The Accounting Departments of the University of Essex, the LSE and the University of Bristol are pleased to announce the organisation of a workshop on research and engagement in accounting and accountability. The aim of this workshop is to provide researchers a forum to discuss how engagement can shape research and vice versa.
Engaged research often means working hand in hand with various organisations and movements with their own agendas. A good relationship can emerge which leads the participants to suggest directions for further collaborations. This creates great opportunities but also means that the environment is less ‘controlled’ than usual, which can in turn create challenges in terms of framing (research question; what is interesting for participants will not necessarily constitute a valid research project) and distance (accusations of biases are frequent). This raises the question of how to turn engagement into solid research projects.
The main expected contribution of the workshop would be methodological or empirical. However, it would also constitute a good opportunity for networking and connects nicely to questions of impact. Many colleagues face similar challenges when trying to combine engagement and research and we hope to start a collective discussion on the topic, which should help support potential collaboration as well as provide guidance and a sense of belonging to individual researchers. In addition to the paper presentations and discussions, there will be space to interact with other colleagues interested in engaged research.
We would like to experiment with new formats and wish to maintain an informal atmosphere so we are open to the types of submissions that we receive and the way presenters may want to present. Researchers who have successfully worked to combine engagement and research in the past are warmly invited to submit proposals of how they can share their experience with others. Furthermore, researchers are welcome to submit anything written for other purposes (within the theme), or simply ideas on what could be done in the future, as a way to start a conversation. For instance, we can include talks about what was done (e.g., a presentation or seminar for an organisation or government agency), challenges faced and what was learned to help future projects, and then discuss how to turn it into academic outputs. Moreover, colleagues interested in the topic are welcome even if they have not done engaged research themselves so far.
Submissions can take a variety of formats depending on the expected contribution to the workshop. Traditional articles at any stage are welcome but we are open to many forms of engagement being the submitted work. We are conscious that often engagement work takes the form of reports, policy briefings, podcasts, or videos etc, and we are open to discussing different formats and not only papers so that we can explore their connection to “more traditional” forms of research. In order to submit a proposal for the Workshop or to declare an interest in presenting something, please send your document or idea before 31 March 2023 to: Finia Kuhlmann: f.kuhlmann@lse.ac.uk. Please indicate your name, status and affiliation in your submission. We will then contact you in April to confirm registration and provide details on submission if required.
We also anticipate a small audience for this workshop, and warmly welcome those who wish to participate in workshop discussions. If you wish to attend as a non-presenting participant, please send an email declaring your interest to f.kuhlmann@lse.ac.uk by 30 April 2023.
The workshop will be held in Clifton Hill House (in Bristol) on 10 May 2023. The start time will be around 10am with an expected end at 4pm. There will be lunch and refreshments.
For any further information regarding this workshop, please feel free to contact the organisers:
Rebecca Warren: rebecca.warren@essex.ac.uk
Finia Kuhlmann: f.kuhlmann@lse.ac.uk
Jérémy Morales: jeremy.morales@bristol.ac.uk