Despite the persisting challenges of Covid-19, the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group has had another highly successful year hosting a huge number of activities, creating new conversations, and elevating the status of geographic work on the topics of health and wellbeing.

For example, the ‘Conversations on Covid’ seminar series, which has been a huge success thanks to the leadership of Ailie Tam and Louise Boyle. This series has created a forum for cross-disciplinary conversations that assess the geographical consequences of this global public health crisis. These seminars have featured talks from distinguished geographers such as Angeliki Balayannis, Steve Cummins, Gareth Griffith, and Maddy Thompson. The talks have been a tremendous success in highlighting the exciting work occurring across geography that aims to grapple with the consequences of the pandemic on peoples lives and public health. It’s a series that will no doubt continue, so please do keep an eye out for future events.

The research group also hosted the 20th iteration of our Emerging and new researchers in the geographies of health and impairment conference – or ENRGHI –  ENRGHI was first hosted in 1994 under its previous name ‘Young Researchers in the Geography of Health’, since then, the conference has become highly successful, influential, and increasingly international. This year was no exception, with the conference co-hosted by the University of Salford and the University of Groningen, and reimagined for the Covid and digital era thanks to the leadership of Louise Mitchell, Tom Lowe, Gabby King, and Andy Harrod. The three day conference featured a diverse selection of thematic sessions and exciting and innovative scholarship from early career health geographers. It was also one of the most internationally attended ENRGHI conferences that I’ve had the fortune to attend, highlighting some of the positives that the move to online has brought.

The turn to online has also led the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group to continue to create supportive spaces for our colleagues and community. The ‘Get Happy and Write’ online writing groups led by Maddy Thompson and Gabby King have been a huge success in bringing people together in the era of online academia, creating a helpful environment to develop ideas but also to have those casual conversations that can be vital to wellbeing. Similarly, the little acts of kindness project has enabled the research group to reach out to people within the geography community and brighten someone’s day during a time that has been challenging for so many.

Our innovative series of blogs, Journeys, showcases the stories of geographers whose research connects to the topics of health and wellbeing. Building on the success of the series last year, this year we’ve seen contributions from Sarah Curtis, Clare Holdsworth and Phil Emmerson that offer some valuable insights into the varied pathways, research interests, expertise and experiences of those working within this field.

(Rich Gorman, chair)