December 18, 2024, by Rob Ounsworth
Celebrating our international impact in 2024
Welcome to our final research and knowledge exchange update of 2024.
This year, the university updated its international research and knowledge exchange strategy and to celebrate this, I am delighted to share a few highlights from 2024 of how our activity across the world is supporting this strategy.
Our international research and knowledge exchange strategy aims to:
- Build our global reputation through excellence in international research and KE
- Deliver meaningful contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Work with our international campuses to improve joint research performance and knowledge exchange, particularly through collaborating with other institutions
We plan to align our international research and KE reporting and our internal funding with these three areas of activity.
The University of Nottingham Ningbo China
UNNC’s highlights from 2024 include:
UNNC is forming a strategic partnership with the China-Base Ningbo Group (CBNB) – ranked among the country’s top 500 companies – to accelerate its digital transformation, talent development and research-driven innovations.
In 2025, UNNC is establishing an international Proof of Concept Centre, to promote technology transfer, improve the quality of the pipeline projects and scale up industry engagement in a systematic manner. Together with enhanced tri-campus engagement, the centre will underpin greater ability to respond to opportunities presented by policymakers and industry needs.
The University of Nottingham Malaysia
In 2024, UNM successfully secured 70 new national and international grants with a total value of RM15.2m (£2.69m), including a RM11.3m award by the Wellcome Trust for an eight-year research initiative focused on the early detection and prevention of non-communicable diseases in under-served populations.
Next year, as part of UNM’s 25th anniversary celebrations, an International Cancer Research Symposium is scheduled for May 2025, with support from the Sarawak State Government.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
In 2024, the university was recognised for our efforts in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. We earned a top 200 place in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, which evaluate more than 2,000 universities from 125 countries based on their performance against the 17 goals.
We published a report, which highlighted our commitment to the goals in everything we do: research, education, engagement, and campus policies and operations.
Please do share and highlight the report – it is an engaging snapshot of how we worked collaboratively with partners in 2022-23 to address global challenges.
We will be producing a report on the university’s activities in 2023-24 in support of the goals and look forward to further documenting your impact.
Global engagement
The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings announcement came at the Global Sustainable Development Congress in Bangkok where 3,000 global thought leaders and innovators gathered to discuss urgent solutions to the international sustainability emergency. A small delegation, supported by the Global Engagement team, was led by (then Interim) Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane Norman, who delivered a keynote speech on sustainability, with a focus on working with industry and policymakers in the region.
Professor Norman also visited Indonesia, where the University of Nottingham is the leading UK partner supporting the ASEAN powerhouse’s drive to electrification of its transport.
Find out more about the work of Global Engagement.
Adelaide-Nottingham Alliance
The second symposium of the Adelaide-Nottingham Alliance was hosted at University Park in May, when colleagues announced a £500,000 grant from Diabetes UK as part of a £1m research project using pioneering neuroimaging techniques to identify how the tongue and digestive tract sense sweet stimuli and integrate this signalling in the brain of people with type 2 diabetes.
A recent Aus $751,000 (£594,000 ) award from the Australian Research Council will fund a multidisciplinary Adelaide-Nottingham study of bushfires and conservation policies.
International Research Collaboration Fund
The relaunched International Research Collaboration Fund (IRCF) is open for applications. It supports our researchers to undertake excellent research with new or existing collaborators outside the UK.
The next application review date is 14 January 2025. We look forward to facilitating international collaborations in 2025 and beyond that go on to external funding successes. In the 2022/23 round, for example, an IRCF award supporting the building of a USA/UoN/EU consortium was instrumental in Dr Kevin Webb of the Faculty of Engineering helping to land a $7.5m (£5.9m) grant from the US National Institutes of Health to establish a US national centre that will harness cutting-edge tissue-on-chip technology.
3MT: vote for Maryam
The University of Nottingham Malaysia’s Ungku Maryam Jamilah is a finalist in the U21 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, and is in the running for the People’s Choice award.
To watch Maryam’s presentation ‘microplastic (un)masked’ and vote for her, visit Universitas 21. Nottingham is one of the founder members of Universitas 21, the leading international network of research-intensive universities.
The 3MT competition provides research students with the opportunity to develop their academic, presentation, and research communication skills.
Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Knowledge Exchange and Innovation
The RKE team welcome Professor Ed Lester, our new Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Knowledge Exchange and Innovation. Ed is Lady Trent Professor of Chemical Engineering and part of the part of the Advanced Materials Research in the Faculty of Engineering. He founded the spin-out company, Promethean Particles in 2007, where he is chief scientific officer, and brings a wealth of experience into this critical role.
UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships
The prestigious UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships programme is preparing for its tenth round. This scheme supports emerging leaders in research and innovation, offering funding of around £1.4m per award.
The scheme opens on Monday 3 February 2025, but internal expressions of interest must be submitted by Thursday 23 January 2025.
UoN can only submit up to eight applications this round, so competition is fierce. To succeed, applicants must showcase leadership potential, a transformative project vision, and a commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
Find out more and application tips
Invitation to join REF 2029 panels
The Research Excellence Framework is inviting applications to join the REF 2029 panels.
This is a chance to serve on the main and sub-panels that are at the heart of the REF assessment process, with members bringing together specialist expertise in each Unit of Assessment. Panel membership offers an opportunity to enhance your research leadership and evaluation skills and ensure a fair, robust, and informed assessment of research quality across the country.
More information and how to apply
This follows Research England’s appointment of Professor Tom Rodden, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, as chair of the main panel for Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics.
Take a look at our new research webpages
I would like to highlight a transformation of the university’s research webpages. These have been redesigned and reorganised to reflect the university’s research strengths and priorities, better showcase the impact of our innovations, and make the pages easier to navigate.
The revamp followed a consultation with researchers and other stakeholders on what works well and what the pages could do better. A key change is a more dynamic approach to content, with more opportunities to promote your work, for example by sharing content such as press releases from the media team and giving events additional exposure.
The Vision section of the pages showcases the transformative impact of our research – if you would like your work to be featured, guidance is available on how to create your own impact case study. To suggest contributions to Vision, or news articles to be cross-promoted on the research pages, contact the corporate research marketing team.
The pages also feature research news and events, opportunities for collaboration and engagement, and the support available to our research community. The pages also highlight our commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Please spare a few moments to take a look. I would be interested in hearing your comments. Comments, suggestions or requests to promote your work are also welcomed by the corporate research marketing team.
Making your life easier
Finally, you may wish to bookmark an online workshop on 25 January: Collaboration tools for research grant applications: making your life easier.
This session is designed for anyone planning to start a research grant application and would like to learn more about options and opportunities for better collaboration and more efficient working. It’s also designed for APM staff who support grant applications.
Find out more and book you place
This is the latest in a series of initiatives and programmes designed to help better support you at every stage of the research cycle. Thanks once again to the faculty and Research and Innovation teams who have delivered real progress in this area in 2024.
UniCore: thanks once again for your understanding
The RKE leadership team is very aware that there are currently ongoing issues with the roll-out of UniCore in the research area.
We are in a transition period; delays are occurring and it may be a while until we return to business as usual. Colleagues who support research are building up knowledge of the system but at this stage are having to prioritise business-critical activity. We will see the benefits of this integrated system in due course- but thank you once again for your understanding in the meantime.
Please refer to Research and Innovation’s SharePoint pages on UnICore, for updates on the transition and support.
The latest update from the central UniCore team, includes information on support and training. Department and faculty operations leads will be invited to briefing sessions in the new year to look at processes in detail and get further guidance.
My thanks and best wishes
It has been a very successful year for RKE and this is down to you. My thanks for your dedication and support for one another in 2024.
Wishing you a happy and restful winter break, and best wishes for 2025.
Sarah
Professor Sarah Metcalfe
Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange
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