RSA & RSA Europe Opportunities and Support for Students and Early Career Researchers

We are committed to supporting students and early career researchers and below are some of the many initiatives that we offer to develop students and early career researchers’ careers, influence and research. During these troubling times, we remain committed to supporting our members and the wider regional research community through knowledge exchange, webinars, publications and micro grant funding. To  stay up to date with RSA and RSA Europe activities, we recommend to sign up for our monthly e-Bulletin at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=REGIONAL-STUDIES-COMMUNITY&A=1

Free events and trainings 2020

Past webinars from both RSA Webinar series will be available on demand for RSA members via the RSA Lounge. 

Professional Development Webinar Series

This webinar series offers training and support for skills, knowledge and professional development on a variety of topics. Run by experts in their field, this ‘how to’ best practice webinar series aims to support RSA members and interested participants at different career stages. Forthcoming Webinars:

Regions Cities Industry Webinar Series

Online Writing Group

The aim of  the RSA Online Writing Group is to provide RSA members and interested participants with a space to continue working on draft papers, chapters and theses. This new initiative is led by the RSA Student Representative Vanessa Guerra and RSA Early Career Representative Frances Brill. The type of writing is open – you might want to work on tricky paper revisions that keep eliding you, that proposal to transform your thesis into a manuscript, or a first draft of your methods. It will be a chance to reflect on approaches to writing in academia, informally, with other scholars. You can join the group here.

Global Webinar Series

Our first globetrotting webinar series ‘RSA Global’ will run in November and aims to bring together the Regional Studies communities from around the globe. Starting in Australasia, we will have stops (webinars) on our journey around the globe in China, India, Russia, Europe, Africa, Latin and North America. Each stop will last three hours and feature high-profile plenary speakers, presentations from within the particular geography and capacity building sessions. RSA Global sessions will be free and open to all. You can register for these webinars here. 

SMARTER 2020 Conference Webinar series

SMARTER 2020 Conference Webinar series on “Smart Specialisation and Territorial Development: Connecting grand societal challenges with local goals in place-based innovation policy” is co-organised by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and RSA Europe. Six webinars organised between 17th September and 3rd December 2020. Open to all, the SMARTER 2020 Webinar series seeks to foster a dialogue between practitioners, policy-makers and researchers. Please register here.

Funding & Awards

RSA Awards 2021 – Nominations (both self-nominations and third-party nominations) of current members are being sought for the following awards in regional studies and related fields:

• Nathaniel Lichfield Award – this award is for recent Masters graduate who have graduated within the previous year;
• RSA PhD Student Award – this award is for registered PhD students who have not yet received their PhD certificate;
• RSA Routledge Early Career Award – this award is for early career researchers (defined as being within five years of the date on their PhD certificate or equivalent).

The prize for each Award is: a cheque for £500; and a certificate. Deadline: April 2021

RSA Early Career Grant Scheme –  This funding is open to individual applicants in their early career (five years maximum between the date showing on the certificate and the application deadline). Applicants must be based within an eligible higher education institution and must be a current, early career member of the RSA. This grant aims to support a discrete piece of regional studies and/or regional science research.

• Value: up to £10,000 (c. €11,500; $12,000)
• Application deadline (Expression of Interest): May 2021

Publishing

During these unprecedented times, we wanted to let you know about the support we have in place to help our members and the wider community in publishing their work. Find out more about our journals, book series and Taylor & Francis Author Services here. 

Regional Studies Regional Science: Early Careers Papers Section – The editors of the Early Career Papers section are seeking submissions of paper proposals for short articles. Contributions are welcomed from any discipline in the field of regional studies or regional science and with any geographical focus. Authors (and co-authors) should be PhD students or early career researchers that have completed their PhD in the last five years. If selected for publication, the RSA will cover the article processing charge and the author will work with a mentor to develop the paper. Forthcoming deadlines: 31 March 2021 & 30 September 2021

RSA Blog – To submit to our blog, please contact Joshua Barrett at RSABlog@regionalstudies.org

Regions eZine – We would welcome your contribution – Issue 8 will be themed around Housing Issues in Contemporary Urban Regions. The editorial team around Eduardo have put together some contribution and submission guidelines: https://regions.regionalstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Regions-Author-Guidelines.pdf

 Networking

• International territorial networks: Link up and extend your networks via the RSA’s International divisions, country sections and UK-Sub national branches & sections
• Female Early Career and Mid Career Researchers Network (with both in-person and online meetings, an active WhatsApp group and closed Facebook group)
• Active Student and Early Career Facebook group
• RSA APP – Search for RSA Hub (or Regional Studies Association) in your app store to download
• Connect with us with our active social media channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – @regstud @RSAEurope

These initiatives are in addition to the many membership benefits we offer. The full list of benefits can be found under each membership category at www.regionalstudies.org/about/memberships/ If you like to have a discussion on membership benefits most suitable to you and how the RSA can support you, please get in touch and we will arrange a phone call or zoom meeting with you.