Postgraduate Research

The CNCS Postgraduate community is a vital part of the centre. Balancing the academic and social side of being an international research centre, the postgraduates in CNCS meet socially as well as organising conferences, study groups, and discussing our research in our Facebook group. Our postgraduate representatives also sit on the Advisory Group to represent the interests of the postgraduate community.

We are always keen on welcoming new members and ideas from any university; our only requirement is an interest in the long 19th century.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact cncs@durham.ac.uk

Doctoral Research

CNCS gives postgraduates the access and opportunity to contribute to a vibrant research culture and world-class research. The centre has world-leading academics across multiple disciplines in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and Social Sciences. In addition, CNCS also has excellent links with our neighbouring universities at Newcastle and Northumbria.

Postgraduates working with CNCS will benefit from a rich research environment where postgraduates are fully immersed in CNCS activities and research. As a research centre, CNCS offers a place for interdisciplinary enquiry and the development of research projects across disciplines. We have a thriving postgraduate community who organise regular study groups and research conversations. CNCS also supports postgraduates by giving access to career development and training from academic publishing to careers in and outside academia.

CNCS plays an important role in the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership Scheme. As a flourishing research centre, CNCS gives students the opportunity to develop their research, organise research events and work with exceptional research staff and strategic partners.

More information about the Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership is available online.

Postgraduate Publications

Miss Carrie Long

My PhD is a collaborative project with Durham University, The National Archives and The National Maritime Museum, but alongside my PhD research I worked with The National Archives' Learning and Engagement Team. I used my archival research to write a lesson plan on criminal petitions to highlight what they can tell us about the nineteenth-century judicial system. This type of lesson plan is suitable for a Key Stage 4 and 5 audience and it was particularly  rewarding in a year when remote learning became the norm to help home-learners, children and parents by sharing my research in an online resource. Although aimed primarily at children, these are fascinating hand-written petitioning letters by a diverse range of ordinary people and I hope sharing their stories is of wider

The link to the resource is here: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/criminal-petitions/

Postgraduate Research Conversations

"The Postgraduate Research Conversations were the first time I had spoken to a group of people about my research. The positive reception and the insightful questions that my presentation received helped to substantially form a later conference presentation, as well as my work more broadly."

CNCS Postgraduate Research Conversations offer a friendly supportive environment for students to present their research to an audience with a wide range of related knowledge. They are an ideal forum for postgraduates to propose new ideas in their research, give a draft of a forthcoming conference paper or receive feedback for an article going to publication.

The Research Conversations have been an invaluable resource for postgraduates to share research from the preliminary to the published stage. This unique form of collaboration has allowed postgraduates to review their work in an interdisciplinary research environment and realise the potential of their research.

Papers given at these events have led to papers given at conferences including the British Association of Victorian Studies Annual Conference and the British Assocation of Romantic Studies Annual Conference.