So What? is a monthly forum held throughout the academic year. It provides a platform for research students, academic staff, and recent graduates to present their work in a new setting, build new connections, and improve academic transparency. It’s open to all disciplines with an interest in Northern Ireland, planning, architecture, space, society, and the built environment.

This month’s edition of So What? takes on some very different aspects of the built environment. The first speaker will discuss her research about community planning in Northern Ireland. The second presentation comes from two researchers whose work explores Belfast’s urban space in sound.

Anna Clarke
(MSc in Governance and Community Planning, Ulster University, 2017)
Examining Participation and Power in Community Planning: Learning from Northern Ireland

Elen Flügge and Conor McCafferty
(PhD Researchers, Recomposing the City Research Group, Queen’s University Belfast)
Exploring Urban Space in Belfast Through Sound

So What? Making Research Public.
Call for Presentations

Impact, openness, publicness, accessibility; these are all celebrated qualities in today’s academic research. However, much of our research continues to be trapped in disciplinary silos, or is rendered inaccesible through jargon and stylistic choices.

We’re calling on you (yes, you) to set your research free from your campuses, your conferences, and your journals, divest yourself of jargon, unchain yourself from the peer review.

So What? is a new monthly forum at PLACE. It is a platform for research students, academic staff, & recent graduates to present to an audience of other disciplines, non-academics, & policy-makers. It bridges the gap between academia and the public, and encourages deeper connections & greater transparency in what research is being done, how it happens and who it benefits.

We are now taking abstracts for presentations. To participate, your research should be concerned with Northern Ireland or with some aspect of planning, architecture, space, society, and the built environment in any discipline. It should be presented in plain language, and should address the question: so what?

Send abstracts of 300-500 words to rebekah@placeni.org

Presentations will be held on the second Tuesday of the month