Amy Stevens, University of Essex

My PhD research explores the expansion of state surveillance activities within the UK, focusing on the groups and individuals who challenge and resist them. This year CHASE funding enabled me to attend a week long doctoral training school at the Centre for Research, Information, Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP) at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The training school provided workshops on research ethics, publishing and funding, lectures from leading surveillance studies scholars and an invaluable opportunity to create a network of like-minded PhD students from around the world. Without funding from CHASE, it would have been very difficult for me to access such a valuable and very relevant training experience. In addition, this year, I also had the opportunity to present a paper from my PhD research; Resisting state surveillance: The framing of encryption in the response to the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, at the international bi-annual Surveillance Studies Network Conference held at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.