Campus News

Introducing Nottingham Venues: One destination, endless possibilities

July 18th, 2022

Following the news late last year that East Midlands Conferences Centre (EMCC) Ltd, would be undertaking a rebrand, from June 2022 it will be now known as Nottingham Venues.

The rebrand brings the various facilities under one roof after the hotels and conference centre spent nearly a decade under the De Vere Group, whilst the Nottingham Conferences team were part of the university.

Now, the East Midlands Conference Centre, Orchard and Jubilee hotels and the university conference facilities that make up the newly named Campus Venues, will sit under the unified brand.

The move has provided the opportunity to take the knowledge and experience gained from the last 10 years and take the business into its next phase

It boasts a wide portfolio of conference venues, meeting rooms, the David Ross Sports Village, hotels, cafes, and restaurants, all set within the beautiful parkland grounds of the university.

The unique nature of this offering sets it apart from competitors and has seen it become a firm favourite of organisers of global conferences, networking events, overnight stays, and business meetings.

To celebrate, a garden party was held on Friday 8 July to showcase the refurbished East Midlands Conference Centre, with guests including representatives from the university, local businesses, clients and suppliers.

Gathering in the East Midlands Conference Centre’s stunning grounds, they heard from general manager Tom Waldron-Lynch about their plans for a future driven by sustainability and the £2m refurbishment project completed just prior to the pandemic.

‘It has been a remarkable journey for Nottingham Venues and we’re now able to proudly and officially talk about “One Destination with Endless Possibilities”, said Tom.

‘We’re standing on our own, proud to be who we are, where we are. The name says it all. We’re very proud of our history and heritage and also our ownership in terms of the University of Nottingham and their fantastic support.

‘We have a fantastic heritage but also a hugely exciting future ahead of us, driven by sustainable practices and with a focus on creating local jobs, local partnerships and driving the economy in the city, the county and across the region.

For more information about Nottingham Venues, please visit www.nottinghamvenues.com

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Professor Yang Fujia, 1936-2022

July 18th, 2022

A former Chancellor and one of the instrumental figures behind the creation of the University of Nottingham Ningbo has died. Professor Yang Fujia passed away on 17 July 2022 at the age of 86.

A renowned nuclear physicist, he became Nottingham’s sixth Chancellor in 2001, the first time that a Chinese academic had held the role in a UK university. In 2004 along with the then Vice-Chancellor Colin Campbell and Madame Xu Yafen he helped to establish UNNC, the first Sino-foreign university in China.

Born in Shanghai in 1936, Yang attended Fudan University where he remained as a teacher after graduating in 1958. From 1963 to 1965, he took up the role of postdoctoral researcher at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, but after returning home to China, he established the state-of-the-art Accelerator-based Atomic and Nuclear Physics Laboratory and began China’s first research into ion beam analysis. In 1993 he became the president of Fudan University where he stayed until 1999. He joined the University of Nottingham in 2001.

These prestigious roles gave him profound insights into the development of higher education and talent cultivation in China. He advocated the idea of liberal arts education, speaking and writing actively on various occasions to promote the reform of higher education in China.

He once said: “I was fortunate enough to be the Chancellor of the University of Nottingham for 12 years. I visited countless universities around the world and gradually understood what liberal arts education is. Naturally, I am also thinking about whether this excellent teaching system can be migrated to China.”

Yang Fujia promoted the establishment of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, which opened a new model of Sino-foreign cooperative education and injected a much-desired vitality into Chinese universities, and served as UNNC’s first President.

He adhered to three principles: first, a focus on teaching quality; second, an insistence that education should ‘ignite the flame in students’ hearts’; and third, the understanding that we are ‘human beings first, professionals second’.

Through a life dedicated to exploring and practicing this educational philosophy it was his wish to provide high-quality international education in China and cultivate high-end innovative and international talent for the country in the future.

Yang Fujia was also Director of the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 1987 to 2001, Chairman of the Shanghai Science and Technology Association (1992–1996), and he was the first president of the Association of University Presidents of China (1997–1999).

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Diversity Festival recap: Inclusive leadership – leading by example

July 18th, 2022

For the next few weeks, we will be highlighting one keynote event a week for those who missed out on the live sessions. This week, we’re recapping the Inclusive leadership: leading by example event. 

This keynote session brought us together as a community to share personal stories and experiences, think about what inclusive leadership means and explore how we can all be inclusive leaders. 

Alumna Terri Cooper shared an inspiring video message on the six Cs of inclusive leadership – commitment, collaboration, curiosity, cultural intelligence, cognisance of bias and courage – encouraging everyone to embrace these six Cs and be incredibly successful leaders.  

Katherine Linehan talked about the importance of creating an inclusive environment where everyone felt able to bring their authentic self to work and study, encouraging and empowering others, and giving everyone the opportunity to flourish. 

We explored how to recognise non-inclusive behaviour and have the courage to challenge such behaviour, and the importance of using positive reinforcements to enable an understanding of what good inclusive leadership looks like.  

We talked about showing emotion at work and that this shouldn’t be a sign of weakness. Using our emotions effectively, in a controlled way, sharing what we are comfortable with enables us to bring others along with us and build trust. 

There were some key messages for us to take away: 

  • It’s okay to be an introvert and to be a leader – introverts made good leaders too. You don’t have to be the loudest at the table! 
  • When building a team, employ people who are better than you, as they will take you in a really exciting direction. 
  • Seek out the opportunity to engage with the excellent mentoring and development opportunities here at the university – find your ally, find your mentor. 
  • We might not get it right all of the time, but the key thing is to keep trying – practice makes perfect! 
  • Sharing personal stories and conversations like this are incredibly inspiring and invaluable. We should all find more opportunities to have these conversations – once a year is not enough! 

Helen McNamara outlined the university’s plans to create a pathway to embed the university’s values – inclusivity, ambition, openness, fairness, respect – in everything we do.  

There were many powerful and inspiring moments. We hope everyone walked away feeling empowered to continue these conversations in their own areas, create that ripple effect and help us on our journey to inclusive leadership. 

Watch the full recording below. 

 

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Redistribute unwanted office supplies with WARPit

July 18th, 2022

Do you have spare office furniture, or are you in need of some?

Online portal WARPit has been relaunched to enable staff to list unwanted campus furniture or office supplies for colleagues to use for free instead.

A report conducted by My Tool Shed suggests the average piece of newly made furniture generates around 47 Kilograms of CO2 equivalents, roughly the same amount of greenhouse gases produced by burning around 5.3 gallons of petrol. According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) 1.2 million office desks and 1.8 million office chairs end up in UK landfills each year, leading to sustainable issues of landfill waste and usable furniture being wrongfully discarded. By circulating excess furniture and office consumables we can reducing waste, spending and supply chain environmental impacts.

In addition to furniture WARPit can be used to redistribute various other items, including:

  • Office Stationary
  • Lab supplies
  • Building equipment
  • Café/Kitchen equipment

The university has already saved around 196,000 kg of CO2 emissions, which is the equivalent of planting 269 trees. WARPit is free for staff and anyone who claims or adds an item onto the system before Monday 15 August will also be entered into a prize draw for a £25 Love2Shop gift voucher. Please note that the items on WARPit are for office use only.

Find out more on the Sustainability website.

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Extreme heat warning Sunday-Tuesday

July 15th, 2022

There is a red Met Office warning in place for extreme heat from Sunday 17 July to Tuesday 19 July with temperatures set to be in excess of 35 degrees in parts of the country.

Line managers should assess the situation and allow staff to work from home where there is no significant operational impact. Further advice in severe weather conditions can be found on the HR website.

In the meantime, please enjoy the weather safely and bear the following advice in mind to take care of yourself and those around you during this extreme weather:

  • Check on older people or sick neighbours, family or friends every day during the hot weather
  • Stay hydrated, drink plenty of fluids and avoid excess alcohol
  • If you need to travel, ensure you take water with you and never leave children or animals in parked vehicles
  • Avoid extreme physical exertion. If you can’t avoid strenuous outdoor activity, prioritise cooler parts of the day, such as early morning or evening.

Keeping cool

Keep your home as cool as possible, especially if you are working from home during the day. Make sure you shade or cover windows exposed to direct sunlight. Keep windows in direct sunlight closed during the day and open at night if it feels cooler outside. Turn off non-essential lights and electrical equipment as they generate heat and during the hottest part of the day find cool or shaded parts of your home or garden.

Try to keep out of the sun between 11am and 3pm when UV radiation is strongest. Wear sunscreen and loose-fitting cotton clothes to reduce the risk of sunburn and regulate your body temperature.

If you are on campus, most of our libraries provide air cooling and access to fresh cold water. For the most up to date information, including any chances to services, please visit the Libraries website.

Look out for signs of heat-related harm

  • If you feel dizzy, weak or have intense thirst and a headache, move to a cool place as soon as possible and drink some water to rehydrate
  • If you have painful muscular spasms (particularly in the legs, arms, or abdomen), rest immediately in a cool place and drink electrolyte drinks. Most people should start to recover within 30 mins and if not, you should seek medical help. Call 111 if you feel unusual symptoms, or if symptoms persist.
  • Call 999 if a person develops any signs of heatstroke as this is a medical emergency. Read NHS advice on heatstroke and heat-related illness.

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Join us on stage at graduation – volunteers needed

July 12th, 2022

Colleagues from across the university are invited to play a special part in this summer’s graduation ceremonies. Volunteers are needed to be part of the graduation platform party for each of our ceremonies. Staff at all levels and from all job families are encouraged to take part.

The time commitment required to be a member of the platform party is two hours in total. You arrive 45 minutes before the start time of the ceremony to the staff robing room – upstairs at David Ross Sports Village – where you will be robed by Ede and Ravenscroft. Around 20 minutes before the ceremony starts, you’ll be asked to form the academic procession which will be led down into the ceremony hall and marks the beginning of proceedings.

After an introduction by the Presiding Officer, students will be called to the stage to have their degrees conferred and you’ll be asked to applaud as the students cross the stage.

The ceremony generally lasts for an hour, after which the academic procession will leave the ceremony, returning to the robing room. Robes are collected back in and at that point you’re able to leave, unless you want to stay and circulate with graduates in the post-ceremony refreshment area.

This summer we are holding 26 graduation ceremonies for our Class of 2022, and 29 rescheduled ceremonies for our graduates from 2020 and 2021. This is an amazing time to celebrate the achievements of our graduates and staff and feedback from students tells us that they really value seeing staff who have been involved in their learning and broader student experience at their ceremonies.

And if you don’t want to be part of the platform party, there are steward volunteering roles available across all ceremonies, helping the graduates and their families and friends on the day of the ceremonies.

All rescheduled 2020 and 2021 ceremonies need volunteers to support them – see the ceremony schedules below.

Urgent support needed:

  • Thursday 28 July 11:45am – School of Politics and International Relations
  • Thursday 28 July 2:15pm – School of Sociology and Social Policy
  • Tuesday 2 August 9:45am – School of Psychology
  • Tuesday 2 August 2:15pm – School of Chemistry
  • Tuesday 2 August 4:15pm – School of Mathematical Sciences
  • Wednesday 3 August 4:15pm – School of English
  • Thursday 4 August 9:45am – School of Cultures Languages and Area Studies

Further support needed:

  • Wednesday 27 July 09:45am – School of Law
  • Wednesday 27 July 11:45am – Nottingham University Business School
  • Thursday 28 July 9:45am – School of Economics
  • Friday 29 July 9:45am – School of Veterinary Medicine and Science
  • Friday 29 July 2:15pm – School of Medicine
  • Tuesday 2 August 11:45am – School of Computer Science & School of Physics and Astronomy
  • Wednesday 3 August 11:45am – School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies & School of Humanities (Philosophy)
  • Wednesday 3 August 2:15pm – School of Humanities

Your support would be hugely appreciated – contact Liza Dacre-Pearson at graduation@nottingham.ac.uk to register.

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New guidance for university file storage

July 12th, 2022

Following the successful migration of the Z: drive to Microsoft 365, focus is now on the continued migration of S: and R: drives, as part of the university’s ongoing Strategic File Storage project.

All data stored within the S: (Shared) and R: (Research) Drives must be moved to Microsoft 365, except where there are specific contractual or performance requirements for S: or R: drive storage. This is an essential change, driven by compliance factors, and ensures we are all handling data in line with legislative and institutional guidelines.

The target date to complete this work was initially Sunday 31 July 2022, however, feedback from some schools and departments indicated that these timescales are not achievable, given the size and scale of the project, combined with other commitments. If your school or department cannot meet this deadline, please get in contact with us to discuss which timescales are most appropriate for your area.

Why do we need to move data files to Microsoft 365

The strategic file store project is driven by compliance factors.

Moving the data files will help us to better maintain the integrity and availability of our data – a core component of GDPR compliance – and make our data more secure and more accessible, whilst enhancing collaboration.

Who is responsible for moving the data?

Due to the nature of shared data, individual teams and Heads of sections are responsible for reviewing and migrating their own data files. We are currently working with professional services, schools and faculties to help identify data owners

Not sure what is in your S drive?

Please contact lily.evans@nottingham.ac.uk who will be able to provide you with an overview of what is stored in your team’s S: drive, to help begin the process of filtering and migrating.

Before moving any data, we recommend that individual teams conduct a thorough review of the data stored within their own S: drive and delete unused files where possible.

Information about reviewing data is available on the Reviewing your Shared Drive Data page, and information about appropriate storage options is available on the Choosing a storage option page.

How do I move data files?

You will be able to upload data into a Team or other area of 365, using the built-in ‘upload’ features. These will cope with most uploads.

However, if you have many thousands of files, or large data sets (gigabytes of data, not megabytes), it may be preferable to use a Migration Tool. We understand that everyone has different levels of comfort and skills around IT, so advice, guidance, and support is available via our enquiry form. Equally, if you are unsure of where to store data in 365 – perhaps questions about how many Teams, what Private Channels do, how might Shared Channels help, etc; please use the form to get in touch.

More information about how to migrate data onto Microsoft 365 can be found on the Data Storage Solution SharePoint site.

Enhancing the university’s digital infrastructure

There is a wealth of information available on the university’s Data Storage Solution SharePoint site, but if you have any queries or seek further support, please fill in the S:\ and R:\ drive migration enquiry form, or contact your local IT support team.

Thank you for your co-operation.

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Blog: Research Culture

July 11th, 2022

Following recent invitations to find out more about our research strategy for 2022-27 and transforming our research culture, project leads Professor Lucy Donaldson and Professor Lynda Pratt discuss what research culture is and how it is defined in their guest blog post.

Our work on our research cultures here at the University of Nottingham has been inspired and shaped by the Royal Society’s view that:

“Research culture encompasses the behaviours, values, expectations, attitudes and norms of our research communities. It influences researchers’ career paths and determines the way that research is conducted and communicated.”

The Royal Society has been a helpful model in another way – action.  It led the advance in building positive research culture and in communicating why it’s so important to understand and maintain a good research culture to support all researchers to achieve their goals. You can watch their great short video here.

Our work on Nottingham’s research culture programme is also informed by awareness that in an organisation as large and complex as ours, we can’t really talk about culture as a single entity. We have myriad different research cultures across the university – many of these might be great, some might be less ideal, and others might need support. Moreover, not everyone experiences the same environment in the same way.

The first step in our work on our research culture has been to understand its complexity and to learn where we are now.  We’ve therefore spent the last 6 months working with an expert consultancy ThenSomeHow, co-designing and running a University of Nottingham research culture survey to see if we can better understand research cultures across the university. In this first step, we asked you to tell us about how it is to work in your local environment. This is designed to give us a baseline for our culture, so that together we can work out how to get to where we want to be, or if we are already there.

We would like to say a very big thank you to everyone who participated in the research culture survey and in the workshops that followed.  These provided invaluable insights into where our research culture is now and suggested themes and areas that might benefit from focussed work in the future.  We discovered that there are some really great places around the university and areas where support is needed to make them even better.

The survey, the workshops, and the discussions at the university’s first ever Research Culture Conference (held on 7 July), demonstrate our collective power.  They show the benefits of working together, learning from each other and sharing ideas and examples of practice as we rebuild our community post-pandemic, in order to make sure that we all have healthy, positive, supportive and enabling working environments.  The next stage in the programme – a series of research culture design clinics running from 11-21 July – will build on this and explore six themes that have emerged from the survey submissions: inclusiveness; agency; collaboration and support; leadership; behaviour; and development. The design clinics are for anyone working on or supporting research activity at any level.  You can find more information about them here.  They offer an opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from across the university and to develop a range of practical interventions and improvements that positively influence our working environment. This will lead into our work in the autumn, when we will form working groups to prototype the best ideas.

Thank you for your great contributions so far.  We very much hope you will get involved in the next stage of our work and help to shape a research culture that supports everyone involved in research to achieve their very best and fulfil their highest ambitions.

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Soapbox Science call for volunteers

July 8th, 2022

Are you passionate about science and love talking to people about it? Do you want to help raise awareness about gender equality in science careers?

Soapbox Science Nottingham is looking for volunteers to help at their event on Saturday 16 July from 11am to  2pm at Speaker’s Corner in Nottingham city centre.

Soapbox Science is not just about the speakers. Without a supportive team of committed, enthusiastic people, a Soapbox event simply cannot happen.

Each event relies on an enthusiastic team of up to 20 volunteers. Volunteers play a crucial role in rounding up the public, chatting to them informally about science, supporting the speakers by managing props and helping to calm any pre-box nerves (even then, most experienced speakers get a bit jittery!) as well as handing out Soapbox goodies to lucky audience members!

But perhaps the most important role of the volunteers is gathering data so we can effectively monitor the success of the event: volunteers carry out the bulk of our streamlined evaluation process through interviews, observations, and counting footfall.

We ask you to commit to attending the event. You’ll need to turn up 1 hour before the event starts for a briefing and training.  You’ll need to stay until up to an hour after the event ends to help clear up.

We’ll send you a volunteers information pack beforehand, with the contact details of your local organisers and details on what role you’ve been allocated and at what time.

Join us for a day of fun, informal and inspiring science and help challenge ideas about who can be a scientist!

Sign up here https://forms.office.com/r/yvA8WZGppx

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Inaugural Lean Event – bookings now open

July 8th, 2022

Getting in Shape will be hosting a Lean event on Wednesday 24 August 2022.

This is an opportunity to come and learn some new skills, meet other colleagues interested in Lean and continuous improvement, and hear about Lean work that is on-going within the university.  

You will also get the chance to network over a catered BBQ.  

Held at the Business School South building on Jubilee Campus and starting at 9.30am, you will get the opportunity to hear about some of the Lean improvement initiatives taking place within the university, before moving into practical workshops to hone your Lean skills:

  • Workshop 1 will be a practical and interactive session on how to improve a process 
  • Workshop 2 will be all about how to set and maintain standards in your workplace, one of the foundations of Lean practice 

Once the workshops have finished, there will be an informal lunch provided where you will have the opportunity to meet the Getting in Shape Team and other Lean enthusiasts.

If you would like to register, please click here to book your place.  Places are limited so please book now to avoid disappointment.

You can find more information about the The Lean Community (TLC) on the Getting in Shape SharePoint site.

Please find a map of the campus here.

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