MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute), the UK’s first grassroots Research Institute has launched its inaugural Doctoral Publishing Programme called MaSPP (MEaP Academy Scholars’ Publishing Programme). MaSPP is being run in partnership with the publishers Palgrave Macmillan.
Manchester, November 22, 2021
MaCTRI (MEaP Academy Community Training & Research Institute), the UK’s first grassroots Research Institute has launched its inaugural Doctoral Publishing Programme called MaSPP (MEaP Academy Scholars’ Publishing Programme). MaSPP is being run in partnership with the publishers Palgrave Macmillan. This programme is a groundbreaking UK initiative aimed at showcasing the best decolonial work that is being carried out in the grassroots. Community practitioners and public/community intellectuals have been invited to contribute to the book series Palgrave Studies in Decolonisation and Grassroots Black Organic Intellectualism, edited by Dr Ornette D Clennon.
Dr Ornette D Clennon, Head of Institute said, “We are very excited by this groundbreaking venture because perhaps for the first time, we now have a research institute committed to research-excellence that is run for grassroots communities by grassroots communities”. Dr Clennon believes that mainstream academia has long had a monopoly on the valorisation of knowledge, especially when it concerns grassroots communities and furthermore that that knowledge has not always been respectful of the grassroots sources that it comes from. Dr Clennon believes that MaCTRI represents an opportunity for grassroots communities to conduct research about themselves for themselves in ways that benefit their communities. Dr Clennon continues, “we have so many scholars in our grassroots communities who for various reasons have not managed to convince the academy of their academic worth or value, so it is now time to put that enormous collective talent to good use in our publishing programme that is housed in an Institute, which as a recognised Alternative HE provider, is embedded in and shaped by the grassroots”.
MaSPP is a two-year publishing programme where Scholars who contribute to the Palgrave book series will have the opportunity to submit their published book as a PhD thesis into a ‘PhD via publication’ programme at a participating university, for one year. The programme will also involve Scholar-led community research seminars that will share their research with the wider community, sparking ideas around their research projects’ practical applications. Using contacts from the Institute’s Advisory Board, community research seminars will also include the sharing of innovative community research from doctoral candidates from John Hopkins University (USA), Federal University of the Amazon (Brazil) and School of Sacrament Rastafari University (Jamaica).
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Contact – Dr Ornette D Clennon at ornette@meap.org.uk
Background information on MaCTRI – https://meap.org.uk/research/
Background information on MaSPP – https://critracemmu.wordpress.com/decoloniality-in-the-grassroots-the-key-to-social-justice/