The challenges imposed by the global Covid-19 pandemic meant that there was limited activity for NW18 over the past 12 months. That said, we did contribute a joint symposium with colleagues from the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) in the online 'Reconnecting EERA' event and this was also developed into a submission to the EERA blog (led by Dr. Shirley Gray and Dr. Rachel Sandford). An additional contribution to the blog around the Global Design Challenge (led by Dr. Fiona Chambers - a co-convener of NW18) was also made.
Since the last report, we have also acquired our first NW18 Honorary Member, in the person of Prof. Kathleen Armour - one of the founders of the network. We hope to invite her to speak at a subsequent in person conference.
With regard to this year's conference, we had a reduced number of submissions for NW18 but nonetheless ran run 8 sessions, including one symposium (with 3 papers), 2 posters, and 19 individual papers. There were lower numbers in sessions than usual, but there was excellent discussion and debate in all. Moreover, although a smaller conference, we were pleased to have a bigger range of nationalities represented. Presentations/presenters were from a range of contexts, including: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Norway, Germany, Lithuania, Austria, Turkey, Italy and Hungary.