July 24, 2024, by Rob Ounsworth
A summer break and looking ahead
Professor Tom Rodden’s research update
My monthly blog and the Discover research newsletter are taking a summer break in August. My next update will be September, and will look forward the new academic year, with news of our vision for 2024-25 and beyond.
For now, I’d like to highlight recent successes, reflect on the challenges and opportunities ahead, and share news of how we are strengthening support for our research community.
New Future Leaders awarded over £3m to drive cutting-edge research
Congratulations to Dr Stephen Green of the School of Mathematical Sciences and Dr Andrea Laybourn in the Faculty of Engineering, who have each been awarded UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships.
These awards recognise the UK’s most talented early career researchers, who are at the cutting-edge of their fields.
Stephen has been awarded £1.4m for his research developing AI tools to analyse data from gravitational waves that will uncover new insights into black holes and stars. Andrea has been awarded a £2m to develop automated flow microwave platform, which are capable of faster production of porous materials. This has huge potential for addressing key global challenges in healthcare, energy, and mitigation of environmental pollution.
Nottingham has strong track record with these prestigious, highly competitive awards. We have now secured 11 UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships, with all five faculties represented. Eight of our Future Leaders are former or existing Anne McLaren or Nottingham Fellows, which is testament to the exceptional strengths of our own fellowship schemes, and the quality of support they are offered in building a research career.
Honorary Fellowship for radiologist
Yan Chen, Professor of Digital Screening in the School of Medicine, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal College of Radiologists. Chen’s work has been integral to the NHS breast cancer screening programme and her fellowship recognises an exceptional contribution to this field of expertise.
Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement
Professor Nigel Mongan will be taking up the role of Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, effective from 1 September 2024.
Professor Mongan is currently leading a team of cancer experts at the university as part of the SAMBAI Cancer Grand Challenge consortium led by Professor Melissa Davis at Morehouse School of Medicine, which earlier this year received $25m in funding over five years to take on the challenge of cancer inequities in the UK, USA and Africa.
Professor Mongan was appointed Director of Global Engagement for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in 2019 and will continue in this role whilst taking on the additional responsibilities of APVC. This is a temporary role while the university considers its ongoing plans to recruit a permanent Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement.
New government, new opportunities
The King’s speech set out the legislative agenda of the new Labour government, including devolution in England, which offers the opportunity to deepen engagement with local and regional partners. If the regions are to have a greater voice in the national conversation, our university and its partners will be part of that conversation, as exemplified by our commitment to partnerships such as Universities for Nottingham, the Midlands Engine and Midlands Innovation.
We remain committed to playing an active role supporting economic growth through the sharing of skills and the transfer of innovation and new technologies to industry and welcome a focus on the critical role of science and technology in building a stronger and sustainable UK economy.
The university also welcomes the Labour manifesto pledge to long-term investment in R&D.
Future Nottingham
Future Nottingham will help the university anticipate and respond to such challenges, support and grow excellence in strategic areas, and incubate emerging ideas. Our commitment to the power of interdisciplinary research and support for a positive, welcoming environment for research are at the core of our vision for the future of research at Nottingham.
Improving the Researcher Experience
Our on-going work is improving the researcher experience and making day-to-day processes easier to navigate.
Over the next few months improvements will be rolled out to address some key concerns and challenges faced by academics.
The project focuses on placing researchers at the heart of the grant process and upcoming changes respond to areas of concern you have highlighted: improving award setup, communication, and the recruitment of project staff.
Improvements implemented or are on track to be rolled out over the next few months include:
- The Partially Executed Projects (PEP) process, allowing projects awaiting relatively low-risk award information to receive a finance project code without delay. Since the initiative began, 32 projects have already been processed.
- Established new arrangements between contract and pre-award teams to enable financial contract negotiations with third parties to begin earlier in the award set up process, helping to reduce coding delays.
- Reviewing and aligning recruitment practices across faculties to allow earlier recruitment against temporary school finance codes.
It is great to see the project delivering results that will start to improve our current ways of working. I am also excited about the next phases of the project, as colleagues across the university continue to work together to improve current processes while ensuring future work maximises the opportunities presented by upcoming transformations like the new UniCore System and Future Nottingham.
If you would like to get involved, please contact joanna.green@nottingham.ac.uk.
Research Culture Conference
More than 200 people attended the Research Culture Conference. Delegates from across our research community enjoyed a series of rapid, three-minute updates from key research personnel, and learned about the launch of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Culture Strategy.
New R&I Business Analysis and Reporting team
Data analytics capability is increasingly important in driving improved performance in research and knowledge exchange.
A restructured Business and Analysis Reporting team within Research and Innovation’s RKE Strategic Management & Performance area has been developing comprehensive analyses of a broad range of data to support evidenced-based decision-making in relation to RKE performance, metrics and statutory returns.
Analyses created by the team are likely to be useful for colleagues in schools and faculties across the research community and can be viewed on the UoN Tableau server an van be viewed at Research and KE Data.
Community of Practice
The team are also creating a Research Data Community of Practice, which will bring together analysts who are passionate about research data, with a focus on sharing best practices, fostering collaborative learning, and driving innovation in our analytical work.
If you are interested in the Community of Practice, please see the team’s dedicated SharePoint site or email BB-researchoutcomes@exmail.nottingham.ac.uk
A wonderful experience at the Royal Society
On a personal note, I had a wonderful experience at the Royal Society in London, where I was among 90 researchers elected as a Fellow. The ceremony included signing a ledger that records the Fellows across the Royal Society’s 360-year history. It was humbling to add our names to a list that includes Newton, Darwin and Stephen Hawking – a key part of the rehearsals for the ceremony was practising with a fountain pen to avoid our signatures smudging the beautiful paper!
It was a tremendous honour, and I am very humbled and grateful. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on the friendship and support I have received here at Nottingham.
My research area, human-centred computing, emerged as discipline just over 20 years ago, as I was joining the university. My field is highly interdisciplinary and thanks to the support and scientific curiosity of wonderful colleagues from across the university, we have delivered brilliant projects and advanced understanding of the central role of the human experience in ubiquitous computing. Such advances informed my service as Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport, which including monitoring of five million people at pilot events that led to the safe easing of national Covid restrictions.
Enjoy your summer break
Finally, as I sign off until a new term in September, I hope everyone has the opportunity to enjoy a well-earned, relaxing summer break. And if you are watching the Olympics from this Friday (22 July), there will be plenty of opportunity to cheer on our Olympian and Paralympian alumni. Go UoN!
Best wishes
Professor Tom Rodden
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange.
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