Open House for Research, April 25

Mandy Robbins chaired another great Open House for Research session in April, with a nice variety of speakers from Business, Engineering, and Education! 

First up, Eranda Abeysinghe, Lecturer in Accountancy and Finance and PhD Researcher outlined a successful conference attendance with the help of a Research Office Research Development Award. Eranda attended and presented at a British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) Conference last July, 25th Workshop on Accounting and Finance in Emerging Economies in Poland. 

Specifically, Eranda’s research was titled ‘An inquiry into impact of organisations’ sustainable cost management strategies to enhance animal biodiversity’, showcasing a case study literature review on Sri Lanka. With a population of 6,000 elephants and 22 million people, the human-elephant conflict is high on the agenda; habitat loss is pushing Sri Lanka’s elephants into opposition with humans. Businesses are contributing to the conflict, for example, by building electric fences, leading to more elephants being injured or killed. But with the ever-increasing human population, this leads to more agricultural areas and elephants going after the easy food options, (Eranda jokes that they like takeaways, too!) 

At the conference, Eranda said he had a good experience, and it was his first overseas conference. He gained a lot of feedback on his work, some positive, some negative, and took away some new perspectives to explore different areas of work.  

Second up was Dr Yuriy Vagapov, Reader in Electrical Engineering, who reported on attendance at the 59th International Universities Power Engineering Conference in Cardiff, last September. Again, with the help of a Research Development Award, Yuriy presented two papers: Prototype testing of rim-driven fan technology for high speed aircraft electrical propulsion, and Practical Learning of DSP based motor control for engineering students.  

For the first paper, Yuriy explained the slight bump in the journey of their testing. The team is attempting to reach 15,000 turns per minute for each motor of the rim-driven fan (30,000 turns overall), but their difficulties are in arranging inverters to provide higher speeds. At the minute, the team have achieved 10,000 turns per minute per motor, meaning 20,000 turns overall, which is a huge achievement in itself for this type of patented fan motor! Keep up the good work team. 

Lastly, we had Dr David Crighton, who presented with the title, What makes a good academic blog?  

(Spoiler, he didn’t actually know!) 

David led us through his career, sharing humorously how in the past, he had written for radio, magazine adverts, scripts, and a programme for the BBC, which all went defunct. David said a key ingredient in writing anything is to tell a compelling story, and he then tells us about his attendance at the Ethics and Education Conference in Warsaw, which spurred one of his blogs.  

The blog in question spoke of being a working class academic in a middle class world, navigating crippling imposter syndrome and the deep lingering sense of not quite belonging. One example of self-doubt was when he thought his abstract submission to the conference had been accepted in error.  

Whilst in Poland, David happened across a bar run by a fellow-Liverpudlian, which placed him back in familiar and comfortable surroundings. David’s presentation at the conference went well, and the doubts were unfounded; an attendee even wrote him a note on a scrap piece of paper asking him to share his PhD thesis as they would love to read it. 

David ends the talk with some tips about taking personal stories and using them as a lens for your blog. Blogging gives space to your voice, allowing a personal and reflective writing style.  

Thanks to all our speakers and attendees in April – we look forward to seeing you again.