Campus News
His sporting life
November 30th, 2010
Vaughan Williams’ passion and enthusiasm for sport influenced University of Nottingham athletes of all standards for nearly 33 years.
The former Director of Physical Recreation and Sport died, aged 63, last year. Now a memorial fund has been set up in his honour.
The Vaughan Parry Williams Coaching Fund was launched by England rugby legend, Brian Moore – one of Nottingham’s most successful sporting alumni – as he officially opened the £1.67m Vaughan Parry Williams Pavilion. The fund, which has already raised £80,000, will honour Vaughan’s ‘sport for all’ ethos by providing coaching to enable students to achieve their athletic potential.
In an engaging speech, Brian explained Vaughan’s contribution to the University, which has brought vast improvements to its sporting facilities since his own time here. Vaughan’s legacy – of continued development – would benefit everybody who enjoys sport, both competitively and socially, he said.
Brian added: “One of the things which holds elite athletes back in this country is a lack of proper coaching and that is where this memorial fund is focused.
“Now that the hardware is in place, the University needs the intelligence and input from people who can make the most out of the athletes’ talent and the facilities that they train in.”
Brian said he was proud to be a Nottingham alumnus, adding: “The league tables, both academic and sporting, prove that Nottingham is getting better. It is important to keep sport fixed in the University’s mind and ensure that it doesn’t run away with the idea that academia is the only thing that is important.”
Nottingham is currently ranked seventh in the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) rankings, and boasts more than 70 Athletic Union sports clubs, including canoeing, squash, rugby union, hockey, swimming, rowing and ice hockey.
Tags: (BUCS), Brian Moore, British Universities & Colleges Sport, Vaughan Parry Williams Pavilion, Vaughan Williams
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Vice-Chancellor joins PM in China
November 30th, 2010
The Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham joined David Cameron’s business delegation on its high-level trip to Beijing earlier this month.
The delegation met the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, at a UK-China Summit in Beijing. Cabinet ministers on the visit included George Osborne, Vince Cable, Michael Gove and Chris Huhne. Other participants included the chief executives of Alliance Boots, Shell, Standard Life and Diageo, the President of Rolls Royce, the Chairman of Whitbread and Group Chairman of Barclays.
Professor David Greenaway is part of the Prime Minister’s independent advisory team. His role reflects The University of Nottingham’s strong and well developed links with the People’s Republic — it was the first foreign university to establish a campus in mainland China, with the opening of The University of Nottingham Ningbo China in 2004.
Prof Greenaway said: “My involvement signals the importance Government attaches to higher education’s role in building commercial and cultural links with China. The programme will offer excellent opportunities to develop further our existing partnerships as well as developing new ones.”
The visit included an education summit and a roundtable meeting on opportunities and challenges for UK-China research collaboration. The University has developed extensive links and research collaborations in China over the last six years, leveraging its unique position as China’s first Sino-foreign university.
It has been awarded the prestigious status of International Co-operation Base by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Strategic alliances with elite Chinese partners include clean energy, green manufacturing, biomaterials, geomechanics and low-carbon vehicles.
Prof Greenaway, an economist, was appointed to the Government’s Asia Task Force earlier this year. The Task Force brings together experts from industry, education and government to advise on boosting UK exports and investment in Asian countries.
Prof Greenaway has held several prominent public service roles. He was Chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body from 2004-2010, and a member from 1998-2004. He has also acted as a consultant to the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the European Commission, the UN, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and HM Treasury.
Tags: Asia Task Force, Beijing, business delegation, David Cameron, Ningbo
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Malaysia: 10 years of excellence
November 30th, 2010
Members of the Malaysian royal family joined with senior figures from The University of Nottingham to celebrate 10 pioneering years in global higher education.
The University of Nottingham made history in the year 2000, building on a strong and longstanding relationship with Malaysia to open The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC) — the first British institution to open a fully operational overseas branch campus.
Ten years on, the University celebrated a decade of international excellence with a gala dinner in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, to recognise guests who have played a key part in the foundation and development of UNMC. Honoured guests included the Sultan of Perak, DYMM Paduka Seri Sultan Azlan Shah, a member of the Malaysian royal family; and members of the Malaysia Nottingham Graduates Association, who are celebrating an anniversary of their own in 2010.
Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham, welcomed guests to the event at Kuala Lumpur’s Ritz Carlton Hotel.
Prof Greenaway said: “Your Royal Highness, we are deeply honoured by your presence at this event, to celebrate 20 years of the Nottingham Graduate Association and 10 years of the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
“For us these are important anniversaries — symbolic landmarks in Nottingham’s long and close relationship with Malaysia. Your presence makes a memorable occasion even more special.
“Our relationship owes much to a group of students who came from Malaysia to Nottingham 60 years ago. They included yourself, Tuangku Ja’afar and the Chairman of our Board, Tengku Rithaudeen. You were pioneers who began educating us about this country’s rich cultural heritage and its talented and enterprising young people. You brought back to Malaysia an affi nity for our University which you shared widely and enthusiastically.
“Many, many more students have followed in your footsteps. Nottingham now has the largest community of Malaysian students in the United Kingdom, over 600 at present. They support a vibrant Nottingham Malaysian Society, which for the last 25 years has organised the annual Malaysian Student Games. These bring 6,000 Malaysians from all over the UK to compete at our University every November.”
UNMC’s 125-acre parkland campus near Kuala Lumpur takes its design cues from University Park, Nottingham — with a signature lakeside building that echoes the UK’s Trent Building. All UNMC students study in English, for University of Nottingham degrees that are taught and assessed in the same way as those at Nottingham UK.
Prof Greenaway added: “Our alumni community in Malaysia now numbers almost 4,000. They have also been pioneers in setting up the Nottingham Graduates Association, 20 years ago. This is an example which our alumni groups in other countries are following.
“Ten years ago our relationship deepened in a very profound way, when in September 2000 the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus admitted its first cohort of just over 70 students. To give ourselves the best possible chance of succeeding, we did not attempt to do everything at once, but have built gradually. We want a University which will endure; we are here to stay and contribute to the success of higher education in Malaysia.
“In September 2000 we could scarcely have imagined that 10 years on we would be a multi-faculty University, with 4,000 students, a beautifully landscaped campus in Semenyih, selfaccreditation status from the Malaysian Qualifications Authority and some 2,600 alumni. The progress which UNMC has made is remarkable, in large measure due to the dedication and commitment of our staff here in Malaysia, those who support it back in Nottingham and of course the quality of our students and alumni.
“Our ambitions grow from year to year, as we enrich our teaching and learning by adding new programmes, grow our research base with exciting new initiatives like Crops for the Future, promote our partnerships with Malaysian business and embed our community engagement. We have a bright future.
“Nottingham has been welcomed with open arms and embraced. It has been a warm embrace and one which has helped drive and sustain our ambitions for UNMC.”
The maturity of UNMC as an academic centre of excellence has recently been recognised with a double accolade from the Malaysian government. Summer 2010 saw UNMC rated ‘excellent’ in The Rating System for Malaysian Higher Education, known as Setara. This accolade followed the conferment of ‘Self-Accrediting Status’ on UNMC by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, in spring 2010. This highly significant move granted UNMC the power to approve and accredit its own degree programmes. Self-accreditation is a new initiative by the Malaysian government, and is only awarded to mature institutions with a well-established reputation for delivering the very best degree programmes.
UNMC now provides Foundation, Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in: Applied Psychology, Biosciences, Business & Management, Computer Science & Information Technology, Economics, Education, Engineering, International Communications, Law, Modern Languages, Pharmacy, Politics, History and International Relations and Psychology.
The University’s campuses in Asia — it also has a campus in Ningbo, China — and its ambitious internationalisation strategy prompted The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 to describe Nottingham as ‘the embodiment of the modern international university’.
Tags: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Malaysia Nottingham Graduates Association, Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, Nottingham Malaysian Society, Semenyih, Sunday Times University Guide, UNMC, Vice-Chancellor Professor David Greenaway
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University shines on world stage
November 30th, 2010
It was a gamble to commit to being the only UK university with its own presence at 2010’s World Expo in Shanghai, China, but Nottingham’s investment has achieved positive outcomes.
New business and research partnerships are emerging from 17 expert-led events attended by more than 1,000 key stakeholders, as well as the many meetings that took place in and around the Expo.
Hundreds of thousands of Expo visitors explored — through words, pictures and video — The University of Nottingham’s world-changing research in sustainability as part of its collaborative exhibition with ZEDfactory based on the theme Zero Carbon, Zero Waste.
For six months, from May until the end of October this year, 73 million visitors flocked to Expo 2010. This was the largest ever Expo and the first in a developing country. The 5.3 sq km site was dubbed a ‘global village’, with 246 nations and 50 organisations exhibiting under the main theme Better City, Better Life. The University addressed this theme across subject areas.
Top researchers from Nottingham’s campuses in the UK and Asia — as well as leading academic colleagues from other institutions worldwide — hosted and participated in thought-provoking workshops, lectures and conferences spanning the University’s extensive research in sustainability.
“Expo 2010 provided a compelling platform to showcase our portfolio of work in sustainability conveying our message to a genuinely global audience. Being at Shanghai Expo reminded us all that resource management, population health and climate change are problems that respect no national boundaries,” said the University’s Expo lead Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Rudd.
“With every major city of the world represented at the Expo, we had a unique chance to benchmark the East Midlands’ progress tackling critical issues provoked by climate change — how these affect ordinary citizens and the challenges and opportunities facing the sustainable cities of tomorrow.
“Every new visitor to our ZEDpavilion exhibition left with a clear sense of these messages,” he said, “but they were also alive to the knowledge that some of the world’s most creative and dedicated scientists are improving lives, driving economic growth and helping our cities to eat, drink and breathe.”
The University of Nottingham’s first Expo event, on China’s Sustainable Development, was launched by former Deputy Prime Minister the Right Honourable John Prescott.
The programme included subjects as diverse as alternative energy and carbon capture and storage, to MRI and sustainable healthcare, zero carbon building and planning, plant reproduction for global food security, film and television studies, and mental health.
All events took place in The Auditorium at London ZEDpavilion. The building is an example of urban best practice, designed and built by leading green architects ZEDfactory, which was founded by Bill Dunster, lead architect for the first phases of Jubilee Campus.
ZEDpavilion was chosen after winning the international design competition in this category. For Shanghai Expo, the University partnered with the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) to attract Chinese investment to the East Midlands through the work of emda’s East Midlands China Business Bureau. Our events attracted 92 senior managers from Chinese industry representing 75 companies. The University received 411 serious business enquiries. Government and policy-makers, academics and students also attended. Visit: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/shanghaiexpo2010.
Tags: Better City Better Life, Bill Dunster, China, Chinese Business Bureau, emda, Expo lead, global village, Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Chris Rudd, Shanghai 2010 Expo, sustainable development, ZEDfactory, ZEDpavilion, Zero Carbon Zero Waste
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Christmas past, present and future
November 30th, 2010
This year’s University Christmas cards celebrate the University’s long history, its international presence and its vision for the future.
The corporate cards are available in a traditional or electronic format, with the free e-cards available from December 1, via the staff and student portals.
The printed cards are available on a fi rst-come-fi rst-served basis from Kelly Newman, in Communications and Marketing, at King’s Meadow Campus, priced at 34p each. This year’s Manuscripts and Special Collections Christmas card – which is being sold in aid of The Manuscripts Conservation Fund – is taken from the Wollaton Antiphonal (c.1430).
The Antiphonal, which features 23 historiated initials, was returned to St Leonard’s Church, Wollaton, in 1924, after being held since the Reformation as part of the Wollaton Hall library collection. When it was placed in the care of the University in 1974, the Antiphonal had lost whole sections to damp and mould. Conservation work is ongoing and digital images are being captured to support future research.
Antiphonal cards cost 50p each or £4.50 for ten. For further details, call 0115 951 4565.
Tags: antiphonal, cards, Christmas, e-cards, manuscripts and special collections
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Confidence on the first page
November 2nd, 2010
Pupils at the Nottingham University Samworth Academy (NUSA) are getting a headstart in their English lessons thanks to a new writer-in-residence at the school.
Nicola Monaghan is an award-winning author who lived for many years in the Bilborough area of Nottingham where the Academy is based. Her debut novel The Killing Jar, which tells the tale of one of Nottingham’s best-known estates, won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award.
Her new residency at NUSA is part of a charitable literacy project called First Story, which was set up to celebrate and encourage creativity and literacy in young people from historically deprived areas.
Nottingham is the third city in the UK to benefit from the scheme. Nicola Monaghan will spend this academic year working with pupils and running weekly creative writing workshops at NUSA. “There couldn’t be a better match,” she said. “NUSA is round the corner from where I lived for many years growing up and William Sharp, its predecessor, is where my sister went to school. I think it’s really important for these students to see that there are no limits to what they can do or achieve. I have high hopes that it will turn out to be an inspiring project for all concerned.”
Nicola also works at the University‘s School of Education as course leader for the BA Hons Creative and Professional Writing, under her other name, Niki Valentine.
The group of NUSA students Nicola will be working with is mixed in terms of their abilities in mainstream subjects and their backgrounds. In the final term, next summer, she will help pupils produce and publish their own anthology of work.
First Story founder and former head teacher Katie Waldegrave said: “Nottingham seemed ideal both because of its rich literary heritage and the brilliance of the authors currently living and working in the area.”
NUSA’s Principal, David Harris, said: “This new residency will boost even further our pride in our Academy and its new building. Having such a wellknown and successful author in our midst will be an invaluable tool in inspiring the pupils to achieve things they may never have thought possible. Their confidence and pride in the work they do with Nicola will be a key to their future development and success.”
Tags: Nicola Monaghan, NUSA, School of English, writer-in-residence
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Issue 42/ November 2010
November 2nd, 2010
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Spotlight
November 2nd, 2010
Balloon races, seminal research and company takeovers are among the highlights of University media coverage last month.
Sir Peter in British science top 100
The Times Eureka supplement has compiled the 100 most important people in British science — what they do, where they work and why they qualify. At number 28 is Sir Peter Mansfield. While studying for a physics degree he began the research that would lead to him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003 for the discovery of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), now a standard body scanning technique. In the course of his work at The University of Nottingham, Sir Peter also developed an MRI scanning sequence capable of making images of the brain, opening a new window into the human mind.
Ballooning success
Two academics who had been hoping to break the world distance and duration records for female balloonists have come 13th in the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett race, the world’s oldest and most prestigious aeronautical contest. This year the race was held in the UK for the first time, the Times Higher Education reported. Janet Folkes, a mechanical engineer from The University of Nottingham, and her co-pilot Ann Webb, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Manchester, broke the duration record during last year’s race.
Pulmonary fibrosis on the increase
Five thousand people a year in Britain are diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, most of them over 60, The Daily Telegraph reported. “It’s becoming more common, and we have no idea why,” says Prof Richard Hubbard, who is leading a team researching the illness at The University of Nottingham. “When they get a diagnosis people often say, ‘Well, thank God it’s not lung cancer,’ but cancer can be treated. This can’t.”
Takeovers up
Takeovers of companies by private equity groups accounted for almost three-quarters of all UK mergers and acquisitions by value in the first half of the year, setting a record that shows the buy-out industry is bouncing back, The Financial Times reported. The story quoted research from the Centre for Management Buy-out Research at The University of Nottingham.
Influential physicist remembered
Prof Kenneth Stevens was a distinguished theoretical physicist who spent most of his career at The University of Nottingham. His work was highly influential in helping researchers to understand paramagnetic resonance, and his joint papers with Oxford collaborators, Sir Roger Elliott and the late Prof Brebis Bleaney are still regularly cited by researchers. Prof Stevens died on 16 July 2010, aged 87, The Independent reported.
Pre-eclampsia trigger identified
British scientists have found the cause of pregnancy killer preeclampsia, The Sun reported. The condition is triggered by a protein which makes blood vessels constrict. That leads to high blood pressure and kills 50,000 mums-to-be and half a million babies worldwide each year. Scientists realised pregnant women were at greater risk because they have more oxygen in their bodies for their unborn babies. And further research from The University of Nottingham proved high levels of oxidised angiotensinogen can be found in women with preeclampsia.
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University Wind Orchestra and University Brass Ensemble
November 2nd, 2010
Sunday 4 November, 7.30pm, Great Hall, Trent Building, University Park, £8, £5 concessions, £4 UoN students.
Celebrating different aspects of the silver screen, this concert is entitled Epic Melodies and Looney Tunes. John Williams’ moving Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan will be performed alongside Hans Zimmer’s stirring portrait of noble sacrifice featured in Gladiator.
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Lustre
November 2nd, 2010
One of the highlights of the Lakeside Arts Centre calendar, Lustre promises not to disappoint this year.
Featuring 55 of the country’s finest contemporary craft makers, this popular event is a must for those with an eye for the unique. From jewellery, bags and hats to vases and tableware, each maker taking part has been specially selected by a panel of experts for the quality of their craft.
Lustre also gives the public access to the freshest work coming out of the region’s universities in the Young Meteors section. Lustre takes place on Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 November at the Lakeside Arts Centre from 10am to 5pm. Weekend admission is £5, with under-16s going free. Visit www.lakesidearts.org.uk for more information.
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