Campus News
Supporting international research collaborations and networks
February 16th, 2023
Research update from Professor Neil Crout
The aim of our research strategy is to encourage excellent research and knowledge exchange. We know that international collaboration leads to high quality research and KE outcomes. Therefore I am pleased to confirm that applications are now open for our International Research Collaboration Fund. The IRCF particularly welcomes applications from colleagues seeking to establish or grow links with world-leading research groups and institutions that will lead to excellent research outputs.
For the Academic Year 2022/23, the IRCF will fund:
International mobility grants of up to £5,000, prioritising support for established researchers to initiate and deepen international research and knowledge exchange partnerships (Open to all R&T and R staff); specific support for Early Career Researchers to establish and grow international research partnerships (open to independent research fellows and Level 5 R&T).
Partnership accelerator grants of £10,000-£20,000, prioritising the support of more substantial activity that will demonstrably accelerate international research and knowledge exchange partnerships with high-quality research groups and institutions with a global reputation for excellence in their field.
Nottingham and Tübingen strengthen partnership
The universities of Nottingham and Tübingen are expanding their cross-border partnership to cooperate more closely on cutting-edge research. A delegation led by Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West visited Germany to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Tübingen, which builds on several years of mutual investment into research, teaching, learning and innovation.
Tübingen networking funding call
To support this growing partnership, a new networking funding call for seed/basic research with the University of Tübingen is offering awards up €50,000, with a total pot of €250,000. Interdisciplinary applications are particularly welcomed, and existing award holders are eligible to apply for further funding – however must demonstrate clear advancement on their original project.
The deadline for applications is 19 March 2023, with awards to be confirmed by the end of March.
Please direct any enquiries to Shannon.baverstock1@nottingham.ac.uk or international.research@uni-tuebingen.de
Applications themselves should be submitted to uonglobal@nottingham.ac.uk and international.research@uni-tuebingen.de
Public engagement and the university: tell us how we are doing
Our university has an excellent track record in public engagement with our research. In order to demonstrate to staff, students, partners, communities and funders the university’s commitment to public engagement, we are applying for a Public Engagement Watermark.
These awards are administered by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and provide compelling evidence to underpin funding applications, KEF and REF submissions, and the myriad of quality assurance processes we have to undertake.
To help secure this prestigious recognition, we are asking everyone to complete a short survey to share how well you think we support public engagement.
I know it is yet another survey – but it really will help us make our case for the Public Engagement Watermark.
Read Professor Crout’s full update
Tags: Professor Neil Crout
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Public engagement and the University of Nottingham: tell us how we are doing
February 16th, 2023
The University of Nottingham has applied for a Public Engagement Watermark.
The prestigious award recognises strategic support for public engagement and commitment to improve.
As part of evidence collected and submitted to help secure this recognition, the university is asking our staff to complete a survey to share how well you think we support public engagement.
The survey is open to colleagues across all job families across the university. It takes around 15 minutes to complete (or longer if you choose to provide more detailed feedback).
Please note: you will need to complete the survey in one go as you are unable to save your answers before they are submitted. The survey closes on Friday 31 March 2023.
The Public Engagement Watermark is bestowed by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE), which supports universities to engage with the public.
Stephen Meek, Director of the university’s Institute for Policy and Engagement, said: “By completing the survey, you can help us assess awareness of public engagement across our university.
“Through public engagement we inspire people, share insights, skills and ideas and together help make sense of a complex and changing world.
“Our staff and students engage and interact with the communities we serve in many different ways. Achieving the Watermark will be a fantastic recognition of our commitment to embed engagement in all that we do.”
The Watermark demonstrates to staff, students, partners, communities and funders the university’s commitment to public engagement.
It provides compelling evidence to underpin funding applications, KEF and REF submissions, and other quality assurance processes.
The Watermark process will also help the university assess and strengthen our strategic approach to public engagement and benchmark how we are doing against other institutions.
In the past year, for example, researchers have engaged with thousands of people with our research at the annual Festival of Science and Curiosity, Pint of Science, Festival of Social Sciences and Science in the Park and in countless other events with communities and schools.
They have co-produced research with communities, or engaged with patients. We have done work with refugee, survivors of modern slavery and others. Visitors to Highfields and University Park meanwhile accessed tracks over 26,000 times via four listening posts.
Tags: public engagement, Public Engagement Watermark, Watermark
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Applications open for relaunched International Research Collaboration Fund
February 15th, 2023
Applications are now open for the University of Nottingham’s relaunched International Research Collaboration Fund (IRCF).
This Academic Year (2022-23), there will be at least £300,000 available to support international research collaboration and mobility for colleagues across the UK campuses.
The IRCF particularly welcomes applications from colleagues seeking to establish or grow links with world-leading research groups and institutions that will lead to excellent research outputs.
The flagship fund, supported by both the university’s Research Strategy Delivery Plan and in-year Government funding, has been revamped and expanded in consultation with faculties and colleagues across the university.
The IRCF will operate via a rolling-call model with a quick, straight forward application and approvals process.
The IRCF will fund:
International mobility grants of up to £5,000, prioritising support for established researchers to initiate and deepen international research and knowledge exchange partnerships (Open to all R&T and R staff); support for Early Career Researchers to establish and grow international research partnerships (open to independent research fellows and Level 5 R&T).
Partnership accelerator grants of £10,000-£20,000, prioritising the support of more substantial activity that will demonstrably accelerate international research and knowledge exchange partnerships with high-quality research groups and institutions with a global reputation for excellence in their field.
Please note: to ensure strategic alignment with your school and faculty’s research priorities, all applications to the IRCF must have the prior approval of your Head of School.
The IRCF Partnership Acceleration Scheme will run on a rolling approvals process, with applications to be reviewed by your Faculty Global Engagement Director and Faculty Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange. Formal approval from these individuals is not required prior to submission.
As the university develops an ambitious new International Research and Knowledge Exchange Strategy over the coming months, the IRCF will form the cornerstone of our efforts to support high-quality research, as well as our global reputation, influence and impact.
Despite the ongoing uncertainty around the UK’s access to the European Union’s HORIZON programme, the university is determined to ensure that our researchers are able to continue to work with researchers across the world to further raise the international profile of our research excellence and commitment to tackling global challenges.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West announced the relaunched ICRF on Thursday 19 January 2023 at an event exploring the future of the university’s engagement with Europe, celebrating our European research community and reiterating our determination to maintain and grow our partnerships across the continent.
Nottingham and Tübingen strengthen partnership
The universities of Nottingham and Tübingen are expanding their cross-border partnership to cooperate more closely on cutting-edge research. A delegation led by Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West visited Germany to sign a strategic partnership agreement with Tübingen, which builds on several years of mutual investment into research, teaching, learning and innovation.
Tübingen networking funding call
To support this growing partnership, a new networking funding call for seed/basic research with the University of Tübingen is offering awards up €50,000, with a total pot of €250,000.
Interdisciplinary applications are particularly welcomed, and existing award holders are eligible to apply for further funding – however must demonstrate clear advancement on their original project.
The deadline for applications is 19 March 2023, with awards to be confirmed by the end of March.
Tags: international research collaboration, International Research Collaboration Fund, IRCF
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VC staff surgeries: Tuesday 21 February, 3pm – 4.30pm
February 14th, 2023
The next set of ‘staff surgery’ sessions are now available for colleagues to discuss any issue with Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West, on Tuesday 21 February 2023, from 3pm – 4.30pm.
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:
- Thursday 30 March, 9.30am – 10.30am
- Tuesday 18 April, 10.30am – 12noon
- Tuesday 18 April, 10.30am – 12noon (via Microsoft Teams)
- Thursday 25 May, 9.30am – 11am
- Monday 19 June, 3pm – 4.30pm
Further information is available at VC Staff Surgery.
Conversations will usually be held in-person, although can be arranged via Teams if preferred.
Tags: Professor Shearer West, Staff surgeries, VC Surgeries, Vice-Chancellor Professor Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor Surgeries
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Stronger Together – making campus safe for everyone
February 14th, 2023
Courses on unity in diversity and tackling misogyny will be shared with all first year students in the final part of our Stronger Together campaign.
Last term we asked students to complete micro-courses on hate crime and consent. Now, as part of a focussed week of activity around equality, diversity and inclusion, we will be sharing the final elements for them to complete.
The tackling misogyny micro-course is based on award-winning research from Professor Louise Mullany at the university and will share some of the knowledge, tools and confidence to challenge sexism and sexual harassment. It will be texted to students from Wednesday 15 February 2023.
Another course titled Unity in Diversity has been put together by Dr Nagamani Bora as part of the university’s Race Equality Charter commitments and covers diversity in our community, how to evaluate biases and the importance of becoming culturally competent. It is available on as a Nottingham Online Course via Moodle with a link emailed to students earlier this week.
Both of these courses are part of a pilot project to explore how we can help our community understand that these important issues are everyone’s responsibility. We are asking students to complete them in full and will be sharing opportunities for them to feed back on the delivery, content and tone of the courses.
Tags: diversity, edi, equality, hate crime, inclusivity, Stronger Together, Tackling misogyny
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Digital Nottingham: harnessing the latest digital and data expertise to help solve challenges
February 13th, 2023
Professor Paul Grainge updates on Digital Nottingham, a programme that brings together researchers, businesses and civic partners to innovate and create opportunities that harness knowledge and expertise to support a thriving regional digital sector.
Digital Nottingham is a new civic initiative, working in partnership with local stakeholders, which uses the latest digital and data expertise to help solve challenges across the city and region, while providing opportunities for growth and regeneration.
This autumn, a collaborative hub will open at the university’s new Castle Meadow Campus. It will give Digital Nottingham a real-world presence in the heart of the city, providing a base to engage with the community, pilot activities and create partnerships.
The Digital Nottingham space will provide:
- New city-based opportunities for public and civic engagement
- A welcoming venue for events, installations, demos and digital and data showcasing
- Digitally enabled collaboration and networking spaces
- High quality digital working, learning and creative spaces
Castle Meadow Campus will allow us to facilitate collaborations and a diverse programme of activities. This will range from the application of digital research in areas such as AI and Robotics, Creative and Digital, Digital Finance and Digital Twinning, to the development of a digital skills offering for local professionals and young people and regional networking opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses.
One of Digital Nottingham’s key research initiatives is ‘City as Lab’, a pioneering model for transdisciplinary research and place-based collaboration. We have funded a number of City as Lab digital projects, which bring together our partners and experts from all five faculties to apply social, cultural and economic problem-solving to challenges facing Nottingham and the East Midlands.
These diverse projects include Hello Lamp Post, where people in Nottingham have found themselves talking to lamp posts, benches and even bins to help gather views on what climate change means to the city.
This partnership between the university, Nottingham City Council and creative research company Hello Lamp Post introduced interactive, talking street furniture to explore attitudes to climate change and sustainability. The scheme will play a crucial role in helping Nottingham to achieve carbon neutral status by 2028.
Other City as Lab projects include:
Minecraft Nottingham – This project supports young people’s engagement with digital data about their local environment by inviting children to explore, imagine and co-design the space of Nottingham in the games platform Minecraft. The project encourages participants to use these experiences to become ‘community leaders’ engaging with their families and their wider community to incorporate needs, wants and sustainable priorities expressed as Minecraft builds.
Overcoming Indebtedness – Digital exclusion is a key dimension of disadvantage, creating significant barriers to welfare and increasing the poverty premium. This project seeks to reduce the high levels of personal over-indebtedness in the city of Nottingham, working in partnership with Nottingham and Lincolnshire Credit Union (NLCU) to assist in the development of a digital strategy and to explore data partnerships to help social tenants get easier access to eligible benefits, address digital exclusion, and improve financial resilience
Next Generation Wireless Communication – This project develops the wireless infrastructure that supports citizen-oriented virtual reality (VR) applications, addressing the problem of how data is transmitted in complex environments, and enabling places to create dynamic stable wireless links. It includes collaboration with partners including OFCOM and Innovation Nottinghamshire
Trusted Research Environment for Cities (TRE4C) – A Trusted Research Environment (TRE) is a protected, secure and safe place for data that may only be accessed by a trusted few. The Trusted Research Environment for Cities (TRE4C) project focuses on how to bring together research data and open data so that the general public of Nottingham may benefit from it in their day-to-day lives, in effect, “bringing data closer to the people”. The project included a number of citizen focus groups to support the TRE4C project in engaging residents of Nottingham
Such projects highlight Digital Nottingham’s commitment to creating new partnerships and applying innovative digital and data science technologies to accelerate the delivery of ideas that change lives.
Paul Grainge is Professor of Film and Television Studies and Academic Director of Digital Nottingham.
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Registrar’s book set to benefit Children’s Brain Tumour Research
February 13th, 2023
For over a decade, Registrar Paul Greatrix has collected the more offbeat, unexpected, and in some cases downright bizarre reports fielded by our hard-working Security Team.
Paul originally shared the stories on the higher education website Wonkhe, which has also supported the publication of the book, ‘True Crime on Campus’.
£3,000 from the sales of the book have been donated to the university’s Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre. For over 25 years, researchers at CBTRC have been working on innovative new treatments, so that children can live full and healthy lives.
In 2022, over 500 staff at the university also supported CBTRC through donations to the staff giving scheme Small Change: Big Impact.
The ‘True Crimes’ highlights have been documented in part 1 and part 2.
Tags: Brain Tumour Research, Dr Paul Greatrix, Paul Greatrix, Registrar Dr Paul Greatrix
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Teaching and Learning Conference: submission deadline extended
February 8th, 2023
The submission deadline for this year’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference has been extended to Friday 3 March 2023.
The Teaching and Learning Conference will be held on Wednesday 26 April 2023, Monica Partridge Building, University Park Campus (UK), with in-person, hybrid, and online only options available across campuses (UNUK, UNNC & UNM).
All interested colleagues and students, please register to attend the conference
Contributions from colleagues and students across campuses, disciplines and job families that align with the Student Engagement and Partnership theme are welcome, and we particularly encourage collaboration and co-creation between staff and students.
UNUK colleagues and/or students, click for full guidance and to submit an abstract
UNNC and UNM colleagues and/or students, click for full guidance and to submit an abstract
Please find full details on the conference webpage.
The Student Engagement and Partnership theme central to this year’s conference also underpins a series of SoTL Talks (online) launching early 2023, and threads through both 2022/23 UoN TeachFest’s (in-person only UK campus).
Key Dates:
Deadline for contributions (abstracts): Friday 3 March 2023
Reviews completed: Friday 17 March 2023
Notification of review outcome: Wednesday 29 March 2023
All revisions (if appropriate) submitted: Wednesday 13 April 2023
Tags: student engagement, Student Engagement and Partnership, Teaching and Learning Conference, Teaching and Learning Conference 2023
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Support for Turkey and Syria
February 8th, 2023
Following the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday morning, the university has extended support to students who are likely to have been affected.
The university has reached out with an offer of support to all students who have registered their nationality, home country, or address as Turkey or Syria.
We are encouraging students who have been impacted by these events and are struggling with any issues – including academic or wellbeing problems – to reach out to us. They are able to book either a virtual or an in-person appointment through MyWellbeing by logging into the Student Life portal.
They have also been advised to reach out to their tutor or supervisor for further support or guidance if they wish. Chaplaincy and Faith Support also offer pastoral support and guidance for those with or without a faith.
If you are a member of staff who has been impacted, our Employee Assistance Programme offers free support for you and your loved ones.
If you would like to donate to the relief effort, below are some organisations:
Disasters Emergency Committee
UNICEF
Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management aid campaign
Turkish Red Crescent
Tags: support, Syria, Turkey
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Trent Building to illuminate for Rare Disease Day 2023
February 7th, 2023
The university’s iconic Trent Building will be illuminated in blue and green to show support for Rare Disease Day 2023.
Tuesday 28 February 2023 is International Rare Disease Day, a date appointed to raise awareness for the over 300 million people worldwide living with a rare disease.
To help raise awareness of the day, the Trent Building on University Park Campus will join a host of other organisations in being lit up in blue and green from Friday 25 to Monday 28 February at 7pm.
Rare Disease Day began in 2008 with 18 countries. Today, participation has grown significantly with events in over 100 countries in 2021.
The worldwide events are organized by patients, clinicians and every person interested in raising awareness for rare genetic diseases.
In February 2022, more than 500 landmarks were illuminated in over 100 countries around the world for Rare Disease Day.
Help us spread awareness by sharing through social media platforms with #rarediseaseday and @rarediseasedayofficial.
Tags: Rare Disease Day, Rare Disease Day 2023, Trent Building light up
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