Preamble

Preamble- Melissa Williams

The Working Paper contains written and visual contributions that were presented at the third annual ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research conference in June 2025. The theme of the 2025 Conference was ‘Connected Struggles and Solidarity’ and each of the contributions to the Working Paper were selected as they embody both our 2025 conference themes, and our decolonial, disruptive, and liberatory aims. The Conference Team would like to express our gratitude to Dr Karisha George for her support with the peer-review process for the 2026 Working Paper. 

The ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research: Open and Inclusive Conference for postgraduate researchers (PGRs) and early career researchers (ECRs) was created by the PGR-led Anti-Racism Working Group in 2023. The conference was created as the organisers often felt marginalised in traditional conference spaces, due to their positionalities and/or disruptive approaches to social science research. The PGR-led team understood that these spaces can be very daunting for people just beginning their careers in research, and hence aimed to create a space whereby junior researchers could develop their skills and receive peer-feedback on their work. The Conference is a critical learning space, centred in care and community, whereby those at this research stage can share their work with peers and those beyond the academic space. Over the years, the team have created a scholar-activist (Joseph-Salisbury and Connelly, 2021) community of friends and colleagues who each seek to challenge structural racism, neoliberalism, and other injustices that are present in academic institutions and in the broader global context. 

The Core Conference Team was led by PGR students and Working Group co-leads Susannah Williams and Melissa Williams, who are based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of York. Members of the Core Team included PGR students Katie Heffron (University of York), CJ Simon (University of Sheffield), Masters Student Jonathan Lee (University of York), and academic Dr Paula McLean (Sheffield Hallam University). The organising efforts of the Core Team were also supported by the dedicated Steering Committee made up of Dr Joe Turner, Dr Karisha George, Jayne Blizzard, Ayo Barley, Raj Mann, and Jack Harris. Lastly, the Conference Team also express their gratitude to the Review and Conference Day Volunteers including Oliwia Rościezewska, Nicolai Gellwitzki, Anisha Debberman, Sara de Sousa and Madalyn Mann. 

The Conference team were also delighted to receive funding from longstanding partners Building Research and Innovation Capacity at the University of York (BRIC) and Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE). Without their support, this conference simply would not take place. Their generous financial support enabled the conference team to provide 15 fee waiver places (valued at £50pp) to those who could not otherwise attend the conference, thus improving accessibility. 

For the third annual Conference, the team were joined by over 60 delegates from Universities across the UK and the world, charitable organisations, NGO's and the NHS. 19 of our delegates presented their research across 5 thematically organised panels and 10 presented their work in a visual format in the Art and Poster Exhibition. In addition to this, the team firstly hosted Dr Remi-Joseph Salisbury, Dr Laura Connelly, Dr Madeline-Sophie Abbas, and Dr Amina for a roundtable panel entitled 'How Can We Use Research For Social Justice?'. This Roundtable was followed by an incredible, interacted workshop hosted by Sai Murray on 'Creative and Embodied Approaches to Anti-Racist Research'. The conference closed with an Evening Reception, were delegates heard from longstanding members of our scholar-activist community Dr Dominique White, Haddy Njie, Matthew Johnson and Melissa Williams. 

The Conference Team is now in the process of organising the fourth and final ‘Race’ and Socially Engaged Research Conference which will take place on the 3rd July 2026. They plan to wrap up this project through a book publication, with contributions from members of the scholar-activist community that has developed over the past four years, making this the final Working Paper. As the team closes the formal chapter of the Conference, they would like to express their deep gratitude to all those who have supported them over the years and contributed their time, money, and reflections to help create this incredible community.