Campus News
Registration open for free digital accessibility conference, DigAcc24
June 4th, 2024
Bringing together practitioners from across the sector, DigAcc24 is a free-to-attend and fantastic opportunity for colleagues interested in digital accessibility to explore the topic through a programme of inspiring talks, stimulating discussions and networking opportunities.
The conference promises to be even bigger than last year’s successful event with more than 500 individuals registering their interest and over 140 institutions in attendance including HE institutions in the UK, US and Australia, Microsoft and local and national government
Register and view the programme
The conference is free to attend will take place online on Wednesday 26 June 2024.
Register today using this link to secure your space.
The provisional programme for the day is available on the conference website.
Join an in-person viewing party
The conference will be hosted on Microsoft Teams to allow as many institutions and individuals to attend as possible, but all institutions have been encouraged to host viewing parties to allow people to come together and share the experience.
All University of Nottingham colleagues are invited to join viewing parties taking place on D Floor of Monica Partridge Building on University Park Campus.
These will provide a space for colleagues to engage with the talks and network with like-minded colleagues.
Tags: DigAcc24, Digital Accessibility, Digital Accessibility Conference, Digital Accessibility Conference 2024
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NCI Summer School 2024
May 31st, 2024
Registration is now open for our Nottingham Confucius Institute (NCI) Summer School for 2024.
Whether you’re just starting out or have existing Mandarin skills, the free programme provides you with the opportunity to explore Chinese language and culture through a blend of fun-packed Mandarin lessons and enrichment activities.
The events will take place 6pm – 8pm at Si Yuan Centre, Jubilee Campus, on the following dates:
- Wednesday 3 July 2024
- Wednesday 10 July 2024
- Wednesday 17 July 2024
- Wednesday 24 July 2024
Each event will consist of a one-hour Mandarin lesson and a one-hour cultural workshop focusing on topics such as Chinese arts, crafts and more. An optional informal talk session will follow for those who wish to stay longer to practice their Mandarin. Refreshments will also be provided.
The registration deadline is 12 noon on Wednesday 26 June.
Find out more and book your place
Tags: learn mandarin, Mandarin, summer school
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Summer Graduation 2024: volunteer to steward
May 29th, 2024
The university needs your support with volunteering at this summer’s Graduation events.
Our winter ceremonies went brilliantly thanks to the help of a number of colleagues – but more generous support is needed in delivering Summer 2024 graduation.
This summer, there are 21 ceremonies to deliver at David Ross Sports Village, running from Tuesday 16 to Wednesday 24 July, including Saturday 20 July 2024.
There are a few changes to location this year with post-ceremony celebrations, photography and live stream taking place in the Trent building.
As usual, the ceremonies could not operate without your support. Ceremony times this year will be 10.30am, 1.30pm and 4.00pm.
The Customer Experience & Events team welcomes colleagues from all teams and departments and will provide online briefing sessions and in-person walkarounds to familiarise volunteers with the layout ahead of the event.
Before signing up, please check dates with your line manager and get their approval.
To sign up for a role, please complete this Volunteering Form.
Please assume that you’ll be needed for any ceremonies that you register for and hold the time in your diaries.
The sign-up process uses Microsoft Shifts, which enables you to select the role, days, and times your wish to work. It also makes managing shifts much easier and transparent for all. To help you along, the Customer Experience & Events team have created this handy guide to Microsoft Shifts.
The stewarding SharePoint site gives details on the roles available and the schedules you’ll be needed for.
Staff across the university are always amazingly supportive of the Customer Experience & Events team, so thank you in advance for coming to support at one of the university’s busiest ever time.
Tags: graduation, graduation stewarding, graduation volunteering, staff volunteering, stewarding, volunteer
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Borderline award automation: rollout to commence
May 28th, 2024
After a period of extensive testing, the Education Administration Continuous Improvement Team (EACIT) have announced their new borderline award automation tool is ready to be rolled-out university-wide.
The team recently wrote about testing a new undergraduate borderline award automation. During this testing, the team found that some further changes were required to guarantee the automation’s reliability.
After finalising these changes, EACIT are now happy to announce wider roll-out to all university Campus Solutions users.
The new approach will partially automate borderline award classification uplifts dependent on the student’s final mark, removing the need for exam officers to complete a borderline mark calculation and reducing the need to check regulations.
How does it work?
Our prospective borderline students are sorted into four groups which will be displayed in the Power BI Exam Board report and in the Award report from Campus Solutions, which drives Power BI.
The classification for our first group of students will be automatically updated in Campus Solutions and the exams officers will not need to carry out any further checks.
For the second group, our exam officers will need to conduct additional checks before deciding whether an award classification uplift is needed. Exams officers will update the Exam Board’s Decision Update Tracker with the outcome if necessary.
For different reasons, the third and fourth groups do not qualify for an award classification uplift.
What happens next?
Teams that are already running the award calculation will see an update to the award report and Power BI from Wednesday 5 June 2024.
For more information, please see the EACIT SharePoint, with training resources available via the Exam Operations SharePoint.
Want to learn more?
Please Register your interest for drop-in information sessions about the upcoming change.
Tags: campus solutions, EACIT, exam boards, Exam support, exams, marks, marks awarding, Power BI, Power BI exam board
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USS trustee directors pension engagement event: watch the recording
May 28th, 2024
Trustee Directors from the Universities Superannuation Scheme (known as USS) visited the university recently for a series of engagement events – if you missed out you can catch up with the recording and leave your feedback below.
USS trustees and members of our University Executive Board held a USS members engagement event, chaired by Chief Financial Officer Margaret Monckton, which included a short presentation providing an overview of how the USS is managed, scheme benefits, resources available to members and the scheme’s approach to investment, as well as a brief Q&A session.
Watch the recording of the presentation below, or you can view a version with a transcript via Microsoft Stream here:
Feedback
The university wants to make events like this as useful as possible for colleagues and members, so for any feedback, thoughts or comments you’d like to share, please contact Ruth Clements.
When providing feedback, you may want to consider things such as:
- How did you find the member presentation event – was the tone, length, ratio about right, or would you have changed something? Was there a topic missed that you would like to see?
- How did you find the break-out groups – were they the right themes/groups of people or would have changed something?
- Do you have any suggestions on how the member presentation event or the break-out sessions could be improved?
To provide your feedback, please contact Ruth Clements.
You can find more information including online resources for USS members at the links below:
Tags: pensions, USS, USS Members, USS scheme, USS Trustee Board, USS Trustees
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University leads the way in enterprise and innovation
May 28th, 2024
The University of Nottingham has a well-earned global reputation for the real-world impact of its research. From playing a central role 50 years ago in the invention of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), right up to current trials of pioneering wearable tech that could change the lives of people with neurological disorders, it’s hard to overstate the impact of Nottingham’s achievements.
But how many of us are aware of how the ideas, complex scientific theories and revolutionary medical discoveries that blossom from the minds of our researchers and academics turn into tangible, real-world impact?
What might seem ground-breaking on paper or show signs of success in small-scale laboratory experiments, doesn’t just migrate into our daily lives and experiences by accident or alchemy.
The Intellectual Property Commercialisation Office (IPCO) is part of the university’s Research and Innovation department and consists of a team of experienced and skilled professionals who take research ideas and discoveries and work in collaboration with academic inventors to turn them into new products and processes that benefit society and the economy.
The teams
Our academics are able to discuss their research outcomes and the potential for them to be commercialised with the IPCO teams for Engineering and Physical Sciences and for Healthcare and Life Sciences. Sometimes these new ideas are best developed through a spin-out, a separate company formed to attract external investment and owned by the inventors, the university, and external investors.
The Nottingham Technology Ventures team within the IPCO manages the university’s portfolio of 35 spin-out companies. Alice MacGowan, who heads up the Nottingham Technology Ventures team, explained: Our role is to work with academics to identify when a spin-out is appropriate and to support the company on its journey through formation and early-stage development.
“There is no guarantee of success, so we must be judicious in weighing up whether the benefits outweigh the risks. But our experience means we are well-placed to spot opportunities and know when something has a strong chance of success.”
Susan Huxtable, Director of Intellectual Property and Commercialisation, said: “The University of Nottingham performs outstandingly well in Knowledge Exchange (KE), the research-related activity between universities and external partners that delivers commercial, environmental, cultural and societal benefits and economic growth. You can learn more about KE on the university’s online Knowledge Exchange Hub.
“However, the KE landscape is continually evolving, and we are skilled at adapting to change. As part of the university’s focus on supporting a vibrant enterprise and innovation ecosystem, we have reviewed and revised the terms of our equity policy on spin-out companies. This brings our equity sharing policy into alignment with the Government’s recent spin-out review. The changes will be reflected in our formal Intellectual Property (IP) policy in due course but will be implemented with immediate effect.”
IPCO is an invaluable resource for researchers and academics, providing advice, support, and guidance on the commercialisation of research.
To find out more about what IPCO can do for you and how the team can help realise the commercial potential of your research, visit the Knowledge Exchange Hub.
And visit Nottingham Technology Ventures to find more about our inspirational spin-out companies that are changing the world through the new products and processes they are bringing to market.
Tags: Intellectual Property Commercialisation Office, IPCO, Nottingham Technology Ventures, Spin out, Spin outs, spin-out companies
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Vice-Chancellor surgery sessions: Tuesday 11 June, 2.30pm – 4pm
May 28th, 2024
The next set of staff surgery sessions are now available for colleagues to discuss any issue with Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West, on Tuesday 11 June 2024 from 2.30pm – 4pm.
Booking your session
To register for a session, please email BA-VC-Surgery@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk with your preferred date from the list below and a brief agenda for the meeting.
Places are offered on a first-come, first-served basis, so colleagues are encouraged to book early.
You will be contacted within two working days of your request confirming the date and time.
Further surgery sessions are available on:
- Tuesday 27 August, 1pm – 2.30pm
For further information please visit the VC Surgeries webpage.
Tags: VC Surgeries, Vice-Chancellor surgery sessions
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University’s travel and expenses policy updated
May 28th, 2024
The university has reviewed and updated our Travel and Expenses policy in line with the Policy Management Framework.
The previous version of the policy has been removed to form the supporting Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Rates that were previously incorporated into the policy can now be found within the SOP. Key rate changes to note include:
- Inflation related increases to hotel (section 5) and subsistence (section 6) rates that have been benchmarked against the sector and market.
- An increase in the consumables other rate (13.13) to allow a greater volume of small ad-hoc purchases to be processed more efficiently where the P2P process would time and cost prohibitive.
The policy has been updated in consultation with the university’s Travel Management Committee and colleagues from Assurance.
Please can all staff ensure that any saved bookmarks or links to the old policy are removed or updated.
The updated policy can be found on HR’s Policy Finder tool.
For further information regarding Staff Travel, please visit the Travel for Staff and PGR’s SharePoint site.
Tags: policy and procedure, travel, Travel expenses, Travel for staff, travel policy
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Our key role in attracting global R&D investment
May 24th, 2024
Professor Tom Rodden’s research update
The University of Nottingham is part of a ground-breaking coalition of Midlands universities that has launched a £3m international campaign to attract inward investment into R&D, innovation and science – leveraging our global connections to drive economic growth across the region.
I am delighted that the university is part of this initiative, which showcases our outstanding research expertise and facilities, promotes the region as a destination for global investment and will secure funding for regeneration projects that have universities such as Nottingham as their core partner.
Big ideas – keep them coming
Thank you so much to everyone who has responded to our call for research big ideas.
Keep them coming! We’ve received submissions from colleagues at all career stages, across a wide range of disciplines and from all five faculties.
These big ideas span the research lifecycle – from fundamental ideas to looking at new ways to better translate our research into real-world applications.
We’re planning events where colleagues can seek collaborators to develop their big idea. We will update on support for interdisciplinary research and opportunities to network and pitch your ideas. In the next academic year, we will offer emerging areas dedicated research development support to take their ideas to the next level through building networks, developing funding applications and engaging with external partners.
Please continue to submit ideas for the future of research at Nottingham: do you have a radical new idea which might change the world?
Use this online form or contact the Research Growth team via email. Remember we want to hear from research across all career stages and disciplines.
Read Professor Rodden’s full update
With thanks and best wishes
Professor Tom Rodden
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange
Tags: Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, Professor Tom Rodden, research, Research and Knowledge Exchange, research update
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