The fact that five colleagues alerted me to this post-doc more than hints at common knowledge of my professional and personal interest in cycling : )

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW – Fixed term until 31st December 2011
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Reference: 074R2009
Closing Date: Wednesday 11 November 2009
Interview Date: Monday 07 December 2009
Salary: £25,659 to £32,432 pa inc.

The University of East London is a dynamic and rapidly expanding university at the heart of Europe’s largest regeneration area and adjacent to the site of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. In the 2008 RAE exercise we are in the top ten modern UK universities for research. The Guardian League tables ranked us 52 of 84 university departments teaching Sociology and results of the RAE ranked us 25th of 40 submissions for Sociology.

Dr. Rachel Aldred, Senior Lecturer in Sociology within the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, has been awarded an ESRC First Grant to study “Cycling Cultures in a Mass Motorised Society: a multi-method case study of four English urban areas”. You will be the research fellow on this project; you will be carrying out the majority of the empirical research and you will participate in other stages of the research including data analysis and research dissemination and networking.

You should have a PhD (or near completion), or a Masters plus substantial research experience. You will have in-depth knowledge of an academic or policy field of relevance to the research area. You must have experience of carrying out qualitative interviews, be interested in cycling as a research area, and be willing to travel around the UK to conduct fieldwork. You should be available to start work on 1st March 2010 or soon afterwards.

To obtain further details about this vacancy please visit our website at http://jobs.uel.ac.uk (ref no: 74r2009). For an informal discussion about this post please contact Rachel Aldred, R.E.Aldred@uel.ac.uk. The closing date for applications is 11th November 2009 and we anticipate that interviews will take place on 7 December 2009.

I have just submitted an application for an ESRC post doctoral fellowship. The competition is fierce, and a 20% success rate, because gaining a scholarship like this provides tremendous benefit to a new scholar’s career. All fingers crossed.

Last month I applied for a position in GRIT – Goldsmiths Research Incubation and Transfer programme – and I’ve just heard that I have been successful. Because my work intersects DIY/Design/Sociology I have been placed in a group headed up by Professor Bill Gaver of the Design Department. The aim of the programme is to guide and support students in grant application writing so it is going to be exceptionally useful over the next few months.

The Goldsmiths Research Incubation and Transfer (GRIT) Programme is a joint initiative from the Graduate School and Research Office. It aims to foster and support new and innovative research proposals and knowledge transfer activities from final year PhD students and Postdoctoral Research Fellows.

The programme is intensive and takes place over one academic year. Participants must be committed to the programme for the entire year.

Participants will be selected via an annual competitive process. Selection will be on the basis of an outline research or knowledge transfer proposal, which, if they are selected, will be developed into a bid for external funding during the period of the programme. A maximum of eighteen students/research fellows per year will be selected in the first instance, to work in mixed groups of about six, each with a senior academic, who will act as a mentor and facilitator.

The groups will meet fortnightly, with a seminar format in which participants take it in turns to present their work. In between seminars, the academic mentors will read the developing proposals as necessary. It is expected that participants will work on their bids or knowledge transfer activities continuously throughout the year alongside their research.