Bristol Collegiate Research Society

The Bristol Collegiate Research Society is a body made up of academic and external members who are committed to sponsoring and supporting an annual academic symposium and travel scholarships.

About the Society

The Society was founded in 1899 by a body of Bristol citizens who wished to assist the University College. From 1908 to 1948 it applied its resources in grants towards specific research projects in various departments of the University. The main two areas of activity run supported by the Society are its annual research symposia and travel scholarships for postgraduate research students.

Research symposia

The Society has been supporting symposia since 1948. Each symposium consists of three elements: a conference, a public lecture and a dinner or reception. Following the event, the proceedings are published; past symposia publications form a series of volumes, held in the Special Collections in the University Library.

Previous symposia have covered the whole range of academic disciplines and cross-disciplinary symposia have been particularly encouraged. The financial support offered by the Society can provide invaluable seedcorn funding for symposia which might not otherwise have been able to run. The Society is happy to receive proposals from University academics for future symposia. The faculties are on a rotation in order to submit proposals as follows:

2021 no symposium was held
2022 Faculty of Health Sciences (held in Spring 2023)
2023 Faculty of Science
2024 Faculty of Social Sciences and Law
2025 Faculty of Engineering

View details of the upcoming symposium hosted by the Faculty of Science in September 2023.

View a list of previous symposia.

Travel and development scholarships

In July 2013, the Trustees agreed that, in keeping with the aim of spending funds in a way that will benefit students and ongoing research, they would award annual scholarships to fund postgraduate or post-doctoral research students wishing to attend conferences and symposia, either in the UK or overseas. The annual reports from 2020-21 and 2019-20 are available below:‌

Please visit the scholarship webpages for more information.

2023 Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Bristol Collegiate Research Society was held on 10th May 2023.

Trustees of the society

President: Ms Kathy Curling

Trustees:

Dr Ros Kennedy
Mr Alex Heath
Mr Dan Parkes
Mrs Yvonne Ashton
Dr John Manley
Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill
Professor Robert Bickers (Chairman of the Planning Committee)
Professor Keith Syrett

All enquiries: doctoral-college@bristol.ac.uk.