“So it’s your first time in the UK and you’ve come to Birmingham? “You are poor,” was the conversation on the train. I grimaced as I got off the carriage and had no connection with the sprawling metropolis, often proudly called “England’s second city” by locals. But what I heard was not an unusual reaction from the British when considering “Brum”, a city often treated harshly as being unpleasant to the attention.
The West Midlands (as you would possibly guess, its neighbor the East Midlands, which I visited a couple of weeks ago) is nevertheless an enormous and diverse region, home to almost three million people and a wider metropolitan population of over 4 million. The response of the Swedish visitor from Sweden was reasonably more positive than an Englishman may need expected. She had an exquisite few days and despite the (unsurprisingly) unsettled weather in the beginning of the summer, she was already desirous about returning to those shores.
The guest, an instructional at Lund University (Conversation member institution), attended the annual conference of the British International Studies Association (POWER). It’s a big gathering that draws researchers from all around the world, and that is what attracted me to Birmingham as well. I only managed to survive for someday, coming and going, but my experience was similarly upbeat.
Not Paris
Let’s be honest, when you arrive at New Street station it becomes quite clear that Birmingham shouldn’t be Paris. There is a combination of buildings here, some paying homage to an era of producing and industrial success, lots of them not risk the king’s wrath. And on a somewhat dreary Friday morning in early summer, the excitement that when characterised even towns devoid of great tourist attractions was absent; driven out by Covid and maybe never to return.
However, there was still traffic and plenty of people happening foot or by shiny tram to the central Centennial Square were also heading to the BISA conference. And despite Birmingham’s struggles, the town council filed for bankruptcy last yr – it looks as if it might offer opportunities that other cities haven’t got. Additionally, it stays a wonderful place for a conference.
Birmingham’s status as a middle of international events can have been shaped over time National Exhibition Center, next to the airport, nevertheless it is within the very heart of the town that there may be now a bustling conference center. There is a posh of conference rooms there wonderful city library, symphony hallAND Exchange, a part of the University of Birmingham (yes, one other member of the Conversation) hosted BISA delegates for 3 days.
Over coffee on the Stock Exchange, Julia Dryden, director and CEO of BISA, introduced me to the size of the event. They organized almost 1,200 registrations and 330 panels, in addition to quite a lot of accompanying events. I only got to a few, nevertheless it gave me insight into research being done in related disciplines.
Artificial intelligence and war
I managed to get entangled in a discussion among the many so-called critical military studies including a debate on the concept of ‘liberal war’, in addition to an enchanting panel entitled Predicting the Future of War: Artificial Intelligence, Automated Systems and the Decision to Recourse to Force, which featured articles from Toni Erskine on the Australian National University and Nicholas Wheeler on the University of Birmingham.
After lunch, for obvious reasons, a session titled Publishing as a PhD Student: Do’s and Don’ts caught my attention. Under the leadership Richard Devetak The University of Queensland has guidance and guidance on how and when early-career researchers can publish. Of course, I used to be keen to listen to their thoughts on moving beyond the academy and having their work appear on platforms like The Conversation.
Marcus Nicholson, formerly a PhD student at Glasgow Caledonian University, duly informed the room that he had written for The Conversation and that this had led to re-publication in national media in addition to interest from broadcasters. Others talked about how blogging and broader involvement in academic journalism allowed them to succeed in a much wider audience and increased the impact potential of their research.
This time it was a fast trip across the West Midlands for me, but my colleague Rachael Jolley, considered one of our international affairs editors, also dropped by earlier within the week, so you may expect to see articles from this yr’s BISA Conference published here.
So I returned to New Street station to catch the train to London and overhear the meeting between the Lund researcher and his fellow passengers. Like them, BISA continues its activities and can gather in Belfast, Northern Ireland next yr. We hope to be there.