…f Brighton Registrar & Secretary “Moving the entire curriculum for over 35 undergraduate and postgraduate creative courses across to online provision within five days of national lockdown.” Mark Jackson, Director of Design & Digital, University of South Wales. The move to online learning presented challenges in ensuring access to IT equipment and the need to overcome digital disadvantage for learners, and in response Alliance universities delivere…
…s to this new way of working. We also need to overcome the perception that online teaching is less valuable, and cheaper than face-to-face teaching – predominately underpinned by the traditional model of a student studying full time and living in halls. It goes against what is happening at many Alliance universities (pre-pandemic), where more than half of students commute from home, balancing studying with work and other responsibilities. For thes…
…this would be hard to achieve. Towards the end of my first year of PhD, my supervisors informed me about the Newton fund call. It is a joint research and innovation partnership fund between the British Council and the China Scholarship Council. The programme allows PhD students from both countries to spend a period of study between six to 12 months in each other’s country. This was a huge opportunity for me as China is world’s leader in renewable…
…ally, other common consumer difficulties related to food waste, such as misunderstanding of date marking. If public settings such as supermarkets can help with the generation of an automatic thinking process that is focused on reducing food waste, it could potentially help make significant reductions. I am keen to hear more from the grocery trade about initiatives they are working on, or the challenges they face, in enabling rapid change in consum…
…calling for urgent clarity on the future of the replacement EU structural funds, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), and for the importance of further integration of research and innovation as a central theme of the UKSPF. This week’s Budget is an opportunity to centre the power of research and innovation, alongside skills and infrastructure, in the Government’s plans to level-up and ‘build back better’. Universities across the research ecosyst…
…ion. Lessons learned The impact of the pandemic on education has been profound and will undoubtedly shape the delivery of learning and teaching in both the short and long term. As institutions become more adept at delivering new ways of learning and teaching, there is a lot the sector can learn from the review. Whilst nothing can completely replace face to face learning and on campus activity, UA institutions have amassed a wealth of evidence on d…
…nts. The Exhibition of Research flash presentation sessions were held both online and in-person on 6th and 7th, and the participants who were not presenting had a chance to interact with a few DTA alumni as a part of the online sessions. The afternoon sessions included ‘Creative Techniques for Academic Writing’ by Katharine D’Souza for in-person participants, and ‘Project Management for PGRs’ with DTA alumnus Dr Eleftherios Nomikos for online part…
…ers’ self-awareness of the broad range of skills they possess, and, as I found, may even reveal to them that jobs beyond academic research can be just as fulfilling. Now is the time to act PhD funders need to recognise that, with the current financial provision, increasing mental health support services won’t stop the pressures that undermine researcher wellbeing. And the recent announcement of UKRI’s patchy extension packages will do little to as…
…Policy. For the first time, the 2021 Summer School brought together around 100 PhD researchers and supervisors from across the programmes to showcase the breadth of topics represented within the DTA community. The four-day programme invited attendees to explore what interdisciplinarity means to them in relation to their current projects as well as to their future career pathways. Here, Rjaa and Laura – DTA researchers and members of the DTA Rep c…
…lth Education England was awarded £15m funding for healthcare placements, a 50% increase on the funding previously pledged. We also lobbied for a capital fund for universities to help unlock space and facilities to accommodate students on popular courses avoiding the need for deferrals, and we presented detailed information on the financial impact of Covid-19 on Alliance university finances. We played our part in influencing the end of Term and Ja…
