Campus News
Invitation: research culture workshops and survey
April 20th, 2022
All colleagues are invited to a series of workshops between 16 and 26 May as part of an ambitious project to transform research culture at our university.
The hour-long discussions will explore themes emerging from our research culture survey.
For those yet to take part in the survey, please share your insights and experiences and help us make the university a place that people want to come to work and study, to develop their skills and to contribute to our community.
Sign up for a research culture workshop.
Tags: research, research culture, research culture survey
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Disability Recognition Month: May 2022
April 13th, 2022
As a university, we will celebrate Disability Recognition Month during the month of May 2022.
There is a rich programme of local events with a central keynote event focusing on mental health and hidden disabilities.
We invite our community to take part in these events organised by students and colleagues across the university. Find out more about each event in the information below:
4 May
2pm – Support dogs visit the vet school at Sutton Bonington, Room A30, Vet School
3pm – Darren Edwards – Disabled Adventurer and World First Expedition Leader
10 May
1pm – Making the invisible visible: mental health and hidden disabilities
Please book here
13,14,17 May
1pm – School of Education and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences: Deaf Awareness & Basics of British Sign Language
25 May
2pm – Film screening a Hallward Library
Overview of event dates:
Resilience: From Falling to Thriving
Darren Edwards – Disabled Adventurer and World First Expedition Leader
Wednesday 4 May , 3pm – 4pm, A03 Monica Partridge Building, University Park
Followed by a food and drink reception in the Atrium.
Darren Edwards is a former mountaineer and Army Reservist who sustained a life-changing injury in the summer of 2016. The near-fatal climbing accident would leave Darren permanently paralysed from the chest down. With determination, grit and positivity, Darren has overcome adversity to become a Disabled Adventurer, World First Expedition Leader and Motivational Speaker.
Open to staff and students. Limited number of funded places available.
Book your place here
Disability Recognition month at Sutton Bonnington
Support Dogs visit the Vet school
Wednesday 4 May, 2pm, in person at the vet school, no booking required
Ambassador for Support Dogs charity will speak at the vet school about the charity, the dogs, and the training. This is an opportunity for the vet school to give some recognition to disability and mobility aids.
Making the invisible visible: mental health and hidden disabilities
Tuesday, 10 May, 1- 2:30pm
See a recording of the event here.
We invite the university community to join this event where a panel of our Disabled staff and students will join Katherine Linehan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and People, in a conversation about their lived experience of invisible disabilities and mental health awareness in the university.
School of Education and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences: Deaf Awareness & Basics of British Sign Language
Sessions will be hosted by Nottinghamshire Deaf Society. The trainer will be profoundly deaf and will use BSL as their first language. They will of course be accompanied by an interpreter. Please bear in mind we’d expect most attendees to have their cameras on for these events.
Deaf Awareness
Friday 13 May, 13.00-14.00, virtual event
Please book here
Covering topics such as: deaf culture and language, types of deafness, ‘live example’ of learning to communicate with a deaf person and making yourself understood.
Introduction to British Sign Language part one
Tuesday 17 May, 13.00-14.00, virtual event
Please book here
Basic signs and expressions
Introduction to British Sign Language part two
Tuesday 24th May, 13.00-14.00, virtual event
Please book here
Further signs and expressions
‘Then Barbara Met Alan’ film screening at Hallward Library
Wednesday 25 May, 2-4pm at Hallward library, Screening Room (level 1)
Join our Libraries team for a screening of the 2022 BBC Drama, Then Barbara Met Alan.
Written by Jack Thorne and Genevieve Barr, the film tells the untold love story of two cabaret performers, Barbara and Alan who meet at a gig, fall in love, and become the driving force behind an unprecedented campaign of direct action that ultimately led to the passing of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.
This event is open to all staff and students, including allies.
Student voices: improving access in teaching for disabled students
Throughout the month of May, School of Health Sciences is creating videos with students about the importance of using resources to help make teaching more accessible.
Focussing particularly on those students who have a specific learning disability or neurodiversity, the short films will be used to persuade teaching and learning staff to engage with the student body and the resources available to them, to help provide teaching materials that meet the needs of disabled students.
Tags: disability recognition month, Disability Recognition Month 2022, edi, equality and diversity, Equality Diversity and Inclusion
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Diversity festival announced – Monday 13 to Friday 24 June 2022
April 12th, 2022
Our second diversity festival embraces and celebrates difference and offers staff, students and alumni the opportunity to:
- Promote understanding and awareness of diversity and inclusion
- Enable challenging conversations
- Champion protected characteristics and beyond
The festival runs from Monday 13 June to Friday 24 June across UK campuses and offers launch events including stalls and performances on Monday 13 June and a two-week food sampling and music takeover in partnership with University Radio Nottingham and our food catering outlets.
Look out for free samples of diverse food to taste and exciting performances plus the opportunity to meet staff and student groups offering support and guidance to our diverse university community.
Our keynote events this year focus on becoming an anti-racist organisation, inclusive leadership and the social and economic challenges faced by those moving into, being in and moving out of HE. Our Sphere Conference brings the university community together to share EDI best practice and research, as well as celebrating funded Sphere projects from 2019-2021.
Our vibrant community is also offering local events across departments, schools and faculties designed to share, challenge and engage you and your peers.
How can you get involved?
We encourage staff and students to find creative ways to celebrate the diversity of their team, year group, faculty. You could bring in food that reflects your cultural heritage, wear clothing, jewellery or makeup that speaks to your culture or arrange sessions to tell stories and exchange ideas about your culture and heritage.
Post photos and stories onto your social media with the hashtag #WeAreUoN.
Want to find out more?
Find out more and book onto events via our diversity festival web hub.
Tags: diversity, Diversity and Inclusion, Diversity Festival, Diversity Festival 2022, edi, equality, Equality Diversity and Inclusion
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Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey – call for support
April 11th, 2022
The university is conducting a survey with our postgraduate taught students to understand their experience and learning during 2021-22.
We surveyed all students (undergraduate, PGT and PGR) in June 2020 and ran a PGT survey in summer 2021 to find out how Covid-19 had affected their learning experience, with the aim to provide improved support.
The feedback from these surveys helped us to understand how the university needs to support students’ learning and wellbeing throughout the year. Communications, wellbeing support and enabling safe social interactions were highlighted as areas for us to improve.
These surveys have been key to informing much of our work this year (Student Guide to Digital Learning, the Coronavirus webpages, newsletters) and are also informing our plans for 2022-23. Specific feedback from the PGT surveys has been discussed in the university’s PGT Strategy Group, and distributed around Schools, Departments and Professional Services divisions.
The university is now running the annual Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey, administered by Advance HE, to assess the impacts of the measures we have put into place following previous feedback. Questions are only accessible to postgraduate taught students and the results will be used to inform our approach moving forward.
The survey is now open and will be live until Friday 13 May. Unique links have been sent by email directly to students.
We are asking for your support in encouraging any students with whom you interact to complete this survey. This will help to maximise the number of responses to better understand where and how we can improve our PGT support. Various promotional materials, including a 16×9 screen that you can use as a lecture slide, are available in this folder.
Your Education and Student Experience team will be in touch with more information. If you have any questions, please contact Hannah Sherwood.
Tags: Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey, PTES
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Gender and ethnicity pay gaps – 2022 figures now live
April 5th, 2022
The 2022 gender and ethnicity pay gap reports are now available on the HR website.
This year sees the fifth annual statutory reporting of the university’s gender pay gap. Whilst our mean gender pay gap has reduced by 0.2%, we are disappointed that our median pay gap has increased during the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic.
The increase is largely attributable to the voluntary redundancy measures we implemented as part of our institutional response to Covid-19 last year.
However, we will redouble our efforts to reinstate the good progress we have been making over previous years to further reduce our pay gaps.
We will take further action to provide support such as further mentoring and childcare facilities, and examining recruitment, retention and promotion processes to better support those with protected characteristics.
The university’s ethnicity pay gap figures have also been published.
Although not mandatory, sharing the pay gap between white and BAME staff is a key step towards understanding the gap and developing actions to reduce it. Here we are pleased to have reduced the mean calculation by 3.2% and the median calculation by 6% over the same period.
Tags: edi, equality, ethnicity pay gap, Gender and ethnicity pay gap, Gender pay gap
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Volunteers needed for key roles at Graduation
April 5th, 2022
Following the call for graduation stewards, the Graduation Team is specifically seeking expressions of interest from any colleagues who would like to take on pivotal ceremonial roles of the Marshal and Esquire Bedell at future graduation ceremonies.
You can find out about the roles on the Registry and Academic Affairs Sharepoint before seeking your line manager’s approval to apply.
We welcome applications from colleagues who can help at ceremonies at EMCC between 7 and 13 May by 13 April; applications will remain open until 31 May to capture all colleagues who may wish to help in future.
Having a pool of colleagues who can take on these roles is important moving forward to take pressure off single individuals, however, it is especially important in 2022 with three years’ worth of ceremonies.
We really welcome applications from colleagues across the university who are keen to be involved, regardless of job family and grade.
These two roles are quite simple in their remit but are high profile so role holders do need to be comfortable in the spotlight and working with VIPs. Further details on the roles and skills can be found on Sharepoint and any questions can be directed to Samantha.potter@nottingham.ac.uk.
Tags: Esquire Bedell, graduation, Graduation volunteer, Marshal, staff volunteers, volunteers
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International Women’s Day 2022: Recap
April 5th, 2022
International Women’s Day (IWD) 2022 took place on Tuesday 8 March. The theme for the celebration was #BreakTheBias:
“Imagine a gender equal world.
A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
Together we can forge women’s equality.
Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.” IWD 2022
#BreakTheBias: A focus on Women’s Health and Wellbeing
This year’s central event was a panel discussion, chaired by Professor Katherine Linehan (PVC for EDI), which explored how we can create an inclusive university that supports the health and wellbeing of women on campus.
You can also watch the recording online.
Recorded Content
There was also a suite of IWD content created by UoN staff and students in 2021. These include podcasts, and a reading of the poem ‘Hers for the taking’ by Arshia Agrawal. These are available to view and listen to on the campus news page.
Tags: International Women's Day, International Women's Day 2022, IWD, IWD 2022, IWD 22
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New health and safety training courses available online
April 5th, 2022
The university is now offering a selection of new Health and Safety training courses online through eLearning packages.
These are Fire Safety training and Health and Safety Induction.
The Fire Safety Training must be completed by all staff, Postgraduate Researchers and associates when starting at the university, and must be refreshed once every three years.
The Health and Safety Induction training must also be completed by all staff, Postgraduate Researchers and associates when starting at the university.
You can find the training at the following links:
The Health and Safety Department has also provided a summary of key health and safety information for colleagues who are returning to campus for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Your manager and Health and Safety Coordinator will be able to support you and any questions you have can be emailed to the Health and Safety Team.
Further eLearning courses are in development by the Health and Safety Department and will be publicised shortly.
Tags: health and safety, health and safety training, Staff training, training
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Transforming our research culture: we need your help
April 5th, 2022
A message from Professor Dame Jessica Corner
Why is our research culture so important? And why do we need your help to improve it?
A research environment that is positive, rewarding and truly inclusive is essential to delivering world-class research. It is also essential in supporting the wellbeing and fulfilment of us all.
What do we mean by research culture? The Royal Society defines research culture as encompassing “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”.
Today we are launching a research culture survey, the first step in an ambitious project to understand how to support our pioneering researchers and all colleagues who contribute to our research activities. Through this project, we aim to make the university a place that people want to come to work and study, to develop their skills and to contribute to our university community.
A good research culture empowers everyone, allowing us all to thrive. Our people are at the heart of our renewed research strategy and being supported and encouraged to reach your potential is fundamental to our mission of delivering world-class teaching and learning. Students are also inspired by a sector-leading research environment and exceptional researchers enrich our teaching of the next generation of research leaders.
Share your feelings
We want to hear from you, and from all colleagues either undertaking or supporting research at the university – including academics, professional services staff, postgraduate researchers, technicians, and early career researchers.
Yes, another survey…but we believe it is worth around 20 minutes of your time.
Here’s why:
- There is evidence that a vibrant, positive and inclusive research environment, with an open and transparent set of values, is the cornerstone of high-performance research
- Our research strategy consultation revealed our current research culture is hampering our ability to produce high-quality and impactful research, and must change
- Identifying the work we need to do together is essential in addressing this
- Only by hearing from, listening to and empowering you can we affect significant and meaningful change
In short, your voice and support will truly make a difference.
It is also important to say how we feel. The survey may reveal uncomfortable insights as well as great suggestions and practical solutions.
Together we will better understand how to:
- value and celebrate individuals and teams
- clarify expectations of performance
- build a collegiate, inclusive and ambitious environment
- support and cultivate our talent
- embrace and recognise our postgraduate researchers as key to our research success
We know that some people work in amazing environments – we can learn from you and, by co-creating the best research culture and environment in which to work, help everyone involved in delivering and supporting our research.
To reflect the ambition and scope of this project, we commissioned external experts to help us better understand our research culture, so together as a community we can identify what we can do to improve and empower us all to make change.
To take the next step in this process we really need your help. Please complete our research culture survey and register to attend our culture improvement workshops – let us know how you feel and what needs to be done.
As we develop practical solutions to growing a vibrant, dynamic research culture, we will ensure the value of equality, diversity and inclusion is embedded in all we do.
We pledge that our collective survey responses will be shared without individuals being identified and will actively inform this project. We also encourage you to sign up for a research culture workshop, where we will explore emerging themes in more depth.
Do look out for the workshop dates and an opportunity to contribute further. Working collectively across the university we aim to deliver real and tangible change to our research culture before the end of this year.
Thank you for your continued support as together we work to change our research culture to benefit us all.
Jessica
Pro-Vice-Chancellor
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Tags: Dame Jessica Corner, professor dame jessica corner, Professor Dame Jessica Corner update, research, research update
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Management Essentials webinars from the Leadership and Management Academy
April 4th, 2022
If you are looking to build on your existing knowledge and skills, wanting to refresh your management skills or are managing people for the first time, the Leadership and Management Academy’s Management Essentials webinars can help.
It’s no secret that effective management is vital in these challenging times and is critically important in the day-to-day operation of teams.
It helps to focus on setting goals, planning and organising, motivating colleagues, and ensuring the effective completion of work-based activity.
While leadership activities are important, managers need the fundamental skills to bring out the best in their teams and this is why the management essentials webinars have been created.
For those who want to build on existing knowledge and skills, refresh management skills or who are managing people for the first time, the Management Essentials webinar will give you the “what” and the “how” of fundamental management activities such as time management, delegation, setting and managing expectations and much more.
The webinars are online and include follow up resources to help you put the skills to work.
There will be plenty of time to listen to and respond to any questions/issues you are tackling and the opportunity to hear from colleagues across the university.
You can see the full list of events and book your place here [Moodle login required].
Tags: leadership, Leadership and Management Academy, Leadership guidance, Leadership webinar, staff webinars, webinars
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