Spotlight on Success: February 2021

Each month we publish a selection of key Teaching & Learning and Research achievements and developments. See February’s news below.

Awards & Prizes

• Dr Jon Robson (Meteorology) has been awarded Horizon 2020 funding for the project Climate model diversity in the North Atlantic and its impact on prediction skill on interannual-to decadal timescales.
• Professor David Oderberg (Philosophy) has had the project Formal Causation II: Rivals and Extensions funded by Horizon 2020.
• Professor Steve Mithen (Archaeology) has had a contribution from Royal Archaeological Institute to Rubha Port a t-Seilch: Excavations on Upper Palaeolithic site in Western Scotland.
• Dr Apurba Chatterjee (History) has been awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust to support the project The Art of Colonial Medicine: Visual Cultures of Malaria in India, 1890-1940.
• Dr Nicola Wilson (English Literature) has been awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council UK-US New Directions Digital Scholarship for Cultural Institutions.
• Dr Rob Fry (Archaeology) has been awarded funding from the Royal Archaeological Institute for the project What lies beneath Longis? Searching for Iron Age and Roman Alderney.
• Professor Rachel McCrindle (Biomedical Engineering), Professor Richard Mitchell (Computer Science) and Dr Yota Dimitriadi (Institute of Education) have had their Red Whale professional development project shortlisted in the 2021 Learning Awards.
• Project teams from the Real Estate and Planning department at Henley Business School have been awarded funding from the Research England QR Strategic Priorities Fund to support rapid response for the following policy engagement projects:
  • Shaping the new planning system in England: collaborative policy development with government to inform ‘frontloaded' participation - Professor Gavin Parker, Dr Mark Dobson and Dr Tessa Lynn
  • Policy engagement: Affordable rental housing for internal migrants - Professor Angelique Chettiparamb, working alongside colleagues in Kerala, India
  • Town centre regeneration - making it happen now - Victor Nicholls and Dr Emma Street
• Professor Keiichi Nakata, Dr Mona Ashok and Dr Markos Kyritsis (Business Informatics, Systems and Accounting department, Henley Business School) have been awarded funding from Innovate UK for a new Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project with ActiveOps, a management process automation software company based in Reading.

Project updates

Wendy Matthews, Amy Richardson, and Roger Matthews (Archaeology) have supported the development of a new Prehistory Gallery in Slemani Museum, Iraq, which will house artefacts excavated by the University of Reading MENTICA project.

News

• Reading Climate Sciences supports UK Green Finance Research Centre. Climate research at the University of Reading will contribute to a new £10 million research centre for Green Finance and Investment. Led by the University of Oxford and funded by UKRI, the centre involves five universities, including researchers at Reading and the Institute for Environmental Analytics on campus. The centre will make environmental data more accessible for the financial sector to put climate at the heart of decisions.
• University Collaborative Awards for Teaching & Learning applications are open. The awards recognise and reward groups of staff who have made exceptional, significant and ongoing contributions to the student learning experience. The award scheme is open to all staff who are involved in teaching and have been actively supporting teaching and learning initiatives. Apply before 17:00 Monday 8 March 2021 on the scheme page.
• RUSU Excellence awards. Alongside the RUSU Leadership Elections this year, RUSU have opened nominations for the annual student-led RUSU Excellence Awards 2021. There are 18 staff awards this year (almost double that of previous years) one for each school and three supplementary awards to recognise both teaching excellence, academic tutor excellence, support staff excellence and diverse and inclusive teaching excellence This is an opportunity for students to acknowledge staff who have gone above and beyond expectations, tirelessly working to improve the delivery of teaching and learning. With the monumental shift in the way we're all working, this year more than most, it is important to celebrate and give thanks to hard work.
• Positive experiences of online learning: Space for less-confident students. Dr Maddi Davies (English Literature), recently shared her positive teaching experiences in a piece for Times Higher Education, revealing that the shift to online learning has prompted less-confident students to express their views.
• Eimear McBride, former fellow in the Beckett Centre, has published Mouthpieces. The new book has been completed as part of a Beckett Research Fellowship at the University. It consists of three original texts inspired by the Beckett Archive at the University and has been reviewed in The Scotsman.

Click here to see all recent University of Reading research publications