RMA Research Student’s Conference

Kate and I did our talks to a group of about 30 Music PhDs. We followed up 3 King’s alumni who were taking different tracks: one a successful freelance composer, one an Arts Adminstrator for a small midlands music group and one a music academic.

I also attended a presentation on getting published with Vicki Cooper form Cambridge University Press on the history side, Sally Groves from Schott who published scores ( the ‘dots’ as she described it) and Christopher Wintle who had got invlolved in various publishing enterprises including setting up his own journal.

You realised that in all academic areas there are small specialist presses producing small runs of books for specialist markets. The new ‘print-on-demand’ technology meand that nothing now need never be out of print.

Vicki Cooper gave interesting advice on how to submit to a publisher like hers: A letter with an outline -possibly one paragraph per chapter; a chapter; the links to other books on the Publisher’s list. An assessment of the competition and an indication of how your work is differentiated from existing titles.  Vicki was interesting on the ‘products’. These are prodcuts that no-one needs – it would not matter if there were no more books on Mahler – nevertheless there is a steady and reliable demand for new works on composers- you just need to make the case about what is different about this book.

Robert’s Policy forum

Because Fiona was ill I was asked at the last minute to attend this short conference up in Manchester. I felt I could not contribute much to the debates but it was interesting to meet the people involved in the Roberts work throughout the country. There was one othe rCareers adviser due to attend but she did not make  it – down to the ubiquitous flu.

One big issue on everyone’s mind was whether Robert’s earmarked funding would be renewed after 2011.  My reading or hearing of what was said was – well don’t hold your breath. The current economic crisis is clearly reshaping policy priorities and spending.

 

I attended a workshop that was looking at a more advanced framework of researcher ‘attributes’ to replace the current Joint Skills Statement.

And I also attended a workshop that looked at the use of the Rugby Team Impact Framework to evaluate the Robet’s work.  There were calls from some to require all Roberts institutions to use this evaluation model to create a large and cohesive body of evidence for the effectiveness of the work.