I was very fortunate to spend two days this week at an event in Birmingham organised by the Political Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG (more specifically, by the wonderful Adam Ramadan and Sara Fregonese).
It served as an introduction to the state of the art in political geographical research and covered publishing, teaching and the markets for jobs and research funding. It was well-attended by some very notable academics in the field, all of whom were extremely helpful and encouraging!
I believe that the plan is to have these workshops every 18 months or so. I'd highly recommend any PhD/early career person (or even, as was the case with me, someone about to start their PhD) who is working in (or planning to work in) the field to attend in future.
I was especially keen to attend this time as I'll be moving to Aberystwyth in a few months and the closest city in terms of travel-time is Birmingham, so it was also good to have a look around the University and get more of a feel for the place.
Having worked within a university for several years, I was already fairly familiar with how jobs, funding, publishing, etc. work in general (and with the frustrations of such rigmaroles!); however, it was terrifically useful to learn the specifics of the political geographical field and to benefit from the wealth of others' experiences!
