Hard to believe it is now July. The aspiration to submit my PhD thesis (on ‘More than Money: the social meaning of philanthropy in contemporary UK society’) by 31st July is looking increasingly daunting. So – much as I love being part of the online community discussing philanthropy and charitable giving – I’m going to have to cut out blogging and cut down on tweeting until the ‘big one’ is done.<\/p>\n
But I am pleased to use this last (for now) post to share news of a very exciting development in the world of understanding charity and giving. Next March the first edition of a new UK-based academic journal,\u00a0Voluntary Sector Review, <\/em>will be published and the the\u00a0call for papers<\/a> is now open.<\/p>\n The new journal is an initiative from the friendliest group of academics that I know: the Voluntary Sector Studies Network<\/a>. When I made my first tentative steps from fundraiser to researcher, the VSSN was a great source of information, contacts and encouragement and the value of membership continues to increase as I settle into my new career.<\/p>\n The academic study of charity and giving in the UK has enjoyed a lot of boosts recently – the launch of two research centres devoted to the Third Sector<\/a> and to Giving and Philanthropy<\/a>,\u00a0the associated job opportunities for researchers wanting to specialise in these fields and a greater number of events and online forums for the exchange and dissemination of ideas (foremost amongst which is also a VSSN initiative – the\u00a0annual conference<\/a>, which is being held at the University of Warwick on 7-8 September 2009).<\/p>\n But an academic community needs more than research centres, job openings and meetings – it needs\u00a0somewhere to publish peer-reviewed work.\u00a0I really hope there’s a big response to the call for papers<\/a> and I can’t wait to read the first edition next Spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"