A Nottingham student has been appointed as Youth Goodwill Ambassador of Denmark.

Joanna Hill is currently studying at the University of Copenhagen as part of her Law degree programme.

The Youth Goodwill Ambassador Corps now engages close to 350 current and former international students with the aim of promoting Denmark as an attractive destination for student exchange and career opportunities for talented foreign graduates.

Danish companies will be short of up to 21,000 graduate level employees by 2020. Attracting and retaining foreign talent has been identified as crucial to preserving Denmark’s status as a globally recognised country of innovation.

Although a relatively small country, Denmark is often recognised as the happiest nation in the world with the high levels of education, a unique welfare system and a high GDP.

Joanna says she has settled quickly in Denmark and could see herself living and working there in the future. “I have really enjoyed my first three months in Copenhagen,” she said. “There is a very relaxed way of life, everyone cycles everywhere and there is a big emphasis on communal living.”

Joanna will act as an ambassador for the duration of her studies in Copenhagen and for a further year once she returns to the UK.

Creating a new breed of aero research engineer

The University has secured multi-million euro funding to lead a pioneering research project to create a blueprint for tomorrow’s air transportation system.

The Integration of Novel Aerospace Technologies research project, known as INNOVATE, brings together doctoral students from around the world with 14 industrial partners, including Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation and EADS, and expertise from The University Of Nottingham, led by its Institute for Aerospace Technology (IAT).

INNOVATE is a €3.8m Marie Curie Innovative Doctoral Programme and will take a multi-disciplinary approach to look at the air transportation system. Each early stage researcher will develop novel technologies inside each of the core participating Nottingham research groups leading to their PhDs, while contributing to the blueprint as part of a team effort.

In a departure from a traditional PhD programme, students will undertake a placement with an industrial partners.

By breaking down traditional research silos and creating a new model, where researchers will be working as an interdisciplinary team, academics believe a new breed of engineers will emerge. Dr Hervé Morvan, Director of Research, IAT, said: “We firmly believe that this kind of integrated approach will be critical to delivering innovation to the marketplace.”

 Agreement to help train China’s finance experts

An agreement has been announced between The University of Nottingham and Guangdong University of Finance, to create a new Institute which will train up to 2,000 Chinese financial specialists each year.

The announcement of the Guangdong-Nottingham Advanced Finance Institute was made in Beijing as part of the UK Prime Minister’s visit to China.

Guangdong has the largest GDP of any Chinese province, estimated to be around £550 billion per annum and its provincial capital, Guangzhou, is recognised as the largest financial centre in China.