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Information for Attendees

Welcome IDEA Foundation Members! We are delighted to have such a strong and diverse group of colleagues joining us in person and virtually at our 2011 workshop series. As we look forward to our first meeting, I wanted to tell you a little bit more about what we will be doing at each workshop, and to ask you to join us in laying the groundwork for productive and successful discussions.

The IDEA workshops will be venues in which to share our collective research experience, to evaluate examples of best practice from a wide range of disciplines, and to learn from the experiences of research users. Before each meeting, we ask that each of you send us the title of one key paper from your own field addressing the topic of each workshop you plan to attend. It could be an example of best practice, some of your own current research, or a paper that highlights in particularly clear and useful ways problems facing the field. We will synopsise this collective bibliography and post the digests on the IDEA webpage for everyone to read in advance. They will provide us with a trans-disciplinary vocabulary and approach to the issues at hand, and serve as a shared basis of inquiry from which to proceed.

All workshops will start at 10:00 with coffee, and our discussions will end by 4:00. Currently all will be held in Millburn House at the University of Warwick (see our directions link, on the left-hand menu). We will be videotaping selections from each workshop for our Virtual Members, who will be able to access and comment upon them from our webinar pages.

At each meeting, selected speakers will reflect on key issues relevant to the workshop’s theme in short and informal presentations of 30 minutes or less. For the rest of the day, we will build on the talking points generated by our presenters through small-group discussions guided by the IDEA convenors (Bivins, Bradby, Hawthorne, Johnson and Szcepura). Lunch and coffee breaks will also give us time to circulate and chat more informally. Each day will end with a general discussion of the points we have considered, and the ideas and findings that have emerged.

After each meeting we will post video clips of our speakers’ presentations and of our general discussions on our webinar pages. At this point, we will invite our virtual members to send us their comments and to join in the wider discussion on the delivery of ethnically appropriate research, services and policy. Commentary too will be posted online, allowing us to continue in dialogue between workshops and after this segment of the IDEA programme has been concluded.

For those of you coming to Warwick, this page and its links should serve as your first port-of-call for maps, travel directions, and other basic information about the venue and workshops. On the menu bar to the left, you will also see a link to a catering information form, so that you can inform us of any dietary restrictions or preferences in advance. Please do fill this in as soon as possible, so that we can ensure a tasty and suitable menu for all of you!