Event – SPIN Research Methods Masterclass: Navigating the challenges of Freedom of Information Access (FOIA)

About the Event

Please join the Secrecy, Power and Ignorance research Network (SPIN) for a free Methods Masterclass: Navigating the Challenges of Freedom of Information Access (FOIA). This event is aimed at PhD and early career researchers with an interest in accessing and using government files. It is of course open to researchers of all levels. The session will consist of four presentations by each of our experts in regulating, using, and studying FOI/A for research, followed by a discussion and Q&A session. We will also save some time for brief online networking for those interested in connecting following the session.

Our speakers include:

• Aiden Clarkson (Information Commissioner’s Office)
• Kevin Walby (University of Winnipeg)
• Spencer Izen (University of British Columbia)
• Hannah Richards (University of Bristol)
• Chair: Dr Elspeth Van Veeren

The event will be held online via Zoom. Please sign-up via Eventbrite to secure your space.

Speaker Bios

Hannah Richards is a Research Associate at the University of Bristol and holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Cardiff University. She is currently working on the ERC/UKRI funded project ‘Powerful Perpetrators’, a five-year project looking at sexual misconduct and abuse perpetrated by professionals, and the regulatory and administrative justice mechanisms used to investigate and sanction their behaviour. Hannah is a co-convenor of the BISA Critical Military Studies working group and has had her work published in Critical Military Studies, Critical Studies on Security, and Review of International Studies.

 

Kevin Walby is Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Winnipeg. He is co-author of Police Funding, Dark Money, and the Greedy Institution (Routledge, 2022) and co-editor of Changing of the Guards: Private Influences, Privatization, and Criminal Justice in Canada (UBC Press, 2022). He is the Director of the Centre for Access to Information and Justice (CAIJ) and co-editor of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons.

 

Aiden Clarkson is a Senior Upstream Regulation Officer in Freedom of Information and Transparency at the Information Commissioner’s Office. He works on developing resources to help public authorities comply with FOI/EIR, and on assisting the public to make workable and effective requests. Aiden has also worked in the ICO’s own Information Access team, handling complex FOI requests along with SARs and other individual rights requests, and on the ICO’s helpline and livechat services, giving detailed information rights guidance to private companies, public organisations, and individuals.

 

Spencer Izen is Research Coordinator for the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), where he studies the implementation of records management and freedom of information laws. Spencer previously held research positions at the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions at the University of British Columbia and the Library Futures Institute at New York University. In addition to SPIN he is affiliated with the Centre for Information, Technology and Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Centre for Science, Knowledge and Policy at the University of Edinburgh. Spencer studies in the Department of Political Science and School of Information at the University of British Columbia.