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Society News

Our Successes in 2018

As 2018 is coming to an end, we look back to a fantastic year for ESLR. We could not be happier with what we achieved. Earlier this year our website received a new design and content.

We successfully secured funding for our annual summer workshop in St. Andrews. With 37 participants this was our largest workshop so far. In July, we published a workshop proceedings paper in Evolutionary Anthropology.

As part of the workshop, we also held our very first Annual General Meeting, where we not only confirmed the formation of ESLR but also formally adopted the Society’s constitution. Since August the Society owns a bank account at the Royal Bank of Scotland. This will make it easier for us to receive external funding and keep track of our finances,
It also enables us to collect membership fees directly. We now also have a payment integration on our website. To date, we count 28 paying Society members. We are also very grateful to the 2 members who bought a generous membership.

Finally, with this issue, we successfully published three issues of Cultured Scene this year. We have published a variety of behind the paper stories, articles on new research methods, and perspectives on current issues in academia.Earlier this year we registered Cultured Scene with the British Library. Cultured Scene now has its very own ISSN number.

Finally, looking to 2019 we have already begun with the preparations of the next summer workshop, for which we have also secured funding.

Our Wishlist for 2019

There is a lot to look forward to in the new year. With the next workshop, we will try something new. This time the workshop will be more project-oriented and more hands-on. We hope again to attract a wide range of researchers and provide an intellectually stimulating environment.

We will also publish the first issue of our ESLR Handbook with a collection of information geared specifically towards early-career researchers.

Another project is our Social Learning Wikipedia Task Force (a.k.a. Social Learning WTF), a public outreach initiative that aims at monitoring and improving Wikipedia articles on social learning and cultural evolution. We are still looking for someone to take on the lead on this project. Get in touch if you are interested.

We are still in close contact with Natália Dutra, a fellow researcher from Brazil, and will use the next year to support the formation of an early-career network. Traditionally, researchers in South America have limited access to English education and funding. We hope to provide know-how and other support to kick-off a self-sustaining society in Brazil.

Finally, on an organisational note, we plan to give Cultured Scene its own website, which should make it easier to discover (full text) articles. We are also planning a small merchandise shop. More soon.

We cannot wait for the new year, the new challenges, and the many new opportunities for our Society. We hope that you are as eager as we are!

Social Secretary Vacancy

There is a vacancy at the Society’s committee. We are looking for a Social Secretary. The Social Secretary is important for facilitating communication between the Society and its members as well as for communication outside the Society. The major task of the Social Secretary is to run our social media outlets on Facebook and Twitter. A smaller part is to take care of the members’ database and the recurring Society newsletter. If you are interested, have a look at the extended call here: https:// bit.ly/2V5ns0s.