The BFWG Research Presentation Day has been running for over 25 years. There is a small prize of£150 and a runner-up prize of £50, funded by the BFWG Scholarship Fund. But the real value is forapplicants in setting out their work, and for those shortlisted for presentation, the day is both valuable and enjoyable far beyond the award itself, providing presentation practice, experience of fielding questions and hearing other presentations in different disciplines.

From entries received from postgraduate students across the UK, eight were shortlisted to attend and present their work on Saturday 9th May 2026 at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, Gordon Square, London. The premises are provided courtesy of Scholarship Fund trustee, and former Academic Awardee, Associate Professor Miljana Radivojević. Miljana was overseas and for the second year running, we were ably and enthusiastically helped on the day by one of her colleagues, Dr Carlotta Farci.

The emphasis for the RPD is that students disseminate often complex ideas and information to a non-specialist audience. Traditionally, some students get this idea better than others! But this year, all were extremely well-framed and delivered. The audience consisted of BFWG members and their guests, the presenters, those accompanying presenters and it was particularly good to see in the audience a couple of applicants who had not been shortlisted.

We have, for the past couple of years, invited past Academic Awardees but none were able to attend this year. Clearly, in busy lives, to give up a Saturday is over and above the call of duty.

A highlight of the day is always the networking over lunch, and the venue allows people to sit on a plant-filled balcony enjoying views over Gordon Square and we were blessed, for the fourth year running, with perfect weather to accompany the great conversations and connections.

The BFWG Research Presentation Day has been run for around 25 years.  There is a small prize of £150 and, for the first time this year, a runner up prize of £50, funded by the BFWG Scholarship Fund.  But the value is for applicants in setting out their work, and for those shortlisted for presentation, the day is both valuable and enjoyable far beyond the award itself in presentation practice, fielding questions and hearing other presentations in different disciplines.

From entries received from postgraduate students across the UK, eight were shortlisted to attend and present their work on Saturday 10 May 2025 at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, Gordon Square, London.  One had to pull out, so we heard seven.  The premises are provided courtesy of  Scholarship Fund trustee, and former Academic Awardee, Associate Professor Miljana Radivojević.  Miljana couldn’t join us this year as she is involved in a major archaeological project in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The emphasis for the RPD is that students disseminate often complex ideas and information to a non-specialist audience and some get this idea better than others!

The audience consisted of BFWG members and their guests, the presenters, those accompanying presenters and it was particularly good to see in the audience a couple of applicants who had not been shortlisted.

We also invited past Academic Awardees and four attended, were introduced to the audience and took questions.  They were so appreciative of the award and all four could cite specific conferences and activities which the award allowed  -  it made a real difference in their academic journey and quality of studies.  They are great ambassadors for BFWG and enthused about the BFWG Alumni/Young Researcher group spearheaded by Kate Irving.

A highlight of the day is always the networking over lunch and the venue allows people to sit on a plant-filled balcony with a glass of wine, enjoying views over Gordon Square and we were blessed, for the third year running, with perfect weather to accompany the great conversations and connections.

This year’s finalists were as follows.  We were particularly pleased to have a diverse group in terms of age and ethnicity.  Home countries of those presenting included Italy, the USA, India,  Greece and UK.

The winner, for a presentation which was well structured with clarity of explanation, excellent responses to questions and great passion, along with a PowerPoint presentation which enhanced the piece (avoiding the pitfalls of clutter, boredom or superfluity) was Pooja Kini with a report of her year-long field study in Jaipur regarding access to water in the slums, or as she preferred to term it, informal settlements.  This covered not only the physical logistics of water outlets, but the complex framework of class, caste and religion which impacts all decisions and their effectiveness.

The runner up was Charlotte Baskerville for her work with primary school children in Herefordshire in the novel situation of composing music in and related to place.  Although the sound system was somewhat limited, we managed to hear a short clip of the superb outcome of her work.  She plans to extend the work with senior schools, adult choirs (both professional and amateur) and dementia groups.

It is unnecessary to add that it is never an easy choice and there were several other presentations which would have been worthy winners, along with other excellent entries who didn’t make the presentations day.

Thanks are due all BFWG women who come as audience and then get stuck in to making the day work so well  -  whether setting out food, making tea, ensuring everyone is greeted, mingling with presenters and younger members and, of course, asking interesting and demanding questions of the presenters.  An engaged audience meant that each of the seven talks could easily have extended into a longer discussion  -  but that would have taken several days to get through!