Date/Time
Date(s) - 19/03/2025 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Audience:
Writing for Research and Academic Practice (WRAP) Annual Summit Meeting
Wednesday 19th March 2025
10.00-12.00 BST
Online via Zoom
We are pleased to invite you to the Writing for Research and Academic Practice’s second Annual Summit, taking place online on the 19th March between 10-12noon (UK time).
The Summit enables us to hear from different voices and experiences, share best-practice and challenges and explore different ways of engaging. By looking at the work and research that has already been undertaken into academic writing practice and development, the information gathered will help to analyse needs and identify opportunities for sharing and distributing knowledge and insights through various outputs and inform the strategic direction of the network.
The aim of the network is to build an agenda for furthering social writing practice by embedding writing in PhD, Early and Mid-Career Researcher development, academic work/study, and teaching and learning. This is critical for current and future academic careers plus in teaching and supervising future generations of researchers as social writing can: facilitate ‘break-though’ writing progress by providing a protected and social space and time away from the usual workplace and other daily distractions; support the development of academic writing skills and competencies, both through academics’ self-guided improvement of their own writing process and through structured inputs of workshop elements during social writing events with peers; increase motivation for writing by building a profession network that serves as community of practice and peer support; and strengthen the professional identity of academics as writers, which helps embed good writing routines into daily work.
Schedule:
10.00-10.10 Welcome: Update on WRAP’s activities [Professor Alexander Buhmann and Jo Garrick]
10.10-10.30 Breakout rooms*:
(1) Setting up sustainable writers’ groups [Dr Sarah Haas]
(2) Facilitator training and writing meetings [Professor Rowena Murray]
(3) (Sustaining) social writing in a social media upheaval [Dr Kate Sotejeff-Wilson]
10.30-11.00 Keynote: Emma Davenport ‘Rooms with a View: Sustaining academic writing practices within the university’
11.00-11.10 Comfort break
11.10-11.40 Open group discussion
11.40-11.55 Presentation of WRAP Manifesto [Dr Joana Zozimo and Wendy Baldwin]
11.55-12.00 Closing remarks
Keynote Biography: Emma Davenport: As Head of Student Experience and Academic Outcomes for the School of Architecture, Art and Design at London Metropolitan University, Emma’s approach to scholarship is often with the student perspective in mind. With a multi-disciplinary background in social anthropology, education and design history, her pedagogic research has focused on academic writing practices and material culture within a range of subject areas, as well as the ‘third space’ within universities. Other research interests include museology, popular media representation of dress, academic dress and design studies within higher education. With over fifteen years of teaching experience within general design history/theory programmes at University of Creative Arts, University of East London and the Foundation of International Education, Emma is also a University Teaching Fellow and an Advance HE Senior Fellow.
The Network is led by a working group consisting of academic and professional staff (details below) who collectively have a wealth of knowledge and experience in supporting writers and their writing practice. All members of the working group have undertaken Structured Writing Retreat (SWR) facilitation training with Professor Rowena Murray and have been actively facilitating retreats for a number of years.
Sarah Haas: academic at Ghent University and University of Copenhagen; Alex Buhmann: academic at BI Norwegian Business School; Rowena Murray: academic at University of Strathclyde; Emma Davenport: academic at London Metropolitan University; Wendy Baldwin: independent language professional based in Spain; Joana Zozimo: academic at Lancaster University and based in Portugal; Kate Sotejeff-Wilson: translator and editor based in Finland; Jo Garrick: research support officer/network manager at Leeds University Business School
Purpose of the WRAP Network
- Research, conduct and promote structured writing retreats (SWRs) as a form of academic development intervention.
- Facilitate the organisation and co-facilitation of SWRs and ‘taster’ retreats
- Mutual mentoring (‘tandem’) between facilitators for peer assessment/mutual learning
- Sharing and exchange of materials/worksheets/frameworks and approaches for workshop elements and tools for writer development during retreats
- Mutual exploration and creation of research opportunities (e.g., coordinating for using retreats/groups for data collection purposes)
- Promotion and discussion of latest research on academic writing development and SWRs and identification of barriers and enablers in engaging in these
- Sharing/promotion of retreat opportunities/offers
- Sharing insights on venues and programme elements for retreats
- Implement robust evaluation of the network and its practices through qualitative and quantitative methods
- Sustainable growth through the access of relevant external funding resource
- Capacity-building as a process of developing and strengthening the skills for academic writing development and practice
Best wishes,
The WRAP Network Working Group