£970,000 HIEC SUCCESS FOR KEELE

Professor Andy Garner, Dean of the Faculty of Health, has led a successful bid to create one of the country's Health Innovation and Education Clusters (HIEC) to be based on the Staffordshire and Shropshire health economy.

The grant of £970,000 will support set-up costs over the next three years.
 
The 25,000 word application to the Department of Health was a lengthy process spanning 12 months that involved local, regional and national short-listing, prior to a lengthy interview by a 15-strong international awards panel chaired by Hefce Chief Executive Sir Alan Langlands.

HIECs were conceived by Lord Darzi to complement the AHSCs announced last year.  Fit for the Future, the project that is redesigning delivery of healthcare in the region, will provide a framework for the HIEC which will focus on evaluation of the 25-plus new care pathways, provision of an appropriately trained workforce to support transfer of care into the community, and implementation of innovative approaches to support education, training and reaccreditation.

Professor Garner commented that he was extremely pleased to see Keele competing successfully on the national stage for what are seen as prestigious centres for establishing health services research, evaluation and training.  He is particularly keen to build on the momentum created by the HIEC bid to enhance partnerships between local NHS Trusts and between academia and the health service in North Staffordshire and the West Midlands.

He also praised colleagues from across the Faculty and local NHS who contributed to the bid, including John Johnson Faculty of Health Business Manager, Professor Peter Croft (RI Director Primary Care), Dr Kay Mohanna (Director of Postgraduate Medicine), Gavin Russell (Medical Director at UHNS) and Graham Urwin (Chief Executive of Stoke PCT).

ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY HONOURS KEELE'S ASTRONOMERS

The Royal Astronomical Society's Group Achievement Award for Astronomy 2010 has been given to the SuperWASP team, the UK collaboration that has so far detected 18 planets in orbit around stars other than the Sun (extrasolar planets or exoplanets).

SuperWASP is a consortium of eight academic institutions: the University of Keele, the University of Cambridge, the IAC, the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes, the University of Leicester, the Open University, Queen's University Belfast and St Andrew's University. SuperWASP uses two clusters of eight cameras, one on La Palma and one in South Africa, watching for characteristic dips in the brightness of stars as planets pass in front of them. Despite their modest resources, the team has made a world-class contribution to exoplanet science.

The Royal Astronomical Society prizes for 2010 honour individuals and groups who have made an outstanding contribution to astronomy and geophysics and will be presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow in April.

Picture - An artist's impression of the planet WASP-17 in a close encounter with a looming companion planet, both orbiting a star 1000 light years away in the constellation Scorpius. Lawrence Livermore, National Laboratory.

KEELE SPONSORED CONFERENCE IN THE PHILIPPINES

Professor Pnina Werbner, School of Sociology and Criminology, has returned from the Philippines where she attended a two-day conference at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, in Manila, sponsored by Keele and Hull universities.

It was the closing event of the 30-month AHRC project 'In the Footsteps of Jesus and the Prophet', led by Professor Werbner. Its theme, 'Diasporic Encounters, Sacred Journeys: Gendered Migrants, Sociality and the Religious Imagination', followed the international conference with the same title held at Keele in June 2009.

The Philippine conference, organised by Dr. Alicia Pingol, team member and Research Assistant at Hull University, supported by Dr. Mark Johnson, also from Hull, was opened by Professor Julkipli Wadi, Dean of the Institute of Islamic Studies. Altogether 17 original papers were presented by Filipino scholars, including both established and doctoral students at different Asian universities, as well as two papers from members of the Footsteps team.

KEELE ACADEMIC AWARDED NATIONAL PRIZE

Dr Jackie Waterfield, Research Institute for Public Policy and Management, has been awarded the 2009 Jo Campling Memorial Prize by the Academy of Social Sciences, for a paper entitled "Continuing professional development: policy and practice in the NHS", to be published in 2010 in the Academy's journal 21st Century Society. The award is made for an essay by a postdoctoral or early career social scientist.

The prize was presented by the President of the Academy, Professor Sir Howard Newby, at the President's Lunch at the Institute of Directors in London (see picture above).

NEW EARTH PHYSICS WORKSHOPS LAUNCHED AT NATIONAL CONFERENCE

The Keele-based Earth Science Education Unit (ESEU) launched its three new 'Earth Physics' workshops at the Association for Science Education Annual Conference in Nottingham.

The workshops, launched by Professor Chris King, Director of the ESEU (based in the School of Public Policy and Professional Practice), were supported by OPITO: The Oil and Gas Academy and were presented in collaboration with the Institute of Physics.

The teacher CPD workshops, aimed at the 14-19 age range, have been designed to raise staff confidence and enthusiasm about the active Earth and its application to Physics.   Each workshop contains practical hands-on activities, real life applications, career opportunities and career profiles of specialists within the field.

The workshops, entitled 'The Geophys Story', 'The Seismology Story' and 'Tackling Climate Change through Earth Physics', are available via the Institute of Physics Network Co-ordinators for teachers of science across the UK and are presented by ESEU's regional facilitators.

VC APPOINTED TO HEALTH PROFESSIONS ADJUDICATOR OFFICE

The new Office of the Health Professions Adjudicator (OHPA) has announced the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Janet Finch, DBE, as their third non-executive director.
The OHPA is a new independent body, which, from 2011, will adjudicate on fitness to practice cases brought before it by the General Medical Council (GMC) and subsequently the General Optical Council (GOC).

Professor Dame Janet has been appointed by the Appointments Commission on behalf of the Privy Council and will assist Chairman Walter Merricks along with the other two non-executive directors.

The GMC and GOC will continue in their current roles regarding doctors, optometrists and dispensing opticians, which involve setting standards of practice, conduct and performance, and investigating complaints. Once OHPA is established, the GMC and GOC will transfer their fitness to practise hearings to an OHPA panel for a hearing.

RESEARCH GRANTS

Professor Tony Fryer, Research Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, has been awarded a Health Foundation Shine Award, valued at £74,862, for a  one year project entitled; 'Managing the demand for pathology tests from general practice: generating efficiencies, maintaining standards and improving patient care'.

The project is co-led by Professor Fryer and Dr Ruth Cambers, Clinical Champion for Quality Improvement and Clinical Lead for Practice Based Commissioning at NHS Stoke-on-Trent. 

Professor Graham Rogerson, Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics, with Professor Yibin Fu, has been awarded £28,530 by the Leverhulme Trust for a project titled: "Continuum-mechanical modelling of kink-band in fibre reinforced composites".

Professor Peter Styles, Research Institute for the Environment, Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics, has been awarded £10,000 by Advantage West Midlands for a project titled "ERDA Phase 2 for FP7 project SE2C5URING (ITN) and SEQUESTER (IAAP)".

NEW ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

The following academic appointments commenced in post this week:

School of Humanities

Dr Laura Sandy, Lecturer in US History (19TH Century), who was previously a lecturer in American History at Oxford Brookes University.

School of Physical and Geographical Sciences

Dr Genevieve Boshoff, Lecturer in Environmental Science, who was previously a Principal Consultant, Sirius Strategic Environmental Management Ltd. 

Dr Silvana Kuhtz, Lectureship in Green Technology & Environmental Sustainability,  who was previously Aggregate Professor, Universita Della Basilicata-Facolta Di Ingegneria, Italy.