PRIME MINISTER LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE MANUFACTURING RESEARCH CENTRES

The first three EPSRC Innovative Manufacturing Research Centres (IMRC) have been launched in London by the Prime Minister, Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, and EPSRC Chief Executive, Professor Dave Delpy.

The Loughborough IMRC, which is focused on Regenerative Medicine and partnered with Keele and Nottingham, will receive around £5 million over five years. The aims are to carry out world-leading research, test and implement ideas in clinical and industrial settings, create next generation platforms for manufacturing regenerative medicines and inform business models, policy and public debate.

The programme is led at Keele by Professor Alicia El Haj, Research Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine, linked to Professor James Richardson and the Clinical Cell Therapy Programmes at Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital, Oswestry.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said: "A highly skilled, innovative manufacturing sector is vital to Britain's future economic growth. This £70M of Government funding will see universities and businesses working together to commercialise academic research."

KEELE STUDENT WINS HSBC BURSARY

A Keele student has won one of four £30,000 HSBC Student Bursaries following a national competition to identify and support high potential individuals starting out in student life.

Sam Williams, Creative Computing and Neuroscience, was chosen from more than 2,000 entrants to the prestigious 2009 HSBC Student Bursary Awards. The winners will receive £10,000 every year for three years to go towards their living and studying costs.

Sam said: "By specialising in how computers and the nervous system both function, I aim to revolutionise how we interact with technology. I feel that the next technological breakthrough will be in perfecting the interface between brain and computer, by processing and analysing brainwave patterns. I will need to do a great deal of extra-curricular work, which will require extensive travel, attending seminars and meeting people already in the field. The bursary will fund this, allowing me to really get involved and make a difference."

BEST STUDENT POSTER PRIZE

Lizzie Derbyshire, a PhD student in Earth Sciences and Geography, was awarded the runner-up 'Geoff Brown' Prize for Best Student Poster at the recent Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group meeting in Glasgow.

This is the premier annual volcanological and petrological meeting in the UK, and Lizzie's poster, entitled 'Evidence of late-stage metasomatism preserved in chromitite seams of the Shetland Ophiolite (Scotland)' was her first presentation at an academic conference.

Her PhD, supervised by Drs Brian O'Driscoll and Ralf Gertisser, School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, uses geochemical characteristics of the mineral Cr-spinel as a tracer for mantle processes beneath ancient ocean spreading centres.

FUN  MATHS WORKSHOP

Sixty teachers and trainee teachers braved last week's snow to make it to Keele Hall to attend a Liverpool Fun Maths Workshop, organised by Dave Miller, School of Public Policy and Professional Practice, and led by Barry Grantham and Sue Cronin of Liverpool Hope University.

A good time was had by all participants, with hundreds of the problems solved by the enthusiastic primary and secondary teachers. Pupils at the schools of the teachers will now have the opportunity to try these problems in lessons and school maths clubs.

NEW HEAD OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AT KEELE

Ian Williamson has joined Keele as the new Head of Occupational Health and Safety. Ian commenced in post last week and came to the University from HM Health and Safety Inspectorate. He has a wealth of experience gained through a variety of industries, including two years at the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

He is in the process of meeting with key staff from across the University and is based on the ground floor of the Dorothy Hodgkin Building.

ASPECTS OF AGEING

Making Research Count in the Research Institute for Life Course Studies has completed its autumn series of research based seminars for social workers and social care staff. 

Professor Chris Phillipson and Dr Mo Ray, Keele, contributed to an 'Aspects of Ageing' event.  Professor Phillipson's presentation addressed the impact of transnational migration on Bangladeshi women, while Dr Ray discussed the role of informal carers in co-resident relationships. A second full day seminar focused on concerns about the quality of care for adults with a learning disability, with presentations from Dr Martin Stevens, Kings College, London, and Caroline White, from Hull University.

Both events were highly successful, attracting a great deal of interest from our partner agencies in Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire and receiving very positive feedback from delegates.

EUROPEAN ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Mark Warren, Audio Visual Services, has been invited to join the Extron European Technology Advisory Committee. Extron technology is used in all Keele pool rooms to control the presentation equipment. The committee consists of people from the Education sector across Europe. The first meeting of the committee will be held in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, in February.

VALUE, SECURITY AND LIFE

The Biopolitics of Value(s), the third workshop of the ESRC Contemporary Biopolitical Securities seminar series, co-organised by the Biopolitics of Security Research Unit at Keele (Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice (iLPJ), took place at the Moser Centre this week.

The workshop, convened by Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero (School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy/iLPJ), pictured above, was attended by 38 scholars of ten different nationalities and was used to explore the relationship between value, security and life.

The keynote address entitled 'Value and the subject of security: the Nietzschean moment' was delivered by Professor J. Peter Burgess, editor of the journal Security Dialogue and Leader of the Security Programme at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO).

HOUSE OF COMMONS SEMINAR

Naveed Sheikh, School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, pictured below, was invited to chair and present at a seminar at the House of Commons on 'Poverty, Religion, and Radicalism'.

The seminar was attended by policy makers, activists and academics. His own paper was on 'The Import of Poverty on Radicalization Processes: A Discussion of the Social Science Literature'.

INTERNATIONAL BOOK PRIZE

A book based on a Keele PhD has been awarded a prestigious international prize.

David Appleby's Black Bartholemew's Day: Preaching, Polemic and Restoration Nonconformity (Manchester University Press, 2007) has been awarded the Richard L. Greaves award of the Bunyan Society for the outstanding book on the history, literature, thought and legacy of English Protestantism to 1700, published between 2007 and 2010.

David's book is based on his 2005 Keele PhD thesis, 'Farewell sermons of ministers ejected from the Church of England in 1662', supervised by Professor Ann Hughes and Dr Roger Pooley.

Dr Appleby is now a lecturer in history at Nottingham University.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

22 January 2010

The Music Department's electronic music studio was formally re-named in honour of Tim Souster, who died in 1994.

As a Leverhulme Research Fellow from 1975 and 1979, Tim set up the first electronic music studio at Keele and went on to become one of the country's leading composers of electro-acoustic music.