Professor Sir Brian Hoskins' faculty lecture on The Challenges of Climate Change was delivered to a packed audience. He outlined the achievements and current limitations of climate science, and went on to discuss the recommendations of the UK Climate Change Committee.
To watch Sir Brian's lecture online, go to http://www.lancs.ac.uk/sci-tech/events/events_archive.php?event_id=342.
The Lancaster University Research Committee invites applications from academic staff in the early stages of their research career for grants of up to £7,000 in support of individual or collaborative research.
The deadline for applications is 5pm on Friday 6 November. More details can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/research/documents/ECSG_call%20text%20for%2009-10vers2.docx.
All research students and contract research staff are invited to submit a poster for the SciTech Christmas conference. This year there are two categories for entrants: research students and early career contract research staff. A first prize of £200 will be awarded in each category, and there will be a £100 runner-up prize for the research student category.
At this stage all you need to do is to produce a title and an abstract. The deadline for these is Friday 20 November. Guidelines and online submission can be found on the SciTech website at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/sci-tech/conference/.
New courses have been added to the Research Development Programme for this term:
For more details of these and other courses go to http://www.lancs.ac.uk/sci-tech/postgraduate/rdp.php.
We are looking for postgraduate research students and early career researchers to become members of the SciTech Grad School forum. We want to know what you want from the SciTech Grad School and the type of activities you would like to happen. This is your opportunity to have your say! If you are interested in this please contact Liz Hurrell.
Testing on the new postgraduate admissions software is nearly complete, and faculty teams are hoping that the new system and web portal will be launched, ready to receive new applications, on Monday 9 November. This is a postponement from the original date of Friday 23 October, but it is felt that the extra time spent in development has paid off in terms of making sure that the new system is more robust and user-friendly.
In the meantime, Anne and Claire will be building content for the software, while continuing to process new applications as we enter the new admissions cycle.
Brian Francis and Les Humphreys from Mathematics and Statistics have been awarded £54K from ESRC from its new pathfinder initiative, which aims to build research links between Brazil, India and the UK. The project links Lancaster and Universidade de Rio de Janiero. The research will use Brazilian microdata from the police and courts to examine issues of ethnic and gender discrimination and bias in judicial sentencing and parole decisions. The project will also involve capacity building short courses held in Brazil for social scientists to learn about relevant statistical techniques to assess bias.
Send details of successful grants to Katherine Gill with a two-sentence summary to go in the Bulletin as well as information about the funder, amount awarded, title and a link to provide further details if appropriate.
The Postgraduate Statistics Centre has several short courses starting this term:
For registration and further information on all PGSC short courses, please go to http://psc.maths.lancs.ac.uk/shortCourses or contact Deborah Stewart.
All colleagues (academic and non-academic) are invited to join the Academic Processions at the Higher Degree Ceremonies on Wednesday 9 December 2009.
The full timetable and a booking form can be found at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/ceremonies/processions.htm.
Tuesday 3 November, 1300-1400 (with lunch starting at 1230)
Postgraduate Statistics Centre, Computer Lab 2 (A46/A49)
Dr Norman Powell's seminar will draw on practice in the University of Manchester to demonstrate how many of the aspirations of Personalised Learning can be realised through the delivery of the curriculum by Enquiry-Based Learning in a way that enhances the student learning experience.
More details
The contribution of Lancaster University to one of the biggest challenges facing humankind - feeding seven billion people against a background of climate change - helped it to win the coveted Times Higher Research Project of the Year award held in London on October 15th. read more
A Royal Society report, co-authored by LEC's Professor Bill Davies, calls for a £2 billion "Grand Challenge" research programme on global food security. read more
A record number of 33 full-time and part-time doctoral researchers started at the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) in October 2009, a more than 20 per cent increase from the previous two years read more
Prof Jon Whittle participated in a panel on Wednesday 28 October as part of the Manchester Science Festival. The discussion was entitled "Comixed, A networked conversation,".