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PROLang Research group
6 October 2022
We are pleased to announce the launch of the PROLang Research Group, a new initiative that combines representatives from each SSEES department, coming together to launch a series of interdisciplinary language-based area studies research activities and seminars.
PROLang aims to offer two public presentations each term, on different topics, with speakers from SSEES, the UK, and international institutions. It also aims to organise a major international conference every two years, and to develop a research centre in the near future.
Colleagues are invited to participate as speakers, conveners, or project initiators, on topics related to interdisciplinary research and the advancement of SSEES language-based area studies.
The seminars are funded by SSEES, but we will also seek external funding for bigger projects.
The initial idea was generated by Associate Professor Ramona Gonczol, working in close collaboration with Prof Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, Shaun Foley, Dr Rachel Morley, Dr Jakub Benes, Dr Svetlana Makarova, Prof Eric Gordy, Dr Uilleam Blacker, Dr Tom Lorman and Dr Dan Brett.
In its initial application stage, PROLang gathered an overwhelming number of expressions of support across SSEES and beyond, including from IMLR, CIOL, BASSEE, IoE, UCML, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford, as well as from many other universities abroad.
PROLang stands for Policy, Research and Outreach for Language-based area studies.
PROLang has the following objectives:
- To provide a forum for colleagues from the UK and CEE partner universities and beyond to collaborate on interdisciplinary research topics with languages at the core.
- To interact with policymakers, practitioners, and the public, in order to aid and inform wider debates in CEE language-based area studies and cultural, economic, political, and sociological research.
- To ensure that languages remain in focus in the post-Brexit landscape.
- To inform and support research and to drive forward new research, drawing on the wide linguistic expertise of our academic staff.
- To strengthen the impactful outcomes and benefits we can make in all areas of research, through encouraging REF-able publications in SSEES’s in-house journals and other leading journals in relevant fields.
- To increase the esteem of SSEES as a global leader in language-based area studies.
For more information or proposals, please write to Ramona Gonczol r.gonczol@ucl.ac.uk or Shaun Foley shaun.foley@ucl.ac.uk