The Institute’s academic program – progress and future plans.
May 2020.
The Institute and its precursor organisations have for many years conducted activities aiming to establish independence studies as a recognised field of academic research. It is now launching the following 5-point program to expand these activities within this country and internationally:
1. Establishing formal academic partnerships.
Having already achieved a certain level of recognition in academic circles as the country’s leading centre for research and study in its field of inquiry, in the first instance within the University of Westminster, the Institute now aims to establish an international network of formal academic partnerships.
2. Organisation of academic activities and events.
The Institute aims to build further on its long experience in the organisation of conferences, seminars, and the exchange of academic delegations, a notable recent example being the hosting at the University of Westminster of a successful seminar for a visiting delegation of Chinese social scientists.
3. Initiation and funding of research projects.
The Institute aims to take forward its experience and contacts in the academic world to source funding from government and other funding bodies for research projects, and in a pilot project has already issued a bursary for an assessment of its informational resources.
4. Exploitation of the Institute’s informational resources.
The Institute’s initial classification and cataloguing of its library of books, pamphlets and other informational resources forms the basis for its project to establish its library and website as the country’s foremost informational resource for research in its field of inquiry.
5. Publications, website and other online activity.
The Institute aims to make its publications more widely available online, to resume publication of its journal, and to initiate a series of working papers on its website, as well as exploring other means of online social media.
All these aspects of the Institute’s academic program will benefit from its wider cultural, community, campaigning and business activities, so that, for example, it will organise social receptions, cultural events, touristic arrangements for visiting scholars, press conferences and other events associated with its academic work.