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18 Sep

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Dynamics of Virtual Work Book Series

September 18, 2016 | By |

A lasting legacy of this COST Action is the Dynamics of Virtual Work book series, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Edited by Ursula Huws, Professor of Labour and Globalization at the University of Hertfordshire, UK and Rosalind Gill, Professor of Cultural and Social Analysis at City University, London, UK, this series includes the following titles, with more planned for the future:
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04 Aug

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Towards a future research agenda – summary document

August 4, 2016 | By |

As the Dynamics of Virtual Work COST Action draws to a close, Working Group 4 has been working hard to pull together all the results of its work on the policy implications of Virtual Work and, in particular, the research questions that will need to be addressed to enable these policies to be formulated.

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23 Apr

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Policy Implications of Virtual Work, Brussels, 9 June, 2016

April 23, 2016 | By |

A meeting was held with policy stakeholders hosted by the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour to discuss the policy implications of virtual work. Read More

01 Mar

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Final Conference, Vilnius, 14-16 September, 2016

March 1, 2016 | By |

The final meeting of Working Groups and conference took place at ISM University of Management and Economics in Vilnius, Lithuania Read More

27 Jan

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Expert Workshop, Brussels, 18 February, 2016

January 27, 2016 | By |

An expert workshop was held in Brussels on February 18th, 2016, hosted by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies on the Measurement of Digital Work Read More

12 Dec

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Meeting of Working Groups and Workshop, Pavia, 21-23 March, 2016

December 12, 2015 | By |

A meeting of Working Groups was held in Pavia, near Milan, Italy on 21-22nd March, 2016, hosted by the University of Pavia. Read More

19 Nov

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MC Meeting and Public Book Launch, London, 21 January, 2016

November 19, 2015 | By |

The Dynamics of Virtual Work book series. was launched at the University of Westminster,  on January 21st, 2016 following a meeting of the Management Committee. Read More

12 Oct

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Call for Contributions: Creative Hubs in Question

October 12, 2015 | By |

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: CREATIVE HUBS IN QUESTION

Dr Tarek Virani and Professor Rosalind Gill are putting together a book proposal for an edited volume about ‘creative hubs’, developing out of  our research as part of AHRC’s Creativeworks London http://www.creativeworkslondon.org.uk/research/place-work-knowledge/

The term ‘hub’ seems to be everywhere.  Starting in and around 2003, the growth and proliferation of these types of  largely urban industrial agglomeration has been exponential. From San Francisco to London to Moscow to Durban to Hanoi to Shanghai, creative hubs are on the increase. But the academic work on creative hubs is surprisingly scarce. Although the term is currently in wide use in policy circles its actual meaning is not always clear. The term has no commonly accepted definition and has been criticised for lacking clarity as well as being ‘all encompassing’. Hubs have been understood as co-working spaces, studios, incubators, accelerators, districts, quarters, zones and/or a mix of all of the above.  The lack of clarity – let alone consensus – is  especially troubling given that policymakers, research councils, consultants, and governments have been so quick to promote and endorse the effectiveness of creative hubs in catalysing growth and innovation in local creative economies, as well as producing urban regeneration.

We are looking for expressions of interest and abstracts for a book that will look critically at the idea of ‘creative hubs’ from interdisciplinary perspectives including Sociology, Geography, Media and Communications, Culture and Creative Industries,  Critical Policy studies, Gender studies, Race and Ethnicity, and Urban Studies.  Contributions may be empirical studies of actual hubs, or may be theoretical reflections on the concept of creative hubs. We are interested in what ‘creative hubs’ as a notion does performatively/ideologically in particular (global/local) policy contexts; we are interested in where ‘hubs’ are situated in relation to existing ideas such as ‘clusters’ or ‘co-working spaces’; we are interested in critically examining how hubs may intervene in geographies of inequality, austerity and injustice; we are interested to explore how the concept of creative hubs travels and materialises in different contexts, and in exploring how ‘creative hubs’ may relate to ‘knowledge hubs’ or ‘innovation spaces’ – either as an idea or in concrete locations. Above all we hope the volume will start a critical conversation that interrogates the taken-for-grantedness of ‘creative hubs’.

We have approached Palgrave who have expressed interest in considering such a volume.  If you are interested in contributing, please send an abstract to Rosalind.Gill.2@city.ac.uk  by November 13th 2015.  If accepted, final drafts of chapters will be needed by November 2016.

Rosalind Gill
Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis

Room D610
School of Arts and Social Sciences

City University London

Northampton Square

London EC1V 0HB

rosalind.gill.2@city.ac.uk

 

12 Oct

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Training School, Dubrovnik, 3-6 May, 2016

October 12, 2015 | By |

A Training School on Technologies of Digital Work was held at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik (IUC) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, on May 3-6, 2016.

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25 Sep

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next year’s events

September 25, 2015 | By |

We are planning a series of exciting events for the final year of our Action –

  • a public seminar in Athens on December 3rd, 2015
  • a launch of our book series in London on January 21st. 2016
  • a meeting of all four working groups and a workshop in Milan on March, 2016
  • a training school for PhD students in Dubrovnik in May, 2016
  • a workshop for policy makers in Brussels in June, 2016
  • a final conference in Lithuania in September, 2016

Watch this space for more details.