CONFIDENTIAL
Staff Review and Development (Academic)
This form has been developed in consultation with academic representatives.
For more information on the Annual Review Scheme, including downloadable forms, please
visit the Learning and Development Centre website at:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/ldc/annualreview
Departments may wish to add material to this form in order to incorporate relevant additional
local review requirements.
Name: Hanna Hodacs
Position: Research Fellow
Reviewer’s name: Maxine Berg
Date of previous review: 17th of June
Date of review: 15 of March
Once your reviewer (who will be a senior member of your department) has contacted you to
arrange a meeting, you should complete Part 1 of this form. If your reviewer has highlighted
any issues that they wish to discuss then you may find it helpful to bear these in mind when
completing the form.
You should pass a copy of the completed form to your reviewer at least a week before your
meeting, along with an up-to-date CV, highlight changes/additions from your previous CV
(ideally use the University’s standard format, see the document ‘CV Guidelines’ at:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/newpolicies/academic_promotions).
You may wish to include an additional summary of various activities that would not normally
feature on your CV, e.g. academic visits, grants applied for (even if not awarded – you can
access this information from RSS) administrative duties, new collaborations that have not yet
resulted in publications, etc. This is your opportunity to inform your head of department (via
your reviewer) about all aspects of your work over the past year.
The factual information provided by your CV and the more subjective comments you can give
on this form will provide the basis for your subsequent discussion.
Just as you have the opportunity to highlight any issues that you would particularly like to
discuss, you should expect to hear briefly from your reviewer at least three working days in
advance of the meeting about any issues that they would like to raise.
At the end of your meeting you and your reviewer should write and agree a short summary of
your discussion and list any matters that may need further attention. These might include
preferences and requests for the coming year and should be recorded on Part 2.
Include any identified development needs in Part 2. It will be your personal record and can be
retained to inform the following year’s review.
The form will be passed to your head of department and retained in your confidential file.
Page 1 of 6
PART 1
You should complete this section and pass the whole form to your reviewer at least
seven days before your meeting, along with an up-to-date CV. This information,
along with your responses to the questions that follow, will allow for an informed and
wide-ranging review discussion.
TAKING STOCK
Summarise your plans and aspirations as expressed in your previous review.
If this is your first review, please summarise your main areas of activity over the year.
In my previous report (from the 17th of June 2011) I outlined my plans to visit archives
in the US (Minneapolis), Denmark and Sweden. Since then I did work 2 weeks in the
James Ford Bell Library and 5 days in the Danish National Archive in October 2011
and January 2012. I am planning to visit the Swedish archive (Riksarkivet) in late
spring, or early summer.
In my previous report I also listed papers that I was working on.
My paper “Scandinavian Charted Companies” for Oxford bibliographies on-line, has
been accepted and is under publication.
The short papers (built on material from EIC, on quantity and quality of goods
ordered) formed parts of our introductions to the different sessions of both the
workshop “Material Encounters of the East India Companies 1600-1850' (Oxford),
July 2011, and “Comparing Companies: New Questions for Historians' (Warwick),
October 2011.
I developed one strand of this work further, namely by looking closer at the selling of
silk textiles at the Swedish auctions, and particularly at the names and variation in
colours and the price differences between bundles of silk textiles containing
variations of different colours.
I am currently working on this paper with aim to present it at the workshop “Global
colours: Theories, Materials and Colouring Agents in Global History (Warwick) 27
April 2012). I will also present a version of this paper at the conference “Innovation
before the Modern. Cloth and Clothing in the Early Modern World, Nordiska Museet,
Stockholm, 27-29 September 2012 (if it is accepted).
The other two papers, re. auctions and exchange of information across Europe on
East India goods, based on material from Irvine papers (in Minneapolis), that I also
listed in my last report were papers I was planning to work on over the cause of this
and next year.
The Literature Review/Survey article I have still not finished with.
How did what you accomplished last year compare to these plans and
aspirations?
What went well, and what went less well?
The workshop (in Oxford and Warwick) took a lot of time to organise, although I think
it was worthwhile.
The beginning of this term has largely been taken up by teaching preparation and
teaching for the course The World of Consumption. Since it is the first time I am
teaching on this subject I have had prepare quite a lot. However next year this should
take much less time.
Were there any factors that inhibited you achieving your goals?
These could be structural problems (at the University or departmental level), lack of
resources, or inter-personal problems.
No.
Did you undertake any training over the last year? If so, in what ways did it
prove useful?
9 of March: Presentation skill workshop (Warwick)
It was very much geared towards job interview presentations. I would have liked it to
be broader and more varied workshop e.g. using video to record presentations.
PLANNING AHEAD
What are your plans and aspirations for the future?
Consider research, teaching, and administration. If you have particular requests for
next year’s teaching or administrative duties, please note them here. If you are
planning to take study leave, please mention this here.
Work in progress
I am currently working on two papers, one for my Swedish project on global
knowledge and Swedish naturalists in London, and one for the paper for the Global
Colour workshop. (I mentioned the first paper since strictly speaking I should be
working on the Warwick project this spring, however since I worked on the Warwick
project this autumn I am making up for time I lost on my Swedish project).
In the second paper I am going to develop approaches and conclusions from the minipaper I presented at the EAC-URKEW meeting, I am going to include material from
the Danish archive. Pending on the response I get on my paper, further work on the
Danish material, and results from my planned visit to the National Archive in
Stockholm I will spend May and June working out a detailed research plan (for our
meeting in Swaledale).
At the moment I envision working further on the auctions, I also think it would be
possible and fruitful to map out some of the networks engaged in the re-export of
goods brought to Copenhagen and Gothenburg. I would also like to write something
on the quality control of tea, brought in by the Swedish company but re-exported to
Rotterdam.
A preliminary plan for a (short) monograph on the Scandinavian East India trade
might look something like this.
Peripheral Emporiums – the Scandinavian trade with Asia in the 18th Century
1. Introduction
On what distinguished the Scandinavian companies:



Neutrality
Slim line organisations
The proximity to strong consumer markets
2. The Auctions
Intro: On the auctions in Copenhagen and Gothenburg in comparison with what
we know about other East India Company auctions


Timing - Regularity
The auction as an event
o Setting prices
o Introducing new goods
3. Networks involved in re-exports
Intro: On Baltic merchant houses and the Scottish connections



On the buyers at the auction
Where did they re-export go to
o Case study
Quality control
Working environment
Do you have any comments about your working environment, including working
relationships that concern you? Is there any way in which the department or
University could better support you?
No
Staff development
Is there any training that you think would be useful for you in any aspect of your job?
In order that you and your reviewer are clear on what happens next, it may help you
to specify how the training will be supplied, who will be responsible for organising
this, by when, and what you wish to achieve by taking part.
Not that I can think of right now.
Career development
What are your longer term plans in terms of promotion and career development?
Pending on when my funding runs out but it looks like I will be looking for another
position towards the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015 (but see below).
PARTICULAR ISSUES TO DISCUSS AT THE REVIEW MEETING
If you wish to highlight any issues that you would particularly like to discuss during
your review (even if already mentioned above), please do so here.
Due to my sickness last year I was off ca. 3.5 months in the spring and summer of
2011 (see last report where I estimated my working hours to be 319 hours between 5
of January 2011 and 17 of June 2011, after that I worked another 135 hours in June
and July 2011).
I am wondering if this is time that I could make up for after March 2014? I.e. can it be
added on or should I assume my employment will end 31 of March 2014 regardless?
Knowing if this is a possibility would help me plan my work both on this project and
on my Swedish project, since I need to spend my Swedish funding within a certain
time (officially before 31 of December 2014 but this can possibly extended because I
have been sick).
Once they have received this form, your reviewer should let you know at least three
working days before the meeting if there are any issues that they would particularly
like to discuss. A brief email may be the most appropriate way to do this, but they
should also make a note of them here.
PART 2
At the end of your discussion you should complete this section of the form and then
pass the whole form to your reviewer for him/her to agree the outcomes of the
meeting. The whole form should then be passed to your Head of Department (if he or
she is not your reviewer).
This section should be an agreed summary of your discussion and will provide you
and your reviewer with a useful record of your conversation. You may find it useful to
couch this in the context of previous reviews. Include any discussions about future
plans including, if appropriate, teaching preferences, request for study leave etc.
If you are unable to agree on a summary of the discussion, this should be noted by
both parties on the form with the areas of disagreement recorded.
Name:
Department:
Reviewer:
Date:
Agreed summary of discussion
………………………………………………………… Reviewee
………………………………………………………… Reviewer
Comment from Head of Department (or nominated person)
………………………………………………………… Head of Department
/Nominated person