Celebrating emerging researchers
Discover the researcher community at Sussex and preview some of the exciting research that is being produced by our emerging researchers.
Every June we bring together our researcher communities to celebrate, learn, share, and connect with others.
For 2025, we're fully integrating with the Summer of Research for the first time, raising the profile of postgraduate and early career researchers and bringing our events to a more diverse audience than ever before.
The events below showcase the exciting research going on across the University, and highlight the crucial contributions PGRs and ECRs make to the broader research environment.
Want to give the world a glimpse into your research and what that looks like day to day? We invite all PGRs and ECRs to enter the Emerging Researcher Image Competition for a chance to win £200 (applications open 14 April).
Sign up below, and check out the main Summer of Research site for details of the other exciting sessions taking place across campus from 9-20 June.
Our Summer of Research events for PGRs and ECRs
Women's Leadership Academy Showcase
Wednesday 11 June, 10.00-11.30am
Gardner Tower, Attenborough Centre
Sign up here
Join the participants of the inaugural Sussex Women's Leadership Academy as they share what they've learned over the past few months and start to tell their own story.
The academy uses the Designing Your Life (DYL) model to empower women researchers to take control and carve out a career that works for them.
Fiona Reith, a DYL coach, will join this year's participants as they present the exciting ways they plan to spread the word in their own research community, and put their brand of leadership into practice.
Expect creativity, new-found enthusiasm and discussions of what a diverse, truly tailored academic career could look like.
Beyond Research World Cafe
Wednesday 11 June, 12.00-1.30pm
ACCA Cafe, Attenborough Centre
Sign up here
Step beyond your thesis or research project and explore other ways to enhance your skills, share your work and take part in your community.
The World Cafe format enables relaxed, small-group conversations with your peers, and a chance to engage with multiple discussions in one session.
Our table hosts are all involved in initiatives that support researchers, but have applied this in very different ways. Chat to this year's Researcher-Led Initiatives awardees and discover more about becoming a Hive Scholar or PGR/ECR Representative, and what that can do for your development.
Hosts include:
- Tiffany Murphy, Close to My Heart: Autoethnographic Approaches
- Louisa Rinaldi and Emily Whelan, Empowering Excellence: Unlocking Prizes, and the 'Research for the Greater Good' Award
- Mitakshara Medhi, Listening to lived experiences - an EDI initiative
- Charlotte Austwick, one of the Research Hive Scholars
- PGR and ECR Reps
Light lunch will be provided and you are also welcome to bring your own.
Speed Mentoring for Researchers
Friday 13 June, 10.00am-12.00pm
Bramber House Terrace Room
Sign up here (log in to LearnUpon first)
Are you an ECR currently looking for a mentor in the research space? Come to our speed mentoring and meet a range of our available mentors in a relaxed setting over refreshments.
We have two slots available, 10-11am and 11am-12pm. Across the hour you will meet up to four potential mentors from our research community across Sussex.
This event aims to support new mentees to connect with suitable mentors by providing the opportunity to complete chemistry sessions - an informal chat to connect and check compatibility for mentoring. There is no obligation from either party to match afterwards, however hopefully this event will generate some new meaningful mentoring relationships where good fits are found!
Please note, this event is especially valuable for early and mid-career researchers, but due to the limited capacity of the Mentornet platform, it is not suitable for PGRs.For further information on careers support for PGRs at Sussex see our careers resources webpage and check out the Diverse Careers Panel, also part of the Summer of Research.
Catalysing Connections: Diverse Careers Panel
Monday 16 June, 2.00-3.30pm
Student Centre, Woodland 3
Sign up here
A discussion and networking event designed to foster collaboration, connections and career development among postgraduate and early career researchers and professionals from various sectors.
There are many career pathways open to researchers, and it's increasingly common to switch between academia and industry over the course of a successful career.
Catalysing Connections aims to create a vibrant platform where attendees can exchange ideas, forge meaningful bonds, and explore diverse opportunities. There will be time for informal networking among PGRs, ECRs and University staff, who can offer guidance and advice, and you'll hear from Sussex alumni now working in a variety of sectors.
Whether you're at the beginning of your journey or a seasoned postdoc, this session will provide valuable guidance as our panellists delve into the varied career routes available to aspiring researchers, and share their expertise and inspirational stories with you.
Three Minute Thesis Final and Adam Weiler Impact Panel
Friday 20 June, 1.00-3.30pm
Woodland 2 and 3, Student Centre
Sign up here
Think you could sum up your research in just three minutes? The Three Minute Thesis is a prestigious global competition that challenges PGRs to do exactly that.
Join us for the exciting live final, where top contenders from across the University will compete for a £500 prize and a coveted spot in the UK semi-finals. Be inspired by the diverse, cutting-edge research happening at Sussex, and cast your vote for the £250 People's Choice award!
In the judging break you'll hear from winners of the 2025 Adam Weiler Impact Award, which recognises Sussex PGRs who are making a lasting, positive impact with their research. We hear the ‘impact’ buzzword a lot, but what does it actually mean at the postgraduate level? Can PGRs really make an impact - and what can that look like?
This year’s awardees will discuss their research so far, where they hope to go next, and how postgraduate research can influence policy, theory and practice in academia and beyond.
We'll also be announcing the winners of the Emerging Researcher Image Competition, open to all PGRs and ECRs at Sussex. Shortlisted entries will be exhibited throughout the Summer of Research. You can browse the gallery and vote for People’s Choice online.
Also for PGRs
Most Summer of Research events are open to all, or will be of general interest to ECRs. These sessions are particularly focused on PGR issues and may be of special interest.
Post and Undergraduate (PUG) Talk Special!
Tuesday 10 June, 10.00-11.30am
Pevensey 1 1A6 (tbc)
Sign up here
A special conference style edition of the post and undergraduate (PUG) talk series!
These are accessible, ‘faculty-free’ talks about the active world-leading research happening at the University of Sussex in the faculty of SEM (science, engineering and medicine). Aimed at interdisciplinary undergraduate level, the event is an introduction to an area of research that you have maybe never heard of before.
The event will host six 10-minute presentations from a range of early career researchers from the faculty of SEM on their research, from their JRA project or their PhD project.
There will be pizza and refreshments provided to enjoy while you network with other people at the event.
Open Scholarship Community Showcase
Tuesday 17 June, 10.00-11.30am
University of Sussex Library
Sign up here
Come and see what the Open Scholarship Community are working on!
This event is an introduction to the community, what open research initiatives they're pursuing and what support the Library’s Research and Open Scholarship team can provide.
The session will provide practical guidance for those interested in open research, as well as a place for them to connect with like-minded people from across different disciplines.
If you’re curious about open research practices but don’t know where to start or what’s already happening in this space at Sussex, this is the session for you.
You'll hear four short talks followed by tea/coffee and a chance to chat.
Speakers:
- Cecile Chevalier, Associate Professor in Media Practice (Media and Film)
- Elena Dennison, School Research Programme Manager (Media, Arts and Humanities)
- Andre Maia Chagas, Scientific Officer - Open Science & Bioenginerring (Neuroscience)
- Alice Sambrook-Ricards, Senior Research Culture Officer
- Eilish Purton, Maggie Symes and Anna Andreoli from the Library’s Research and Open Scholarship team
Close to My Heart: Autoethnographic Approaches
Wednesday 18 June, 10.00am-4.00pm
Gardner Tower, Attenborough Centre
Sign up here
A one-day, creative research methods gathering that invites PGRs from across Sussex to explore diverse methodologies related to autoethnographic research. Through innovative and collaborative workshops, we will reflect on and attend to the challenges and joys of working with subject matters close to our hearts.
A method of self-study that combines characteristics of autobiography and ethnography, autoethnographic research connects the autobiographical and personal to broader social meaning, analysing researcher lived experience to better understand cultural phenomena.
Building on the conversations and connections forged as part of the RLI-funded Close to My Heart: PGR Perspectives (May 2024), a symposium exploring ethical considerations for postgraduate research relating to ‘closeness’ and researcher positionality, Close to My Heart: Autoethnographic Approaches proposes a more finely tuned focus on locating points of interdisciplinary intersection through exploring innovative autoethnographic methodologies.
This event seeks to unravel the possibilities for connection that can emerge from situating our individual, personal experiences in the context of others, our commonalities and our differences, to consider new ways of working across our different fields of postgraduate study. After all, ‘the personal is political’.
We will close the day with a shared reflective session that undertakes reflexivity and collective autoethnography, focusing on transdisciplinary processes of collective critical reflection, documentation and meaning-making as we consider ways to apply new working methods to our own research practice and beyond.
Tea and coffee will be available from 9.30am in the ACCA cafe, where lunch will also be provided. The event will start promptly at 10.00.
Close to My Heart: Autoethnographic Approaches is supported by the Sussex Researcher School's Researcher-led Initiative Fund and the Media, Arts and Humanities Research Culture Fund.