Jisc Change Agents' Network Conference 2024

The Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching (BILT) hosts the Bristol University Student Research Journal and Student Research Festival. The BILT Journal is an initiative pioneered by a former BILT Student Fellow and the University’s interdisciplinary, student-run, peer-reviewed journal, while the Student Research Festival takes place once a year to showcase the best of student research.

This poster will cover the structure and workings of this journal as key UoB initiative to foster student engagement with research and enable students of all disciplines to gain employability skills for the modern world. The journal is headed by a Student Fellow each year, responsible for hiring the all-student editorial board, presenting a great opportunity to gain an insight into the workings of academic journal as well as equipping students with key critical thinking and editorial skills that improve both their subject and general professional competencies. Those students getting the chance to publish their work in the journal after a competitive selection process experience the peer-review process as an author and have the opportunity to see their work published, a formative experience for many undergraduate students participating. The Student Research Festival, on the other hand, covers a different skillset: it is an annual event for students wishing to present their research to hone their public speaking skills, learn how to present their expert research to a non-expert audience and how to manage discussion around their work.

Both initiatives are led by students, but can only exist with the appropriate institutional support, funding, and staff capacities to assist the projects. This poster gives a key overview over the initiatives and what is needed to be able to set up similar projects successfully.