Supervisor Development Programme ~ 2017/18
The university runs a development programme for supervisors who are new to research degree supervision, co-ordinated by Professor Ian Livingstone, Head of the Graduate School. It is a validated university postgraduate course and it is delivered as two modules – Workshops and Observation. It is a requirement of our research degree regulations that everyone who is new to supervision takes the first module – the workshops. The second module is optional but if you complete both you are awarded the Postgraduate Certificate in Research Degree Supervision which you can count as one completion when putting together supervisory teams. Even if you have previously supervised research students, there may be some elements of the programme that you would find useful.
In 2017/18 the workshops will be delivered on:
Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd February 2018 at The University of Northampton;
Tuesday 10th, Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th July 2018 at The University of Northampton
Staff from both The University of Northampton and Regent’s University London plus staff delivering our research degrees as international partners are welcome to join either delivery. You only need to join one three-day course, not both. No fees are paid by participants on this programme, but if you will be travelling away from your own university you will need to discuss travel and subsistence expenses with your line manager.
If you are intending to join this programme for either delivery and have not yet contacted Ian Livingstone, please do so now. (01604 893362; email: ian.livingstone@northampton.ac.uk). He will be happy to answer any questions you have about the programme.
Nominations for the Times Higher Education Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year 2017 are NOW OPEN!
Nominations for the outstanding research supervisor of the year award are now open. Sponsored by the Times Higher Education, this award will be given to the individual who has created the most supportive, stimulating and inspirational research environment for doctoral students. Entries will be accepted from institutions, supervisors themselves or their students or colleagues, but in all cases the institution must support the submission and student testimonies must be included in the supplementary documentation. Entries are open online until Wednesday 28th June 2017. Read the rest of this entry
PGRs, don’t be a No show!
Since we are in the last few months of the development programme 2016/17, this is a gentle reminder of the attendance, cancellation and booking guidelines for our workshops.
As you know, all the workshops are found via the Gateway Calendar and you just need to click on the Green dot ‘Respond ‘and then Choose ‘Attending’ to register on a workshop. You have the option to write a note, for instance if you know you are going to be late arriving at the workshop. Please remember that by registering on a workshop you are committing to attend, our facilitators spend hours preparing and then delivering the material to an expected number of students beforehand. Read the rest of this entry
Call for Papers from PGRs – September 2017 Conferences
The East Midlands Doctoral Network (EMDoc) would like to invite PGR students to submit an abstract for a paper or poster to their Postgraduate Research Conference. This year conference will be hosted at the University of Nottingham and is a great opportunity to promote students’ research, and meet and network with other postgraduate research students from around the East Midlands. The conference will be held on the 13th September which is the day before the University of Northampton PGR/ ECR conference. So, aiming at encouraging our students to communicate their research both in internal and external settings, and seeking to help them improve their presentation skills, the Graduate School is offering PGR students the opportunity of covering the expenses of their trip to Nottingham if they are also planning to present in the PGR/ECR conference in Northampton. Read the rest of this entry
Images of Research 2016-17 winners announced!
The winners of the Graduate School’s Images of Research (IoR) exhibition and competition 2016-17 have now been chosen
There were two competitions – 3 winners chosen by guest judge Ralph Derbyshire, Principal Lecturer and Subject Leader in Fine Art, UoN , and a people’s choice. The ‘People’s Choice’ competition votes were counted from those on paper at the exhibition at Avenue gallery corridor and the university library exhibitions, plus the online votes via the Research Support Hub.
Congratulations to Claire Clews, Jacquie Ridge and Kardi 
Somerfield who were Ralph Derbyshire’s winners. The People’s Choice winners were Zainab Al-Rubaye, Maitreyee Buragohain and Saneeya Qureshi. For more information about the winners please see the links above. The IOR 16-17 catalogue shows all the 2016-17 entries.
IT issues – Library Database A-Z down
We are aware that there is a problem with the A – Z List of Library databases today (3 June) . IT Services staff have been notified and the server has been rebooted. We are waiting to see if the list comes back up.
A workaround in the meantime is to Google the name of the database that you want to access, along with ‘login’, and you will usually get a hit with a link to the database login screen. Look for the ‘UK Federation’ login option and then you should be able to login with your UoN login.
Whilst this isn’t ideal, it should keep you going for now.
Finding alternative sources of funding: Workshop for postgraduate researchers.
Are you a postgraduate researcher at UoN who is self-funded or partially funded? If so, you might be interested in coming along to Lucy Atkinson’s workshop, on 12th July 2017 from 12:00 to 14:30 in SO36. Lucy will show you possible routes to finding alternative sources of funding, whether for fees, maintenance, research expenses, conferences or travel. Lunch is also included! Read the rest of this entry
“One Health: linking humans, animals and landscape, a case study from Ethiopia” – Research Seminar – Prof. Nikolaus J. Kuhn
Come along to Newton Building (room NW205) at 12:00 on Wednesday 7th June for a research seminar by Prof Nikolaus J Kuhn.
The One Health approach originally linked human to animal health. Moving from prevention of transmission of diseases between humans and animals, the scope widened to improving human health through that provided food of sufficient quality to avoid malnutrition and disease. This approach can reduce health costs significantly in rural areas developing countries, including rangelands. Recognizing land degradation as a major cause of poor animal health, the inclusion of rangeland ecology was a logical expansion of the One Health approach. In this presentation, the concept of One Health is presented, in particular with regards to dryland pastoralism. The recently started Jijiga One Health Initiative (JOHI) in south-eastern Ethiopia is used as a case study to illustrate the contribution of One Health to sustainable land use and the improvement of health and livelihoods of the rural population.
Short biography:
Nikolaus J. Kuhn got his first degree in Physical Geography (1990-1995) in his native country Germany from the University of Trier, completing a thesis on Holocene climate change and dryland lake hydrology in NE-Spain. Winning the Government of Canada Award to undertake PhD research, he moved to the University of Toronto in 1996. There he completed a PhD in Geography (1996-2000), studying the effects of varying weather patterns on soil erosion in Canada and Mexico. The PhD was followed by postdoctoral research in Israel (2001) on the role of rainfall-surface interaction for landscape development in the northern Negev. In 2002, he started academic teaching as Visiting Assistant Professor at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. He joined the University of Exeter as Lecturer for Geography in July 2003. In 2007, he was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter.
The research interests of Nikolaus Kuhn and his group focus on the physical geographic dimension of environmental change, in particular the interaction of surface processes and climate on geomorphology and associated biogeochemical cycles. Their key aim is to identify the functioning of landscape systems, their spatial extent, reaction to change and mutual effects on each other. Current major projects include the reconstruction of Carbon and nutrient cycles in rangelands, the role of agricultural dust emissions on climate and health in southern Africa, the ecological impact of the land reform on communal land in Namibia, and a grant by the Swiss Space Center supporting the search for life on Mars.
All welcome!
New EMDoc Logo Winner from UoN!
The East Midlands Doctoral Network (EMDoc), a collaboration of nine universities in the East Midlands, launched a competition to design a new logo with a winning prize of £450. The competition was open to all Postgraduate Research Students in the EMDoc network. We had three research students from the University of Northampton participating in the competition among students from other universities in EMDoc. The winner was our PhD student Julius Azasoo from the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology. Julius successfully designed an attractive and creative logo and won a prize of £450 which will be awarded to Julius at the EMDoc annual conference for PGR students.
The Graduate School’s Postgraduate Research Conference rescheduled to September 14th.
The Graduate School Research Conference 2016
The University of Northampton Graduate School’s 2017 annual Postgraduate Researcher Conference for PGR students and early career researchers will now be held on Thursday September 14th 2017.
Originally scheduled for 20th June, the reschedule to September enables an important addition to the programme – the Graduate School’s first 3MT competition. Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) was originally developed by The University of Queensland in Australia and celebrates the exciting research conducted by PhD students around the world. The competition helps to cultivate students’ presentation and research communication skills. Presenting in a 3MT competition increases student’s capacity to effectively explain their research in three minutes, in a language appropriate to a non-specialist audience. Competitors are only allowed one PowerPoint slide, but no other resources or props. Read the rest of this entry
UON Graduate School Blog 