Campus News
New Year, new language: new opportunities
January 2nd, 2019
Interested in learning Mandarin? The Nottingham Confucius Institute is offering a range of courses to all University staff, postgraduate students and local residents.
Mandarin is becoming an increasingly useful language around the world. It can open new vistas for you: whether you are engaged in business, education, travelling or just making friends.
The Nottingham Confucius Institute offers evening and weekend classes as well as private lessons, all taught by experienced language teachers from Chinese universities.
Join us from the week commencing Monday 28 January.
Tags: Chinese, language classes, Mandarin, Nottingham Confucius Institute
Posted in Announcements, News, Opportunities, Teaching | 2 Comments »
UoN health scientist recognised in New Year Honours
January 2nd, 2019
Associate Professor Stacy Johnson, in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, has been appointed Member of the British Empire (MBE) for services to healthcare and Higher Education equality, diversity and inclusion.
Stacy is an inspirational teacher and champion of equality, diversity and inclusion, whose work has shaped nursing and Higher Education around the world.
An award-winning lecturer, she has most recently been recognised in the UK Teaching Excellence Awards for an innovative European Junior Leadership Academy for student nurses and midwives.
Stacy is in demand as an advisor and speaker on healthcare – particularly on matters involving inclusion and justice. Since 2012 she has been a member of England’s Chief Nursing Officer’s Black and Minority Ethnic Group, advising on issues affecting BME patients and staff. She also lectures on and researches healthcare leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Miss Johnson has developed an exemplary reputation for capacity and capability building in the international Higher Education arena. She has advised on curriculum reform, faculty development and leadership development in nurse education in the UK, South Africa, the Middle East, India, the Caribbean and China where she is a visiting lecturer at Henan University of Science and Technology.
In 2013, she was recognised by the Health Service Journal as one of the top 50 BME Pioneers in the UK. She is a Florence Nightingale Foundation and Mary Seacole Leadership scholar In her latest ground breaking piece of work, the ReMEDI Project, BME staff and students reverse mentor senior staff in the NHS and Universities improving inclusion and organisational culture.
She said: “This recognition is a bit of a shock but is wonderful because it honours the minority ethnic communities, students and staff who have been courageous enough to tell me their stories. It recognises the whole community, people of all ethnicities who stand shoulder to shoulder to defeat injustice and hate. I am not sure I deserve this as there is so much work still to do but it just makes me more resolved to keep working and hopeful for the cause. I am very grateful.”
Professor Joanne Lymn, Head of the School of Health Sciences at University of Nottingham, said: “We are extremely privileged as a school, and a University, to have people like Stacy working with us. We value her contribution to nursing and her continued efforts in championing BME patients and staff. This honour is richly-deserved and the perfect end to another successful year.”
President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham Professor Shearer West, said: “I would like to offer my warmest congratulations to Stacy. This honour highlights the importance of championing both women and BME communities and underpins the work the University has been doing in this area. On a personal note I have also had the pleasure of working closely with Stacy recently through our reverse-mentoring scheme and I am proud to call her a colleague.”
Tags: MBE, Member of the British Empire, New Year Honours, Stacy, Stacy Johnson
Posted in Announcements, News, People | 6 Comments »
Dr Andrew Mumford becomes Fellow of Royal Historical Society
December 21st, 2018
Dr Andrew Mumford, Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Dr Mumford said: “I’m delighted. The Royal Historical Society Fellowship is in recognition of my ‘contribution to historical scholarship’. These fellowships are not just for academics in history departments but acknowledge the work of those in other disciplines, including politics and international relations, who use historical research methods to help contextualise contemporary events.
“I do a lot of research on warfare and terrorism. Yet to solely analyse the conflicts around the world today in isolation, ignorant of their historical lineage, would be short-sighted. Historical scholarship into the antecedents of contemporary conflict is essential in order to understand the origins, processes, and possible outcomes of the wars around us today. That is why I am delighted that my work on the modern history of warfare and its political management has been recognised by the Royal Historical Society.”
Dr Mumford is co-director of the Centre for Conflict, Security and Terrorism. His research, which includes the study of hybrid warfare, has influenced Nato and Ministry of Defence policy. His latest book is Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance.
The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868 and is the UK’s leading society working with historians to advance the scholarly study of the past and inform policy debates about the study of history.
Tags: Andrew Mumford, Centre for Conflict, Royal Historical Society, Security and Terrorism
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Moodle and Rogo service restored
December 20th, 2018
We can confirm that maintenance work on Moodle and Rogo is now complete and you can continue working with these systems as normal.
The revision-only versions of Moodle and Rogo have been removed and the full, live versions are now in place.
Moodle and Rogo have been updated to take data from our new Campus Solutions student records system.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding as we completed this essential work.
Tags: campus solutions, moodle, rogo
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
UoN Sport: free trial for staff
December 20th, 2018
As part of our ongoing commitment to staff health and wellbeing, we are pleased to offer staff a free trial period at UoN sport this January 2019. This offer is open to all staff members who are not current sport and fitness members or have activated a free 30 day pass in the last six months.
Whether you want to push yourself in our state-of-the-art fitness suite or take a dip in our eight lane 25m swimming pool, a staff sport & fitness membership is your ticket to a healthier and more active life.
The staff free trial period will run between 2 January 2019 – 13 January 2019 inclusive and will provide access to the David Ross Sports Village, Jubilee Sports Centre, Sutton Bonington Sports Centre and the fitness suite at Kings Meadow Campus.
Find out more: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/membership/free-staff-trial.aspx.
Tags: fitness, sport, UoN Sport, wellbeing
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Update on RIS and author scoring from project sponsor
December 20th, 2018
A message from Kevin Shakesheff (Project Sponsor for RIS)
I’d like to thank many people across the University for their hard work to get RIS ready for the REF Readiness Review 2018. Within Research and Innovation, Libraries, IS and Faculties there has been intense activity for many months to get live reporting of staff and their outputs into RIS.
We have taken a flexible approach to the implementation of RIS for REF and have been guided, with some limits, by the views of Unit of Assessment Co-ordinators. Over the next three months the use of RIS will ramp up and I’m sure a number of teething problems with the system and data quality will come to light. We will endeavour to sort out these problems and communicate actions as promptly as possible.
One early teething problem has been that some academic staff have received author scoring request from Units of Assessments that they are not part of. I’d like to explain this a little more. For REF 2021 we have to link all authors to all outputs so we can get the best possible return. For interdisciplinary outputs you may be an author on a paper that could be submitted by another unit. For these outputs you might be asked to give an author score. We can’t stop these requests being sent to staff but I can reassure you that scoring is optional if you are not part of that unit. If you give a score then it will be considered along with the scores from within the Unit of Assessment. If you ignore the request then the output will be considered within the Unit of Assessment only.
I’m grateful for the work that staff will be undertaking to build a strong set of data within RIS for REF 2021.
Tags: Professor Kevin Shakesheff, REF Readiness Review, Research Information System, RIS
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US science super fan meets his YouTube hero
December 20th, 2018
Eight-year old Ajay Sawant and his family, from California, took a 12 hour detour to visit the School of Chemistry’s Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff.
Science fan Ajay had the chance to meet Sir Martyn Poliakoff, Dr Samantha Tang and Dr Debbie Kays, who are part of the Periodic Table of Videos Team.
Ajay and his parents took the detour to the University of Nottingham while en route from California to Mumbai to visit family. During the visit to the School of Chemistry, Ajay was shown how to make his very own glowstick and created impressive reactions using dry ice.
Ajay has been interested in science from a young age, making a presentation on the life cycle of a star at the age of 5. Since then his passion for science and in particular the Periodic Table has grown and he is even planning to try to break the world record for reciting the Periodic Table elements in the fastest time!
Martyn said: “It was wonderful to meet Ajay and his family and to see such passion for Chemistry in someone so young – he is clearly a scientist in the making!
“Chemistry is by its very nature both fascinating and exciting and knowing that the videos which we are making are helping to inspire people across the world to find out more about this amazing subject gives us a real buzz and makes it all worthwhile.”
Ajay’s mum Anjli said: “Meeting Sir Martyn is really a dream come true for Ajay. He has a voracious appetite for learning and has been devouring the videos – he worships Sir Martyn! Ajay can’t stop talking chemistry to anyone who will listen and surprises them with how much he has learned from the videos. When we asked him what was on his Christmas wish list, Ajay said he would love to visit and wish Sir Martyn a happy birthday! We are so grateful and excited we could make this Christmas wish come true for him.”
Ajay is not the first fan to drop in to visit the Periodic Table of Videos team — in 2012 10-year-old Edoardo Bandieri from Modena in Italy travelled to Nottingham to meet Sir Martyn and contributors from the Periodic Table of Video’s sister channels Sixty Symbols and Numberphile have also hosted visits from enthusiastic young followers. And in 2014 another US fan Adele Rouse from North Carolina paid the Periodic Videos team a visit.
Since its launch in 2008, the Periodic Table of Videos has attracted over 1.1 million subscribers and has chalked up more than 190 million views. The fun videos focus on each chemical element on the periodic table, as well as others covering science news and interesting molecules. For tens of thousands of fans world-wide Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff is the face of the Periodic Table.
The brainchild of video journalist Brady Haran and fronted by unlikely internet sensation Nottingham’s Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff, members of the team have travelled the globe — including Everest basecamp and Sydney’s Bondi beach — to bring each of the elements to life.
Tags: Chemistry, Dr Debbie Kays, Dr Samantha Tang, Periodic Table of Videos, Professor Martyn Poliakoff, science
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Research showcase addresses future of aerospace propulsion
December 19th, 2018
UoN’s Institute of Aerospace Technology (IAT) recently held its annual showcase, focusing on ways in which academia and industry can solve the challenges of future aircraft propulsion.
The IAT — a major centre for aerospace research — used the event on Tuesday 27 November 2018 to highlight successes from the last two years and introduce the new IAT Director, Professor Serhiy Bozhko.
The event bought together prominent stakeholders from academia and industry, with almost 80 delegates from multinationals including Airbus, Rolls Royce and Siemens, as well as smaller and mid-sized companies active in the aerospace supply chain. Key academics from the IAT, the University of Nottingham’s Future Propulsion Beacon and the Faculty of Engineering were also in attendance.
The event began with welcome speeches from Professor Sam Kingman, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Faculty of Engineering and Professor Serhiy Bozhko.
Delegates also heard from aerospace industry keynote speakers, including Dr Mykhaylo Filipenko, Head of Center of Competence ‘Electric Machines High Power’ at Siemens; Mark Scully Head of Technology from the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and John Salmon, Project Engineer, Technology Integration and Vision 20 Future Programmes from Rolls Royce.
Dr Ruth Mallors-Ray OBE, consultant to the aerospace industry, moderated a debate where the audience asked questions around future propulsion and the challenges around government and industry targets that lie ahead. Panel members including Professor Chris Gerada, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Industrial Strategy, Business Engagement and Impact) and Professor of Electrical Machines at the University of Nottingham; Dan Hodson, R&T Partnerships and Contracts Manager at Airbus; John Salmon of Rolls Royce and Mark Scully of the ATI.
The afternoon featured two breakout sessions: first, a spotlight on Aircraft Supply Chain and SME Support, which included talks by Charles Boneham, Managing Director of Boneham and Turner, a local supplier of precision engineered solutions to the aerospace industry and a quality workshop taster by Paul Wilson of UK QMS.
The second, focused on aerospace skills for the future, brought together delegates to hear a presentation by Martin Schofield, Chair of the Aerospace Engineering Industrial Advisory Board at the University of Nottingham about meeting the skills gap of industry-ready aerospace engineers with the new Bachelor and Masters Aerospace Engineering courses at the University.
Dan Hodson from Airbus provided an overview of future skills needs from an industry perspective and second-year aerospace engineering student, Raveena Karia talked of her passion for engineering and her ambition to become a researcher to develop the breakthrough technologies that are needed by the sector.
Delegates completed the day with a choice of two tours:
- A tour of the new Advanced Manufacturing Building (AMB) research facilities
- A tour combining the Gas Turbine and Transmissions Research Centre’s three shaft test facility and the Aerospace Technology Centre (ATC) – home of the IAT and the Aircraft Electric Power Systems Innovations Laboratory.
Professor Bozhko explained: “Our showcase offered us a platform to share the IAT’s five key research areas and to hear from industry experts where the challenges lie around future propulsion. We also discussed how we intend to address these through our links within the University of Nottingham, our various funded programmes and our industry partnerships and outreach.
“The event has been a great success and we look forward to implementing and building upon the positive ideas and feedback that we received.”
Tags: aerospace, Faculty of Engineering, Future Propulsion, IAT, Institute of Aerospace Technolog, Professor Serhiy Bozhko
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Professor Paul Crawford elected as Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health
December 19th, 2018
Paul Crawford, Professor of Health Humanities, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health.
Professor Crawford, of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, has been recognised for his work in pioneering the field of Health Humanities and conducting multiple investigations relevant to public health.
As part of his work, Professor Crawford recently completed a £1.5m AHRC-funded programme entitled ‘Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery’, making the findings available in a digital showcase in association with the Mental Health Foundation.
Professor Crawford is currently Co-Investigator on a £1.25m ESRC/UKRI Cross-Council Network Plus programme called ‘MARCH’ which seeks to increase social and cultural assets for mental health, and Principal Investigator for a £840K AHRC-funded project on Florence Nightingale who was an early and significant contributor to the development of public health.
Learning of the award, he commented:
“I am delighted to receive this recognition for my work. I take seriously the potential for the arts and humanities to be a kind of ‘shadow health service’ for the public. While it is a personal feather in my cap to be elected, the honour reflects the tremendous energy and enthusiasm for health humanities among colleagues across the University of Nottingham.”
Professor John Atherton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, said: “The Faculty and University are very proud to have this honour bestowed on someone who has contributed so strongly to the public good and to academic excellence within the University.
“Paul is a major national and international leader in building synergy between health and the humanities to the great benefit of both. We congratulate him!”
Tags: Health Humanities, medicine and health sciences, Paul Crawford, Royal Society for Public Health, RSPH
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Information Security: compulsory online training
December 18th, 2018
A message from the Chief Information Security Officer:
Cyber security poses an increasing to threat to the University. As part of our strategy to reduce this threat, we are running the compulsory online information security training for all UK-based staff.
Have you completed your training yet? If not, you are asked to make every effort to do so before Christmas 2018.
You will have received a reminder email from “UoN Information Security” on Wednesday 24 October. You need to use the link in that email as it is personalised to you.
If you have any questions or difficulties, contact infosec@nottingham.ac.uk.
Tags: cyber security, Information security
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