Re-launch for the Faculty of Science Blog

After a break over the summer the blog returns to give a weekly update on activities within the Faculty and our interactions with the University Executive Board. For this academic year we are going to broaden the blog to include guest bloggers from across the Faculty leadership team. Over the summer student recruitment into the …

Race Equality Charter Training

Over the next 2 years I’ll be co-chairing the University’s Self-Assessment Team for our Bronze Application to Advance HE. This week Advance UK held a training session at the Library of Birmingham. The attainment gap for black students and the problem of micro-aggressions were discussed and I’ve plenty of food for thought for our first …

Computer Science Prizes, Council, UEB and more

Perfect storm of meetings this week. The monthly meetings with the fullest agendas all converged into one week. University Exec Board started the week with a 250 page paper set.  Academic Strategy & Resources Board was lighter than normal and saw Andy Long take the Chair for the first time in anticipation of him becoming …

Staff Oscars and Tri-Campus Postgraduate Awards

A busy short week with 2 awards events giving an opportunity to celebrate successes across the University. On Monday evening the Students’ Union held the annual Staff Oscars. This is always a highlight for the year. The staff who are nominated by students really appreciate it and the stories of each winner and runner-up are …

How will Nottingham change in the next 40 years?

On Wednesday I hosted a visit from 10 future leaders from Nottingham City Council under their New Horizons Programme. We had an excellent visit to Computer Sciences to see demonstrations on VR and a stimulating discussion on how VR could be used to enhance tourism in the City (thanks to Paul Tennent for hosting). Then …

Impact Day

Highlight of the week was the Impact Day held at SB. Excellent talks from UoN staff and companies with very impressive posters showing many collaborations with industry.  Very timely that in the same week Professor Martin Broadley was announced as a finalist in the 2018 BBSRC Innovator of the Year competition. I also enjoyed hearing …

China

China Having flown from Malaysia to China over the weekend, I spent this week teaching and visiting partners in China. The first visit was to Tianjin University for Traditional Chinese Medicine. Our School of Pharmacy has set up a 2+2+1 course with TUTCM to give students training in TCM and “Western” medicines. I taught the …

Kayaking and long flights

This blog covers a couple of weeks over Easter period. On a personal note I took place in the Devizes to Westminster Kayak Race over Easter weekend. We got halfway (56 miles) and then the race was cancelled due to dangerously high flow on the Thames (picture shows the early stages on the gentle canal). …

RIS, BUCS and Staff Engagement

The Research Information System project is reaching a busy and important point in the very long process of launch. It’s been a difficult project to sponsor as it replaces a number of systems that have been embedded in the Uni for many years. This week I demoed the next functionality (especially for outputs and REF) …

Week ending March 19: Race equality, inaugural and lots of meetings

The week ended on a good note with the Inaugural lecture of Professor Stephanie Allen in Pharmacy. Steph and I overlapped in the lab during our PhDs so it was nice to introduce her. Hope there will be more inaugurals across the Faculty because they are a good opportunity to celebrate successes and reflect on …