The first training week went well:
In May, PhD students and researchers from the EPHEMERAL network met in Newcastle for the project’s first training week. This was the first official meeting where all the new PhD students had the opportunity to meet. The week marked the beginning of a shared academic and social foundation.
The programme combined lectures, workshops, and field visits with participation in the international Rural Entrepreneurship Conference. Here, participants gained insights into current research and policy debates, as well as opportunities to build networks within the research community.
A central focus was to strengthen participants’ understanding of entrepreneurship in rural areas, both theoretically and in practice. This was supported, among other things, by an excursion to local businesses in Northumberland, where participants gained insight into how entrepreneurship unfolds in different rural contexts and contributes to local development.
The week also offered skills development in areas such as research methods, interview techniques, and career planning, including a particular focus on inclusion and inequality through a workshop on intersectionality in entrepreneurship research.
Overall, the training week was experienced as a strong start to the collaboration, with both academic outcomes and community at its core, and with high expectations for the continuation of the programme leading up to the next training week in Groningen.
Subject Specific Learning & Methods Training: Debating and critiquing key theories and embedding
intersectionality into rural research; Including: entrepreneurial ecosystems (Jonathan Kimmitt, Durham University);
context (Friedriche Welter, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung); intersectional and feminist approaches (Gao &
Martinez-Dy, Loughborough University) and social enterprise life cycles (Price).
ALRC: Identifying the nature of rural business support needs, with Paul Cowie and colleagues from Rural Design
Centre & Liz Shutt and colleagues from Insights North East incorporating a visit to Northumberland rural
enterprises.
Personal & Career Development: Presentation on learning from past DTNs, (RUN-IN, SURPLACE & CORAL)
Icebreaker activity – ESRs produce short, filmed interviews about their project goals.