
Online, in partnership with University of Nottingham
The details of the upcoming U21 ECR workshop are now available on the U21 website. This year the event will take place online on the theme of ‘Modern Slavery, Forced Labour and Human Trafficking’. This virtual workshop will be hosted by University of Nottingham and will mark the UN’s International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. The focus of this day each year, 2 December, is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery. The workshop will also mark the moment when the global community enters the Decade of Delivery for the seventeen UN Sustainable Delivery Goals (SDGs), with only 10 years left to achieve the goals by the end of 2030.
There are an estimated 40m people in modern slavery around the world today. 193 countries have committed to ending slavery by 2030, with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.7. Achieving this goal will require rigorous research that spans every discipline: new data on prevalence, geospatial mapping of slavery sites, action-research with communities about local vulnerability and resilience factors, narrative analysis of survivor accounts and legal work on global antislavery legislation.
This work encompasses the social sciences, humanities and sciences to understand the root causes of slavery in relationship to poverty, gender discrimination, unsafe migration, environmental destruction, supply chain structures, conflict, terrorism, democracy, trade and many other SDG issues. An effective movement to end slavery by 2030 will require not just rigorous research that underpins new policy, but interdisciplinary research collaborations that generate scalable solutions to this pressing global challenge. The workshop offers an opportunity for ECRs to work with researchers from across all fields of study, from across the globe.
Online format
Due to uncertainties surrounding global travel and the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s ECR Workshop will take place online. It will be hosted by the University of Nottingham’s Researcher Academy and the Rights Lab - the world’s largest and leading group of modern slavery researchers. This workshop will bring together the most interdisciplinary and international ECR community ever assembled on the topic of modern slavery. Alongside keynotes by leading figures globally and a series of online sessions by ECRs on emerging themes, the workshop will include:
- sessions to jointly develop and pitch for seed funding to deliver new collaborative research projects
- pre-scheduled academic ‘match-making’ sessions to establish potential collaborations on journal articles, funded projects and additional future work
- joint sessions to develop ideas for co-authored articles
- virtual informal networking opportunities
- sessions focused on researcher development
This year each U21 member university may nominate up to 10 researchers to attend the workshop. To be eligible for the workshop researchers must have been awarded their PhD and have no more than 8 years post-PhD experience. This requirement is flexible with each university having the discretion to nominate ECRs who fall outside this definition, due to an atypical career path, including those who have: started the research-intensive component of their career later, had career breaks and/or spent time in industry. The cost of attending the workshop is covered by U21.
For more information, contact: Matt Mroz at matthew.mroz@uconn.edu