My name is Ruth Neville, and I am a final-year PhD student at the Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool. From 30th June to 3rd July, I had the pleasure of attending the 12th Annual Conference on Population Geographies hosted at Queen’s University Belfast in the beautiful Riddel Hall. I was kindly awarded financial support from the Population Geography Research Group of the RGS, enabling me to attend the conference and engage with a wide variety of scholars and research from all over the world (money is tight at the end of the PhD!!).
The conference brought together researchers from across Population Geography, with a programme filled with exciting and innovative research. The conference had more than one hundred and thirty delegates from twenty-five countries and represented over seventy institutions. There were also three excellent and insightful key-note speakers, Professor Darren Smith, Professor Richard Wright, and Professor Shenjing He – all of which demonstrated the evolving landscape of population geography.
I was accepted to present my recent work on the impact of Brexit on international student mobility to the UK in a specialised session on youth and education migration. It was great to be able to present a part of my PhD project to a specialised audience, receive ideas and feedback, and have a stimulating Q&A. I was also lucky to learn more about other research in the field, particularly from such a diverse range of contexts.
Beyond my session, I also was able to engage in research from a wide range of topics from forecasting, innovations in data science methods, and social and spatial inequalities. I was able to meet with academics whose work I admire and catch up with friends and colleagues who I have met at previous conferences. My favourite part of academia is the supportive network of fellow academics that you can build through collaboration and connections at conferences, so it is always fun to catch up.
My main takeaway from the conference was a sense of excitement about the growing use of innovative methodologies and cross-disciplinary research in the field of population geography. As a quantitative researcher, it is always illuminating to learn about the novel ways in which researchers are approaching important social issues. It was also great to experience the city of Belfast, which is rich in history and culture and an important place to visit.
I would like to thank the conference organisers for their excellent organisation of the conference, where each detail had clearly been given meticulous thought. The conference ran incredibly smoothly and was thoroughly enjoyable, a credit to the hard work of the conference chair (Professor Gemma Catney) and organisation committee (Professor Christopher Lloyd, Dr Ian Shuttleworth; Dr Momoko Nishikodo; Dr Sarah Furguson; Dr Estelle Lowry; Neal Halforty; and Abdul-Qadeer Khan) and all the session chairs.
I would highly recommend this conference to other early career researchers due to the supportive environment and range and diversity of research being shared. It was also very fun and enjoyable, with a great balance of research and social activities. I am excited to attend again!
Population Geography 