WISERD Conference 2025 – New researcher session and prize winners 

The conference began with a newly designed session for new researchers, attended by over 60 new researchers, which featured an open papers section. Four of our first-year WGSSS students presented papers in this session: 

• Aidan Bark-Connell (Sociology/Science and Technology Studies Pathway, Bangor University) 

• Alys Samuel-Thomas (Environmental Planning Pathway, Swansea University) 

• Betsi Doyle (Sociology/Science and Technology Studies Pathway, Cardiff University) 

• Daniel Southall (Linguistics and Bilingualism Pathway, Cardiff University) 

Jay writes “I was looking forward to attending the WISERD conference for the networking opportunity and to learn from the other amazing social research being done in Wales, but, as a first year PhD student, I also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to showcase my project, get feedback, and gain experience presenting in a conference setting. The 3-minute flash talks are a great way to do this. It’s a challenge to summarise and present your project in 3 minutes, but it’s less pressure than a full 10/15-minute presentation (especially if you’ve not got any findings to report yet!).  

The Early Career Researcher session at the start of the conference was a really supportive environment and meant that you’re presenting to a room of peers in a similar position to you, and there’s the added bonus that you’re able to get your presentation out of the way on the first morning and then fully engage with everything else on offer. 

The prize for Best Flash Talk was awarded to WGSSS alumna Dr Celia Netana (Management and Business Pathway, Cardiff University) for her powerful presentation titled “You’re only paid what the last person fought for” (Rosenfeld, 2021). What has been won for Social Care workers in Wales? — Llongyfarchiadau, Celia! 

It was brilliant to see so many WGSSS students presenting their work in the main sessions. There was such a spread of interesting and engaging talks, and it was fantastic to hear about the progress being made on projects and plans for the future.  

“I reluctantly applied for the WISERD conference because I was unsure how confidently I could articulate my research at such a big conference. When my abstract was accepted, I was even more excited about seeing Aberystwyth for the first time, as I had heard about its beauty. Then came the daunting reality that I had to conclude on my slides and deliver a feasible 15-minute presentation, which I managed to finalise on the morning of the presentation. 

Just before the presentation, the nerves sort of jolted, but I encouraged myself to think about how significant the voices of my participants were, despite some of their unpleasant experiences. I wanted to showcase the successes of Wales as a Nation of Sanctuary and to mention where these forcibly displaced migrant women needed more support.  To be honest, I just wanted to present, hoping that my emotions wouldn’t get the better of me. Thankfully, I managed to keep the tears internalised by bouts of silence as I presented.