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A look back: School Archive Day 2025 

By Camille Moret, University Archivist.

Today, the Open Research team celebrates School Archives Day, as an initiative by Loughborough University Archive and SARA, the School Archives and Records Association. But why would we, as a University, have anything to do with schools? Some of us may remember we used to be a Technical Institute and many variations of a College, but never a School surely… Well, it turns out that, for a while, Loughborough College, predecessor to Loughborough University, housed a Junior School, where under 18s would be taught in preparation for college years. 

This means that amongst our holdings of research papers, all grown students’ memories, and very serious higher education “stuff”, childhood stories and voices loiter… We hold the archives of Loughborough College School (LCS), which date back as far as the 17^th Century, and has seen many generations of pupils, and continues to shape Loughborough communities today as Charnwood College. 

We “only” have records from the 20^th and 21^st Centuries, but there is a wealth of photographs to help us remember what it would have been like to study Handicrafts, Domestic Science, Art, and so much more. Alumni of Loughborough College School have been kindly donating and adding to the collection over the years: thanks to them and to the very active School Association, users can now read about what it was like to shop for uniforms in the 1950s (not exactly something for the runway!), or marvel at the labour of love that is Susan Beall’s sewing and embroidering diary. Through this collection, we connect to the past in a very vivid and immediate way, learning how people lived, worked and played, as far back as the 1920s. 

Loughborough University Archive has retro-converted the paper-based finding aid for the LCS collection. The new catalogue is available on our AtoM database and some information is also available on ArchiveHub, which will be more familiar and accessible to some of our users. If you wish to consult materials, comment or add to descriptions, you are very welcome to do so, by contacting the Loughborough University Archivist. 

If you were once (or still are) a pupil at Loughborough College School, Burleigh College or Charnwood College, why not tell us what it was like? Maybe browsing our new catalogue for the collection will ring a bell? Tell us all about it in the comments section or head out to our BlueSky and Instagram accounts with the following hashtags #SchoolArchivesDay #ArchiveHashtag. 

P.S. LCS is not the only local collection the University holds. Image above shows the records of Clemerson Department Store, which are registers from the turn of the Century – Records of Clemerson Department Store – Loughborough University Library

Neurodiversity and wellbeing

Image: Courtesy of Getty Images

Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person’s brain processes information. People who are neurodiverse often think about and see the world differently.

The most common types of neurodiversity include:

• Autism
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Dyscalculia
• Dyslexia
• Dyspraxia

Research has found that neurodivergent people are more likely to face mental health problems than neurotypical people. This can be due to a lack of support and understanding from others, differences in understanding of situations and the stress of masking (acting neurotypically in order to avoid negativity).

Each individual will have different self-care practices that work for them but here are some ideas that might help you to look after your wellbeing:

• Try journaling to help clear your mind – you may find it helpful to follow a list of journal prompts
• Spend time on hobbies and fun activities
• Listen to an audiobook to help quiet your thoughts – you can access free audiobooks through the Libby app using your University credentials  
• Consider using noise cancelling headphones and try time management tools such as the Pomodoro Technique and Office 365 tools such as Read Aloud
• Build a sensory kit
• Centre your mind with breathing and relaxation exercises
• Connect with others – join Loughborough’s Disability and Inclusion Network

Friends and family members may also find these resources from the NHS helpful to support neurodivergent family members, friends or colleagues.

Ways you can support neurodivergent colleagues in the workplace

• Send an agenda ahead of meetings, this helps others to plan ahead and know what to expect
• When planning in-person meetings or events, arrange regular breaks and offer quiet times/spaces to prevent sensory overload
• Communicate clearly and use direct language, some neurodivergent colleagues may have difficulty communicating with others

Sharing advice for other members of staff at the University, Jackie Hatfield, Specialist Study Support Practice Lead in the Student Wellbeing and Inclusivity team added: “Look at what an individual can do as opposed to what they can’t, and always to remember that the neurodivergent individual is the expert on themselves therefore actively listening to them is important.”

You can find personal stories written by neurodivergent staff on the University’s EDI blog.

You can also check out the Library’s Neurodiversity subject guide to discover digital collections, journals and books, as well as links to related articles and chapters on the Research Repository.

Keep an eye on our events page for upcoming wellbeing webinars. The next webinar on the topic of ‘Embracing Neurodiversity’ will take place on 2 April 2025.

This Week at Loughborough | 10 March

General

IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

11 March 2025, 10:30am – 12pm, International House

The IAS will be hosting an Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning, where they will be joined by Open Programme Fellow Professor Renato de Oliveira Moraes. and IAS Residential Fellows for March, Dr Maria Carinnes Alejandria and Dr Ranit Chatterjee. Come along for an informal in-person gathering at International House with coffee and cakes to meet the Fellows, all are welcome.

Voices of Diversity: Mental Health – International Students and Early Careers

11 March 2025, 12:30pm – 1:40pm, James France

As part of the Voices of Diversity Mental Health Series, EDI Services have sought to create spaces where people can explore issues that affect particular groups to reduce stigma, improve understanding, and create supportive inclusive environments.

Iftar 2025

11 March 2025, 5:45pm – 7:15pm, Edward Herbert Building

The Chaplaincy are holding an Iftar meal (a shared meal at the time when Muslim brothers and sisters break their daily fast). This is an opportunity for students and staff to show their support for friends and colleagues who are observing the month of Ramadan and to learn more of the significance of this time for members of the Muslim community.

Café Scientifique: Corretto Session

11 March 2025, 5pm – 7pm, The Needle & Pin

In this talk, Dr Juan Sebastian Totero Gongora will explore how complexity – often seen as something unpredictable or difficult to control – can be harnessed to develop cutting-edge technologies in optics and light-based computing.

University Mental Health Day

13 March 2025, 11am – 1pm, Edward Herbert Building

Celebrate the importance of mental wellbeing at this University Mental Health Day event. This is your chance to connect with both internal and external support providers dedicated to promoting mental health awareness.

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day  2025  Launch  Event

10 March 2025, 12pm – 1:30pm, Pilkington Library

At this launch event for Maia’s week of International Women’s Day activities, panellists Tina Byrom, Marie Halon, Sara Saravi, Rakhee Patel and Daniel Rhind will discuss their roles in Accelerating Action for gender equality.

International Women’s Day: Imposter Syndrome Workshop

12 March 2025, 2:15pm – 3:15pm, Wavy Top

Imposter syndrome is defined as doubting one’s abilities and feeling like a fraud at work, and is a label often given to women. Join Maia for a discussion on Imposter Syndrome with Lisa Brooks-Lewis, the Social Inclusivity Manager.

International Women’s Day March

13 March 2025, 1pm – 2pm, Hazelrigg Fountain

Starting and ending at Hazlerigg Fountain, join colleagues for fresh air and camaraderie for a march around campus to mark International Women’s Day and discuss how as a collective we can ‘Accelerate Action’.

International Women’s Day: Sandpit Event

13 March 2025, 2pm – 4pm, International House

Maia will be holding a sandpit event to mark International Women’s Day. Engage with experts and changemakers across crucial themes. A Sandpit event is a gathering of a group of people, often cross-disciplinary academics, researchers, and professionals, to discuss a problem within a particular subject area. 

International Women’s Day: Latin Dance Workshop

14 March 2025, 12:30pm – 1:30pm, International House

This International Women’s Day, join Maia for a Latin dance workshop. This is an energetic dance workout that combines Latin and international music with fun dance moves, including salsa, merengue, reggaeton and hip-hop beats. It’s a fantastic way to get your body moving, boost your energy, and improve cardiovascular health.

Sustainability Week

Canal & River Trust x Trash Free Trails River Clean Up

11 March 2025, 1pm – 4pm, Loughborough Canal

Join the Canal and River Trust, Trash Free Trails and Carbon Jacked in cleaning up the Loughborough river and canal trails.

The Criminalisation of Environmental Protest: Sir Jonathon Porritt

11 March 2025, 6:30pm – 8pm, James France

As part of the University’s Sustainability Week for 2025, we will welcome Honorary Graduate Sir Jonathon Porritt CBE to campus to deliver a guest lecture. In his guest lecture, Jonathon will discuss the criminalisation of environmental protest, looking at instances of arrests, imprisonment and similar in cases such as Just Stop Oil in the UK and beyond.

Student Food Sustainability Hackathon

12 March 2025, 2pm – 6pm, Martin Hall

All students are invited to join this exciting and exclusive opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals from across the University to co-create ideas in answer to the question: How can students take collective action for food sustainability on campus?

Climate Fresk Workshop

13 March 2025, 2pm – 5pm, James France

Unravel the science of climate change in this hands-on, science-based workshop. The Climate Fresk simplifies the complexities of climate change by using a collaborative game format to explore its causes, impacts, and interconnected challenges.

Mini Sustainability Fair

14 March 2025, 11am – 2pm, Edward Herbert Building

LU Sustainability Team, Leicestershire County Council and Biffa will be hosting interactive stalls on carbon and waste reduction.

Five Minutes With: Michael Dawson

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

Laboratory Technician (Department of Chemistry) and I have been here for 16 months.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

Working in STEMLab, a typical day for me consists of preparing for and supporting in the delivery of taught laboratory practicals for a whole range of students. I may be mixing up chemicals, growing cells or helping with the operation of analytical equipment.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

Having recently completed my apprenticeship, I have had so many fantastic experiences. I loved training and developing confidence with a wide variety of analytical equipment and appreciate the time that so many people have put into sharing their knowledge. A personal favourite was helping to develop an Outreach experiment which I was then able to teach to visiting Year 13s, using some of these skills.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

Definitely passing my apprenticeship. The assessment was thorough, with a long observation of practical skills, a structured interview and a test. I was able to do this and achieved a Distinction. I find it hard to believe that I only started working here in August 2023.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

Most of my close colleagues know this but I’m a keen walker and will regularly do 10+ mile walks at weekends and on holidays. I love being out in the fresh air, preferably by the coast whether in the UK or abroad.

When I’m not hiking, I love DIY (although I could improve my skills) and babysitting my 16 month old granddaughter.

What is your favourite quote?

“It doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works.” Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

Navigating Mathematics Learning: Challenges for Ukrainian Refugee Students in UK Schools

This blogpost is written by Dr Volodymyr Proshkin and Dr Colin Foster, and edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott.
Volodymyr Proshkin is a mathematics education researcher at Loughborough University, UK. His work focuses on the intersection of mathematics education and refugee integration, drawing on his personal and professional experience as a Ukrainian researcher.
Colin Foster is a Reader in Mathematics Education at Loughborough University and is interested in the learning and teaching of mathematics in ways that support students’ conceptual understanding. He is particularly interested in the design and use of rich tasks in the mathematics classroom, and in finding ways to support students when solving mathematical problems.

In this blog post, Volodymyr and Colin explore the unique challenges faced by Ukrainian refugee students learning mathematics in UK schools, drawing on their recent paper (linked at the end of this blogpost). In this paper, they analyse interviews (with students and parents), and survey data (from teachers), identifying critical issues, such as language barriers, curriculum differences and the psychological impact of displacement. In this blogpost, Volodymyr and Colin summarise this paper, shedding light on potential solutions to the issues they found, and some implications for educational practices in diverse classrooms.

Introduction

Imagine being a teenager, uprooted by war, and thrust into a classroom where not only the language but also the teaching methods and cultural expectations are entirely unfamiliar. This is the reality for thousands of Ukrainian students currently adapting to UK schools. While mathematics is often described as a universal language, for these students, it has become a maze of unfamiliar terminology, symbols and expectations. This is concerning as mathematics is not only a vital academic subject, but also a foundation for many career paths. In the following, we explore the experiences of Ukrainian refugee students learning mathematics in the UK, highlighting their unique struggles and offering insights that could improve outcomes for other displaced learners.

Background

Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, the influx of Ukrainian refugees into the UK has brought unique educational challenges. Unlike many other refugees, Ukrainian students often engage in “dual schooling”, simultaneously attending UK schools and continuing their Ukrainian education online. Dual-schooling complicates the integration of Ukrainian students into the schooling system and creates unique challenges, particularly in mathematics, where curriculum expectations differ significantly between the two countries.

In our paper we sought to understand these challenges and consider how they might be addressed, collecting the perspectives of pupils and parents through interviews, and teachers’ perspectives via a survey. We detail four key findings below:

1. Language Barriers

Language was the most reported challenge for Ukrainian students. Mathematical English, with its complex vocabulary and syntax, appeared to pose additional hurdles beyond conversational English. As one student noted:

Though the survey indicated that teachers were aware of these barriers, half of the surveyed students reported no specific measures being taken to accommodate their language needs, suggesting that teachers struggled to effectively bridge this gap.

2. Differences in Curricula

Ukrainian students reported frequently encountering a curriculum in the UK that felt simultaneously less rigorous and more fragmented than what they were accustomed to in Ukraine. While they reported that arithmetic and algebra were often easier, geometry and probability were taught differently or earlier in the UK, leading to confusion. One parent remarked:

3. Social and Emotional Challenges

Adapting to a new socio-cultural environment, compounded by the trauma of displacement, left many students struggling emotionally. Teachers noted that students sometimes withdrew or lacked engagement, hindering their learning. However, the supportive and less authoritarian teaching style in UK schools appeared to help some students feel more comfortable and willing to participate.

4. Organisational Challenges

Students and parents felt that difficulties were created by the lack of textbooks, differing expectations for homework, and the integration of calculators into lessons. Ukrainian students, accustomed to a more structured and demanding system, reported often feeling disoriented by the more flexible approach in the UK.

Discussion and Conclusion

Our research highlights an urgent need for targeted interventions to support Ukrainian refugee students in mathematics. These could include:

• Enhanced Teacher Training: Educators need professional development to understand the cultural and educational backgrounds of refugee students and to develop effective strategies to support them.
• Language Support: Schools must prioritise language development in mathematical contexts, leveraging tools such as visual aids, bilingual resources and collaborative learning.
• Curricular Bridging: Aligning aspects of the Ukrainian and UK curricula could reduce confusion and provide students with a clearer progression.

As one student reflected, “It is easier to study here because teachers are kind and understanding,” underscoring the importance of maintaining a supportive environment. However, without addressing the systemic challenges discussed, the full potential of these students is likely to remain untapped.

Educational Impact

Prioritising Language in Mathematics:

Schools should integrate language-focused strategies into mathematics lessons to reduce barriers for all multilingual learners.

Rethinking Assessment and Support:

Flexible and transparent systems of assessment, along with a structured yet empathetic approach to homework, could better meet Ukrainian students’ needs.

Paper referenced in this blogpost:

Proshkin, V., & Foster, C. (2025). Challenges faced by Ukrainian students learning mathematics in UK schools. Cambridge Journal of Education, 55(1), 39-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2024.2444453

This Week at Loughborough | 3 March

General

IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

5 March 2025, 10:30am – 12pm, International House

The IAS will be hosting an IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning, where they will be joined by IAS Residential Fellows for March, Dr Maria Carinnes Alejandria and Dr Ranit Chatterjee. Come along for an informal in-person gathering at International House with coffee and cakes to meet the Fellows. All are welcome.

Women In Enterprise Conference

8 March 2025, 9:30am – 4pm, West Park Teaching Hub

Come along to the Women In Enterprise Conference hosted by the Loughborough Enterprise Network. Elevate your entrepreneurial journey with a day dedicated to Empowering Women Entrepreneurs. This conference is a celebration of innovation, resilience, and the transformative power of female leadership. Dive into thought-provoking discussions.

EmpowerHer

EmpowerHER x Sunday Service Run Club

4 March 2025, 8am – 9am, Hazelrigg Fountain

Join us for a relaxed 5km run around campus, hosted by Loughborough Recreational Sport in collaboration with Sunday Service – an inclusive fitness community. Open to women and non-binary individuals of all abilities, this event is all about community and movement. Just turn up, wear pink to celebrate International Women’s Week, and let’s get active together!

EmpowerHER Coffee Morning

5 March 2025, 10am – 11:30am, The Lounge

An informal get together, which is an opportunity to chat and meet other likeminded students and staff for EmpowerHER campaign week. There will be complimentary pastries, tea and coffee.

EmpowerHER x Powerbase Hyrox Session

5 March 2025, 5pm – 6pm, Powerbase Track

Curious about Hyrox, one of the fastest-growing fitness disciplines? This is your chance to experience it for yourself Led by a Powerbase Gym instructor, this mini Hyrox masterclass will introduce you to the key elements of the sport in a supportive and inclusive environment. No Powerbase membership required – open to all women and non-binary students and staff.

EmpowerHER x Soul Sisters Padel Social

6 March 2025, 5pm – 7pm, Padel Courts    

Join us for a fun and friendly social Padel session Come solo or with a partner to play matches against different players in a supportive environment. All levels are welcome, but some basic match play experience is recommended. Equipment is provided, and our Padel managers will be on hand to guide the games. This session will also include a Q&A panel with Padel athlete Victoria Nicholas.

Girls Night In

6 March 2025, 6pm – 10pm, The Treehouse

Join us for a night of networking, fun, and freebies at the SU, open to all women and non-binary students. In honour of International Women’s Day week, we’re creating a space that celebrates inclusion with an evening packed full of activities including candle painting, salsa dance classes and Bom Bom cookie making, plus more!

EmpowerHER – In Conversations With…

8 March 2025, 1:30pm – 3:30pm, The Lounge

Join us for an informal fireside-style event featuring an all-female panel sharing insights on leadership, resilience, and empowerment in the sports industry from different areas of the sports industry and beyond. Connect with influential women, gain valuable perspectives, and engage in meaningful conversations in a relaxed setting. A unique opportunity to network, ask questions, and be inspired!

Decoding Disinformation: A Visit to BBC Media Action

Last Tuesday, February 4, 2025, our LLP420 Media and Communication for Development and Social Change class, led by Dr. Jessica Noske-Turner, had the incredible opportunity to visit BBC Broadcasting House and engage with the team at BBC Media Action. It was a fascinating glimpse into the world of media development and the complex challenges of combating misinformation and disinformation in our increasingly interconnected world.

Our session was a dynamic discussion, not a formal presentation. We dove straight into the heart of BBC Media Action’s work, exploring the multifaceted nature of “information disorder,” a term encompassing misinformation, disinformation, and even biased reporting. What struck me most was the sheer breadth of their projects, spanning diverse geographical locations and tackling issues from governance and health to resilience and, of course, the ever-present challenge of misinformation.

One of the key takeaways for me was the importance of understanding the context in which information is consumed. As one of the team members pointed out, online data, while valuable, often neglects significant portions of the population, particularly in regions where BBC Media Action operates. They emphasized the need for both online and offline research methods, including surveys and qualitative interviews, to gain a more holistic understanding of how information spreads and impacts different communities. This multi-pronged approach allows them to analyze not just what information is being shared, but also why people believe certain narratives and where they source their information.

We also delved into the challenges of media literacy training, particularly for older populations who may not have the same “digital native” instincts as younger generations. The team shared their experiences with various interventions, including school-based programs and inoculation theory trials, aimed at equipping individuals with the skills to identify and resist misinformation. It became clear that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and that understanding the psychological state of news consumers is crucial for developing effective strategies.

The discussion touched upon some of the most pressing issues facing the media landscape today, including the role of social media algorithms in the spread of misinformation, the challenges of regulating tech platforms, and the ethical dilemmas faced by journalists working in a fast-paced, competitive environment. We explored the complexities of fact-checking, the limitations of current approaches, and the need for more systemic solutions. The team also shared insights into the challenges of ensuring the sustainability of media development projects, particularly in contexts where media outlets struggle financially and face political pressures.

Our visit to BBC Media Action was a truly eye-opening experience. It provided a valuable opportunity to connect the theoretical concepts we’re learning in class with the real-world challenges faced by media professionals working on the front lines of information disorder. It underscored the importance of critical thinking, media literacy, and a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between media, politics, and society. A huge thank you to the BBC Media Action team for their time and insights!

For those interested in pursuing further study in this area, be sure to check out the PhD studentship opportunity offered jointly by Loughborough University and BBC Media Action please read more here.

Webinars and whatnots – February 2025

Forthcoming:

• The Oxford Forum of Open Scholarship (#OxFOS25) – 3 to 13 March 2025 (Monday – Thursday)
• File organization in Figshare: options and suggestions for researchers and curators – 4 March 2025 (Tuesday)
• Open research across different epistemic cultures: principles, practices, dis/junctions – 5 March 2025 (Wednesday)
• Universities for North East England Open Research Week – 24 to 28 March 2025 (Monday – Friday)
• GW4 Open Research Week 2025 – 31 March 2025 – 4 April 2025 (Monday – Friday)
• Early career researchers and open research – 23 April 2025 (Wednesday)
• Developing open research indicators – the UKRN Open Research Indicators Project – 28 May 2025 (Wednesday)
• The University of Manchester’s Open Research Conference 2025 – 9 to 10 June 2025 (Monday – Tuesday)
• Open data, indigenous data sovereignty and the CARE principles – 11 June 2025 (Wednesday)

Catchup:

• Making repositories and data digitally accessible – Figshare webinar
• Spotlight on Data Journals – University of Sheffield Open Research Conversation

MindMasters: public engagement and research activities in museums

This blogpost is written by Dr Joanne Eaves. Jo is a Vice Chancellor Independent Research Fellow in the Centre for Mathematical Cognition, Loughborough University. Jo’s work focusses on the transition from primary school mathematics to secondary school mathematics. She has a particular interest in the transition from arithmetic to algebraic thinking, the role of patterns and executive functions in this transition, and flexibility with arithmetic. Please click on the link at the bottom of the blogpost to learn more about Jo’s work. Edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott.

In this blogpost Jo talks about a new public engagement initiative, MindMasters, that she developed at Green’s Windmill and Science Centre (linked below). MindMasters gives children and their families an opportunity to learn about Loughborough University’s research, and take part in live research studies. Here, Jo outlines the benefits that the initiative has brought to researchers, families and the Windmill to date, and emphasises the unique demographic that has been reached thus far. If you’d like to get involved as a researcher or volunteer for a future event, do get in contact with Jo as families are very keen for the event to run again!

Background

Recruiting participants for research studies is hard. Even recruiting from the general adult population with no exclusion criteria has its challenges: they don’t notice recruitment adverts, they aren’t interested, they don’t have the time, they can’t always get to testing settings. Take this to a less accessible population, school-aged children, and the problem becomes much larger. Not only does it require recruitment via the general adult population, but it also typically involves testing in school settings. Researchers frequently talk about the difficulties of getting ethical approval for conducting studies in schools, with opt-in consent resulting in a low response rate and opt-out consent being difficult to get ethical clearance.

Even with ethical approval, there are additional challenges to recruiting children via schools. Getting a school to agree to host your study is an art more than a science: you need the right tone of email, that email to reach the right recipient (a receptionist, a teacher, a subject lead), and the email to be received at the right time (when staff are not too busy, currently interested in the topic, willing to respond, and not too close to the school holidays!). How on earth do we manage to run our research studies and reach the number of participants we require?

During my postdoc at the University of Nottingham, I had some wonderful experiences of engaging with the public about research such as Science in the Park, and Summer Scientist week. During such events, many children and their families wanted to participate in studies, appearing positive and enthusiastic about engaging with research. It seemed strange to me that there was no ideal way of reaching these families outside of these events.

Inspired by Professor Lucy Cragg (my fantastic mentor, colleague and all-round genius), who organised these events alongside a public engagement team, when I moved to Loughborough (June 2024) I wanted to create something similar. In November 2024, I did just that. With the help of Oscar Hutton and Amy Jennison-Boyle (School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences), I piloted and launched MindMasters, a new 4-day public engagement event at Greens Windmill and Science Centre, Nottingham.

MindMasters – what was it?

MindMasters operated like a smaller-scale version of Summer Scientist Week, with 4 days of psychology activities and events for 6 – 10 year-olds and their families. Including:

3 research studies to participate in (if desired) about:

• Mathematics (Jo Eaves)
• Sensory processing (Oscar Hutton)
• Visual illusions (Amy Jennison-Boyle)

Hands-on activities:

• Hook-a-duck: How many ducks can you hook… blindfolded?!
• Memory Twister: Become a human corsi-block task! Remember as many colour-number locations as possible and navigate your way around the twister board.
• Healthy eating crafts: Copy and make a balanced plate of food in <30 seconds!
• Tic-tac-toe subitising: Be the first to subitise two dice and cross out a line of digits!

What did we achieve through MindMasters?

1. We reached a diverse population!

One of the most important outcomes was that the location of the event allowed us to engage with an otherwise hard-to-access population. The immediate area of St Ann’s/Sneinton is ethnically diverse and scores highly on government measures of deprivation¹. Other science outreach and engagement events in the East Midlands typically reach families from medium to high socioeconomic status², who have often participated in outreach events before or are already associated with a University. In this way, MindMasters was unique, with attendees from:

• 25% St Ann’s 
• 22% Sherwood, Mapperley, & Arnold
• 16% West Bridgford
• 12% outside of Nottinghamshire
• 6% Wollaton
• 19% other (e.g. Southwell, Nuthall, Bakersfield, Bingham, Clifton)…

AND 85% had not attended any events run by a University before!
To me, this feels like exactly the kind of population we want to be reaching.

2. Families had fun, learnt lots and want more University events!

Families completed feedback forms as part of the event. We were overwhelmed with their positive comments, and they had some very useful ideas for how to develop MindMasters. Here’s some of my favourite feedback from parents:

 “The research activities were brilliant – they kept my children entertained for ages, and they were a good challenge for them”

“The staff at the university were really friendly, helpful and engaging”

 “The setting is great – we did memory games, maths games, went on a trail, up a windmill and some illusions, all for free!”

“My children got exposed to different aspects of further education – they got a glimpse of what happens at Universities, which is otherwise a mystery”.

3. Researchers collected data for three separate studies:

Amy’s findings extended an existing published study and will be written up as a report.

Updates (February 2025)

MindMasters ran again at the Windmill for two days in February half-term (2025) and they were, by far, our busiest days yet, with 50 children booked on per day, and families queuing to take part in the research studies!

I’ve not yet analysed the feedback forms, but my impression so far is that families want more – more activities, more volunteers and more events! The Windmill have also said that they would welcome us back:

“The events have proved a great addition to Green’s Windmill by putting on something we don’t have the budget, personnel or skills for, and for bringing a new audience to the windmill.”

Plans for the future

We’ve enough interest and experience now to potentially run the event twice a year in the school holidays. But I can’t do it alone! Anything that can be done really depends on people’s support – whether a researcher wanting to run a study, a student or staff member wanting to volunteer some time for a good cause or engage with children and families, all help is critical! Let me know if you would be interested in helping in any capacity for a future MindMasters event at the Windmill, and I’ll then schedule some dates.

Here is the team of researchers involved in MindMasters 2024-2025:

Summary

In sum, I’d encourage everyone to get involved in public engagement work at least once in their career. It’s such a rewarding, eye-opening experience. You get to teach children and their parents a thing or two about your research, and other’s research, and spread the word about the University as a whole. It can also help you to see research through a different lens – maybe the issue or ‘thing’ you’ve been focusing on for a long time is not at all what you think it is. The public might have a totally different, refreshing opinion!

Note: This blogpost was written without assistance from ChatGPT or other AI.

References

[1] Scott-Arthur, T. A. (2017). Exploring deprivation, locality and health: A qualitative study on St Ann’s Nottingham [Thesis, Loughborough University]. https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Exploring_deprivation_locality_[…]

[2] McDonald, S., Beer, S., & Cragg, L. (2023). The impact of out-of-school science activities for primary school children on science knowledge, interest and later academic choices: An evaluation study. Research for All, 7(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.14324/RFA.07.1.20

DRN2025 Drawing Negation: Emergence Online Symposium

11.00-13.00 (BST) Wednesday 23 April 2025

Tickets: https://buytickets.at/drawingresearchgroup/1604297

This panel brings together artist-researchers exploring aspects of emergence within the theme of drawing negation.

Kelly Cumberland’s presentation, Drawing the Invisible: Negation, Serendipity, and Transformation in Expanded Drawing and Neuroscience, will explore how expanded drawing, informed by collaboration with neuroscientists, investigates the interplay between negation, absence, and serendipity. Drawing operates as a process of translation and transformation, engaging with raw scientific data—such as cellular behaviours and molecular changes—to create speculative visual forms that challenge traditional perceptions of the internal body. The research considers the following questions: How can the concept of negation, understood as absence or fragmentation, serve as a generative force in drawing practice? How can accidental or unintentional moments, such as condensation on petri dishes or fragmented imagery, lead to transformative expanded drawing insights?

Central to this exploration is the tension between the visible and the invisible, the intentional and the accidental. Through iterative processes of layering, projection, and fragmentation, the work investigates the “spaces between,” disrupting binary distinctions of positive and negative space. This interdisciplinary practice highlights drawing as a dynamic act of becoming, where mark and surface engage dialogically to make the unseen visible. The presentation examines how serendipity and failure within both scientific and artistic processes foster creative breakthroughs, resonating with the unpredictability of biological systems.

By reflecting on works such as Segmentation (2023) and Endothelial (2024), the presentation illustrates how drawing can function as a site of co-emergence and transformation, where negation becomes a tool for reimagining biological and artistic knowledge. Ultimately, this research proposes that drawing, in its expanded form, offers a unique method for investigating the relational spaces of negation, creativity, and interdisciplinarity.

Birgitta Hosea’s presentation, Touching the Void: ‘Erasure’ and ‘Holes, will use Erasure and Holes as case studies, to explore how negation and absence function as conceptual and material forces. The projects address invisibility of labour and lack of representation, drawing on Derrida’s notion of the trace—the fundamental mark of absence within presence.

Erasure is an exploration of the invisible and undervalued labour of domestic cleaning in which the act of erasure becomes generative. In performance drawing, animated installations and works on paper, domestic cleaning tools and products become integral parts of the drawing process—reinscribing the body’s labour and the space it occupies, even as the body itself is erased. Here, negation is not a mere absence, but a manner of both revealing and obscuring the body’s trace through its actions.

Holes, on the other hand, presents the hole as a portal—neither an absence nor a void, but a full, embodied presence. Using a ‘peepshow’ structure, the hole becomes an entryway into another dimension: the queer female body. Through a combination of animation and drawing, the hole emerges as a site of meaning and potential. In this context, the hole is not a lack, but a space rich with symbolic, sexual and political significance.

Both works position negation and absence not as opposites to presence, but as interwoven parts of a larger conversation about labour, sexuality and the body. Drawing, in this sense, becomes a site of differance, where presence and absence are always in flux. 

Garry Barker’s presentation, The Emergence of Distinction in the Visualisation of Interoception: Drawing as a Boundary-Making Act,will explore the parallels between the inception of drawing as a distinction between one thing and something else, the evolution of human territoriality, and the conceptualization of the universe’s origin. It argues that during workshops designed to help participants visualise interoceptual experiences; that it became important to develop an understanding of drawing as a primary act of distinction. Defining a somatic feeling is linked to the introduction of fundamental mathematical logic and biological processes observed in nature. By examining the philosophical underpinnings of Spencer-Brown’s ‘Laws of Form’ alongside the evolutionary context of boundary-making in animals, and the visualisation of embodied thinking through drawing, this presentation seeks to articulate how drawing reflects an intrinsic human impulse to mark territory and create meaning from the void of our own bodies. 

The presentation posits the significant parallels between the moment a drawing begins, the territorial nature of human and animal existence, and our understanding of the inception of the universe itself and that the mark making that lies at the centre of the act of drawing, is in its most elemental form, a distinction-making process. 

Using images made in response to the visualisation of interoceptual experiences, alongside images of mathematical set theory and animal territorial marking, the presentation will unfold relationships that are designed to illustrate how an evolution of signalling, from unicellular organisms to human art forms, reflects an intrinsic animal as well as material need to mark distinctions as we attempt to articulate our existence within the universe.

Biographies:

Kelly Cumberland

Kelly Cumberland is an artist, academic and postgraduate practice-led researcher at the University of Leeds. She is exhibiting and presenting nationally and internationally and is also an academic acquiring an extensive portfolio of teaching experience both at undergraduate and postgraduate level and has been lecturing since 2001. www.kellycumberland@me.com

Birgitta Hosea

Birgitta Hosea is a time-based media artist working with experimental drawing, performance and expanded animation. Professor of Moving Image at UCA, her publications include Performance Drawing: New Practices Since 1945 (with Foá/Grisewood/McCall). Exhibitions include Venice & Karachi Biennales; Oaxaca & Chengdu MOCA; C4RD, London; ASIFAKEIL, Vienna; Hanmi Gallery, Seoul. www.birgittahosea.co.uk

Garry Barker

A Leeds Arts University research fellow, using drawing to visualise older people’s awareness of aging and other interoceptual experiences. He is also a member of ‘The Observation of Perception, Considered through Drawing’, research group hosted by the i2ADS research unit of Porto University’s Fine Art Faculty. https://garrybarkeronline.com/

Open Research: Meet the team

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I currently hold two positions at Loughborough University. I am the Copyright and Licensing Manager and Senior Library Assistant for the Open Research Team in the Library. I started at Loughborough in April 2022.

Why did you choose to work in Open Research?

Free access to research is important to me, as is a free education system. There are many walls, especially paywalls in the way for research and I want to be part of the movement that works to take those walls down.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

As I have two roles, I have split them equally. The morning is reserved for copyright, as it can be a more complex area. I tend to handle complex queries, have meetings with staff or students, create teaching material, update the copyright website and create social media events to drive copyright advocacy.

In the afternoon, I am one of three cataloguers, and I catalogue the research outputs of our staff. Think journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and books and so on.

What’s your favourite thing about working in a library?

Due to health issues I have been working more from home than in the library office. When I am in the office, it is a great time to reconnect with colleagues. I really like working with my team. We all help each other out, and it’s fun to work together on projects like setting up displays for Open Research events or getting ready for Open Research conferences.

What’s the most exciting development in Open Research that you’ve seen?

For me everything is exciting, as it means that research becomes more open and more widely available.  

What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about Open Research?

That Open Research is there to make things easier to access, to reproduce but also to make research more transparent. One idea on one part of the globe might spark an entire green revolution in another part of the world. It also allows people to connect through research.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I enjoy photography and drawing. I am also an avid reader, which might not be such a surprise as I work in a library.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Teleportation. Cuts down on my carbon footprint and makes it easier to visit my family, which lives across Europe.

Call for Submissions: Nature Drawing Nature – An Online Seminar

Kiera O’Toole

Call for Submissions: Nature Drawing Nature – an online seminar with Black Books: Drawing and Sketching Online Journal.

We are pleased to invite contributions for Nature Drawing Nature, an online seminar co-organized by Pedro Soares Neves, Black Books: Drawing and Sketching Online Journal in collaboration with Sara Schneckloth and Kiera O’Toole. The seminar will take place on April 3rd and 4th, 2025.

We invite contributions that explore the interconnectedness of humans and nature through the lens of drawing. As part of nature, everything we create—every line, every mark—emerges from and interacts with the environment. This theme emphasizes drawing as a tool for reflection, care, and awareness, urging us to consider the impact of our actions on the delicate balance of ecosystems. Inspired by ideas of biodiversity preservation as gestures of hope and responsibility, and considering drawing as an ecological act, we seek papers that address drawing as both a creative and ethical practice.

Deadline for seminar submissions: 5 of March.
We expect to share the seminar program on 15 of March.

For more details on the submission guidelines, please visit the link below.

We look forward to your contributions!

https://journals.ap2.pt/index.php/BBDS/announcement/view/27

I) Hyperion Planes as Parton Palaces of the Drawing Memory Surviving the Mathematical Mirror. II) 1.1 and Time Delay Deluxe…

Edwin VanGorder

I) Hyperion Planes as Parton Palaces of the Drawing Memory Surviving the Mathematical Mirror.
II) 1.1 and Time Delay Deluxe….
Consider 1.1 as the magic skew parameter of thin material hyperconductivity. One can see this is Euler’s foundation also in it’s recursive establishment of a bijective base upon which the orders of string length as log in relation n dimensional permutation form a Goeddel like mapping of the transpose of subscript to super script or f to f-1 build the mapping of the function mirroring itself in an extension from which the diagonal as both k and z pressure and hypotenuse mass determinant in section of square to oblong as square root of two is in and of itself a vector number and divided is then introducing a negative in that one describes then a complementary space. The next division then marks that which will then add reciprocals as under the curve and these passing midline reverse from describing the complement via packing via the mirror as then transpose and so this multiplying factor states the time function whereas having multiplied so to speak 1.1 by .5 we can then find the space of the function by now dividing 1.1 and find .5 landing apparently on Reimann’s critical strip. With 2.718… we see with Eulers number 1.618 added 1.1 where the golden section places to the relation to the square root of five the dual stability images of the squares in 2.236 from a square centering placing the famous palace of mirrors to unity. This accomplished in that interval then allow numbers to be bijective in their mirror reading (via 1.1)…..thus 2.718 reads as .8172 and the number 2.71828 then finds .1828 the complement of .8172 and so the transposing structure of the lengthening mirroring is introduced. .8172 of course in reciprocal is 1.2236 and doubled is the square root of six thus advancing the square root system from square root of five to six and fixing a Clifford Diagonal. In my drawing then I proceed from here to recognize in the octonion axes the spinor corollary to build on the simplicity of the wraparound content of the natural log in its extended space time drawing memory palace over the partons

1.1Time Delay Deluxe
It could well be that Duchamp’s Delay in Glass is poised as an insight into the realization that after base ten there are more than ten digits, thus looking a Euler’s presentation of the modification of the parameter with word” modification” a very apt verbal consequence e.g. introducing a mod status to rotating plane as it were of the exponential to log where thus the transform of log has a corollary to change of base on the grounds of the continuity the observer and as such places on each state of each measure the reflection of process. Therefore his follow up of “to be looked at through one eye only for nearly an hour”… reveals his “insight”…. That the “Prime” clock one might devise as showing the change space introduces on ones counting as in the Berry Curve…is one of many signals on combinatorics one may derive… for example considering a chart of the bases 10, 2, 8,11,6 and unary , where the counting of each of these as mod by zeros and ones stretched to respective bundles show 8,11,16 as matching the decimal up to number 8 at which is a divergence marked in the number .81 which states in brane context the ratio 1 to 8 as a tract and the reciprocal reveals this as .81 equals 1.2345679, following suit with the digits beyond base ten then the delay could be construed as selecting a new base to express the same sum as a process at this point essentially the square root of one.

In my work the equation takes the form of drawing as the work of mathematical play and mathematical work as the play of drawing…. “i” to eye 101 to 1.1”The artist’s book is not bound by convention…..

Drawing as a Random Walk Through Pascal’s Triangle. From Space/No Space to Equilibrium/Non -Equilibrium

Edwin VanGorder

Consider Leading order gap space of the convective space quanta and sub -atomic levels relative photonic spectra. The state of preservation within the atomic nucleus of the ideal kernel is in non-equilibrium contrast to the orthogonal status equilibriums.
Self -composing and self- distribution over distortions and the relation of compound figures to composite space in complex narratives as relative to equilibrium and disequilibrium counter tensions give a window on the doors of these perceptions. Matisse for example with negative space narrative frames the collective integral over the objects shaping space , Escher provides directions of compounding entities or metamorphosis as presenting of co-chains and cohomologies while the space/no space of Smithson grants a module the dimension of normalizing as a thing in itself dimension. We might best follow these paradigms then with “equilibrium /non Equilibrium” to approach the elusive quantum critique and in which the progress made over the Langlands conjecture as relating spectral to automorphic groups can be followed via all its own resonance patterns and Finnegans Wake like hyper punning sorting upon dimensions of language dream, art, thought and physics mathentos.(Mathentos for Greeks the dawning awarenes of that of which you speak…)…
The drawing builds on the Leading I Orders or recursive ten fold magnitude bracket as as in scientific notation of n base ten which correspondingly attend to the square root of ten and its reciprocal as control axis over a three tensor ie zeros bracketing (which could of course be altered in the simplex status extending the string) and in doing so creates a catastrophe like self reference when the second zero bracket has digit two this a mod transference to next level thus while 31 is 3.1 x 101 32 is .32x 102 In harmonic terms this transference has resonance in the proportion 2.764 (where .764 = 1.309 and .309 times 2 is golden section) which has reciprocal 3.618 while .3618 has reciprocal .2764. in relation to this it interests me to pose a variation on transposed matrix by relating succeeding primes added and subtracted from one of the nearest adjacent perfect squares of which one will produce in sum of the difference another square root with some exception at other singularities such as the primes adding to a square or the creation of the values 5 or 1. One thus para hypothesis the Reimann conjecture as an intuition that the mathematical and geometric means are in tension to place a relation between equilibrium and disequilibrium. It is intriguing that the creation of a prime must also be its editing from any repetition towards creating another prime and the information seems ensconced in the square values which together are as “image” analogical to 1.1 as it were… this number has been termed a kind of “magic number” in setting the offset of thin material matrices towards hyperconductivity and along these orders one senses better why this is so… It interests me to create irregular gap spaces in the log… comparable say to the “mirror displacements of Robert Smithson who in creating spaces between mirrors in landscape opened up ones rationalization of the experience in a way prescient to the quantum event in which is concealed a form of history one in a sense produces.
Drawing as a Random Walk Through Pascals Triangle :considering the webs and winds of reflexive orders of flux momentum building over leading orders to compare in simulacra the staging of orbital and s pin counter dynamics to emergent nemacity or fuzzy number bifurcations and indices
Returning to the idea of leading orders, as in the simplex levels of Pascals Triangle and a random walk as placing turns to a Monet Carlo… the extended simplex gates then are behavior axis notes which in recent physics has emergent paradigms in the realization the black hole accretion disc is rather then flat instead multileveled and pulled as it were into the orders of cosmic web structure indices upon form while in hyper conductive materials likewise a new dimension “nemacity” over the spin of light and polarity of atomic structure binary opposition lends as mentioned the channels of fuzzy number transitive’s or alternate oscillation constructive routes available to an electron preference of gateway upon the gap space.
The gap space mathematically then as the remainder overlap or underlap of repletion’s is a transport to center view as it were of the condition of the gnomon or gamma complement area which stages the complement strip as simultaneously the dimension of the square to oblong distortion of the figure in the square space. 
The drawing then considers in its construct these aspect of leading orders migrating from gamma -Gnomon to gap space with views to contrast of structure naming fragments t to unity as ration and then again mod, or fragmentary forms as themselves the whole units upon which are named next order fragments as it were : in relation to a paradigm of consecutive adjacent primes summed and subtracted from the left or right square number which will then provide another square analogical to the number 1.1 upon the recursive structure of the number line and its base ten referent to 3.168 the square root of tent of which the tenth part is also the reciprocal of Pi.

Properly speaking then the gnomon/gamma edge determined space of complementary function might be termed non gap and the centered lap/overlap as a conductivity region resonant to projection as gapped… thus I condition the axes of the octonian as “loaded to independent function widths to midline bundle crossing which then as a focal length continued in a linear mode towards the gnomon planted regions in opposing quadrant space as that mathematical space derivative. In my next paper I will go into plotting specific harmonic values of constants in more direct analytic.
Hypothesis: over a primus of symmetrical structure log and bilateral devolved of the numbers of perception two and three, embedding Pi within the square root of two as a signifier of manifold give a fundamental paradigm of octonion spinor axes loaded to meet gnomon/ gamma parameters linking the piecewise construct to dependent and independent functions, derivatives and tangents bundle integrated via that model. Linking then as well the One Way diagonal construct to its parallelogram model with analytic continuation to Complex number fields and the mirroring kernel carrying the information of the pull back and pull forward motif over dual spaces and the tangent and cotangent bundle upon which to meet at outset the time dilating priming which accrues to the smash products or function transforms iterated within the DeRham Complex as so far intuited and outset of considering the Langlands conjecture as our effective Finnegans Wake. Up along the way compare the structuring an initial derivative in base ten unity to translation in derivatives towards a mod form. In this case one is effectively posing the square root of two and the square root of ten as a simulacrae upon which a kind of oversight function exists as the golden section mean is that of the square root of ten and square root of eleven added. Accordingly multiplying the roots by 1.1 modifies the recursive base ten reference to another mapping as it’s simulacra

Quantum and String Entangled Drawing :An Occupational Hypothesis On the Artist’s Benchmarking

Edwin VanGorder

Quantum and String Entangled Drawing 
:An Occupational Hypothesis On the Artist’s Benchmarking
One is always returning to origins, like Proust building on an original childhood thesis… in this case it is the creation of a symmetry as bifold which enables the concept of unity or one, a kind of cosmological genesis of the number line… thus for example the perfect squares, on integers, provide the rational numbers, yet the square roots which are built on the diagonal and thus the square root of two implement two as the unique even prime and symmetrical identity will all be irrational. .. the structure of the hypotenuse ( effectively the square root of two in the unity field) then is irrational and in terms of any sequence from a point in time and space will have this irrational as its continuing history on the one hand. On the other hand there is the brane level of the numbers self- reference, or mapping ,thus irrational transcendentals like Pi, Eulers, and the Golden section(add up to the are all referencing the observer each step of calculation as in effect creating a new module or base and this is the essence of Einstein’s space time as a dependent function of co-chains which transform consistently, while extending a linear behavior axis… in relation to the independent function which is the history of the hypotenuse effectively convoluted to a fuzzy number paradise. The module related then to its complement restores the field which then is the normalized as the modules relation to a complement function creating unity which the Greeks called the gnomon and we know as “gamma” or renormalization process… In summary we could say this structures all in all an elastic to plastic contrast in the building of the sustained content. The linear progression then has a circular content introducing pi as it were to quadrant counts and the variance of string length now is in Riemannian global terms and Eulers three sphere disc to surface… but now that surface I would hypothesize may be built not just on the point on sphere projected to affine plane as the version of all this history…in physics the orthogonal structure of the light wave electromagnetic cross section stands in that spatial realm of “dressed” particles and the photon which induced to doublets in convection modelling via capacitators creating a boson version is also illustrating the rotation which corresponds to a differentiation then from the quantum and subatomic up and down reversals in the echoes on Riemannian projection from globe to affine plane into which then my hypothesis is that enclosed globes creating surfaces for successive capacitator structure in relation to a gap space which is that also which in the physics is the vacuum permittivity as a capacitator between the atomic quantum and dressed particle fields could build these resonance channels( I am thinking of the air shaft in the original Guggenheim museum which transports air to both the rotunda complex and the related galleries) thus build in my idea those galleries so to speak on the channels to relate via partitions a structuring of differential equations creating the mathematical subspaces of that n dimensional content which enables an entropic connection upon the spectral over the fundamental…
:Truth of the Puncture Plane
There is a follow up in that the marking of dimension in what are called ‘Punctures” or identification made upon topology where for example a mobius has a single puncture identifying its projection , a cylinder.. two… and of the mobius its relation to spinor I am interested in recognizing to the structure of the quaternion which then allow a loading of those K and J axes to fuzzy numbers and differentials and secant tangents. Advancing this for example one might speculate that the number of “hits” made by neutrinos on a lab apparatus which interfere as a “fog” with dark matter signals which are very similar it seems to me that fluid in a rotation matrix such as I have describe would in the collective gaps respond to a nearer bunching of dark matter signals opposing a uniform fog composed of many particles whereas the reappearing single streak would identify the dark matter… due to the distribution of collective spaces modifying the neutrinos into an interference fog in which in particular positions would be offset by a clarity in the dark matter signal over those distances of separation… thus just as punctures are a subtraction process over a group of points machine learning could devise over the galleries the neutrino magnitudes as they enfluence each other in their after glow of changeups, and then edit these….
Where One Is The Observer:
Then the spectrum of events which will trace differentials to the resonance of levels in the projection of magnitudes is notified in the spectrum mapping of the quotient (“smash product”) observes partition or equivalence in transfer over mathematical spaces in the n dimensional also manifolds of these subspace constructs… which essentially observes the roots of “gama” in the Greek gnomon or complementary relation of binary oblong separations in a square field ie the rectangle and its difference from square which embed the difference from square in oblong to the remainder of complement at a difference of a unit one.
Then we can consider the case of twisted graphene layers enabling superconductivity as a variation on the spinor content we have observed to the quaternion with a proviso that the 1.1 or magic angle which preserves a maximum correlation between the electrons in the graphene grid mathematically references the ordinal tract to its recursive structure where now the pucture point is actually a decimal informed by gnomon and gamma and represent the mobius twist as a puncture in which the behavior axis via transposed quadrants then have the power axisl linking the ordinal to the cardinal progression and magnitudes of digressions upon differentials may in a fuzzy number aspect load to the K and J axis providing a complex field and thus ultimately Gallois group normalization in the complex plane and cross referencing as it were a renormalization in various ansatz to post measure experiences of the observer as intuited in the Persian drawing of a mobius chain driven pump quoted by Duchamp in his glass as the “malic mold” and the “occulist witness”….(this passed on to Penrose then gives the art to mathematics co-chain instigating then all manner of deconstruction…)….

In the homology of a math to physics transform the structure of a coloumb can be seen the predicate of relativity, that the charge between two objects is their ratio AND also the inverse square of the distance between them is then a dependent mathematical topology structuring the behaviour axis to an equilibrium with the control axis. In my drawing I consider the equilibrium states of .11111… .22222, and .33333 as built on harmonic roots which I then relate to multiplying over by square roots themselves multiplied by 1.1

313t1

Considering the mapping of perfect squares to primes could one find in the embedded irrational diagonal a higher dimensional study of an arcing as it were of the control axis extending the three dimensional tensor over the reciprocal process of the mod defining a mathematical space to it’s extension in time (multiplicaton and division flipping the sign… making use of a gnomon/gamma analytic? Affine to spinor and beyond… looking then to an extended sense of cosmogenesis on the number line…

The opening of the drawing is to consider in corners the insets of four gnomon as each nexus and paired to Pythagorean marked to edge of square field as record of secant.

Drawing With Words

Edwin VanGorder

Quantum and String Entangled Drawing: An Artist’s Benchmarking Hypothesis
 
BenchMark: Comparative Analysis

It’s an Attunement which turns back on itself like that of the bow and the lyre
Heraclitus
 
Introduction
The String of Logic and the drawing line of attack meet in a circle from which sphere projects the n dimensional chess which requires a backtracking to harmonic fundamentals on which I fashion a goldensection grid to project a kind of musical approach within drawing from Bernini to Paganini to Current physics and Mathematical research papers in which I particularly locate a nexus in string and quantum theory the cosmological genesis of the number line which has concrete appraisals in say the thin material constructs.

Q
Hyper Art of Arrays:
Entangled Drawing Systems Fluxonium: n dimensional Glass and Black Boxes String Analytic Drafting Harmonics: A Quaternion Hamiltonian Fuzzy Palendrome Quincuncx
Ω Bob and Alice Black and White Holes
Ω Hypothetical Entangled Quantum Gates
Ω Pre and Post Drawing with Words
Ω Gnomon Gamma 
Ω Pascal’s Triangle Simplex to Complex
Ω Quaternion Gates to Critical Strip
Ω Drawing Fabricia Three dim Thin Material printing and Proton space N Dimensional 

Edwin VanGorder
 
W
Warrants of Drawing Research >Pythagorean Lyre to Heraclitean Bow <

Toy Eye on Model and Intercepts over Migration: Drawing Structure in the Direct Composites of Analogical over Allegorical Presentation of Flux and Mathentos : Bow to Lyre.
I am an artist long immersed in drawing out the relations driving poetry, Sanskrit, rhetoric, into a mathematical form and referencing this in my drawing where I define art as that in which you learn while contributing inasmuch as one dares to define…therefore schooled in the Rodin drawing mode of eyes on model I likewise am loath at the mathematical arrival to skirt the issue by the tactic of allegory notwithstanding all the successes ie Flatland, Duchamp’s Glass, Escher, etc… I enclose the link to my hardcore mathematical analytic within my drawing projects in that volume.. here I will give a ‘toy” or simplified presentation: the project drawing here relates the intercept of a spiral geometry and natural division by halves to the structuring in quantum computers of the Josephson Connection and electron Cooper Pairs… The former has to do with computers in close proximity becoming entangled and the latter is similarly the effect of electrons entangling in circumstances where low temperature allows their charge to alter their environment reducing resistance and enabling entanglement. So the drawing gives two boxes so to speak in which an interval space carries the information of a spiral sectioning relative a similar proportion approached in halves such at midline they merge together and create a ratio which transmits to the larger field, normalization then, or the perception in proportions then is in itself a form of “toy” theory…which turns back on itself…. “like that of the bow and the lyre’…
Pythagorean Bolero: Bob, Alice and a 3 Body Superposition (Assistants)…
The ‘tipping point’ has entered the collective consciousness… In the mathematics the number of procedures one is collectively providing as the behavior axis give a variety of these corresponding to ordinal ranking of the cardinal procession otherwise “string”. 
There are, therefore, a number of “catastrophes” or bifurcation situations which describe the alternating expansion and contraction of limits relative passing midline… I am passing on here to the simplest theoretical model of the whole paradigm on the number line itself in order to draw out the inter relation of three specific Constants namely Eulers’s natural Log, The Planck, and the Feigenbaum constant and of these the Pythagorean “Elemental” as it were will be to approach the structural meaning of the designated “coupling” …. elemental…
The Bell theorem relative Planck in particular elucidates coupling: and a simple way to introduce it is to take a look at symmetry as producing our mode of recognizing what we call numbers… wherein at two that symmetry there by composes the unique even prime, in a sense the first number and this “primed” ie elaborated produces its echoes of 1 and three borne of it. With four of course the doublet and with five the course of primes then which from that midline will proceed as twice an even and divided three as a factoring mode of a sequence which because of the doubling is linked to the square root of two namely the diagonal of a unitary proportion and so doublings as the signature of echoes from the beginning in relation to cardinality are the ordinality which meets the diagonal and this in turn produces at right angle intercept the spiral or log which then provides two forms of symmetry, viz bilateral, and spiral or log. The Bell inequality simply formalizes this process the meaning of which relative the Planck which is founded on perfect square 8by 8 =64 = .0156 thus as you can see in the Planck 6.2007015 a wraparound structure where the six at beginning meets the end as .0156 and the initial 6.2 approximatel golden section .618 times ten stands relative the whole number in reciprocal which at .16127207 similarly wraps seven to .161 as approx. .1618 or 1.618 divided by ten, and .1056 divides a golden section grid composed of values of first four turns as an even surface of 64 times that .0156 and the the value .1056 which is the gap or convection space of twice the square root of five in unity relates then0,1 and1,0 Pauli brackets defining trace diagonal relative .0056 which is derived of .56 which squared is Pi and in reciprocal 1.7854 of which .7854 times four is pi… while the root of the golden section .788 is 4pi and its half two pi. These are a spatial connection between the diameter of a circle and the diagonal of a square relative its half ration which are four fold communication internally as quadrants of the square root of two and at doubling aside then the square root of four.
I observe that The Planck divided the Natural Log is the Feigenbaum Constant…
The latter is a map of bifurcation value and the natural log studies the relative magnitudes of the number line in progression and its harmonic structure is very forthcoming in the values one discerns over 2.7182818284590
Where: one sees 2.718 and 8172 are transposed, and while .8172 is in reciprocal 1.2236 and doubled then the square root of six, .1828 is its complement and time 8 1.46 or ten times the fourth turn of the golden section spiral corresponding spatially to the four pi motif. .8128 is a perfect number meaning sum of its factors. The halved terms of 45 and 90 give angular momentum as it were wherein also .45 as .6708 in reciprocal is three times the half of the square root of five. The Feigenbaum constant of 4.66 is in reciprocal .2146 and its complement .7854 times four is pi. The number .2146 time nine is 1.472 and in reciprocal .518, this number which in reciprocal 1.927 composes .6336 as in reciprocal unity plus the square root of three with .64 likewise in reciprocal then 1.56 of which .56 squares Is pi and .65 in reciprocal unity plus three times the golden section, that number of .518 then added to .6708 is two, and the blackbody equilibrium or status of a graviton would be 2.22222 emblematic of our coupling constraints so far observed.
The spin of the Bell theorem recognizes a diabetic/adiabatic comport to Bob and Alice as co-chains in their parsing of binary information while the introduction of assistants between them creates a superposition similar to the three body problem towards complicating over- all any hidden variables to local constrains

Elasticism upon Plasticism 
Meet their models between art and cosmogeny in this drawings random walk studying what quantum thinking terms coherent and incoherent states in which the first term references module referent which is then elastic so to speak and returns to its formative matrix whereas decoherence is the mixed state potential in which tangential operatives offer in contrast to the field dependent and dependent function independent as one associates with fuzzy numbers. A general sense of offset in turn of a mathematical subspace then belongs to another version of reorientation (visually taking corners obliquely to open a polygon over the rectangular field. The Random walk here has a physicality in a reference to the Bali temple of Agung , Gates of Heaven, which Rodin modified in Gates of Hell at Philadelphia museum across from the Duchamp room with large glass, and in that environment then is offered the mathematical contrast so to speak between a Glass Box, where a philosophy is possible, and a Black Box where information is projected and received but the actual structure is not known, as in our deepest physics anomalies. The Bali temple faces the mystery of a volcano with an opening feature, a huge door to heaven as it were which finds vision itself a source of clarity whereas in the Rodin work Michelangelo’s certainty dissolves into a flux formed on a sheer intuition. In the drawing I form proportions across harmonic roots which are divergent, ie an irregualar spiral in relation to proportions built at edges which may redistribute the forms in a plastic mode of independent functions, while a centering aspect gives an alternative approach to the Polygon mixed state through its proportional offset verging on a centering aspect which at a horizon will split the spiral convergent to underlying quadrants.

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N Choose K @Perturbing Chaos Viz Gravitation and Quantum Information or Drawing Recherche Research on Red Flagging the Ultraviolet Catastrophe: Co Dependence in Fields or Not?

Linking the information that comes out daily in physics and mathematical research within my drawing research is quite a mosaic… In this case I am linking the articles on “A Post Quantum Theory of Classical Gravity? “ and also “Learning Quantum Gates and Unities of Bounded Gate Complexity”… which to simplify offer a cross referencing of quantum graphing with the struggle to resolve the two sides of the Einstein Gravitation Equations anomaly… the latter suffers from the gravity of the weak force being ten quadrillion times less than what the other side of equation predicts while the quantum gates article is studying the parameters of the Schrodinger equation which compare space and time rather than treat them as a field invariant, but rather then as a form of independent function, e.g. , in question form: can a stochastic regime be structured over space time?
To cut to the chase my intuition is that if you place the zero pattern of ten quadrillion in a Clifford matrix ie extending the familiar Pauli to a trace line (diagonal) of zeros in groups of three as is their base tensor but do it incorrectly by staggering to create a kind of ziggurat formation each step drop is a dimension neither in space nor time whereas a field is always everywhere in both space and time… Rather, they are dimensions in combinatoric magnitude as though a field to end all fields but like the square of negative one are placeholders for potential gravity where gravity is difference between fields which however propagate as quickly as their particles in virtual state which in for example the Higgs have to brief a life to interact with anything yet their fields widen the reading of potential and probably within the context of space itself then as lowest entropic regime beneath that granted fields, somehow itself not a field in the same way the Higgs field while endowing mass to particles does not endow mass to itself.
For the sake of the drawing and up along the way I begin with a cosmological genesis of two symmetries on the number line where the distinction of bilateral symmetry initially defines unity as modulus one and from this simultaneously then two and three, thus one has the apparatus preparative of Pascals Triangle and the conditioning one may make of quantum gates as discerning the Clifford diagonal can find a step pattern which compare to relating the halves of Schrodinger’s theorem with Einsteins Gravitational paradox, with Schoedinger the relation one begins with the cosmological Pascal triangle I invoke has the follow up there of a log symmetry introduced by the square root of two where two as initial and unique prime embeds the square root of two and this as .707 is seven times .101 which is square root of Pi in reciprocal thus the embedding to quadrants is the nature of the discrimination to 4 pi and 8 pi and 16 pi in the matrixes and their transpose sets towards rotation analysis. For Schoedinger then the algebraic “I” stands on one side of the oscillation and the natural log or bilateral division on other, as their values close the definition of oscillation flux to resonance is that relation to harmonics which Dirac fronts in a compactification which referenced to the square root of two as the mass upon the oblong statistic in diegesis is relating the tipping point or catastrophe ie familiar ultraviolet catastrophe to a corollary in the “critical strip of the Riemannian Hypothesis In considering the Dirac matrices in relation to quantum gate forms then the structuring of the Clifford trace as unitary operator over depth of stacking where that stacking is identified in Pascals triangle as simplex formation or degrees of a binomial expression and the Pascal diagram has an offset pattern or angular momentum in its summation which corresponds roughly to my intuition that the stacking of the zeroes in sets of three of the number ten quadrillion which is the difference in degree posed on the two sides of the Einstein gravity equation anomaly if staggered on trace will essentially drop a dimension or bracket of the quantum gate indices stack or Pascals triangle motif of angular momentum visual to the simplex.

This then is per article on a post quantum theory aside from a quantum loop approach to Planck to some degree but at the same time I believe the base module of the Planck as built on the 64 matrix from then .1056 which is gap space of root five twice applied and relates l56 which squared is is pi to 01 and 10 as Clifford/Pauli trace. The number shows as wraparound in Plank ie 105 joins origin 6 and in reciprocal the 62 approx. .618 likewise wraps around to relate the golden section that being formed on its root which happens to be four pi considered in reciprocal form while being composed of square root of ten and eleven which respectively relate tenfold that reciprocal of pi and three to it. In m drawing then I consider .0156 a modulus which will cover a unitary field, it is a unitary operator which then can compare to the natural log as they approach scale and produce then a harmonic quantum Hall effect so to speak in the flux differential harmonic which traces in oscillation limit coupling resonance over fields created in passing through the n dimensional sourcing of what structures the Bell Inequality into a gravity simplex.

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Drawing Bridges of Sub-Luminous Flux Vantaged Pascal’s Triangle.
Or
Notes from The Dalton Board of Education, W. Warrants from Monte Carlo, Duchamp and L.Duchamp over Cultural and Mathematical Integrations.

A compactification of binomial or behavior axis expansion from Pascal’s triangle as a quantum gate and matrix potential for staging n dimensional referents places an origin there to symmetries bilateral and log which attend to the compactification of the Schoedinger, Ferrier, Critical strip Riemannian, Gaussian, and Pdic structure as tension over establishing unity relative mod as configure algebraically to (i) where the modulus in the space of area constraint to its expansion in time find the relation of the square root of two derived of an initial symmetry then projecting log and natural or bilateral symmetries and the natural log as referencing their meeting at a resonance factor.
From this the compact complex is analytic continuation from the PDIC to the Ramsey numbers from Pascal’s simplex situating LIE geometry to also the Hermitian golden section grid I use in the drawing is then referred in the drawing to exemplars of axion cloud formation and also a recently discovered specific subluminal transient supernova which give a view into how “hot” spots in sorting can create a slight asymmetry in projection.
The drawing is headed so to speak with an apparent Lissajous curve from which paradigm the drawing pairs a sin and cosine development of independent functions with a weighting of the octonion spinor models k and j axis in difference and then that provided with a natural number or n-dimensional referent to such as indexing over. The fuzzy number indexing would be the corollary of “hot spots” distinguished to local exigency over contingency. Thus Chebyshev and Discrete Chebyshev polynomials share a mathematical space.
Subaltern Ordering
There is for the drawings sake a subaltern ordering as subluminous to itself of the order that The Planck divided Natural Log is square root of five … a parametrization as it were on that account up along the way…
2: Drawing as a nonlinear equation: The semi direct tangents on this drawing require branching a consideration of the Planck to Eulers as focusing on an inherent time space in the cosmogenesis also of the number line in relation to several sortings…. Which in fact will require follow up drawings… but here I begin with relating the structure of Pascals triangle as mentioned to quantum gate circuits and this to the structure of the Feigenbaum in terms of log and natural progression as it contributes to the picture.
the Galton Board , a creation by the mathematician Galton showing probability functions as relating one channel to many gates, and many gate then to one channel as so to speak the hour glass reversed was the structure one recognizes in Duchamps door in Philadelphia 1, The Given and 2 the Waterfall, in relation to this one recognizes then the “Comb with broken tooth”, The Monte Carlo ticket(Monte Carlo mathematical probability of turns which in my drawing I reference to Pascals triangle in which then the ziggurat structure may correspond to quantum gates) while his Warrant is a reference to the migrating of the term to contemporary rhetoric referencing probability structure to chaos theory…. The appreciation of Duchamp was lent to cultural integration by “little Duchamp namely Richard Hamilton whose ability to morph into a Ducham Channel gave his book a standing archival form (Ducham allowed him to sign his name to a copy of the Glass ( if alive today no doubt the pair would be using three dimensional printing to distribute the glass into graphene layers on an atomic and subatomic layering…)…

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Feed Back Watershed Over Watershed Feedback Relative Glass Box Tidal Wave and Bracket in the Making of Tidal Flux Errors on Boot Strap Prints in The Black Box Oracle.
As though with Bob’s computer in a black hole and Alice’s in a white:….
: Mathematically my interests in this drawing focus on the relation between “gamma” and the Greek gnomon, or rectangle complements of square field which have an overlap of the complement as the difference in the figure from an internal square… gamma, then describes successive unitary comparisons in this mode and this structures the measurability of mathematical models to analytic continuation… The structuring which occurs in this drawing then is basic but has a resonance: as divided in half the ratio of the complements halved then show their complete contrast in each quadrant like mirrors… however if the order is inverted on one half one produces a kind of spinor which is essentially the structure of the axes of the quaternion and these axes can be loaded at their hypotenuse reading to various tangents reflect cos, sine, log spiral and the natural divisions which started the process of dividing continuously by half. However, at midline the different proportions one has shifted will combine across the center each as emblematic of the square root of two continuing mass at the reduced scale of the spiral also meeting the reduced scale of the half ratio process. Comparing these reduced ratios they may be considered back to the full square field as ratio and these smaller ratios are essentially the suffixes of harmonic terms which correspond to the “shell” values of the elastic progress of “a” through these log and natural or as the saying is “natural log”…and when added to unity will suddenly subdivide by an Ansatz or Taylor like method to specific harmonic thresholds as ratio thereby a form of Hall effect to ones interests.
That is: a simplex, to complex analytic continuity features horizons of log to natural symmetrical construct over “event horizons” to borrow a word in which the idea of black and white holes over information theory in this case builds a slope intercept over ‘Pauli noise” or Clifford diagonal matrix linking bilateral and spiral symmetries (to square root of two and four) and the decimal log forms as transitions between integer states of the pdic one might intuit as renormalizations on a point to plane over sphere affine projection on renormalized spatial construct of successive horizons in log and natural sequence such that the differences are performative ”gravity’… a previous view I maintain is to see this as though quantum gates relative Pascals Triangle with now the added performative of Eulers three sphere upon a three body notion one might take for example to merging triad black holes which make diversions upon information theory a form of information recovery in the mode of its creation. Correspondingly, as information theory then if Artificial Intelligence was asked to make an outline of this article so far it probably could not… yet AI potential for scanning millions of produced research projects to find their concept zone affine projections as it were upon some resonance is exactly where it would be most useful! One could compare this perhaps with Remembrance of Things Past and Albertine as not so much a person but a string of events and places her constructed personae represented over that books own substitution of the original 17 -18 century slit screen experiment displacing in time and effect the apparent references to Impressionism with instead an analytic of “Two Ways”…. (Albertine a reference to the architectural “Alberti Window) ie a window made as much as possible to look like an architectural tableau… from Alberti and Albertine to Bob and Alice and back again…
II
Peri Pergamon : Gnomon/Gamma -knowing/noema/number/game/gambit/means on nomenclature: The Greek site of Pergamon where reputedly western book binding became new paradigm to scroll its self in shape seems to echo the transformation and looking again at a light fixture in my own environment where bulb form and disc in light shield look like diagram of black hole, and white light in center radiates around it the spectrum colors softening output as a similar devolvement my drawing takes up a theme of transitive gnomon gates upon an elasticity in function branching from field dependent to field invariant, from dependent to independent… staging differences between elasticity and plasticity black hole to white, black box to glass…
The simplest description is of a fundamental and open state sharing a complementary embedded one, in which the two sequentially transpose.

Pauli Nexus Combinatorics Torus: The Clifford structural diagonal immortalized in 1,0/01 Pauli brackets shows the essential algebraic “I” in that less than one division states finding a mod term within unitary space and division extends the limit as time while in the opposite clause the reciprocal state then is transpose and division states mod to unitary limit time like this time and then multiplication space like. In spinor form the quadrants reorganize on diagonal space in the octonion model. Godel’s observation that numbers map themselves witness bijective magnitudes may be lensed to begin with by observing equilibrium states such as the reciprocal of 45 as .02222222 ..…or .045 as 2.222222…. shall we say then the forty five degree angle of trigonometry responds to queries on its string length or interior product as a behavior axis ie dividing into unity 2.2222 we get 45 00045 thus the string length is stated to brane as three spaces open to modulus closure. The structure of some 400 algebras is over 1.234567 9as ordinal tract of .81 in reciprocal and so the map states that between the limits of 1 and 8 the necessary opening symmetry of two to state unity upon that bilateral comparison and the 1 on left of decimal is relation to the absent 8 states 8 as mod to one defined on two as the numbers of perception where then two as unique even prime defines then three as a form of complement initiating the left and right definitions towards the compact complex. Returning to string length then we see if we extend the time definition and query 2.22222222 we get 2.000000002 and the focus of this central expansion then of the simplex identification where 0,1, 10 identify the square root of two as resting mass of the oblong statistic to its square identity proportion where a sum divided two is the status of its reciprocal times five and the dependent clause states the diagonal. The Pythagorean redistribution of the diagonal is in a sense then an independent clause which states the result as well… and this view from the edge is the status of the Greek “Gnomon
Furtherance notes on: Gnomon, gamma, knowing mean, meaning knowing, game and gambit: That the complement of a rectangle in square or unity field is the same as the proportion it diverges from unity in the oblong evident is minus the square of over lap in field and this then procedurally is the same as gamma, in fact gamma and gnomon seem essentially the same word spelled differently.
This drawing build on this from the particular vantage of the quaternion as structuring formal spinor divergence to independent functions relating to the bifurcation and catastrophe ratio of the Feigenbaum constant where 4.66 in reciprocal .2146 provides a complement .7854 which times ten as 7.854 creates a gnomon gamma cascade on the estate of an embedded 1.854 operator which is the golden section three fold. In relation to this I muse on the complexity of combinatoric mapping, we saw with ease a case for discerning the estate of .81 but reconnoitering over this territory that string lengths state is succession ( meaning transcendental numbers such as PI add your continued presence of viewing into their length in a quantum like Hall effect so to speak)… the mod lengths of large numbers one can see are best viewed to renormalization geometry if a mod has for example 20 million digits. 
A number such as 1.618 then states that to unity is compared to 6 as to unity is compared 8 as the difference between two making ten is distributed over one divided two as complement divided five. In this way nature’s way of thinking seems stated on the cosmogenesis of the number line. The evolving principles are that bilateral and log symmetries will close upon each otherer and create dynamic differences resulting in fuzzy number flux equations over a dissonance to resonance in which a combinatorial schematic over both and alternately branching and compactified threshold localize to view in bridging of triangular numbers and Pascals Triangle and its ziggurat mode of quantum gate affiliations of simplex to complex over dependent and independent times to space and time like characteristics. As we comport Bob and Alice to Black and Glass holisms between singularities.

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Quantum and String Entangled Drawing 
:An Occupational Hypothesis On the Artist’s Benchmarking

Toy Eye on Model and Intercepts over Migration: Drawing Structure

Edwin VanGorder

Toy Eye on Model and Intercepts over Migration: Drawing Structure in the Direct Composites of Analogical over Allegorical Presentation of Flux and Mathentos : Bow to Lyre.
I am an artist long immersed in drawing out the relations driving poetry, Sanskrit, rhetoric, into a mathematical form and referencing this in my drawing where I define art as that in which you learn while contributing inasmuch as one dares to define…therefore schooled in the Rodin drawing mode of eyes on model I likewise am loath at the mathematical arrival to skirt the issue by the tactic of allegory notwithstanding all the successes ie Flatland, Duchamp’s Glass, Escher, etc… I enclose the link to my hardcore mathematical analytic within my drawing projects in that volume.. here I will give a ‘toy” or simplified presentation: the project drawing here relates the intercept of a spiral geometry and natural division by halves to the structuring in quantum computers of the Josephson Connection and electron Cooper Pairs… The former has to do with computers in close proximity becoming entangled and the latter is similarly the effect of electrons entangling in circumstances where low temperature allows their charge to alter their environment reducing resistance and enabling entanglement. So the drawing gives two boxes so to speak in which an interval space carries the information of a spiral sectioning relative a similar proportion approached in halves such at midline they merge together and create a ratio which transmits to the larger field, normalization then, or the perception in proportions then is in itself a form of “toy” theory…which turns back on itself…. “like that of the bow and the lyre’…

Warrants of Drawing Research Drawing on Cosmogenesis of the Numberline

Edwin VanGorder

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3j1kd5lfchh7ie60hzrf2/Drawing-SliceII.pdf?rlkey=wj34gu2rnq7p54i9csyuhw5t0&dl=0

Warrants of Drawing Research and the Pythagorean Lyre to Heraclitan Bow of Quanta to Cosmic Harmonic Transverse
Pythagorean Bolero: Bob, Alice and a 3 Body Superposition (Assistants)…
The ‘tipping point’ has entered the collective consciousness… In the mathematics the number of procedures one is collectively providing as the behavior axis give a variety of these corresponding to ordinal ranking of the cardinal procession otherwise “string”.
There are, therefore, a number of “catastrophes” or bifurcation situations which describe the alternating expansion and contraction of limits relative passing midline… I am passing on here to the simplest theoretical model of the whole paradigm on the number line itself in order to draw out the inter relation of three specific Constants namely Eulers’s natural Log, The Planck, and the Feigenbaum constant and of these the Pythagorean “Elemental” as it were will be to approach the structural meaning of the designated “coupling” …. elemental…
The Bell theorem relative Planck in particular elucidates coupling: and a simple way to introduce it is to take a look at symmetry as producing our mode of recognizing what we call numbers… wherein at two that symmetry there by composes the unique even prime, in a sense the first number and this “primed” ie elaborated produces its echoes of 1 and three borne of it. With four of course the doublet and with five the course of primes then which from that midline will proceed as twice an even and divided three as a factoring mode of a sequence which because of the doubling is linked to the square root of two namely the diagonal of a unitary proportion and so doublings as the signature of echoes from the beginning in relation to cardinality are the ordinality which meets the diagonal and this in turn produces at right angle intercept the spiral or log which then provides two forms of symmetry, viz bilateral, and spiral or log. The Bell inequality simply formalizes this process the meaning of which relative the Planck which is founded on perfect square 8by 8 =64 = .0156 thus as you can see in the Planck 6.2007015 a wraparound structure where the six at beginning meets the end as .0156 and the initial 6.2 approximatel golden section .618 times ten stands relative the whole number in reciprocal which at .16127207 similarly wraps seven to .161 as approx. .1618 or 1.618 divided by ten, and .1056 divides a golden section grid composed of values of first four turns as an even surface of 64 times that .0156 and the the value .1056 which is the gap or convection space of twice the square root of five in unity relates then0,1 and1,0 Pauli brackets defining trace diagonal relative .0056 which is derived of .56 which squared is Pi and in reciprocal 1.7854 of which .7854 times four is pi… while the root of the golden section .788 is 4pi and its half two pi. These are a spatial connection between the diameter of a circle and the diagonal of a square relative its half ration which are four fold communication internally as quadrants of the square root of two and at doubling aside then the square root of four.
I observe that The Planck divided the Natural Log is the Feigenbaum Constant…
The latter is a map of bifurcation value and the natural log studies the relative magnitudes of the number line in progression and its harmonic structure is very forthcoming in the values one discerns over 2.7182818284590
Where: one sees 2.718 and 8172 are transposed, and while .8172 is in reciprocal 1.2236 and doubled then the square root of six, .1828 is its complement and time 8 1.46 or ten times the fourth turn of the golden section spiral corresponding spatially to the four pi motif. .8128 is a perfect number meaning sum of its factors. The halved terms of 45 and 90 give angular momentum as it were wherein also .45 as .6708 in reciprocal is three times the half of the square root of five. The Feigenbaum constant of 4.66 is in reciprocal .2146 and its complement .7854 times four is pi. The number .2146 time nine is 1.472 and in reciprocal .518, this number which in reciprocal 1.927 composes .6336 as in reciprocal unity plus the square root of three with .64 likewise in reciprocal then 1.56 of which .56 squares Is pi and .65 in reciprocal unity plus three times the golden section, that number of .518 then added to .6708 is two, and the blackbody equilibrium or status of a graviton would be 2.22222 emblematic of our coupling constraints so far observed.
The spin of the Bell theorem recognizes a diabetic/adiabatic comport to Bob and Alice as co-chains in their parsing of binary information while the introduction of assistants between them creates a superposition similar to the three body problem towards complicating over- all any hidden variables to local constrains

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This Week at Loughborough | 24 February

General

Vigil for Ukraine

24 February | 1pm-2pm | Hazlerigg Fountain

The Chaplaincy team, in association with the Ukrainian Society and the International Student Experience Team, will be holding a vigil to commemorate the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine.

Student Wellbeing Cafe (plus collage workshop)

24 February | 5pm-8pm | Loughborough Wellbeing Centre

Every Monday evening for the second semester, Loughborough Wellbeing Centre will be transformed into a safe social space where students can connect, study, learn, be active and be creative, all for your wellbeing.

Drag Night

25 February | 7pm-9pm | The Lounge, LSU

Prepare to be mesmerised as the incredible talents of Mahatma Khandi, Dosa Cat, Bolly Illusion, and Asian Thorne unite on stage to deliver a show-stopping extravaganza.

Masterclass on the Contemporary Clarinet with Luca Luciano

26 February | 3pm-5pm | Stanley Evernden Studio, Martin Hall

Woodwind players, musicians and composers are invited to join this one-off masterclass with the composer and international soloist Luca Luciano.

Spring Careers Fair

Microsoft: Application and Interview Tips

25 February | 12pm-1pm | Online

Advice from Microsoft about how to approach placement and graduate applications as well as tips to perform well in the interviews.

Impact Teaching: graduate jobs and summer camp opportunities abroad for all students

25 February | 1pm-2pm | EHB 0.02

Learn more about our programs in China, Hungary, Poland, Thailand, and Vietnam, and our summer camp opportunities in the USA, China and Romania.

Breakfast Study Club

26 February | 9am-12pm | James France D202

Breakfast Study Clubs – Running In Semester 2

• Breakfast snacks and drinks provided
• Dedicated time to develop your Personal Best
• Manage your time using the Pomodoro technique
• Access to Academic Success Coaches and Peer Mentors

Mock Assessment Centre

26 February | 2pm-3.45pm | Online

Delivered by the Careers Network and staff from a range of top companies, you’ll hear first-hand what to expect and learn how to prepare effectively for an assessment centre. Gain as much practice as you can before the real thing.

LGBT+ History Month

LGBT+ History Month: Hazlerigg Illuminations

24 February | 5.15pm-7pm | LSU Lounge

Join the University’s LGBT+ Staff Network, Loughborough Student Union’s LGBT+ Student Association and colleagues as they celebrate the closing of LGBT+ History Month.

LGBT Comic Book History Month

25 February | 12pm-1pm | Pilkington Library, Seminar Room 1

Matt Staples, IT Services, will present an in-depth look into over 100 years of LGBT themes in comic books. 

Webinar: ‘Culture Wars’ on LGBT+ issues today compared to the 1950s

27 February | 1pm-2pm | Online

This is a screening and talk which draws parallels between the ‘culture wars’ about LGBTQ+ issues today and debates about the decriminalisation of male homosexuality in the 1950s.

Queer: Then & Now Exhibition

10-27 February | 12pm-2pm weekdays, Martin Hall Gallery

An exploration of how narratives and conversations within the LGBT+ community have changed, and continue to change.

Midlands Innovation Open Research Week 2025

Save the date – Midlands Innovation Universities are joining up to celebrate Open Research Week 2025 on 6-9 May. Just fOR the love of it!

Celebrating the success of the maiden LU-IAS Inaugural African Summit: Resilience, Adaptability, and Collaboration

On October 28, 2024, Loughborough University made history by hosting its first-ever African Summit, an event that marked a significant milestone in the university’s global engagement efforts. Under the theme “Resilience and Adaptability for Climate Change: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa,” the Summit brought together experts, academics and community leaders from Africa and strategic stakeholders with interests tied to the continent to explore strategies for addressing the world’s most pressing challenges through innovation, collaboration, and inclusion.

 The summit was a strategic commitment to highlight Sub-Saharan Africa’s unique contributions and transferable lessons to tackling climate change and other critical issues such as health, development, and community-building. It was also a testament to Loughborough University’s dedication to building enduring partnerships and fostering meaningful dialogue between the U.K. and Africa.

Why the Summit?

The urgency of the Summit could not have been clearer. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, climate change has manifested in prolonged droughts, resource scarcity, and habitat loss, severely impacting communities. Yet, despite these adversities, the region has consistently demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability, from pioneering sustainable water harvesting techniques to cultivating drought-resistant crops.

 These strategies are not just survival mechanisms; there are lessons the world, including the UK, can learn from. As climate extremes become a shared reality, evidenced by the UK’s hottest year on record in 2022, the need to reverse traditional flows of knowledge and draw from Africa’s frontline experiences has never been more pressing.

A Shared Vision for Global Engagement

As part of our role as the University International Envoy to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Summit was guided by one of our twofold vision: “LU in Africa and Africa in LU.” This reflects the university’s commitment to:

1. Making Sub-Saharan Africa a central focus of Loughborough’s global engagement.
2. Enhancing the visibility and representation of Black and African researchers, who remain underrepresented in many academic spaces.

A Platform for Change

The Summit’s thematic focus extended beyond climate resilience to include discussions on sports, health, and community development. Coincidentally aligning with Black History Month’s theme, “Reclaiming Narratives,” the summit showcased Africa’s indigenous, proactive approaches to climate resilience—bringing attention to the solutions, and strengths but also challenges to resilience, challenges to inclusive communities often overlooked in global climate dialogues Our goal was to move beyond traditional narratives, shining a light on African contributions to sustainability and framing these narratives around leadership/innovation and strengths rather than victimhood. We were intentional in inviting leading experts, including those from the African continent who could speak across three thematic areas: sports, health and well-being, climate change and net zero, and vibrant and inclusive communities. Their deep contextual understanding has provided valuable insights into what truly works on the ground—and what does not.

As Special Envoys to the region, we approached the Summit with two core objectives: first, establish a unique platform for knowledge exchange and second, foster meaningful collaboration and networking opportunities. Participant feedback overwhelmingly affirmed that both objectives were successfully realised, leaving a lasting impact on all involved.

By exploring insights from Africa’s lived experiences, the Summit has inspired actionable strategies for sustainability and equity. It has also showcased the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to address climate change and the broader developmental challenges of our time.

A Collaborative Triumph

This Summit’s success was the result of extraordinary teamwork and dedication. Special thanks go to the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) team – Professor Ksenia Chmutina, Laura Dale, Connor Higgins, and Kieran Teasdale for their exceptional coordination. A heartfelt acknowledgment also goes to the university’s leadership for entrusting the special envoy team with the mandate to realise this critical engagement. The summit would not have been possible without our distinguished guests and colleagues, who left the comfort of their homes and beautiful, sunny weather to join us here in Loughborough. To Professors Sam Cudjoe and Cheryl Potegeizer, thank you for your time and dedication, especially given the challenges of navigating the visa process from Ghana. To Dr Janet Adeyemi, Dr Lin Cherurbai Sambili-Gicheha, Dr Janneth Mghamba, Nana Badu, Dr Lombé Mwambwa, John Olaleye, Peter Musembe, and Professor Matthew Leach, thank you for honouring our invitation, We would also like to acknowledge fellow LU academic colleagues who supported this summit: Prof Paula Griffiths, Prof Richard Giulianotti, Prof Amon Chizema, Prof Richard, Dr Oli Hooper, Dr Jessica Noske-Turner, Dr Rachel Sandford, Dr Helen Osiolo and Dr Yasmeen Khalifa.

Looking Forward: Africa Summit 2.0

The success of this maiden Summit has set the stage for future summits to sustain strategic engagements with the African continent in line with our global engagement and 2030 vision of creating better futures together. As we move forward, the focus will remain on building bridges between knowledge and practice, fostering transformative dialogue, and cultivating enduring partnerships. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this landmark event. Together, we’ve laid the foundation for impactful collaborations that will shape a better, more resilient future for all.

Has the Research Excellence Framework changed how we write papers? The case of mathematics education

This is a special issue blogpost written by Prof Matthew Inglis, Professor of Mathematical Cognition and the co-director of the Centre for Mathematical Cognition and the Centre for Early Mathematics Learning, Loughborough University. Matthew addresses the question:

What effect has the Research Excellence Framework (REF) had on academic writing in the UK?

In the following, Matthew explores the hypothesis that British academics, as a result of the REF and it’s definition of research quality, tend to explicitly claim – or perhaps overclaim – that their findings are original and significant. Typeset by Dr Beth Woollacott.

Background and motivation

The background to this concerns an article my colleagues and I recently published in the British Educational Research Journal (Inglis, Foster, Lortie-Forgues & Stokoe, 2024). We sought to understand the criteria used to evaluate the quality of manuscripts by the education subpanel of REF2021.

The REF is the process by which the government evaluates the quality of each university’s research, with the aim of allocating research funding according to some notion of ‘quality’, which is formally defined in terms of “originality, significance and rigour”. The 2021 exercise involved 34 different disciplines, or ‘subpanels’, to which universities could decide to submit returns, education being one such subpanel. Submissions were made up of various things, but the most important was ‘outputs’. Each submitting ‘unit’ (normally a university department), selected a number of their best outputs (journal articles, books, etc) that were published during the assessment period (the quantity needed varied by staff numbers), and these were evaluated by leading academics from the discipline. Each output was assigned a quality score on a five-point scale, from 4* (world-leading) to 0* (below nationally recognised).

Our goal in the BERJ study (Inglis et al., 2024) was to investigate the REF’s peer review process. Although the peer review outcomes of individual outputs are not published, the collated outcomes for units are. For instance, we know that 37.1% of the outputs submitted as a part of Loughborough’s education return were deemed to be of 4* quality, that 34.3% were deemed to be of 3* quality, and so on. These numbers can be conveniently summarised with a Grade Point Average (the linear combination of the profile percentages with the quality ratings), which for Loughborough was 3.056. Because these quality profiles are available for each submission, by studying the issues/methods that each submission returned outputs about, it is possible to make inferences about those which were associated with high scores in the REF, and those that are associated with low scores.

Nevertheless, there is a methodological challenge to such work. Because 5295 outputs were submitted to the education subpanel of REF2021, it is not feasible for a research team to read and code them all by hand to identify the issues they discuss and the methods they use. Instead, we used a technique known as latent Dirichlet allocation topic modelling, a machine learning method which allows inferences to be made about the content of a large number of texts. As we stated in the paper:

“The method takes a large collection of unstructured texts and studies the words they contain. For instance, if a document contains many instances of the words ‘sofa’, ‘table’ and ‘armchair’, we might infer that the document is, to some extent at least, about furniture. Formally, a topic is defined to be a probability distribution over words. So, a furniture topic would associate high probabilities to words related to furniture (‘sofa’, ‘table’, ‘armchair’) and low probabilities to words unrelated to furniture (‘biscuit’, ‘fishing’, ‘stockbroker’).”

Inglis et al., 2024, p. 2498

We fitted a 35-topic model to the 4290 English-language journal articles submitted to the education subpanel in 2021 (the remaining 1005 outputs were either written in a non-English language or were not journal articles and so less accessible). Having identified a set of topics, we were able to describe the contents of each of these 4290 articles as a linear combination of topics. For instance, our model suggested that my paper “How mathematicians obtain conviction: Implications for mathematics instruction and research on epistemic cognition” (Weber, Inglis & Mejia-Ramos, 2014) was 54% about mathematics, 21% about methodologies (a topic we called ‘methodological depth’) and 17% about the philosophy of education.

Having calculated these linear combinations of all the journal articles submitted to the education subpanel, we were able to calculate the makeup of the ‘composite mean paper’ for each unit. This is an imagined paper formed of the mean topic weights for each of the actual papers submitted by that unit. For instance, we found that 17.4% of the words from the Open University’s composite mean paper came from the Technology Enhanced Learning topic and that 14.7% of the words from Loughborough’s composite mean paper came from the mathematics topic. These numbers are highly consistent with our impressions of the research foci of these respective departments, providing a degree of face validity to our model.

Intriguingly, we found that a remarkably high proportion – 84.1% – of the variance in units’ output GPAs could be explained by the makeup of their composite mean papers. Because we were also able to use our model to successfully predict the output GPAs from REF2014 (the previous, and completely independent, exercise), we argued that this high figure could not solely be attributed to overfitting or other statistical artefacts. Studying the coefficients associated with each of the topics in the model revealed that units that returned more interview-based work typically received lower scores, and those which returned more analyses of large-scale data and meta-analyses typically received higher scores.

My goal in this blogpost is to discuss another of the topics we identified in the BERJ paper, Topic 20, which we named Claims of Significance. We justified this as follows:

“Topic 20 was characterised by words such as ‘first’, ‘significant’, ‘findings’, ‘specific’, ‘influence’, ‘field’, ‘effects’, ‘find’, ‘differences’, ‘reflect’ and ‘significantly’. Unlike most other topics, there were few articles that had particularly high proportions of words from the topic. The largest was Baird et al.’s (2017) article ‘Rater accuracy and training group effects in Expert- and Supervisor-based monitoring systems’, which had 44% of its words from Topic 20. This article was notable for the emphasis made on asserting the originality and significance of the reported research. For instance, Baird et al. noted that their ‘study is the first to show instability across monitoring systems’ (p. 11), that it is ‘the first study to show this [result] as a general effect, rather than for a particular team, and [that] it is the first to use multilevel modelling to do so’ (p. 11). Furthermore, they argued that their results are ‘important findings, as face-to-face training and Supervisor-based monitoring systems are still the norm in many examination settings for practical reasons’ (p. 12).

In short, the paper attempted to make a particularly strong case for the originality and wider significance of its findings. No other paper had nearly as high a proportion of words from Topic 20 (the next highest was 23%), but all the papers with proportions over 20% also discussed the significance of their findings (e.g., they developed a wider theoretical framework or discussed the implications of their results for practice at length). For example, Gibbs and Elliott’s (2015) study of how teachers interpret terms such as ‘dyslexia’ described how their findings ‘provide a potential challenge to the value, meaning and impact of certain labels that may be used as “short-hand” descriptors for the difficulties that some children experience’ (p. 335). In contrast, when we studied papers which had 0% of words from Topic 20, we found instances of papers which made little attempt to draw wider implications. For example, Langdown et al.’s (2019) article ‘Acute effects of different warm-up protocols on highly skilled golfers’ drive performance’ provided compelling evidence for how golfers might improve their drives, but did not attempt to generalise to learning sporting skills outside of golf, or to learning more generally. We decided to name Topic 20 Claims of Significance.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the REF’s definition of research quality (“originality, significance and rigour”), units which submitted papers that had higher proportions of their words from the Claims of Significance topic tended to receive higher output GPAs than those which did not. This effect was large: doubling the proportion of words from this topic was associated with an expected increase in GPA of 0.08. This was the fourth largest positive coefficient of all the 35 topics we identified.

There has been a great deal of reflection on whether the UK’s approach to research assessment is a good idea. For example, Donald Gillies has produced a detailed argument, drawing on ideas from the philosophy of science literature, which suggests that the REF harms research quality (Gillies, 2008). But here I want to explore another possible unintended consequence: has the REF’s definition of research quality changed how we write our papers? Specifically, might the REF have led to academics making more explicit claims, or possibly even exaggerated claims, about the originality and significance of their research?

So, has the REF’s quality changed how academics write papers?

If this were true we might expect that academics based in the UK would write papers which contain explicit discussion of the originality and significance of the reported research. There are at least two reasonable comparison groups: academics based outside of the UK, and UK-based academics writing before the REF’s definition of research quality was introduced. Happily, the model from our BERJ paper provides a method by which this hypothesis can be explored. Specifically, if the REF has changed how UK academics write academic papers we would expect to see two main effects. First, we would expect that recent journal articles written by UK academics would, on average, have a higher proportion of words from the Claims of Significance topic than recent journal articles written by non-UK academics. Second, we would expect that this difference would not exist prior to the introduction of the REF’s definition of research quality as being “originality, significance and rigour”.

Looking at the evidence

To explore where there is evidence for these hypotheses, I obtained pdf copies of every article published in seven leading mathematics education research journals, as found by Williams and Leatham’s (2017) study, for two four-year periods: 2020-2023 and 2000-2003. These were Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM), the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME), the Journal of Mathematical Behavior (JMB), the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education (JMTE), Mathematical Thinking and Learning (MTL), Research in Mathematics Education (RME) and ZDM: Mathematics Education (ZDM). I excluded For the Learning of Mathematics (FLM), as it tends to publish a particular and atypical style of article, and so I was unconvinced that the BERJ model would be useful for analysing it. The period 2000-2003 was chosen as a comparator because, although the precursor to the REF (the Research Assessment Exercise, RAE) was in place during this period, it did not have an explicit definition of research. Rather panellists in RAE2001 were simply instructed to use their professional judgement to make assessments of quality “against international standards of excellence” (RAE2001, Guidance to Panel Chairs and Members: Criteria and Working Methods). The first time the criteria of “originality, significance and rigour” explicitly appeared in RAE documentation was 2008 (Johnston, 2008).

To identify mathematics education papers from these journals published during these periods I relied upon the OpenAlex database. Importantly, OpenAlex includes various metadata about each paper, including its type (article, book review, editorial etc), it’s authors (name, institution, country) and some information about its citation impact (including the field-weighted citation impact, FWCI, a measure of how many citations the paper has received, relative to the expected number of citations given the paper’s topic and age). The OpenAlex database is not perfect (many book reviews and editorials are categorised as articles, for example), and I attempted to clean these data manually as best as I could (i.e. by eliminating book reviews that had been misclassified by OpenAlex as articles), although I may not have succeeded with total accuracy.

In total I found 1870 articles indexed by OpenAlex suitable to be included in my analysis, 507 from the 2000s and 1363 from the 2020s. Of these 1870 articles 188 had at least one author based at a UK institution (98 from the 2000s, 90 from the 2020s). (In cases where the paper had authors from both the UK and outside the UK, it was classified as being a UK-authored paper, as I felt that any paper authored by a UK-based academic was likely to have been influenced by the REF criteria.)

These 1870 articles were converted to plain text using the UNIX pdftotext command (Poppler), and the model discussed in our BERJ paper was fitted. This allowed me to calculate the proportion of each articles’ words (after deleting ‘stop words’ like “the”, “is”, “a” etc) that came from each of the 35 topics, including the Claims of Significance topic.

The mean proportion of words from the Claims of Significance topic for papers from the 2000s and 2020s, split by whether the paper had a UK author or not, are shown in Table 1. Because topic proportions are highly non-normal, it is not clear that these means are the best way of summarising the four distributions. Given this, I have plotted histograms showing the full distributions in Figure 1. As these show, the large majority of papers have very few words from the Claims of Significance topic. In the 2000s this was true for papers written by both UK authors and non-UK authors. But by the 2020s, words from this topic were more common from both types of authors, but dramatically more so from UK-based authors.

Unfortunately these data dramatically violate assumptions which underpin parametric statistical analyses, such as a traditional Analyses of Variance. Instead I adopted a randomisation test approach (Edgington & Onghena, 2007), running a two-way permutation Analysis of Variance with two factors (Era: 2000s, 2020s; Authorship: UK, non-UK) using the aovp command of the R package lmPerm (Permutation tests for linear models, Wheeler & Torchiano, 2022).

The findings

This analysis revealed a significant main effect of Authorship, p < .001, a significant main effect of Era, p < .001, and, critically, a significant Authorship×Era interaction effect, p < .001. In other words, these data show a pattern of results entirely consistent with the hypothesis that mathematics education academics from the UK have adapted how they write academic articles in response to the REF’s definition of research quality. (As a check to see if there was anything odd about the “non-UK” category, I repeated these analyses replacing the UK with the USA. This revealed no significant main effect of Era, Authorship, or a significant Authorship×Era interaction effect. In other words, there does seem to be something special about the UK.)

Might there be alternative accounts of these data, unrelated to the REF? One obvious possibility would be to suggest that mathematics education articles written by UK authors are in fact more original and significant than those written by non-UK authors, and that this difference has emerged at some point over the last 20 years. This possibility can be investigated (to some extent at least) by exploring the mean Field Weighted Citation Impacts of articles from the various categories. These data are shown in Table 2 and Figure 2. Again, given how skewed FWCI data are, I conducted a two-way permutation Analysis of Variance with two factors (Era: 2000s, 2020s; Authorship: UK, non-UK). This revealed no significant main effects or interactions (Era p = .067, Authorship p =.148, Authorship×Era p = .175). In other words, it seems implausible that the increase in Claims of Significance from UK authors can be attributed to an actual increase in the amount of significant research being conducted in the UK, at least as indexed by citation metrics.

Conclusion

In sum, it seems that, in the case of mathematics education research, the published record is highly consistent with the hypothesis that UK-based academics tend to explicitly claim that their findings are original and significant in a manner that was not the case twenty years ago. This trend is significantly more pronounced among UK-based academics compared to academics based outside the UK. Of course, it is not possible to run experimental studies to investigate historical hypotheses, so strong claims about causality cannot be definitively made. But it does seem intuitively plausible to suggest that the REF, with its explicit definition of research quality as “originality, significance and rigour” is behind these trends.

Implications

Are these trends a problem? At least some journals regard it as inappropriate to emphasise claims of significance in academic manuscripts. For instance, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America includes in its instructions to authors the stipulation that “No unsupported claims for novelty or significance should appear in the title or abstract, such as the use of the words new, original, novel, important, and significant.” In their analysis of scientific abstracts that appeared in PubMed between 1974 and 2014, Vinkers, Tijdink and Otte (2015) found an 880% increase in the number of positive words used (e.g. robust, novel, innovative). They expressed concern about this finding: “Although it is possible that researchers have adopted an increasingly optimistic writing approach and are ever more enthusiastic about their results, another explanation is more likely: scientists may assume that results and their implications have to be exaggerated and overstated in order to get published.” This analysis of mathematics education articles suggests an additional factor: perhaps UK authors assume that the significance of their work has to be exaggerated and overstated if they are to succeed in the REF?

References

Brown, R., & Carasso, H. (2013).  Everything for sale? The marketisation of UK higher education. Routledge.

Edgington, E. S., & Onghena, P. (2007). Randomisation Tests (4th ed.). Chapman & Hall/CRC: New York.

Fairclough, N. (1995).  Critical discourse analysis. Longman.

Gillies, D. (2008).  How should research be organised? College Publications.

Inglis, M., Foster, C., Lortie-Forgues, H., & Stokoe, E. (in press). British education research and its quality: An analysis of Research Excellence Framework submissions. British Educational Research Journal. 

Johnston, R. (2008). On structuring subjective judgements: Originality, significance and rigour in RAE2008. Higher Education Quarterly, 62(1‐2), 120-147.

Pardo-Guerra, J. P. (2022).  The quantified scholar: How research evaluations transformed the British social sciences. Columbia University Press.

Vinkers, C. H., Tijdink, J. K., & Otte, W. M. (2015). Use of positive and negative words in scientific PubMed abstracts between 1974 and 2014: retrospective analysis. British Medical Journal, 351.

Weber, K., Inglis, M. & Mejia-Ramos, J. P. (2014). How mathematicians obtain conviction: Implications for mathematics instruction and research on epistemic cognition. Educational Psychologist, 49, 36-58.

Wheeler, B., & Torchiano, M. (2022). Package ‘lmperm’. R package version, 1-1.

Five Minutes With: Gary Burnett

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I am a Professor of Digital Creativity and have worked at Loughborough University since August 2023. This is my second stint at Loughborough though, as I worked here as a researcher and part-time PhD student from 1992-2000! In-between I worked at the University of Nottingham.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

Like most academics, my job is extremely varied throughout the year with different activities happening largely dependent on where we are in the university calendar. At the moment I am spending a lot of my time pioneering with radically different forms of teaching for the University using immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and holograms – as part of the significant Digilabs initiative.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

My digital creativity team has developed several engaging VR experiences for students. My favourite is a fantastical maze for teaching teamwork skills where students (as colour-coded robot avatars) aim to escape using cues in the maze but also aided by their team leader who appears as a ‘giant’ in the world looking down on teammates as if they were ‘ants’. As you can see in this video, both students and staff have a LOT of fun with this activity!

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

One of the first VR teaching sessions I ran at Loughborough sought to enhance the empathy skills of our design students using specific avatars designed to highlight the problems faced by those with specific disabilities. Essentially, in a challenging virtual world, students embodied avatars that simulated visual impairments (such as cataracts, glaucoma, colour blindness) or mobility difficulties (e.g. due to using a wheelchair) to better understand the perspectives of others. I was extremely proud when this collaborative work was recognised by the university recently for a Teaching Best Practice award.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I have always been a very keen competitive distance runner (this was a big reason for me coming to Loughborough for the first time back in the early 1990s!). Whilst I can’t do what I used to, I’m still (just about) running at a reasonable level and was able to reach the finals of the 1500 in the World Masters (old people) athletics championships a few years ago.

What is your favourite quote?

I am a child of the 1980s plus a big sci-fi nerd, so it has to be quotes from a classic film such as ‘Back to the Future’. Two seem particularly relevant to my current future-oriented work: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads” or “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.”

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

New Open Access Publisher Deals for 2025

Brill Read and Publish Deal

The Library has signed a new Read and Publish deal with De Gruyter Brill.

This agreement offers Loughborough researchers Open Access publishing in all of Brill’s journals (including fully Open Access titles). The deal allows authors to publish conference papers as well as research and review articles.

Brill publishes over 300 journal titles in various subject areas, with a focus on the humanities, social sciences and international law. See their full collection here

IEEE Open Access deal

We have agreed an extension to our existing deal with IEEE until 31 December 2027. This is a GREEN open access agreement which offers a Rights Retention Strategy allowing authors to deposit the author accepted manuscript via LUPIN for the Research Repository.

For more information on the publisher deals available to Loughborough authors please see the publisher deals pages on the Library website. Your Loughborough University login and VPN will be required off campus.

This Week at Loughborough | 17 February

General

National Theatre Live: The Importance of Being Earnest

20 February | 7pm-10pm | Cope Auditorium

Three-time Olivier Award-winner Sharon D Clarke is joined by Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who; Sex Education) in this joyful reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s most celebrated comedy.

Painting and Calligraphy Workshop

21 February | 2pm-4pm | Chaplaincy, Innerspace EHB 217

A painting workshop to bring to life the Names of Allah-lead by Safra Razeek, newly appointed Muslim Chaplain.

Open to all students and staff. Materials and refreshments provided.

The Student Leadership Conference

22 February | 10.30am-4pm | Loughborough Students’ Union

The annual Student Leadership Conference by Loughborough Students’ Union empowers the student community through a day of seminars, panel discussions, networking sessions, interactive workshops, and resource hubs at a student-friendly price.

Spring Careers Fest

Spring Careers Fair 2025

18 February | 11am-4pm | Sir David Wallace

Employers will be exhibiting their employment opportunities in all sectors, and the Careers Fair is open to students from all disciplines and year groups. This is your last opportunity to meet with representatives from numerous organisations, all under one place this academic year.

Get Ahead Together – Achieving Success in Semester 2: Embracing and Applying Feedback

19 February | 1pm-3pm and 6pm-8pm

A group peer mentoring programme exclusively open to Foundation and First year students at Loughborough University. Be part of a community with like-minded peers, who will also be studying in your same academic school and get support with your transition into life at university

Master’s Futures: Developing Your Network, Building your Masters Career

19 February | 18:00-19:00 | Schofield, SCH.101

For many postgraduate students networking can seem intimidating, but this session will help you develop your confidence and knowledge of networking skills

Finalist Futures: Making Successful Applications

20 February | 14:00-16:00 | Wavy Top, WAV.0.41

First impressions count! Employers receive hundreds of applications. How can you make sure that yours stands out? This will be an interactive workshop with practical activities included. Please bring your current CV to make the most of the session.

This session is intended for UG final year students. 

LGBT+ History Month

LGBT+ History Month Book Club: Mr Loverman

17 February | 12.30pm-1:30pm | Pilkington Library Seminar Room 1 and online

In honour of LGBT History Month, the LGBTQ+ Staff Network and Loughborough University Library Book Club are diving into powerful stories, voices, and histories that celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Their book of the month will be Mr Loverman by Bernadette Evaristo.

The Leicestershire LGBTQ+ Centre: A History Of Queer Activism

19 February | 1pm-2pm | SMB002 and Online

Carla Hills (she/they), Outreach and Development Worker at the Leicestershire LGBTQ+ Centre shares the remarkable history of queer activism in Leicester, tracing its roots back to the establishment of the UK’s first gay helplines in 1976. 

Healthy Ageing: Looking after your brain

Image: Courtesy of Getty Images

As we age, looking after our brain health is crucial as natural changes in the brain can affect our cognitive abilities like memory, learning, and thinking. Did you know that the overall volume of the brain begins to shrink when we’re in our 30’s or 40’s, with the rate of shrinkage increasing around age 60?

Proactively maintaining brain health can help mitigate these declines, potentially reducing the risk of developing dementia or other cognitive impairments, allowing you to maintain independence and quality of life. 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines healthy ageing as: “The process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age. Functional ability is about having the capabilities that enable all people to be and do what they have reason to value.”

Small everyday actions can help with healthy ageing. Try to incorporate some of these simple habits into your daily life to help maintain a healthy brain:

• Keep learning

Studies show that learning reduces the risk of dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions. Activities like reading, learning a new language, or engaging in creative hobbies can help maintain brain health. Find out tips to keep learning including opportunities available at the University.

• Quit smoking

It’s never too late to quit. Alzheimer’s Research UK noted that: “Smoking has been linked with damage to the brain’s outer layer, called the cortex. This part of the brain becomes thinner with age. Researchers think smoking may speed this process up and could lead to a decline in a person’s ability to think and process information.”

• Exercise regularly

Studies have repeatedly shown that people who lead a physically active lifestyle throughout their lives have a lower-than-average risk of decline in thinking skills with ageing. Find out tips for staying active.

• Eat well

Eat a diet high in fruit, vegetables, nuts, olive oil, beans and cereals; moderate in fish, dairy products and wine; and limited in red meat. The Mediterranean-style diet is linked to better brain health. Nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D are linked to the maintenance of thinking skills in older age.

• Get plenty of sleep

Aim for an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a day as this amount is related to better brain health in older age. Quality sleep also helps consolidate memory and remove brain toxins.

• Don’t abuse alcohol

Excessive drinking is a major risk factor for dementia. If you choose to drink, stay within the recommended limits of no more than 14 units of alcohol per week.

• Connect with others

Strong social ties have been associated with a lower risk of dementia, as well as longer life expectancy. Find out more about how being social can boost your overall health and ways of connecting with others at the University.

Keep an eye on our events page for upcoming wellbeing webinars. The next webinar on the topic of ‘Embracing Neurodiversity’ will take place on 26 March 2025.

February Copyright Reads

Welcome to February Copyright Reads! We have quite a selection for you this month. We have a lot about AI and copyright as it is still a hot topic around the world. Vatican City is taking an interesting view on AI and copyright, we take a look at controversial DeepSeek, at the USA and their changes to AI safeguards, at M Night Shyamalan’s win in court but also other copyright issues in the film industry, and so much more.

Enjoy!

China’s Second AI-Generated Image Copyright Infringement Case

In AI copyright case, Zuckerberg turns to YouTube for his defense

Generative AI in Higher Education: Balancing Innovation and Integrity

‘The Brutalist’ Sparks Backlash After Editor Reveals Use of AI in Dialogue and Buildings, but Says It’s ‘Nothing That Hasn’t Been Done Before’

GEMA sues for fair compensation

New Vatican AI Guidelines for the development and use of AI models: from AI training to Vatican’s authorship and ownership of AI-generated outputs (at least within the Vatican City State)

What is DeepSeek and why is it disrupting the AI sector?

We tried out DeepSeek. It worked well, until we asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan

More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

AI’s use in art, movies gets a boost from Copyright Office

Am I being censored? Some US TikTok users say app feels different after ban lifted

Trump revokes Biden executive order on addressing AI risks

M Night Shyamalan scores big win in $81m copyright trial over popular Apple TV series

Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring

Copyright Office Report on Authorship & AI (PDF)

Copyright compliance and AI awareness “more important than ever”

Their Copyrights Expired. The Legal Threats Keep Coming.

‘Civil rights fight of our time’: new film explores the battle over US libraries

‘Superman’ Estate Sues Warner Bros. Discovery, DC Comics To Block Release In Key Territories

Copyright and artificial intelligence: Impact on creative industries

Another OpenAI researcher quits—claims AI labs are taking a ‘very risky gamble’ with humanity amid the race toward AGI

EU pushes ahead with enforcing AI Act despite Donald Trump warnings

First Nations and Artificial Intelligence Research Paper

Show some love to your library this Valentine’s Day!

CRCC hosts 'How Media Ownership Matters'

The Centre for Research in Communication and Culture was very happy to host a talk by Dr Timothy Neff (University of Leicester) this week on How Media Ownership Matters. The event was held at Loughborough University (Brockington Building, B111) on Wednesday 5 February 2025.

At the talk, Dr Neff gave an overview of his co-authored book How Media Ownership Matters (Benson et al., forthcoming), which will be out later this year from Oxford University Press. Dr Vaclav Stetka, who chaired the event, then offered some opening reflections on the book, which were followed up by a discussion with the author and a Q&A period with the audience.

Offering “a major advance of our understanding of media ownership and how it matters”, the book starts from a question that seems to have taken on renewed importance in recent years:

Does it matter who owns and funds the media? As journalists and management consultants set off in search of new business models, there’s a pressing need to understand anew the economic underpinnings of journalism and its role in democratic societies.

How Media Ownership Matters provides a fresh approach to understanding news media power, moving beyond the typical emphasis on market concentration or media moguls. Through a comparative analysis of the US, Sweden, and France, as well as interviews of news executives and editors and an original collection of industry data, this book maps and analyzes four ownership models: market, private, civil society, and public. Highlighting the effects of organizational logics, funding, and target audiences on the content of news, the authors identify both the strengths and weaknesses various forms of ownership have in facilitating journalism that meets the democratic ideals of reasoned, critical, and inclusive public debate. Ultimately, How Media Ownership Matters provides a roadmap to understanding how variable forms of ownership are shaping the future of journalism and democracy.

The Centre would like to thank Dr Neff for his insightful talk – and we look forward to the release of what we are sure will become a classic study of media ownership for many years to come.

What does Star Wars’ obsession with underdogs reveal about Western culture?

by Samuel Dixon

I am in my final year of Politics and International Relations (BA) at Loughborough University, having chosen it due to my fascination with how formal mechanisms of power work. During this time, my horizons have been expanded by my immersion in a fascinating range of areas, such as global wars, philosophical debates, and cultural analysis, forming me into a more thoughtful and well-rounded person.

Last year, I undertook Dr Matthew McCullock’s module, The Politics of Star Wars. Although I wasn’t necessarily expecting to be writing essays on the emperor’s machinations or the mishaps of the Jedi Council, I was surprised when the module led us to consider how this fictional universe is shaped by the culture that birthed it. For our coursework, we were given a refreshing task: create a multimedia exhibition to demonstrate a theme present throughout the franchise and its relationship to both academia and culture at large.

Around this time, I was captivated by historian Tom Holland’s highly influential 2019 work, Dominion, in which he argued that the Western mind has been profoundly shaped by the peculiar story of Christianity. As a Christian myself, I had been particularly keeping an eye out for when ancient biblical themes show up in popular culture, and I knew that Star Wars’ plot – despite occurring a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – shares many features with Christianity. Whether it is a chosen saviour being born without a father, a providential hand guiding events, or familial reconciliation brought about through sacrifice, the parallels abound. But the theme that I was able to find portrayed in many diverse sources was the triumph of the underdog.

One of many striking sources is taken from the script of A New Hope:

Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.

Kenobi: You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Throughout the Christian scriptures, God is presented as one who chooses “the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (The Holy Bible: 1 Corinthians 1:27). This is consistently shown in the Bible by examples such as Israel’s struggle against Egypt, David’s slaying of Goliath, and the climax of a poor, naked, and disgraced man dying on a cross to conquer death forever.

Christianity has been the dominant religion in the Western world for many centuries, outlasting many ideologies that have tried to overthrow it. Therefore, it has seeped into our culture’s conceptual basement, where bedrock beliefs, values and myths influence the rest of society (Nachbar and Lause’s, 1992, p.21). It is undeniable that other religions such as Buddhism have had a perceivable impact on the Star Wars franchise, but, having shaped the Western culture that produced Star Wars, it is little surprise that Christianity also shaped ideas of heroism and sacrifice present in the films.

Kenobi’s riposte echoes Christ’s passion, responding to mockery by embracing his death as the means by which he would have his victory (knowing full well he would ‘rise again’ in the form of a force ghost). When considered alongside other scenes such as the tiny master Yoda lifting a huge X-wing, or even the evil Darth Sidious taking advantage of Anakin by feigning weakness, it is clear to see that Star Wars appeals to a deeply embedded affinity for the disadvantaged, present in both the audience and in many characters.

Since considering these things in my research, I have become more aware of the prevalence of Christian concepts of heroism in society, and how they have been applied to political culture. Rooting for the underdog has become a clear political motif, as those purporting to represent the ordinary person – the underdog – do so by identifying the political establishment as an out of touch elite exercising disproportionate and illegitimate power. For instance, Trump’s pervasive language of a ‘comeback’ in the face of a ‘rigged’ system, compounded by the survival of assassination attempts, could be interpretated as him playing on the exact same popular disposition that George Lucas appealed to many decades ago: the underdog must win.

Photo by Jimmy Nguyen on Unsplash

Recommended further reading:

• Hilder, Monika B. (2002), “The Foolish Weakness in C.S. Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy: A Feminine Heroic,” VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center, 19: 79
• Holland, Tom (2019). Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. United Kingdom: Little, Brown Book Group.
• Jeffries, Carla H. et al. (2012), “The David and Goliath Principle: Cultural, Ideological, and Attitudinal Underpinnings of the Normative Protection of Low-Status Groups from Criticism,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(8): 1053-1065
• Meyer, David S. (1992), “Star wars, Star Wars, and American political culture,” Journal of Popular Culture, 26(2): 99-115

This Week at Loughborough | 10 February

General

Speech Bubble

10 February 2025, 7:30pm – 9pm, The Lounge    

Come along for a relaxed and friendly evening of open mic performance poetry showcasing the best spoken word talent on campus, plus a special guest performance from Bridie Squires.

Climate and Environment Dialogue #4

12 February 2025, 12pm – 1pm, NCSEM  

The next event by Climate & Environment Dialogue is a network of researchers and practitioners working on environment and climate related topic.

Pasta Story with artist Chiara Dellerba

12 February 2025, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Martin Hall  

Join Chiara Dellerba for a tasty evening getting together to learn about traditional Italian pasta shapes and having fun experimenting with new ones.

Careers Fest

UK Etiquette and Professional Behaviour

10 February 2025, 12pm – 1pm, Stewart Mason

As an international Student understanding UK Etiquette and Professional behaviour, is essential to be successful in your Career Journey. This session will help you navigate and understand expectations about professional behaviour in the workplace.

Finalist Futures: Exploring your options after graduation

11 February 2025, 1pm – 2pm, Online

This session is an opportunity to find out how to explore career options, clarify job, role or employer choices or just consider whether the path you’ve chosen is the best one for you.

Prepare for the Fair

12 February 2025, 6pm – 7pm, Online

The Spring Careers Fair is your gateway to new professional opportunities. Join our insightful session to ensure you make a lasting impression on potential employers and maximise your experience at the event.

Mock Assessment Centre

13 February 2025, 6pm – 8:30pm, James France

Join us in person and gain as much practice as you can before your first real assessment centre. This workshop is for students from all years in all departments and is in person.

Finalist Futures: Getting a graduate job

13 February 2025, 1pm – 2pm, Online

Open to final year students – join this event if you are thinking about your next steps after graduation. Learn about what options are open to you, where can you find vacancies and how you apply.

LGBT+ History Month

Queer Then & Now Exhibition

10 February 2025, 12pm – 2pm, Martin Hall Exhibition Space

The LGBT+ Staff Network and the School of Design & Creative Arts present ‘Queer: Then & Now’ – an exhibition exploring changing narratives and conversations within the LGBT+ community. 

Queer Arts and Crafts: Non-heteronormative Valentine’s Cards

11 February 2025, 1pm – 3pm, Schofield Learning Zone

This workshop will provide you with all the materials to make your own non-heteronormative St Valentine card(s)! 

Five Minutes With: Osh Gillies

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I started working for Loughborough Sport as Coaching and Officiating Officer in July 2024, but first came to Loughborough in 2020 as a student.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

This varies a lot throughout the year, we’ll go through phases focused on recruitment, deployment, and development of student coaches and officials – then while out of term-time we’ll generally shift to planning and preparing for the next one.

Generally speaking there’s a lot of meetings with various staff and students – usually planning or implementing courses or development opportunities. It’s also fairly common we’ll be delivering/facilitating an evening CPD (continued professional development) session.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been fortunate to help work on a number of really fun projects, such as the Fresher’s Week planning group, AU coaching development strategy, and the EmpowerHER campaign.

My favourite to date has to be our recent Student Officiating Conference, where we invited a number of international calibre officials to speak to a group of our referee’s, umpires, and officials. It was really rewarding to see it come together and help facilitate that opportunity for our students!

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

In my final year of studies I chaired the AU Basketball Club and we won the AU’s Volunteering Club of the Year Award. So many coaches, committee, and gameday volunteers went above and beyond that year to earn that award. I’m really proud of the part I played in helping to facilitate that, and it was a moment that made me feel incredibly proud of the club and many of the people closest to me.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I currently help coach in the AU Basketball Club and am also learning to play the guitar!

What is your favourite quote?

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall ~ Nelson Mandela

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

Colouring the SNARC Effect: Insights into Automatic Number Processing

This blogpost was written by Dr Krzysztof Cipora, a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Mathematical Cognition. His research focuses on numerical cognition, exploring how humans process and understand numerical information across various contexts. Edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott.

In this blogpost, Krzysztof explores an intriguing aspect of numerical cognition: the automaticity of number processing. Krzysztof summarises his recently published co-authored journal article on the well-known SNARC effect (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes), linked at the end of the blogpost. This work shows that humans process numerical information even if they do not need to consider numbers’ meaning to solve the task at hand.

Introduction

We tend to associate numbers with positions in space, e.g., we tend to associate small numbers with the left and large numbers with the right. We can see this in our reaction times during cognitive experiments: when shown a number onscreen and told to press a button depending on the magnitude of a presented number, we press the button located on the left a bit faster when we respond to small numbers and the right-hand button faster when responding to the large numbers.

This phenomenon, known as the SNARC effect, has long intrigued cognitive psychologists. SNARC reveals how humans process numerical information and link it to space. What makes it even more intriguing is that the SNARC effect is present even when number magnitude is irrelevant to the task, e.g., when participants are judging whether the number is odd or even. But does this automaticity persist when tasks are based on judgements of non-semantic features, such as the colour of the font in which numbers are presented? This post discusses findings from two recent experiments that explore this question and their implications for understanding how we think about numbers.

Previous research

The SNARC effect was first identified in the 1990s and has been intensively investigated ever since¹. Many research studies have observed the SNARC effect in studies where participants are asked to classify the magnitudes of presented numbers as smaller than or greater than a specific criterion value, like 5. However, as mentioned, the SNARC effect has also been observed in tasks where magnitude is not relevant, for instance, when participants are judging number parity. This observation raises questions on the automaticity of these number-space associations: participants do not have to consider magnitude when solving tasks about parity but there still appears to be an association between number magnitude and space. This suggests this association is automatic; however, when judging parity, participants still need to process the meaning of the number which perhaps requires them to consider magnitude.

Therefore, the automaticity of the SNARC effect would be much more convincing if it also appeared in non-semantic tasks where participants do not need to process the meaning of the number, for example, when asking participants to judge colours or the orientations of presented numbers. Evidence from such studies has been quite inconsistent so we designed two online experiments which aimed to investigate whether we could observe the SNARC effect in non-semantic tasks.

The tasks and our key findings

Experiment 1: Nominal Colour Judgement

We asked participants to classify numbers based on their font colour (blue vs. yellow) – this task did not require the participant to consider any aspect of the meaning of the number (see below).

Despite the irrelevance of number magnitude, a small but significant SNARC effect emerged: faster left-handed responses were observed for smaller numbers and faster right-handed responses for larger numbers. This suggests that number magnitude is processed and associated with space even when magnitude is not relevant to the task.

Experiment 2: Colour Intensity Judgement

In the second experiment, instead of judging blue vs. yellow, participants judged whether the number was presented in light blue vs dark blue – see below. Again, the task did not require participants to consider number magnitude.

As before, the SNARC effect was observed, albeit with slightly reduced strength compared to the first experiment. This consistency underscores the automaticity of spatial-numerical associations.

Conclusion

These findings provide evidence of the automaticity of number processing in tasks involving non-semantic features like colour. This suggests that number magnitudes are automatically processed and associated with space.

Educational Implications

1. Insights into Numerical Cognition:

These findings enrich our understanding of how numerical information is processed, offering insights that may contribute to broader discussions on cognitive processing and automaticity in basic research contexts.

2. Relevance for Cognitive Models:

By demonstrating the robustness of the SNARC effect in non-semantic tasks, this research provides a foundation for refining existing cognitive models and theories about spatial-numerical associations.

3. Role of space in understanding numbers

In a broader sense, space seems to be a powerful tool for our minds to deal with numbers. However, we are still lacking an unified model on how these mechanisms work, and how they may be harnessed to support education. The research in this blogposts contributes to this fundamental research aiming to shed light on this issue.

Disclaimer: A ChatGPT model was used to support the writing of this blogpost. For more information, contact b.woollacott@lboro.ac.uk

Paper summarised in this blogpost:

Roth, L., Caffier, J. P., Reips, U.-D., Cipora, K., Braun, L., & Nuerk, H.-C. (in press). True colours SNARCing: Semantic number processing is highly automatic. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition. Author accepted manuscript available at: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/aeyn8

References

1. Dehaene, S., Bossini, S., & Giraux, P. (1993). The mental representation of parity and number magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 122(3), 371–396. 

Letter: Thriving university spinouts must not be an Oxbridge preserve

From Professor Nick Jennings, Vice-Chancellor & President, Loughborough University; Professor Stuart Croft, Vice-Chancellor & President, University of Warwick; Professor Adam Tickell, Vice-Chancellor & Principal, University of Birmingham 

This letter was originally published by the Financial Times website on 31 January 2025.

Lex (“Clearer rules would help Oxford and Cambridge spinouts spur UK growth”, January 29) is correct to focus on the potential economic benefits of the Oxford to Cambridge Arc rail line. However, it is a mistake to think these growth opportunities are only to be found in the so-called Golden Triangle of London, Cambridge and Oxford in the South East. 

There are equivalent and arguably greater prospects to be delivered by supporting universities and technology hubs in other regions. 

Universities in the Midlands are producing as many spinouts as Oxford or Cambridge, founded on world-class science. Over 120 university spinouts currently operate in our region, having secured tens of millions of pounds in investment. While there is an appetite for these spinouts to stay in the region, many spinouts are forced to move south where investment prospects are more attractive. British Business Bank analysis suggests a spinout in the Golden Triangle raises 6.3 times more capital compared to a Midlands spinout. 

Those spinouts that stay in the Midlands are often valued at a significant discount, as an indirect function of where they are headquartered, irrespective of the quality of science. 

This exodus deprives Midlands communities of jobs and economic growth opportunities. Critically, and one might say irrationally, it means investors are also forgoing potential returns by crowding around more expensive locations with bigger media and political profiles. 

With a can-do mindset and proper support from the government and institutional investors, including connecting infrastructure, a thriving ecosystem of university spinouts can deliver growth in different regions right across the country. That is what we are determined to deliver.

From the Vice-Chancellor – January 2025

In my first newsletter of 2025: a first look at the Staff Experience Survey results, two DigiLab hubs open, new Access and Participation Plan agreed, our response to the growing threat of flooding, and further funding for the Centre for Research in Social Policy.

Results of the Staff Engagement Survey

We now have the initial results of the Staff Experience Survey that we undertook last November to find out how you feel about working at the University. More than 2,300 of you – around 61% of our staff community – took part.

The feedback you give us through the survey is really important, as it helps us to understand what we’re doing well and where we could improve. For instance, as a result of your feedback in previous surveys, we have increased the annual leave entitlement for staff on Grades 1 to 5 and embedded academic line management arrangements within Schools.

The survey questions were grouped under nine themes: purpose, our values, autonomy, enablement, leadership, reward and recognition, wellbeing, EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) and engagement. Overall scores for all the themes maintained their position or improved on the 2023 survey, with ‘wellbeing’ and ‘reward and recognition’ showing the largest increases in favourable responses. The ‘purpose’ theme had the highest overall score, with 82% of respondents responding favourably.

The survey also enables us to benchmark our performance against that of 67 other UK universities. Loughborough exceeds the higher education benchmark in eight out of nine themes. ‘Autonomy’, ‘enablement’ and ‘leadership’ were the highest rated areas above the UK universities benchmark.

Given the continuing challenges in the higher education sector, the results and feedback we received through the survey were very encouraging. There is still scope for us to do more, however. For example, while positive feedback about wellbeing increased, the percentage who agree that their health and wellbeing at work is supported is lower than we’d ideally like.

Initiatives such as the one-to-one health MOTs that we’re trialling, and plan to roll out more broadly, are helping us to address this.  Further details of the results, including a breakdown of the response rates across the Schools and Professional Services, will be made available online in February. Schools and Professional Services will be working locally with colleagues to develop actions to enable us to make further progress together over the next 12 months.

Two DigiLabs launched

In the two years since the University was awarded £5.8m from a new funding pot from the Office for Students, staff across the University have been working hard to develop our DigiLabs project – state of the art technology and facilities focused on four areas: Extended Reality Learning; 3D Data Capture and Visualisation; Robotics; and Simulation, Modelling and Artificial Intelligence.

DigiLabs will enable our students to develop the skills and knowledge to become future fit for a world of work where digital skills, data analytics, virtual and augmented reality play a key part – which aligns with our strategic aim to strengthen our sector-leading student experience through the use of the latest digital technologies.

The first two hubs, DigiLab East and DigiLab West, have now been launched and are in use. The third hub, in the Central Park area of campus, is due to be ready later this year. 

DigiLab East, located in the Leonard Dixon Studio, brings virtual reality to the classroom, allowing students to experience vivid and lifelike sights and sounds in a digital world. It also offers marker-less motion capture, using artificial intelligence (AI) to capture high-quality motion data from video.

DigiLab West, in West Park Teaching Hub, has a 3D immersive wall, robots such as QTrobot, a humanoid designed as a tool for therapists and educators, and GPU workstations, which can process many pieces of data simultaneously, aiding machine learning and 3D visualisation.

Thank you to all those who are working hard to drive the delivery of this pioneering new development. We are keen to ensure that the technology available through DigiLabs is widely used in our teaching. If you would like to explore how you could use it, please do let the project team know.

New Access and Participation Plan published

Universities in England that want to charge above the basic tuition fee cap are required to develop an Access and Participation Plan, which sets out what we’re going to do to ensure that students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups are able to access, succeed in and progress from higher education. This is a priority within both our Education and Student Experience and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategic core plans.

Loughborough’s new Access and Participation Plan, which covers the period from 2025/26 to 2028/29, has now been approved by the Office for Students and published on our website. Its four priority areas are:

• Attracting students from less advantaged backgrounds to come to Loughborough 
• Ensuring our systems and practices enable mature students and those with a mental health condition to continue with and complete their degree programmes 
• Driving institutional change by addressing systemic barriers and enhancing opportunities for students from Black and Asian heritage backgrounds and less advantaged backgrounds to achieve good degree outcomes 
• Improving progression for students from less advantaged backgrounds and increasing placement uptake among students from Black and Asian heritage backgrounds. 

We are committed to rigorous evaluation of our access and participation work and alongside our plan we have published an impact report for 2023/24. Among the highlights from last year: we engaged with almost 32,500 young people through recruitment or outreach activity; we invested more than £3.3 million in access and participation financial support for scholarships and bursaries, such as the care leaver bursaries, and more than 2,900 current students took part in Student Success Academy activities.

Our strategic aim is to provide an experience that ensures all students, from all backgrounds and at all levels, feel that they belong at Loughborough and that they are supported to thrive both during their time at the University and beyond. Our Access and Participation Plan helps to focus our efforts in areas where we should and must make a change if we’re to become a more equitable, diverse and inclusive university.

Our response to growing threat of flooding

Flooding is one the most destructive natural hazards that humanity faces with nearly two billion people exposed to its risk. Sadly, we don’t have to look far to find examples of its devastating impact. Towards the end of 2024, for example, areas of Spain endured their deadliest floods in three decades, and not so long ago Pakistan experienced its worst floods in living memory, with more than 33 million people impacted. 

Early in January, heavy rain and freezing temperatures meant areas of the UK were left dealing with widespread flooding, with major incidents declared in several parts of the country, including here in Leicestershire. Around 800 properties in the county were affected and, for the first time, a government agency text alert was used for a severe, risk-to-life warning in nearby Barrow-upon-Soar. Parts of Loughborough were also impacted, with areas of campus submerged under water. Thank you to all those at the University who worked so hard to minimise the impact on our buildings, facilities and roads to ensure that we could resume normal operations as quickly as possible.

Research into flooding – how we examine and address both the causes and the impact – is a significant part of the work under our Climate Change and Net Zero strategic theme. For example, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation Professor Dan Parsons is co-lead of the EvoFlood project to develop a computer model that can simulate the probability of flooding across the world.

Researchers from Geography and Environment and Architecture, Civil and Building Engineering are part of the Centre for Doctoral Training for Resilient Flood Futures (FLOOD-CDT) – a scientific consortium that is training the next generation of environmental experts to best understand how to tackle the growing global challenge from flooding. And Loughborough spin out company Previsico has developed pioneering flood forecasting technology, now used around the world, that enables people and organisations to act quickly to reduce the impact of flooding on their homes and businesses.

The climate emergency is one of the most pressing issues facing us today, threatening food sources, livelihoods, economies and people’s lives worldwide. The Sustainability Strategy we are developing for the University will guide the delivery of all our activity under the Climate Change and Net Zero theme – our research and innovation, teaching and student experience, our partnerships and international engagement, as well as our everyday working practices and the way we develop and manage our facilities and estates. Everything we do plays a part, and we all need to act now.

CRSP partnership with Joseph Rowntree Foundation extended

The work of Loughborough’s Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) around the development of a Minimum Income Standard (MIS), which uses public perspectives to define a socially acceptable standard of living, is one of our most impactful research projects. It is widely used in UK policy and practice; it informs the Real Living Wage, for instance, which is currently paid by more than 15,000 employers, including Loughborough University. It has also been adopted by countries in other parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

I was delighted therefore to hear that CRSP has secured a further four-year partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), with whom it has worked on the project for nearly 20 years. The expansion of the partnership underlines the Centre’s position at the forefront of cutting-edge social policy research that directly shapes lives. CRSP’s work on the Minimum Income Standard is a great exemplar of social impact and aligns perfectly with the University’s strategic theme to advance Vibrant and Inclusive Communities.

This Week at Loughborough | 3 February

General

IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

5 February 2025, 10:30am – 12pm, International  

The IAS will be hosting an IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning, where they will be joined by IAS fellows.

Careers Fest

Police Now: Change the Story

3 February 2025, 10:00am – 4pm, Careers Hub East

Drop by and visit Police Now to speak to the team to find out more about the graduate opportunities they have available. Police Now will also be handing out popcorn to students visiting them.

Deloitte: Spring Brand Activation

4 February 2025, 10:30am – 3:30pm, Careers Hub East

Drop by and meet Deloitte to explore the diverse career opportunities available to you and try out their immersive video experience to help you decide your future. Deloitte UK have opportunities open to students from all schools.

Make your mark with Deutsche Bank

4 February 2025, 11am – 5pm, James France Exhibition Area

Make your mark on our graffiti wall, design your very own tote bag and chat with Deutsche Bank reps to hear more about the programmes on offer. From insight programmes and internships to graduate programmes that provide the exposure and training you need to grow your career.

Loughborough Enterprise Network: Start-up Programme

4 February 2025, 5:30pm – 7pm, James France

Got a business idea but not sure where to start? The Loughborough Enterprise Network Start-up Programme is here to guide you step-by-step on your entrepreneurial journey. Join us for a series of workshops.

Finalist Futures- One Step Closer

6 February 2025, 6pm – 8pm, James France

Join us at this informal event to find out how we can help you progress your career planning as you approach graduation.

Webinars and whatnots – January 2025

Capturing Creativity Week: Collecting Emerging Formats at the British Library, Giulia Carla Rossi [recording]

Edinburgh Open Research Conference 2025: submissions open

The Oxford Forum of Open Scholarship – Monday 3 March – Thursday 13 March 2025

The Rise of Scrapstores and Libraries of Things: Revolutionising Sustainable Living

Written By Emma Ward from Charnwood Eco Hub

In a world increasingly focused on sustainability, the concepts of scrapstores and tool libraries are gaining momentum. These innovative initiatives are redefining how we consume, create, and share resources, fostering a community-centric approach to reduce waste and save money while promoting environmental consciousness.

The Growing Trend of Scrapstores and Libraries of Things

Scrapstores serve as treasure troves of reusable materials, offering everything from fabric and paper to craft supplies and hardware. These resources, often donated by local businesses or individuals, are repurposed by schools, artists, and hobbyists for creative and practical projects. They significantly reduce landfill waste and encourage a culture of reuse over disposal.

Similarly, Libraries of Things allow individuals to borrow tools and equipment instead of purchasing them. Whether it’s a power drill for a home improvement project or a sewing machine for a one-time task, Libraries of Things empower people to access what they need without the burden of ownership. This not only minimises costs but also reduces the environmental footprint of manufacturing and disposing of rarely-used items.

The Influence of Community-Centric Sharing

The beauty of scrapstores and tool libraries lies in their ability to build stronger communities. They provide accessible spaces where people can meet, collaborate, and share knowledge. These hubs often become centres for workshops, skill-sharing events, and educational programmes that inspire sustainable practices.

The rise of these facilities also highlights a broader societal shift towards valuing circular economies—systems where resources are kept in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value before recycling or repurposing them.

The Benefits of Scrapstores and Libraries of Things

• Environmental Impact: By reducing waste and encouraging reuse, these initiatives contribute to significant reductions in landfill usage and carbon emissions.
• Cost Savings: For individuals, the ability to borrow items or purchase materials at low costs can lead to substantial financial savings.
• Skill Development: Workshops and access to tools foster creativity and empower people to take on DIY projects, enhancing self-reliance.
• Community Building: Shared spaces bring people together, nurturing a sense of belonging and collective purpose.
• Support for Local Businesses: Many scrapstores collaborate with local businesses, creating networks that benefit the community economically and socially.

Charnwood Eco Hub: Leading the Way locally

An outstanding local example of this movement is Charnwood Eco Hub in Loughborough. This not-for-profit community hub integrates the principles of scrapstores and Libraries of Things to help residents in the Charnwood area reduce their carbon footprint. At the heart of their mission is a Library of Things, where residents can borrow items they need, promoting a culture of sharing and reducing the need for individual ownership. Additionally, their Scrapstore provides a rich supply of reusable materials for creative projects, supporting local schools, artists, and community groups.

The Hub will also feature a Makerspace, equipped with tools and resources for people to work on their own craft or DIY projects. This space will not only foster innovation but also encourage skill-sharing and collaboration among community members.

By offering these services, Charnwood Eco Hub exemplifies how scrapstores and Libraries of Things can empower communities to adopt sustainable practices. Their projects are a testament to how small, localised actions can have a significant impact.

Learn More and Get Involved

Charnwood Eco Hub opens its doors to the public on Saturday 1st February. To explore more about the transformative work being done by the Charnwood Eco Hub or to participate in their programmes, visit their website at CharnwoodEcoHub or visit their Facebook page Join the movement to make a difference in your community and the planet!

By embracing initiatives like scrapstores and tool libraries, we can collectively take a step towards a greener, more sustainable future—one shared tool and repurposed material at a time.

Open Research Week - postponed

In November, we posted a Save-The-Date for the Open Research Week, organized by Loughborough University, De Montfort University and the University of Leicester, for 3-7 March 2025. This event has been postponed, and the new date will be posted as soon as it is available.

The 2024 event is available for (re)watching.

Open Access Publisher deals for 2025

The Library pages on JISC Open Access publisher deals have been updated. You will need your University ID and VPN off campus to access this page.
All current deals have renewed until December 2025 except ACS (American Chemical Society) which has extended it’s deal until March 2025. ACS are currently re-negotiating their deal with JISC and we will update the information as soon as possible.
We have also added the details of a new deal with OPTICA and added the details of the American Physical Society, a deal which sits alongside the SCOAP3 deal for High Energy Physics.
If you have any questions on this (or anything else) please contact repository@lboro.ac.uk

Projects vs Collections on the Repository

The more items you add to the Research Repository, the more likely you are to want to organise them in some way. There are two options, projects and collections, each have their own features which might make them more or less suitable for your needs. Figshare has some documentation on this.

In the way that our system is set up at Loughborough University, projects can be tricky to set up. If you’d like this option to organise your items, contact RDM@lboro.ac.uk for assistance.

This Week at Loughborough | 27 January

General

Holocaust Memorial Day Vigil

27 January 2025, 4pm – 4:30pm, Hazelrigg Fountain   

A time to gather and remember those killed in the Holocaust, including 6 million Jews as well as Black people, Roma people, disabled people, members of the LGBT+ community, and many other minoritized groups, and those affected by genocide today.

Equality Impact Assessment Clinic

29 January 2025, 1 – 4pm, Rutland Building

An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) helps ensure that our policies, procedures, and practices are inclusive for staff, students, visitors, etc.

Year of the Snake 2025

29 January 2025, 4pm – 9pm, Mr Chan’s Restaurant 

The Race, Ethnicity and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Staff Network Group art inviting staff, students, family and friends, and members of the wider community to help them celebrate The Year of the Snake 2025 at Mr Chan’s Restaurant in Loughborough Town Centre.

Voices of Diversity: Mental Health – Senior Leading Women

30 January 2025, 12:30pm – 2pm, Stewart Mason Building  

The aim of the Voices of Diversity: Mental Health series is to raise awareness of and knowledge about mental health and how it impacts students and staff from various backgrounds. This session will focus on women in senior leadership positions and how women in these positions can be impacted by stress, anxiety, feelings of imposter syndrome.

Talk Sport

30 January 2025, 12 – 5:45pm, James France

The Talk Sport Conference welcomes major players in the sports, exercise and health industry, to lead career-focused presentations. The event will feature industry specialists such as the Performance Director at Brentford Football Club, the Talent Executive at Two Circles, the Director and Producer at Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC and ITVX, a Senior Marketing Executive at British Triathlon Federation, and many more.

Creating Empowering Environments: The Future of Inclusive Design

31 January 2025, 11am – 3pm, Online 

Join this virtual event, as celebration of the launch of the book ‘Creating Empowering Environments for People with Dementia Addressing Inclusive Design from Homes to Cities’.

Fruit Routes: Winter Walk

31 January 2025, 2pm – 3:30pm, Barefoot Orchard

Join artist Mita Solanky for a walk around Fruit Routes – our edible route of hundreds of fruit and nut trees and bushes on the University campus.

Top 5 Repository Downloads for December

The Loughborough Research Repository currently contains 57,191 public items. Staff processed 485 new research deposits during December 2024.

The 5 most downloaded articles from the repository are below. These figures come from IRUS UK, a JISC funded service that provides standardised statistical tools for measuring institutional repositories.

• Banerjee, D.K. (1986). Water pollution and human health. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/29242 Downloads 154
• Case, Stephen; Hampson, Kathy; Nisbet, Andrea (2024). Child First? Examining children’s perspectives of their ‘effective’ collaboration in youth justice decision-making. Loughborough University. Report. https://doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro.27968766.v1 Downloads 150
• Hignett, Sue; McDermott, Hilary (2015). Qualitative methodology for ergonomics. Loughborough University. Chapter. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/23558 Downloads 143
• Abdulwahed, Mahmoud; Nagy, Zoltan (2009). Applying Kolb’s experiential learning cycle for laboratory education. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/5412 Downloads 121
• Hardman, Ken; Murphy, Chris; Routen, Ash; Tones, Steve (2014). World-wide survey of school physical education: final report. Loughborough University. Report. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/27642 Downloads 98

It’s interesting to note that a new arrival in the top 5 is the Child First report. Two of the top most downloaded items this month are reports, one from 1986 and another from 2024. Reports have a high rate of use in the repository and can retain their value over time as effective summaries of research.

In the last month have been doing a lot of work with the Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC). As a result 68% of our uploads this month were figures and illustrations. Since this is normally 7% (the majority of our uploads are normally articles and conference papers) you can see the impact this has had. If you would like to learn more about how the repository can be used to highlight your work, please get in touch.

Celebrating the Year of the Snake 

Written by Sophie Yang, Regional Manager (Global Engagement team)

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, marks the start of a new zodiac cycle based on the Chinese lunar calendar. Each year, the date shifts within the Gregorian calendar. The festival is celebrated worldwide, particularly in Asian countries with different names, such as 春节 (Spring Festival) in China, Imlek in Indonesia, 설날 (Seollal) in Korea, Tết Âm Lịch in Vietnam, etc. 

The transition between zodiac signs is an important aspect of the festival. 2024 was the Year of the Dragon, while 2025 will be the Year of the Snake. The Snake represents calmness and introspection, traits seen as essential for guiding one’s life with wisdom and grace. Known for their wisdom, intuition, and mystery, Snakes are naturally strategic, excellent problem-solvers, and skilled communicators. 

Celebration in China  

Festivities include red decorations, elaborate meals, thorough cleaning of homes, and visiting family. A major tradition involves lighting firecrackers, originating from the legend of the monster Nian. Red is the dominant colour for decorations, which include red lanterns, paper cuttings, Spring Festival couplets, and strings of chili peppers. These are all designed to ward off Nian and invite good fortune. 

New clothes, especially for children, add excitement to the holiday. Wearing new red clothes on New Year’s Day symbolizes a fresh start and invites good luck. 

At the heart of Spring Festival celebrations is the reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve. A traditional reunion dinner includes many dishes, such as steamed or fried fish, rice cakes and balls, noodles, and dumplings. Each dish has special symbolic meanings. For instance: Dumplings, shaped like gold ingots, symbolize wealth; Fish, whose Chinese name sounds like the word for “surplus,” represents abundance. Noodles signify longevity. 

In northern China, people traditionally eat dumplings and noodles, while in the south, Nian Gao (sticky rice cake) is a must-have, symbolizing rising fortunes. The reunion dinner is a time when families feel closest to one another. 

How do I celebrate? 

Growing up in northern China, I have vivid memories of celebrating Spring Festival. On New Year’s Eve, we gathered for a celebratory meal with my parents and grandparents, always including fish and dumplings. At 8pm, the whole family would sit together to watch the China Media Group Spring Festival Gala on TV. The Gala features a variety of performances, including songs, dances, cross talk, sketches, operas, martial arts, magic, acrobatics, musicals, and micro-films. The show concludes at midnight with everyone wishing each other a happy new year. 

On New Year’s Day, I wore new clothes and received red pockets from my family. Visiting grandparents, aunts, and uncles on the second day of the new year was also a tradition, along with receiving more red pockets. 

After moving to the UK, I continue to celebrate by having a meal with friends. Sometimes, I travel to London or Birmingham to watch the parades. 

What’s on in Loughborough and how to get involved? 

The first day of the year of the snake falls on Wednesday, 29 January 2025. This year, Loughborough University’s Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Staff Network has organised a Year of the Snake celebration. The event will include a buffet-style New Year celebratory meal catering to both non-vegetarians and vegetarians. Additionally, there will be a lion dance and Tai Chi demonstration and a 360-video booth to capture memories of the celebration. 

Although there is no formal dress code for the event, attendees are encouraged to wear something red to bring good luck. 

This event provides a great opportunity to network with the Asian community, try traditional cuisine, and learn more about the culture.  

 Find out more information and book your place online. 

James Heyburn, Runner-Up for IDIA Annual Dissertation Prize, Shares Insights on His Research

On Tuesday, 26th November, the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs proudly celebrated the recipients of its annual Dissertation Prizes. Runner-up James Heyburn, a 2024 graduate of our MSc Diplomacy, International Business and Trade, wrote a piece discussing his dissertation: “How does the extent of centralisation in domestic political systems influence the outcome of international negotiations: A comparative analysis of UK and Swiss negotiations with the EU.’

Facing the challenge of researching the UK and Switzerland

by James Heyburn

There’s no denying that the most important aspect of the dissertation project is deciding if you are ready to begin the topic you’re interested in. It’s not only vital you pick one you enjoy. You must also pick one you are confident you can tackle. For me that meant being able to draw on the themes and material covered in lectures and seminars. Having taken the modules Foreign Policy Analysis, International Negotiations, Global Cities in Diplomacy, and Diplomacy in the Digital Age I felt I had a good foundation to tackle my topic. The second important thing to ensure was in place right from the beginning was an effective working relationship with my supervisor to design an approach to my research project. The first sessions with my supervisor were not just about deciding what the topic was to be but also how to go about the research. My supervisor regularly asked “what is the puzzle you are trying to solve” as a means of focusing my thinking and plans. Remaining focused on what my dissertation was about gave me a degree of clarity about the topic, the point of the research, and the approach I needed to take.

My research looked into the influence centralisation of domestic political decision-making structures has on the way a country approaches international negotiations. There is a long-standing debate in international relations on the extent to which states can be considered ‘unitary actors’ given various domestic factors contribute to different outputs in the international arena. With my research I wanted to highlight how centralized or decentralized domestic constitutional structures can affect international negotiations. As Graham Allison (1969) made clear: to understand foreign policy formulation we have to analyse state-level processes. My research was going to investigate what researchers (Rose, 1998) call the ‘‘innenpolitik’’: the social, economic, and political domestic factors that influence a state’s international relations.

How to do this? The first challenges was in how to categorise different forms of democracy. Arend Lijphart’s work classifying democratic political systems provided the foundation for this. I dedicated a chapter of the dissertation to justifying the cases of the UK, Switzerland, and the EU as appropriate for analysis. In that chapter I used the models provided by Lijphart to differentiate the UK and Switzerland as polar opposites in their forms of democracy: the UK being highly centralized, while Switzerland is a confederation. Both are non-members of the EU which helped justify the selection of the European Union (EU) as the negotiating partner for both countries. Both Switzerland and the UK now have an extensive history of negotiating with the European Union. That provided plenty of material on which to build a comparison.

To those familiar with foreign policy analysis it will come as no surprise that Robert Putnam’s Two-Level Game Theory (1998) was fundamental to my analysis. Putnam rejects the idea that states are unitary actors and seeks to understand the entanglement of domestic and international factors in shaping outcomes. For Putnam the important games occur at two-levels: the National Level, where the question is ’what can be ratified’? And The International Level, where the question is ‘what can be agreed’? By applying this understanding to the UK and Switzerland I was able to look into how important national and sub-national authorities were in shaping negotiations with the EU.

By looking at Switzerland and the UK I was able to show that while the centralized or decentralized structure of government clearly matters, the relevance of the structure varies across the different stages of negotiations. Switzerland conducts more extensive consultations prior to negotiations than the UK. It is this consultation period that secures the Swiss executive a mandate to conduct negotiations with the EU and which also underpins a unified position. Swiss negotiators also face the need to secure ratification of any agreement. EU negotiators are cognizant of the domestic constraints these consultations produce for the position of Switzerland at the negotiating table. They understand Switzerland will have a rigid position meaning they are unlikely to grant concessions. The UK’s position is more flexible because the centralized system means minimal if any wider consultations. This combined with the relative ease by which the UK’s executive can pass international policy creates a greater Zone of Possible Agreement which in turn generates greater potential for concessions with the EU. Ultimately, there is a paradox of weakness when observing how two-level games interact in producing outcomes in international negotiations. EU.’

Kobi Essilfie Wins IDIA Annual Dissertation Prize for outstanding research.

On Tuesday, 26th November, the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs proudly celebrated the recipients of its annual Dissertation Prizes. The winner, Kobi Essilfie, a 2024 graduate of our MSc in Security, Peace-Building, and Diplomacy, presented his dissertation titled “The Slow Violence of Environmental Injustice: A Comparative Case Study of Cancer Alley and The Navajo Nation.” Essilfie wrote a piece to discuss his award-winning dissertation.

The Slow Violence of Environmental Injustice: A Comparative Case Study of Cancer Alley and The Navajo Nation by Kobi Essilfie

What do a stretch of industrial plants in Louisiana and the abandoned uranium mines of the Navajo Nation have in common? They are both witnesses to what is called a ‘slow violence’ that has reshaped their communities and environment.

Environmental injustice occurs when environmental burdens or advantages are distributed unequally across different social, economic, and racial groups. This creates a system that disproportionately exposes certain groups to environmental hazards, leading to serious health issues, including increased rates or risk of cancer, maternal, reproductive and newborn health problems, and cardiovascular diseases. My dissertation explored the slow violence of environmental injustice through the case studies of Cancer Alley, Louisiana (a predominantly African American community) and the Navajo Nation (a Native American reservation). I decided to focus my dissertation on these two marginalised communities because their experiences have been perpetuated by deeply embedded structural inequalities that have manifested over time.

My central dissertation question was about what structural conditions made these environmental injustices possible and why they became deeply entrenched in society. To answer this, I conducted a historical analysis that allowed me to engage with the deeper, structural roots of these issues. By looking at these two different marginalised communities, I hoped to see commonalities behind what caused their unique trajectories of oppression.

The residents of Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation have endured substantial historical oppression in the United States. The petrochemical environment of Cancer Alley is home to African American communities who are descended from slaves. The region’s historic plantation economy transitioned into industrialisation where the disproportionate siting of hazardous industries exposed vulnerable communities to life-threatening contamination. A practice that influenced the siting of toxic facilities in Cancer Alley was redlining, a racially discriminatory housing policy that influenced the likelihood that African American communities would be exposed to harmful air pollution.

The current environmental challenges faced by the Navajo Nation correlate with their history of settler colonialism, where the Native American community endured forced displacement known as the Long Walk, land exploitation, and resource extraction that resulted in their land being contaminated. Over 500 abandoned uranium mines, the remnants of the US nuclear program, litter the Navajo Nation. Many of these mines were never adequately cleaned up, leaving the Navajo people and the environment struggling with radioactive pollution that continues to cause harm.

In Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation, there is an interconnected relationship between slow and structural enduring harms where violence morphs from one form to another, reproducing environments where spaces have become inherently violent. While separated by geography these communities share a grim commonality: their suffering is no accident. It is the outcome of structural conditions rooted in environmental racism and racial capitalism that have resulted in environmental injustice that continues to this day. These environments have become sacrifice zones, where people’s physical and mental well-being, including their quality of life, have been jeopardised in the name of economic development.

The experiences of Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation remind us that the people who have historically contributed least to the ongoing environmental degradation of the planet are frequently the ones who suffer the most.

This points to broader, transnational patterns of environmental injustice that affect and fall disproportionately on other marginalised communities worldwide. For instance, in India, Dalit communities face similar spatial and environmental segregation due to cast based discrimination that can be traced to historical and cultural practices.

I hope that my research will inspire further inquiry into the layered, complex nature of environmental injustice and encourage more targeted and context-sensitive intervention in policy and advocacy.

Fives Minutes With: Jennie Wong

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I’m a Project Manager and Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Lead at Loughborough’s London campus, working on collaborative research and innovation projects. I started my role in 2020, right as COVID-19 began. It was a unique experience, not meeting anyone in person until 2021, but it taught me how to adapt and build relationships virtually.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

My day is never the same, and it largely depends on my kids and whether my partner or I are working from the office. It usually starts with a exercise or the school run, grabbing a much-needed coffee, and then squeezing in as much work as possible until dinner. Workwise, I balance meetings, project work, and emails across multiple projects. In the evenings, I spend time with the kids, go for a run or catch-up work/life admin.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

My favourite project is definitely Para Sport Against Stigma. It’s an incredibly innovative initiative that aligns impeccably with my skill set and interest, and it’s what initially brought me to Loughborough University London. The project’s focus on breaking down barriers through Para sport really resonates with me, as it’s about more than just sport—it’s about fostering inclusion and driving social change. Through this work, I’ve gained valuable insights into shifting power structures, particularly in the context of international relationships and the decolonisation of global development work. It has been a great learning experience, and I feel fortunate to be part of something that is making a tangible difference in promoting equity and inclusion.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

My proudest moment at Loughborough is deeply personal and tied to my transition back to work after maternity leave. Returning to work with two small children was one of the most challenging experiences I’ve faced. The physical exhaustion, emotional highs and lows, and the relentless juggling of responsibilities often left me feeling stretched thin—like I was being pulled in every direction at once. Balancing the demands of being a parent and a professional meant constantly switching gears, trying to be fully present in both worlds, yet feeling the weight of both. The two roles collided in ways I couldn’t have anticipated, and every day was a new challenge in finding balance. But through that struggle, I found a new drive—a desire to contribute in a different way—which led me to step into the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) space. In March 2023, I took on that role, and one of my proudest moments was hosting the first EDI Away Day in London. Creating a space where colleagues could reflect, think critically, and discuss important topics felt incredibly rewarding. It wouldn’t have been possible without the unwavering support of Andrea, Tony, Debbie, Aleks and the entire committee, who helped bring it all together.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I love to create things! When I need some head space, I dive into house projects, gardening, or macramé. There’s something about working with my hands that helps me unwind and reset.

What is your favourite quote?

My favourite quote is “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” – Socrates. It reminds me to stay forward-focused, especially in my work with innovation and EDI.

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

This Week at Loughborough | 20 January

General

IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

21 January 2025, 10:30am – 12pm, International House  

The IAS will be hosting an IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning, where they will be joined by an IAS Residential Fellow and IAS Visiting Fellows.

Tech and Skills Builder Series

23 January 2025, 12 – 2pm, Careers and Enterprise Hub (in town) 

Come along for the first session of the series in 2025 of the LUinc. Tech and Skills Builder Series, designed to equip entrepreneurs, startups, and innovators with the tools and insights to bring their ideas to life.

Social and Creative Venture Series: Tom Bostock The Key Fund

24 January 2025, 9:30am – 12pm, Careers and Enterprise Hub (in town) 

This session will provide practical insights into financing social ventures, focusing on the different funding pathways available, from grants and social investment to alternative financing models.

January Copyright Reads

Happy New Year and welcome to this month’s copyright reads. We will be looking at the Public Domain Day 2025, copyright trials, Meta and TikTok’s woes, AI and copyright and intangible cultural heritage.

Happy reading!

Public Domain Day 2025

Meta’s AI-generated bot profiles are not being received well

IP is back in fashion or, rather, fashion is back in IP!

Copyright and AI training data—transparency to the rescue?

The dubious utilitarian argument for granting copyright in AI-generated works

‘Servant’ Copyright Trial Begins for Apple, Shyamalan: What to Know

The elephant in the room of EU copyright originality: Time to unpack and harmonize the essential requirement of copyright

UK government’s copyright overhaul ‘will enable artistic vandalism’ | Meta’s Zuckerberg allegedly approved AI training on pirated books | Apple pledges AI update, but journalists want it withdrawn

The Lore of the CREATe Tartan and Contemporary Developments in Intangible Cultural Heritage Law

The Global Impact of a US TikTok Ban 

‘TikTok refugees’ flock to another (heavily censored) Chinese app

Yes, you can put your website on the Repository

Actually, you can put any digital file onto the Loughborough University Research Repository, no matter the format. For a while now, I wondered how one would go about putting up a website. Afterall, that’s just a bunch of html files, why not bundle them up and create an offline version of them?

This week, I was given the opportunity to try with the Design Never Ends project.

Turns out, it’s both easier and harder than expected. The most recommended tool, HTTrack, worked 95% of the way – with only some images breaking. This was an image heavy website though, so 95% was not enough. I tried creating a snapshot on Wayback Machine to download, which was easy enough to do, but the result looked not so great. I ended up using Cyotek WebCopy, which was perfect.

What all of these tools do is save all the pages and pictures and whatnot, and relink all the hyperlinks to these offline versions. Takes a few minutes to do, but like all things in life, easy with the right tool.

Managing uncertainty

For many of us, change can be a stressful and uncomfortable experience. This is because change can cause us to lose our sense of control. Losing control feels unsettling because humans naturally seek stability and predictability.

Heightened uncertainty in both our work and home lives can push us into change fatigue. Change fatigue is a feeling of exhaustion and frustration that you might experience when undergoing frequent or complex changes in life. This can lead to decreased motivation, procrastination, and withdrawal from social activities.

In order to navigate change and manage uncertainty, there are steps you can take:

• Be aware of your triggers and recognise how your behaviour changes, identifying these behaviours can be the first step to addressing them.
• Face the issue head-on and think about what you can control, this can reduce feelings of vulnerability.
• Identify actions you can take to help yourself, this could be seeking professional advice, setting boundaries, or engaging in self-care.

Here are some strategies to help you manage feelings of uncertainty:

• Break down larger challenges into smaller, achievable steps using a to-do list.
• Focus on the present and think about what’s in your power to do right now, you may find it helpful to practice mindfulness.
• Get out into nature, a recent study from Loughborough University found that among other benefits, spending time in nature can reduce anxiety and decrease rumination (fixating on negative thoughts).
• Every day consider what went well and list three things you’re grateful for, you can use a self-care app such as Finch to remind you to check in with yourself.
• Try reframing unhelpful thoughts, check out this video from the NHS which offers practical tips on tackling negative thoughts.
• Routine can be a great way to feel more in control and reduce uncertainty, this could be as simple as going to bed at the same time every night.
• Make time to wind down at the end of the day, this could be spending some time on a hobby or you could try out this yoga practice for uncertainty.
• Share your concerns with trusted friends and family members, remember that a problem shared is a problem halved.

IDIA Students Hosted by Ambassador Patriota, Embassy of Brazil, London

Earlier this month, students from the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs (IDIA) at Loughborough University London had the privilege of visiting the Embassy of Brazil in London. Hosted by His Excellency Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, the visit provided an invaluable opportunity to explore the world of diplomacy firsthand and gain insights into pressing global issues.

The event was part of the growing collaboration and educational ties between the Embassy and IDIA; and follows last year’s hosting of the Ambassador at IDIA. It was also part of an IDIA Series Inside the Profession (ItP), that has become an established tradition at the Institute loved and valued by students and colleagues. The Series periodically brings practitioners in the field of diplomacy and international affairs broadly defined—state and non-state—to engage with students in a variety of formats, both through thematic discussions on pressing global issues and through the sharing of professional development experience and advice to students towards their career aspirations. It is part of the IDIA commitment to equip students of our MSc Programmes both on diplomacy and in international development with resources that will help them relate theory/academic studies to real-world, practice-based contexts applying their thinking while navigating career prospects.

Imannur Gül, a student pursuing an MSc in Diplomacy and International Relations, reflected on the enlightening discussion with the Ambassador. “We had the opportunity to ask questions about diplomacy, the Ambassador’s personal experiences, and the challenges and rewards of working in the field. Topics such as British-Brazilian relations and the upcoming COP30 Climate Summit in Brazil were particularly inspiring for those of us aspiring to become future diplomats.” She also remarked on the overall experience: “The Embassy’s ambience captivated us all. The elegant surroundings and the diplomatic atmosphere gave us a glimpse into the world of diplomacy and international cooperation.”

Rich Royar Yarboi, studying for an MSc in International Politics and Trade, was deeply engaged by the Ambassador’s reflections on Brazil’s global role. “The Ambassador emphasized Brazil’s priorities in building a just world and a sustainable planet, with a focus on social inclusion, sustainable development, and energy transition,” he noted. Rich found particular value in the Ambassador’s views on global governance: “He highlighted the importance of reforming international institutions to address systemic issues while preserving their core functions, including convening a review of the UN Charter.”

Both students found the visit profoundly educational and motivating. Imannur described it as “more than just an educational outing; it was a chance to connect with professionals in the field and learn from their expertise.” Rich added, “For many of us, the talk was eye-opening, linking academic studies with real-world practices in diplomacy and governance.”

The students were especially inspired by the Ambassador’s call to draw lessons from historical figures. Rich reflected, “It was special to hear the Ambassador compelling us to draw inspiration from great diplomats like Dr. Kofi Annan and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, whose contributions have shaped international relations.”

Gratitude was a recurring theme in their reflections. Imannur shared, “We are immensely grateful to the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs for organizing this event and to the Brazilian Embassy for hosting us so warmly.” Rich echoed this sentiment: “The hospitality extended by Ambassador Patriota and the Embassy staff made the visit truly memorable.”

The visit to the Embassy of Brazil stands out as a significant milestone for the students, bridging the gap between their academic studies and professional aspirations. Opportunities like these continue to inspire and prepare the next generation of diplomats and leaders.

This Week at Loughborough | 13 January

General

‘Extra Help’ Workshop at the Mathematics Learning Support Centre

13 January 2025, 4 – 5pm, Schofield Building

Are you ready to ace your exams? The Mathematics Learning Support Centre is here to help! From 13 – 17 January, join their ‘Extra Help’ Workshop.

University Choir Taster Session

13 January 2025, 7 – 9pm, Cope Auditorium

Are you considering joining the University Choir but don’t know if it’s for you? For the first two weeks of term the Choir are running their rehearsals as taster sessions. Potential new members can come along and give it a go before joining.

IAS Seminar: Disasters, Duties and Dependencies

15 January 2025, 12 – 1pm, International House

IAS Visiting Fellow Dr Tanja D. Hendriks delivers a seminar on their research.

Monad (exhibition)

17 January 2025, 12 – 2pm, Martin Hall Gallery   

An exhibition by two current Fine Art students, exploring their experiences working internationally. This exhibition is open until 31 January 2025.

IAS Friends and Fellows Coffee Morning

21 January 2025, 10:30am – 12pm, International House

If you would like to speak to a Wellbeing Advisor please come along to the Library for a drop-in appointment.

Five recommendations for successful school-based data collection

This blogpost was written by Natasha Guy. Natasha is a research assistant in the Centre for Early Mathematics Learning at Loughborough University. She is a former primary school teacher and SENDCO, working in schools across Manchester, Salford and Nottingham. Natasha is interested in mathematics research that holds practical relevance in the primary classroom. She has been involved in projects aiming to understand children’s learning of multiplication facts as well as the barriers to teacher engagement with research. Currently, Natasha is involved with projects exploring the early mathematical skills causally related to mathematics learning. There is a link to read more about Natasha’s work at the end of this blogpost. Blogpost edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott.

In this blogpost, Natasha reflects on her experiences of collecting data for a research project investigating multiplication tables (project website linked at the end of this blogpost), identifying five easy-to-adopt strategies for successful data collection with young children.

Introduction

There were big smiles on the children’s faces. Some whispered, “Yes!” while pumping their fist. I admit this was an unexpected reaction to four researchers walking into a Year 3 classroom laden with iPads ready for the next round of multiplication practice, but we were delighted! We had met the children twice before. On the first occasion, we asked them to complete several paper and pencil tasks – all maths-related. The second time, we introduced them to the iPads and our new ‘game’ – Treasure Chest Tables. Over two weeks, the children played this game six times to help us understand their multiplication practice. Would their enthusiasm last? Thankfully, yes (on the whole!). An even greater surprise was when one of our participating schools presented us with a thank-you card from the staff and children. Not only had the children enjoyed participating, but teachers had too. How did we achieve this? This blogpost outlines five recommendations for successful school-based data collection.

1. Make it relevant in the classroom

Schools are required to cover a lot of content to meet curriculum demands. We wanted to ensure that the schools we worked with could clearly see how our study would support that. Our research aim was to understand more about children’s practice of multiplication. Currently, teachers in Years 3 and 4 spend time preparing children for the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) – a statutory assessment of multiplication recall taken towards the end of Year 4. We made sure we had a clear understanding of the maths curriculum for this age group and developed our study with this in mind. We consulted with lower Key Stage 2 teachers on how children practice multiplication in the classroom, researched apps that support multiplication practice, and gathered teacher feedback during task development. By the time we were ready to recruit our partner schools, we were clear on the purpose of the study from both a research and practice perspective and could confidently relay this.

2. Keep the kids happy

The great (and terrifying) thing about children is they quickly tell you if something isn’t working for them. Our study included a pre-test, a two-week intervention period, and a post-test session. In developing these tasks, understanding the variability in 7–8 year-olds’ maths skills was vital. We were able to include the right mix of easier and more challenging items allowing children to successfully engage with the tasks, while giving us the variance we needed. Language was important too. One task included word-based multiplication problems. The wording for these was carefully matched to that commonly used in the classroom ensuring the data reflected children’s true mathematical ability.

We also developed a gamified app for the intervention phase. Again, we took great care in making this engaging for the children. We carefully considered the difficulty of the maths content (including different levels appropriate for different abilities), the aesthetic of the app, and the inclusion of a reward system. Combined, we created something that most children were excited to play for the duration of the intervention. This made the whole experience of data collection pleasurable for everyone.

3. Be realistic about time commitments

Schools are busy places, and a good understanding of how they operate is important. Before rushing into schools for data collection, we needed to know, for example, what time demands were realistic for schools without compromising the robust quality of the research project. We gave careful consideration to developing testing sessions that (i) fit easily into a class timetable, (ii) were long enough to capture the data we needed, and (iii) were age appropriate in length to ensure children’s attention was sustained. It was also important to allow time within the data collection schedule for flexibility and unexpected surprises. Things crop up in schools all the time that require plans to be altered. The wriggle room we planned into our testing schedule meant that when the inevitable requests came through from schools to change times and dates of sessions, we were able to accommodate that without compromising the project in any way.

4. Be clear on classroom management

Whole class testing is an efficient method of data collection. Provided children are mature enough to work through tasks independently, 20-30 good quality data points can be gathered in one session. However, despite its efficiency, it is not without risk. If something goes awry during a testing session, making up that session is much more complicated. When working with 30 children simultaneously, effective classroom management is vital. This was where my experience as a primary school teacher really came to the fore, enabling me to dust-off my classroom management skills and highlighting the value of having individuals with practical teaching experience within a research team. Throughout each session, children were focused, engaged and clear on what was expected of them. Because of this, sessions ran smoothly, staff and children enjoyed them, and high-quality data was gathered.

Clearly it is not realistic for all research teams to include an experienced teacher and therefore classroom management may not be within the skill set of the team. Fortunately, it is within the skill set of school-based staff. If they are clear on what each session will look like, teachers will likely be willing and able to support where needed. Ensuring both school and research staff know what is expected throughout the project greatly reduces the chances of things going wrong; something which is in everyone’s interest!

5. Take schools on the journey with you

The effort we put into creating a practical and relevant project was worth it. Children were engaged throughout, and staff gave positive feedback. However, we wanted schools to continue benefiting from the project after data collection. For us, this meant providing meaningful feedback as soon as we could. The nature of research often involves long periods of time between data collection and any outputs or publications. This is not helpful to schools that need feedback sooner for it to be useful – children progress in their learning very quickly. We therefore analysed children’s maths-based data from the pre and post-test sessions and produced reports for each school highlighting general areas of learning that classes were secure with or needed more work on.

Ethical consideration does need to be given to the types of information that is shared. We were careful to only provide similar information to that teachers would already be gathering on the children, and details of this were carefully relayed to parents during the consent process. We were hopeful this information could be used to supplement ongoing teacher assessments and support future teaching and learning. We are now analysing our data and considering how to share our findings. We will continue to update partner schools on our outputs. Additionally, we are considering the best places for dissemination, for example, practitioner-facing journals and conferences attended by educators. We want to ensure our key messages reach those who can improve children’s multiplication fact learning.

Summary

Asking schools to commit to a research project is no small thing. However, considering the relevance of the study, creating engaging tasks, being prepared for shifts in timelines and classroom behaviour, and creating and maintaining positive communication with partner schools are five things that can support a successful school-based project.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the schools, teachers and children for their participation and enthusiasm throughout the project that I discussed in this blogpost. I would also like to thank the principal investigators on this project, Professors Camilla Gilmore and Lucy Cragg, for their support and encouragement.

Five Minutes With: Karishma Joshi

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

C-DICE Project Administrator, I have been at Loughborough nearly 11 years.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

My day kicks off by making sure I’m fully stocked with snacks and water – essentials to keep me going! Once I’m logged in, I dive into organising my inbox by priority, tackling whatever comes my way in between meetings. It’s a dynamic flow of predictability and unpredictability that keeps things fresh and exciting!

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

Having worked around the University in different roles, the Centre for Postdoctoral Researchers in Infrastructure, Cities and Energy (C-DICE) which is a research project funded by Research England has been my favourite project I’ve worked on. This project has given me a unique perspective into the research side of academia, allowing me to see firsthand the incredible efforts and innovative work that goes into driving us toward a net-zero future. It has been an eye-opening and rewarding experience to contribute to such a meaningful project.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

Loughborough has been a place of immense growth for me, starting here at a young age. It’s where I’ve built my confidence and found the resources to make meaningful lifestyle changes that have led to a healthier, happier life. If I could show my younger self where I am today, they’d be amazed by what I’ve accomplished, making it difficult to choose just one standout moment.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I have a deep passion for traveling, which allows me to explore different cultures, cuisines, and traditions. Food has always been a source of joy and curiosity for me, not just as a way to indulge, but to understand the role it plays in nutrition and overall well-being. Through my travels and experiences, I’ve come to appreciate the connection between food, nutrition, and health. I’m also deeply passionate about women’s health because it’s such a complex and often misunderstood area that can be a limiting factor in many aspects of life. I believe in encouraging open conversations around it, as sharing our experiences not only helps break down stigma but also makes us feel lighter and more empowered. I love creating spaces where women can connect, share, and support each other, because honest dialogue can lead to greater understanding and confidence in managing our health.

What is your favourite quote?

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

Public Domain Day 2025

Every year, on the 1^st of January, new material enters the public domain, making the works free to use, share and reuse. Due to differing copyright durations in each country, there is no single public domain – sometimes a work can be in public domain in one country while still being protected by copyright in another.

This year, we will have works entering the public domain from:

• People who died in 1954, for countries with a copyright protection term of lifetime of the creator + 70 years (UK, Russia, most of the EU)
• People who died in 1974, for countries with a copyright protection of lifetime of the creator + 50 years (New Zealand, most of Africa and Asia)
• Films and books as well as artworks published in 1929 in the United States.

Before we dive into the artists and works which have entered the public domain, lets have a look at what the public domain is.

The public domain is a term used to describe works for which copyright protection has expired or where the creator has decided to relinquish copyright protection. In the UK, the standard term for copyright protection is lifetime of the creator plus 70 years.

It is important to highlight here that new publications of public domain materials, will receive new copyright protection. As such, if you want to use material which is in the public domain, you have to be careful to use the material to which the copyright has expired and not any recent publications.

As an example, Mickey Mouse’s first depiction in “Steamboat Willie” has entered the public domain in 2024, however, newer representations of Mickey and Minnie are still protected. Be aware that some cartoon characters are also protected as trademarks, which does not expire. Currently, Disney has over 500 trademarks at EU level.

Let’s have a look at some names and works that have entered the public domain this year.

And many, many more works. We also have some more Mickey and Minnie Mouse versions entering the public domain, as well as Popeye and Tintin, the 1929 versions of these characters to be precise.

If you would like to read more about the public domain, Duke University Law School, explains it very well in their blog post Public Domain Day 2025. The blog post is mainly about material becoming available in the US.

More about the beauty of the public domain can be found on The Public Domain Review webpage.

Webinars and whatnots - December 2024

Open Research Week 2025 from Edge Hill University, the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, and the University of Essex. 24-27 February. Free webinars, registrations now open!

Capturing Creativity Week 2024: Presentation by British Library: Collecting Emerging Formats at the British Library. 16 January 2025, from 11.00 – 12.00 GMT. Free webinar.

Wiley’s Open Access Week 2024 recordings available

Celebrate the Festive Season with Loughborough's Christmas Activities!

The Christmas season is upon us, and we’re thrilled to unveil our Loughborough Festivities Programme for the Christmas period. If you’re staying in Loughborough over the break, we’ve got an exciting range of activities and events planned to keep you feeling festive.

Whether you’re in the mood for exploring, creating, or just relaxing and having fun with friends, there’s something for everyone. From trips to magical Christmas markets to sports tournaments, arts and crafts, and even a New Year’s Eve event, you’re spoilt for choice.

What’s on this Christmas?

• Friday 20th December: Mixed Netball Tournament
  Enjoy some friendly competition in this sports event.
  Bookings open one week before via the Loughborough Sports App
• Tuesday 24th December: ISE Christmas Eve Fun and Games
  Get into the Christmas spirit with a fun-filled day of activities at ISE.
  Book your place
• Thursday 26th December: Boxing Day Bingo and Lunch
  Join us for a cosy post-Christmas celebration with bingo and lunch.
  Book your place
• Tuesday 31st December: The Big New Year’s Quiz
  End 2024 with a fun quiz to test your knowledge of the year’s biggest moments.
  Book your place
• Friday 3rd January 2025: Welcome to 2025 – Free Lunch!
  Ring in 2025 the right way with friends and a free lunch.
  Book your place

But that’s not all! There are over 20 other events lined up over the Christmas period to ensure you have the most wonderful break.

MSc User Experience and Design student, Adit, said this about our Christmas activity programme last year: “The Christmas events held at University over the break really helped us international students feel less homesick. It also gave us a chance to mingle and make new friends.”

To view the full schedule and secure your spot, visit our website. Some events are free, while others have a small cost, so be sure to check the details for each. Don’t wait too long – some events are very popular, and spaces fill up quickly!

We’re so excited to celebrate Christmas with you.

See you there!

From the Vice-Chancellor – December 2024

In my last newsletter of 2024: a new global sport partnership, supporting scholars at risk around the world, our winter degree ceremonies, new senior staff appointments and a look back on our achievements this year.

New global partnership agreement to drive equality in sport  

Earlier this month we agreed a landmark international partnership with The Global Observatory for Gender Equality and Sport (the GO) to drive the elevation of activities connected to women’s sport.

The GO initiative commissions and collates research and expertise to advance gender equality and empower women and girls in and through physical education, physical activity and sport. For example, it supports a programme that uses football as a vehicle to help girls in Nepal discuss the personal, cultural and social issues they face. The GO originated from Loughborough’s UNESCO Chair in Sport, Physical Activity and Education.

Loughborough is the first UK-based university to enter a partnership with the GO and will build on the already successful research and innovation projects related to advancing gender equality in sport globally delivered by the University’s Health and Wellbeing of Women in Sport cluster.

This exciting development cuts across several of our strategic aims: Sporting Excellence and Opportunity, EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) and Research and Partnerships, as well as our Sport, Health and Wellbeing theme. Working in collaboration with organisations such as the GO is critical to developing a truly global and coordinated approach to tackling systematic gender inequities in sport.

Group established to support students and academics at risk

With so much unrest in the world right now, it can be difficult to know what to do in response. We offer support to those within our own community who are affected or concerned by ongoing conflicts, but we must also consider how we might help those who are directly impacted in the countries. 

For many years now Loughborough has been part of the Cara (Council for At-Risk Academics) network, allowing us to offer sanctuary and support to academics from around the world. Cara is a lifeline for those who need urgent help to escape discrimination, persecution, violence or conflict. It also supports academics who choose to continue working in their home countries despite serious dangers, and higher education institutions whose work is threatened or compromised. 

In recent years, Cara’s Fellowship Programme has seen an almost 400% increase in appeals for help, driven by crises in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Sudan and, most recently, the Middle East. In 2023, more than 220 Cara Fellows were placed in institutions across the UK. At Loughborough we have twinned with Beketov National University in Ukraine as part of a Universities UK International initiative to enable campuses to stay open, academics to continue their teaching and research, and students to carry on their studies. Loughborough’s project with Beketov involved digital modelling and information management to aid the planning and delivery of post-war reconstruction.  

It is vital that we try to support both staff and students who are caught up in challenging environments and to help us do this we have formed the Loughborough University for Students and Academics At Risk Group (LUSARG), chaired by Professor Malcolm Cook, to put in place plans for temporary refuge for those from the higher education community around the world. The forms of support we offer through LUSARG will vary and may include financial support through short-term fellowships or scholarships, assisting academics and their families with seeking accommodation, and access to learning resources. 

Our relationship with Cara and our own Students and Academics At Risk Group are central to our strategic focus on fostering Vibrant and Inclusive Communities and to our vision of becoming a University of Sanctuary.

Celebrating achievements at our winter graduation ceremonies

Last week we welcomed more than 1,000 students, their friends, families and supporters to campus for the winter graduation ceremonies. As always, it was wonderful to see so many proud, happy faces, despite the distinctly grey weather. 

At the congregations we awarded Honorary Doctorates of the University to three people in recognition of their contributions in their respective fields. Three-time Olympic gold medallist Adam Peaty OBE was recognised for his outstanding contribution to swimming and mental health advocacy. England team manager Serina Wiegman was honoured for her contribution to women’s football, particularly her part in winning the 2022 European Championships. And Professor Rachel Cooper OBE from Lancaster University was recognised for her achievements in design, in particular her work on sustainable urban design. 

We also awarded University medals to Andrew Selby from the School of Design and Creative Arts, Jonathon Riall, who is the Head of ParalympicsGB Performance Services, and Steve Varley, our Ambassador for the Climate Change and Net Zero strategic theme. 

It is always an honour to recognise the work of individuals who have contributed so much to our University and society more broadly. 

I know teams right across the University work very hard to ensure that everyone who attends our graduation ceremonies has an enjoyable day. Thank you to you all for everything you do.

Senior staff appointed

I’m pleased to announce the appointment of two senior members of staff at the University, following extensive recruitment searches. 

Helen Pennack will join us in March as our Director of Marketing and Advancement, the institution’s senior marketing and communications leader, and Professor Aidan McGarry has been appointed to the role of Dean of Loughborough University London. 

Helen will lead the strategic and operational development of our regional, national and global reputation, our brand presence and market position to support delivery of the objectives in our strategy.  

Helen has a wealth of experience within the higher education sector. She is currently Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at the University of Nottingham, where she provides strategic marketing and communications leadership for the University and leads the External Relations department. Prior to her appointment at Nottingham, Helen was Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Warwick, where she created the University’s first marketing function. 

Aidan joined the University in 2018, through our Excellence 100 academic recruitment drive, as Reader in International Politics, becoming Professor three years later. In 2021 Aidan was appointed Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and became Acting Dean of Loughborough University London in September 2024.  

Before joining Loughborough University London Professor Aidan McGarry was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, the European Centre for Minority Issues in Germany and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.  

I’m pleased to announce the appointment of two senior members of staff at the University, following extensive recruitment searches. 

Helen Pennack will join us in March as our Director of Marketing and Advancement, the institution’s senior marketing and communications leader, and Professor Aidan McGarry has been appointed to the role of Dean of Loughborough University London. 

Helen will lead the strategic and operational development of our regional, national and global reputation, our brand presence and market position to support delivery of the objectives in our strategy.  

Helen has a wealth of experience within the higher education sector. She is currently Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at the University of Nottingham, where she provides strategic marketing and communications leadership for the University and leads the External Relations department. Prior to her appointment at Nottingham, Helen was Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Warwick, where she created the University’s first marketing function. 

Aidan joined the University in 2018, through our Excellence 100 academic recruitment drive, as Reader in International Politics, becoming Professor three years later. In 2021 Aidan was appointed Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and became Acting Dean of Loughborough University London in September 2024.  

Before joining Loughborough University London Professor Aidan McGarry was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, the European Centre for Minority Issues in Germany and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

I am sure you will join me in congratulating both Helen and Aidan on their appointments. I look forward to working with them both on the next phases of development for Loughborough University London and our marketing, communications and advancement activity.

My reflections on 2024

As another year draws to a close, I wanted to reflect on some of our achievements, successes and milestones over the last 12 months.   

It has been a challenging year, both for us and the sector as a whole. I recognise we have had some valued colleagues leave us through the Cost Reduction Scheme, and whilst this has contributed positively towards our financial sustainability, it will impact on workloads. We all therefore need to think more carefully about how we prioritise our work and think creatively about the way in which we do things. 

But the actions we are taking mean that Loughborough remains in a strong position, and we have continued to make good progress against the aims and themes of our University strategy.  

In the national league tables, we cemented our position amongst the UK’s leading universities, notably moving up to 6th place in the Complete University Guide 2025. 

We began the roll out of DigiLabs, which uses new technologies, including virtual reality, holograms, AI and robotics to enhance the way our students learn. 

We received our largest ever research funding award of £57m from the UK Government for the University’s Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment and Resilience Centre (STEER) to help accelerate the roll-out of improved, climate resilient infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and the Global South. 

The OnCampus Loughborough programme ran for the first time this year, enabling 230 international students to develop the academic skills they need to study degree programmes at Loughborough.  

At the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer, Loughborough-associated athletes brought home an amazing 35 medals – 11 gold, 10 silver and 14 bronze. 

With our long-standing partners, Rolls-Royce plc, our experts in the National Centre for Combustion and Aerothermal Technology helped to develop hydrogen combustion engine technology, an industry first that could revolutionise air travel in the future and a huge step towards achieving net zero aviation. 

And start-up businesses founded by two of our Design graduates secured Innovate UK Unlocking Potential awards, receiving a grant funding and tailored business support to help them accelerate their businesses’ growth trajectory. 

These are, of course, just a few of the highlights; our Annual Review and Financial Statements publication gives further details of what we achieved.

Thank you for everything that you have contributed to the University’s success over the last 12 months. Whatever you are doing while the University is closed, please enjoy the holiday, relax and take a break from work. I wish you a very Happy Christmas and look forward to seeing you in the new year.

Top 5 Repository Downloads for November

The Loughborough Research Repository currently contains over 56,791 items.

Staff processed 336 new research deposits during November 2024. The 5 most downloaded articles from the repository are below. These figures come from IRUS UK, a JISC funded service that provides standardised statistical tools for measuring institutional repositories.

• Banerjee, D.K. (1986). Water pollution and human health. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/29242 Downloads 216
• Furlan-Tassara, Marco (2024). Scaling of tyre model parameters as a function of road surface roughness. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.26174/thesis.lboro.27801915.v1 Downloads 183
• Pitcher, Jane; Wijers, Marjan (2014). The impact of different regulatory models on the labour conditions, safety and welfare of indoor-based sex workers. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/14539 Downloads 172
• Abdulwahed, Mahmoud; Nagy, Zoltan (2009). Applying Kolb’s experiential learning cycle for laboratory education. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/5412 Downloads 170
• Hignett, Sue; McDermott, Hilary (2015). Qualitative methodology for ergonomics. Loughborough University. Chapter. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/23558 Downloads 167

We have three new papers appearing in the top 5 and a real mix of item types.

Over half of the collection are articles or conference contributions and they make up 76% of the November downloads. However, if you divide the downloads by the number of items to assess the performance of each item type, Reports and Book Chapters are highest (2.1 downloads per item in the collection), with journal articles (1.9 downloads), books (1.8 downloads), theses (1.6 downloads), datasets (1.4 downloads) and conference items (1 download).

So while the majority of the repository is made up of journal and conference papers, other item types are equally valuable and might actually have greater value to repository users.

Pocket-Friendly, Party-Perfect: Save Money, Keep the Fun

Hi! My name is Saakshi Shah, and I’m from Kenya. I am currently studying Architectural Engineering at Loughborough University. As I come from a culture that treasures togetherness, community, and camaraderie, I’ve often found myself crafting celebrations while keeping expenses and a budget in mind. These experiences have taught me how to create meaningful and magical moments without breaking the bank and overspending. I hope these tips inspire you to have joyful and affordable celebrations despite being a student like me!

Thoughtful Gift-Giving on a Budget

Shop Smart

Timing, efficiency, and resourcefulness are important when it comes to shopping for gifts. Different ways to achieve this are by planning ahead for occasions and grabbing deals during off-season sales. In addition to this, thrift store treasures are collections of exclusive and affordable items, helping you find something for everyone in one shop.

Get Creative with DIY Gifts

Without a doubt, homemade gifts are more expressive than store-bought ones and some of my favourite ones include customised photo albums, baked goods, and handmade candles or soaps. Gather nostalgic or memorable photos and arrange them neatly in an album. Be sure to add handwritten notes, captions, or personalised messages. This is a gift idea that’s both budget-friendly, touching, and a personal memento.

Who doesn’t love edible gifts? Cookies, desserts, brownies, or even a loaf of banana bread artistically wrapped in seasonal packaging can bring a smile.

If you want to get more inventive, handmade candles or soaps are remarkably easy to make and feel lush. These can also be customised to the recipients’ preferred scents and colours, hence adding a special touch.

Hosting a Celebration on a Budget

Keep the menu simple

Food doesn’t have to be the largest party expense, but it usually is. Inviting guests to bring a dish such as pasta-based meals, DIY taco bars, soups, baked dishes, or simple snack stations or drinks such as serving a signature punch or mocktail can help spread the costs and create a diverse menu for everyone to enjoy. Cheese and wine boards may bring in feelings of the festive season and can also be created in a budget-friendly manner, without the need to buy expensive wines and charcuterie.

Welcome DIY Decorations

Imaginative decorations definitely bring around the festive feel, but they do not have to be wasteful and extravagant. Incorporating natural features such as pinecones, flowers, or leaves, and banners and other decorations composed of recycled materials such as paper, or fabric scraps can be used as beautiful decorations without having to spend too much. Fairy lights, candles, unused jars, and different items can all be brought together cohesively for a cozy and warm vibe.

Celebrations often feature cultural and family traditions, but I have learned to simplify and adapt to budget-conscious traditions and events without losing the essence and meaning of the celebration. For holidays, it is okay to focus on one or two important beliefs instead of trying to do everything. One of the most memorable budget-friendly rituals that my family and I have embraced over the years is “Secret Santa” during the holidays which allows us to secretly gift another member of the family while keeping a budget in mind. It is a simple and yet pleasant way to ensure everyone receives a gift without overspending.

Final Thoughts

Saving money doesn’t have to mean sacrificing the pleasure of celebrating or giving gifts. Your loved ones will treasure the meaningful experiences you create with a little imagination and preparation. It’s the effort and consideration you put in not the cost that matters most. Therefore, keep in mind that connection and celebration are at the core of these acts, whether it be through a handmade gift a shared meal, or a casual get-together.

Budget-Friendly Gift Giving: Creative Ways to Show You Care Without Breaking the Bank

Hi, I’m Lily, an English student in my second year at Loughborough University from Essex! As Christmas approaches, I am here to share some tips for Christmas shopping and celebrating the holidays on a student budget. Being a student, especially at the end of term, means having to be mindful of our finances, but trust me, you don’t need to spend a fortune to give great gifts. Whether you’re buying presents for friends or hosting a Christmas celebration, here are some of my favourite ways to keep costs low whilst still making Christmas special!

Student Discounts: Maximise Your Savings

Being a student means you’re eligible for loads of discounts, so take full advantage of them during the Christmas shopping season! All these discounts are accessible on both Unidays and Student Beans.

• Online shopping: Websites such as ASOS, Boohoo, and PrettyLittleThing offer student discounts of 10-20%. You can apply your discount to both clothing and accessories, so it’s easy to find affordable gifts for your friends.
• Food & Drink: If you’re planning to take someone out for a festive meal, check out places like Bill’s (20% off total bill), Pizza Express (£7.95 pizza), or Franco Manca (£9.95 pizza and drink), which all offer student discounts. A meal out can make a great, affordable Christmas gift or a way to celebrate with friends.
• Entertainment & Experiences: Don’t forget about experiences! Many cinemas, like Vue and ODEON, offer student discounts, and apps like UNiDAYS have a lot of other student-friendly deals for activities like bowling, theme parks, or comedy shows.

Outlet Shopping: Find Branded Gifts Without the Price Tag

One of the best-kept secrets for student Christmas shopping is outlet shopping. Outlet stores are filled with discounted items from big-name brands, and with a little digging, you can find some fantastic deals that make for great Christmas gifts.

• Fashion & Accessories: If your friends love fashion, you can find stylish gifts like jackets, scarves, or even branded bags at outlets like Nike, Levi’s, or Adidas. I’ve managed to find some amazing Christmas presents at these places, and the best part is that they’re usually up to 70% off retail prices.
• Homeware & Decor: A lot of outlets sell home goods like candles, mugs, or small decor items at reduced prices. These make lovely, inexpensive gifts for roommates or friends who enjoy decorating their space.
• Sales & Clearance: Always check out the sales racks; some of the best finds are tucked away on clearance. You’d be surprised at how much you can save by shopping smart!

Secret Santa: The Ultimate Budget-Friendly Tradition 

If you have a friend group or a family that loves exchanging gifts, Secret Santa is a perfect way to keep costs down while still showing your appreciation for one another. Secret Santa exchanges not only help keep the gift-giving manageable but also make the holiday season a bit more fun and exciting!

• Set a Budget: Agree on a price limit, such as £10-£15. With this fixed amount, you can focus on finding something personal and thoughtful, rather than stressing over buying a gift for everyone.
• Get Creative: The key to a great Secret Santa gift is creativity. It doesn’t matter if it’s inexpensive; what counts is the thought behind it. Consider small, personalised gifts like a handmade mug, a quirky notebook, or even a funny, personalised playlist.
• DIY Ideas: If you’re really strapped for cash, you could also give something you made yourself—like a custom photo album, some homemade cakes or brownies, or a coupon book for things like “one free coffee” or “movie night in.”

Charity Shops: Unique and Meaningful Gifts

Another fantastic way to shop on a budget is by shopping at charity shops. These stores are full of hidden gems, and with a little time and patience, you can find unique and meaningful gifts for your loved ones.

• Upcycling: One of my favourite things to do is buy cheap photo frames or vases from charity shops and then add a personal touch by painting or decorating them. A quick upcycle can turn a £2 frame into something that looks like it came from a high-end store, and it’s fun to make!
• Books & Records: If you know someone who’s into reading or music or puzzles, charity shops are perfect for finding second-hand gifts without the price tag.
• Home Decor: Whether it’s a retro mug, a cosy throw, or a quirky piece of decor, charity shops often have a great selection of unique items that would make perfect Christmas presents. Plus, you’re supporting a good cause by shopping there.

Experience Gifts: Create Memories Without Spending Much

Sometimes the best gifts aren’t things — they’re experiences. If you’re trying to stay within a tight budget, think about giving the gift of an experience instead of something material.

• Cook a Festive Meal: One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve given is simply inviting a friend over for a homemade Christmas dinner, a tradition my housemates and I have started at university. You don’t need to spend much; delegate one aspect of the dinner, such as the potatoes or vegetables, to each person and enjoy a homecooked meal all together!
• Movie Night or Game Night: Host a cosy Christmas movie marathon or a board game night. You can create a festive atmosphere with fairy lights, hot chocolate, and some Christmas snacks. It’s a fun way to spend time together without spending much money.

Conclusion: Thoughtful Gifts, Not Expensive Ones

Christmas is about spending time with the people you care about, not about how much money you spend. Whether it’s shopping at outlets, using student discounts, finding unique gifts at charity shops, or giving experiences, there are so many ways to make the holidays special without overspending. I hope these tips help you have a stress-free and budget-friendly Christmas season! Merry Christmas!

A Great British Christmas – an International Student's POV

Hello folks! I am Aishwarya, an MBA student (with placement year) at Loughborough University. I was born and brought up in Bangalore, which is the IT hub of India.

Since I joined my MBA program in October, I felt it was a little too soon for me to visit my home country again for the winter break, considering the time and cost involved, hence I decided to stay back at Loughborough. I also had a couple of pieces of course work to submit in January-February, that would conclude the first term. As I hail from India, where we do not celebrate Christmas extensively and extravagantly, staying back in Loughborough let me explore the UK and learn more about the British Christmas traditions. Fortunately, I was able to witness the first snow of the year in the first week of December.

Business School get together

A week before the Christmas break, my mentor and program director, along with other module leaders, organised a Christmas party for the MBA cohort before we all planned to break for vacation. The party also involved secret santa, where I received cute alligator socks as a gift from an anonymous classmate. The event consisted of a great dinner, which included Asian cuisine. Some of us felt very emotional after dinner as the food reminded us of home. We also set up Karaoke sessions for students and lecturers. Post the event, we all had an after party across some of the off-campus accommodation where our classmates resided.

Moreover, our university organised a Christmas social, specially for Business School students, beneficial for networking. We also had a photobooth session for our social media, which was a free service offered at the event. The dinners at the events had a variety of meals and desserts to choose from, alongside two complimentary drinks. The dinner was followed by games, where some of my cohort involved their little ones, who added more joy to the night.

Uni support

Once we were done with the classes for first term, my classmate and friends at the apartment flew back to their home country to celebrate their vacation with their loved ones. Eventually, I started feeling homesick and encountered a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) as I witnessed the Instagram stories of my international friends partying in their home country. Thanks to Loughborough University, I was able to get out of my comfort zone (and my bed every morning) looking forward to attending a couple of small gatherings and games, which contained lip-smacking pizzas and meal options.

These events were very insightful as I could network with people from different nationalities who had stayed back for Christmas. I also learned more about the British customs for Christmas. Moreover, I was also able to catch up with my on-campus classmates, whom I met in the library to have a chat, where we also discussed the coursework topics and brainstormed the report structure. We enjoyed some hot chocolates and cakes at the university cafes. I also visited Christmas markets that were spread across the town.

Trying new things

Since Tesco supermarket sold mulled wine (which we had never tried before), I purchased a bottle to share with my flat mates. We had an amazing evening, heating the mulled wine (since it is meant to be heated in a saucepan) and drinking it alongside some fried chicken and chips. Some of my friends who had also never tried mulled wine before thoroughly enjoyed its taste. It was a heartwarming experience for us as its spices reminded us of our home country.

Christmas and New Year Parties

On Christmas Eve, a resident at our student accommodation organised a house party for his birthday. We all listened to Christmas songs and drank London Dry Gin mixed with lemonade, which enchanted our senses. The house party helped me get familiar with my co-residents and build a bond that would last forever. Thankfully, I was able to collect some funny stories from the party, which I will cherish forever.

Despite the chilly weather throughout December and January, we planned to visit Nottingham for a New Year’s Eve party organised by the students at a pub. Everyone at the apartment got dressed in glittery, colourful attire to make the party more happening (and capture Instagrammable photos). Once we entered the party, we received complementary Prosecco at the bar. We had a great time, everyone chatted and danced all night long. Celebrating the New Year in the UK was a very enriching experience for me.

On the first of January, I was invited by my Chinese friends to celebrate with them. I arranged some desserts for the celebration. We gathered at John Phillips (on-campus student accommodation), where my Chinese classmates made the arrangements. We all joined in helping make different types of steamed dumplings. I came across a very surprising Chinese tradition where gold coins were hidden in dumplings. My friend mentioned that this signifies good fortune and prosperity to whoever receives the dumpling with a gold coin.

Next Christmas

Overall, I had a great experience celebrating Christmas at Loughborough, along with my classmates and flatmates. Despite feeling homesick, I tried to enjoy every second in the UK. This year, I will be spending Christmas with my family in the UK and I am looking forward to welcoming them so they can learn more about British Christmas celebrations and make the most of their Christmas holidays. I look forward to collecting more memories this Christmas (and New Year).

Studying in the UK was a defining moment in my life

My name is Ayush Bhattacharyya, and I’m currently in the final year of my BSc in Psychology. Originally from India, I had never lived away from home before attending university. So, when I stepped out of Heathrow Airport in early October 2021, the cool breeze hit me with a sense of excitement, marking a defining moment in my life.

The experience of moving to a new country felt almost surreal, especially coming from the Indian subcontinent, where many of us grew up in a more sheltered environment. On one hand, the newfound independence sparked a sense of excitement and possibility. On the other, there were apprehensions about adapting to a completely different world.

Fortunately, I was able to form a social support group very soon, which helped me transition smoothly and settle down in university. Furthermore, I got involved in various societies and subsequently learnt to connect with people from diverse backgrounds. This initial willingness to gain exposure shaped my university life as it improved my confidence and equipped me with skills to express myself in meaningful ways. These activities, in addition to my academic work, made the first term pass by in the blink of an eye.

Although this term on campus was extremely enjoyable for me, the prospect of going back home for Christmas still delighted me as it gave me a chance to relax after a whirlwind two months. My family was equally enthusiastic, and the menu for the first week after my arrival was charted out even before my flight tickets were booked.

I also started earning for the first time by being a University student ambassador during term time and bought Christmas gifts for friends and family using that money. Hence, the overall experience of going back home was deeply fulfilling, as the joy of buying gifts with my first salary gave me a sense of joy, while the opportunity of putting my feet up for a few weeks provided incomparable peace.

Those weeks spent at home helped me reconnect with my family, and I started valuing the time shared with them even more. I was also rejuvenated, especially due to the comfort of home-cooked food and the overall warmth provided by my social circle. All these factors aided my mental preparation for a new term at university, making me even more eager to embrace new experiences.

As the exam season followed immediately after the break, this fresh mindset proved to be crucial, allowing me to give my best effort. I was also excited to meet my friends again in university and deeply interested to discover how quickly we resumed our normal interdependent routines, despite living completely different lives across continents for the past month.

To conclude, as a fresher, it is extremely important to fully immerse oneself in university life and be open to new experiences. However, this should not hinder one’s connection with home because that will always remain our safe haven. Spending quality time at home allows students to understand the importance of family, especially after having spent some time away independently. Ultimately, it’s important to live in the moment and have gratitude for both home and university life, as each plays a vital role in our personal growth.

Tips for the first term and beyond from an international student

Hi! I’m Haoyang Lin, a second-year student from the Design programme at Loughborough University. I’m originally from China. Moving to university this autumn was my first experience of living away from home, and it was both exciting and overwhelming at the same time. I’d like to share a bit about my journey settling in, my experience of going home for Christmas, and some tips I’ve learned along the way. 

When I first arrived at Loughborough, adjusting to a new environment, meeting new people, and navigating a different culture felt like a difficult task to do. The first few weeks were a mix of excitement and homesickness. I missed my family, familiar foods, and the comforts of home. However, as the weeks passed, I began to find my rhythm. I joined societies, made friends, and grew more comfortable with my course. The support from my flatmates and University staff was incredible, and slowly but surely, I started to feel at home in Loughborough. 

Returning home

Returning to China was a hard decision for me. Christmas break is included in my module timetable and that means I need to stay focused on my project, which is obviously contradictive to my return trip. Later, after my consideration and careful planning of time, I managed to keep the balance between my plans to return home and my coursework.

During my time in China, I always kept my laptop with me in my spare time in order to catch up on coursework. So, I think good time management skills are very important to every university student.

For international students, homesickness is very common to everyone, it is not something bad or awkward. If you miss your family and want to go back, just do it. And don’t forget to talk closely with your parents, their ideas are also important to be your reference when you make choices. And more importantly, they are always firmly stand with you. Furthermore, as long as you can make full use of your time and keep your coursework in a good position, everything will be fine. Finally, although the journey back was long and tortured, it worth every moment.  

Here are some tips for making the most of the Christmas break 

1. Balance study and rest: use the break to catch up on any coursework and prepare for the next term, but don’t forget to relax and recharge. Balance is key. 
2. Quality time with loved ones: make the most of your time at home by creating meaningful memories with family and friends. Share your university experiences and listen to their stories too. 
3. Plan some holiday days in Loughborough: before you start your new term, I highly recommend arriving on campus a few days in advance of the new term to adjust your bio clock and to life in Loughborough. 

If I could share one piece of advice with someone about to experience their first Christmas break, it would be this: take the time to reflect on your journey so far, celebrate your growth and recognize how much you’ve accomplished, even if it doesn’t feel like much at first. Use the break to recharge and set intentions for the new term. And remember, it’s okay to feel torn between home and university – it’s all part of the experience. 

My first term at Loughborough University

Hi, my name is Muhammad Zahid Jiwani, and I am in my second year of studying Business, Economics and Finance. I am an international student from Kenya.

Having never lived away from home before, coming to university was nerve-wrecking with uncertainty hovering around me as to whether I have made the right choice or will I be able to settle in a completely new environment.

Moving into university was a smoother experience than I thought. With so much happening in terms of society and sporting events, I never got the time to even think of home. I joined multiple societies like Islamic society, Asian society and East African society, which were all so welcoming and made me feel at home as I got to interact with people from all over the world. Through this, I made a lot of friends and expanded my social circle, which enabled me to begin getting used to the foreign atmosphere a lot faster as I was also able to make friends from similar backgrounds and interests.

Becoming self-sufficient

Ever since I joined university, I have become more independent and self-sufficient because I learned how to live independently away from in-person family support and mastered the basic day to day life skills like cooking and doing my own laundry. Coming from an environment where everything was done for me, living in university halls has been an eye-opening experience for me.

During the autumn term, it took me some time to get used to the new weather coming from a coastal region in Kenya, which is warmer. Black Friday week at the end of November is a good time to shop for winter clothes because of the massive discounts and just when it’s about to hit wintertime, you are well prepared.

Over time, I began getting used to and more confident in finding my way around the town and within the university. A crucial skill I obtained was using Google maps, which made me self-reliant. On campus it was so convenient to get from one end to the other thanks to the free campus shuttle offered by the university. Other than Google maps, to locate the lecture halls the campus map in the ‘mylboro’ app is very user-friendly which played a huge role in helping me find my way around campus. The town is also in a very nice location as it is approximately 15 minutes from university and can walk to town and back at any time of the day as it is very safe.

Finding a balance

As days went by, I began to find a balance between my academics and extracurriculars, like fitness and squash. Going home during the Christmas break also helped me find some balance. Meeting with family and friends and taking a breather from the hectic university schedule were all things I looked forward to during the winter break. Recharging, by engaging in activities like cricket or unwinding with my family was a top priority. Given that the winter break is a short one, I ensured I was able to strike a balance between spending time with family and studying for January exams. This was done by planning my time and prioritizing my revision as per the exam timetable.

In the New Year, post-exams, I was looking forward to the second part of the sport social league, which happens every semester in badminton and football. It is something that I do to keep myself active and busy.

My advice to any new students would be to enjoy yourself during first term and take your time to settle in. The first few months are overwhelming because there is a lot happening including academics and getting used to the new routine. However, it is crucial to have an open mind. I would strongly advice to attend join a society at the Students’ Union and attend their events in your first few months at university and meet as many people as possible. Also, lectures are a place where you can make friends as you get to meet your course mates who you will study with for the next few years.

Getting back into university for the New year, is easier because you are more aware of your routine and what to expect. Thus, in preparation for your January exams, I would advise to not stress much and work smart not hard to ensure equilibrium between your academics and personal life.

My experience of going home for Christmas after my very first term away at university

Hello! My name is Hannah, and I’m currently studying a MSc in Sports Psychology here at Loughborough University. Originally from Durham and having completed my undergraduate degree here in Sport and Exercise Science, I’d thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect on my experience of going home for Christmas after my very first term away at university. 

Before moving to Loughborough, I had never lived away from home before, so this transition was a big leap. I remember feeling excited to move away from home, yet also a bit nervous for what was to come. It was a new chapter, and while I was eager to dive into my course and meet new people, there was that feeling of uncertainty about the unknown. Moving into Rutherford Hall, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. I had some preconceived ideas about what life would be like living in university halls, but being there in person, and experiencing the dynamic environment living on campus, was different. 

As the weeks went by, I found myself gradually settling into the Loughborough bubble. Initially, I missed the familiarity of home, but as semester one progressed, I began to build friendships and appreciate the independence that came with university life. Managing the transition from A levels to undergraduate study, along with managing life away from home, taught me a lot about how to balance my studies alongside my social life.  

However, as the first term drew to a close, I was looking forward to spending time with my family and to feeling the comfort of home again. I was excited to indulge in home-cooked meals, catch up with home friends, and simply relax after a busy first semester. One thing I appreciated during the break was the chance to recharge. I had spent the previous term juggling the demands of university, and the Christmas holidays offered me much-needed rest. During this time, I focused on being surrounded by my loved ones, making time for myself, and preparing for the January exams with some university work.   

When it comes to the Christmas break, I have a few tips for making the most of it, especially when it comes to balancing revision and rest.

Firstly, try not to stress too much about academic work over the holidays. It’s essential to give yourself time to relax. While it’s easy to get caught up in the idea of always keeping busy the break is a chance to rest and get ready for the upcoming semester. That said, I did set aside a few hours here and there to revise; the key is to find a balance that works for you — enough to feel prepared, but not so much that you feel like you’re missing out on Christmas. Remember short, focused study sessions can be far more effective than long, draining hours of work.

Spending quality time with loved ones is also a priority during this break. Whether it’s catching up with family over dinner or going for a walk with friends, make sure you make time to do this. They help you unwind, reconnect, and reset for the upcoming term ahead. 

As for asking for gifts or buying things for university, I’ve learned it’s a good opportunity to ask for things that will help me feel more settled back at university. Whether it’s a new set of headphones for studying, some workout gear for the gym, or even textbooks you might need for the upcoming term, the holiday break is the perfect time to think about what could help make your second term more enjoyable and manageable. 

One thing I wished I had packed in September was a few extra cozy items for my room — a nice rug, and an extra set of warm bedding can make a huge difference when it’s cold outside and you want to make your space feel like extra cozy!

Looking ahead to returning to Loughborough in the New Year, there were several things I was excited about. I was excited to continue my studies, as well as spending time with the friends I’d made in semester one. Another thing I was excited about was returning to a routine. While the break was a welcome change, I thrive on structure, and there’s something comforting about getting back into a good study routine, attending lectures, and engaging with university life again. 

Lastly, if I could give myself one piece of advice before starting university, it would be to embrace the change. Change can feel unfamiliar and even daunting at first, but it brings opportunities for growth and connections that last far longer than you might expect. The friendships I’ve made through in my first semester of university are still some of the strongest I have, even three years later as I undertake my master’s degree.

Accents, freedom, friendships and heading home for Christmas – my first term at Loughborough as an international student

Hi, my name is Kristiyana, and I am in my final year, studying Media and Communications, coming form Bulgaria.

I came to the UK three years ago for university and have never lived away from home before moving here. The transition from living back home to travelling across Europe to a completely different country was not a light one but it was an experience that taught me a lot and shaped me into the person I am today. When I go back to my move-in day and reflect on everything that happened in between now and then, I can truly appreciate how much I have changed though time.

For example, on my first day I could not even understand what some people were saying because of the variety of accents and intonations they had. Not to mention all the Loughborough-specific jargon or slang words people were using that I couldn’t decipher. It was without a doubt a journey with a lot of nodding and hesitations.

However, now I have not only adapted to the language style and jargon but have even adapted them to the point that when I go to another country and speak English people think I am British. Also, I remember how reluctant I was to speak to new people and make friends outside my halls of residence. Now I communicate with people with ease, enjoy meeting new people and have numerous friends across campus.

Missing home – and missing Loughborough

If we go back in time to the first semester of my first year in the UK, I remember how I enjoyed the newly obtained freedom to make my own decisions and put myself first. However, although I had found friends on campus, I missed my family and friends in my home country. I was also longing for the sense of community from home that I could not feel in university. So, in December I was looking forwards to going back and seeing my family and friends again. But most importantly I could not wait to eat homemade traditional food again.

Interestingly, even though I was very excited to return home, once I did, I found myself missing the university, my halls, flat mates and Loughborough in general. I was happy that I got to spend Christmas with my family, but I also could not wait to fly back to the UK and reunite with my university friends.

For every international student going back home for the winter break, I would recommend spending as much quality time with your family as possible as you might not see them again for another three to six months. I would also recommend trying to complete or at least do as much as possible from your university workload the week before you go home so you can truly enjoy your time and take a break without feeling the academic pressure.

You might think that three weeks are a lot of time, but I promise you that they fly by so quickly and before you know it, you will be travelling back to Loughborough with so many tasks to complete before exam season starts.

Going back home is also the ideal opportunity to take back with you all the things you brought with you in September but never ended up using, such as clothes you never wore or notebooks you never wrote in. And reversely, consider taking from home things that you thought you would not need but really needed during the three months of university such as more food from your country or sportswear etc.

Finally, I want to emphasise that everyone has unique experience and that my personal one would not necessarily reflect yours, but I hope you were able to learn something, draw inspiration from or relate to my experience. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and I hope to see you on campus in 2025!

Staying in Loughborough at Christmas

My name is Yuting, a second-year PhD student at Loughborough University, and I come from China.

During my first year in the UK, I decided to stay in Loughborough over the Christmas break because of the long flight time and high travel costs. At first, I was unsure about how it would feel to spend the holidays away from home, but it turned out to be a truly wonderful and memorable experience.

Enjoying time with friends

I stayed in on-campus accommodation during the break and spent most of my time with friends from the same dormitory. One evening, we decided to make mulled wine, a traditional Christmas drink in the UK. We bought ingredients like red wine, cinnamon sticks, oranges, and cloves from the local supermarket. None of us had tried making it before, but it turned out surprisingly well! The kitchen filled with a warm aroma, and we all felt proud of our success. Everyone was cheerful, and the mulled wine became a centrepiece for a cozy and festive evening together, almost like a small family celebration.

We also visited Loughborough town centre, which looked magical during the holiday season. At the centre of the town stood a massive Christmas tree decorated with twinkling lights and ornaments, drawing the attention of everyone passing by. Shops were filled with Christmas-themed goods, from festive decorations to fun and quirky gifts. I particularly enjoyed browsing through the creative designs and picked up a few small souvenirs, like Christmas ornaments, to send to my family back home.

Christmas lunch

One of the highlights of the break was the Christmas lunch organized by the university for students staying on campus. It was a grand event, and even the Vice-Chancellor joined us in the dining hall to make everyone feel welcome. The staff wore cheerful red Santa hats, which added to the festive atmosphere. We were served traditional British Christmas dishes like roast turkey, Yorkshire puddings, and delicious desserts. It was my first time trying a Christmas cracker and pulling it with friends was both exciting and fun. Inside, I found a tiny deck of playing cards, which we later used to play games during an evening party in our dormitory.

After Christmas Day, the campus became quieter. With most students away, my friends and I took the chance to explore the campus freely. Another unexpected experience during the break was exploring different dining halls on campus. Since not all of them were open at the same time, the university arranged for one or two to serve meals for everyone staying on campus. This gave us a chance to try cafeterias we didn’t usually visit, and it became a fun mini adventure to discover new spots and menus.

Snow day

One day, it snowed, and the campus turned into a winter wonderland. We had a snowball fight, which ended up being both hilarious and chaotic. Everyone was running around clumsily, but since the campus was nearly empty, we could play without worrying about disturbing anyone. It was one of those rare moments when we could let go of all our usual worries and simply enjoy ourselves.

The snow also gave us the opportunity to admire the serene beauty of the campus. The snowy landscapes were breathtaking, and during one of our walks, we were lucky enough to spot a wild deer on campus. It felt like a magical moment that made the holiday season even more special.

Copyright December Reads

Welcome to the first of many monthly copyright reads. Here you will find a selection of the most interesting copyright reads for this month.

How the EU AI Act Can Increase Transparency Around AI Training Data

Copyright: Publishers in Guadalajara Cheer the Internet Archive Suit’s End

China pledges to improve copyright law

A New Genre of Bad A.I. Art Takes the Stage: Nature Slop

4 Reasons 4 Using Geographical Indications

Canadian news media are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, but will they win?

Economist Will Page Reports Global Value of Music Copyright Exceeded Movie Box Office Receipts in 2023

Bad influence

The EU design package: What’s new? – Part 2 of 4: Relationship between design rights and copyright

Principles for Copyright and Generative AI

Stop using generative AI as a search engine

We hope you enjoy this selection of copyright issues from around the world.

We also wish all of our readers, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Five Minutes With: Rachael Alvey

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I started in my role as LSU President five months ago having been here for four years as a student. I studied both my Undergraduate and Masters here in English and Creative Writing and then in Creative Writing.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

I find this one of the hardest questions to answer when people ask what my job entails. No two days are ever the same. On the University side of the job, in the last week I have sat on interview panels for staff appointments, met with the VC, and sat in various committee meetings with senior staff to represent the student voice. In terms of the Union side, some days I’m doing mundane things such as responding to emails or writing papers for meetings, others I’m working on the copy or filming content for social media, liaising with Halls and Media, or meeting with Venue to discuss event plans for the end of this term and the beginning of the next one. At the moment, I’m laying the ground work for a few projects to kick off after Christmas so any spaces in the calendar are spent pulling together graphics and mapping out schedules for these.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

I am currently working with marketing on a piece to increase the transparency of the Union in terms of financials and feedback. We’re creating a new artwork for the entrance to the Union to help students better understand our company-charity status and know how their money is being spent. I have spent the last few weeks pulling together stats, mapping out the graphic and working out how to incorporate our new comments box to improve student feedback and expand on our LSUggestions forum. The aim of this piece is to strengthen student trust in LSU and provide a space for student voices to be heard within the organisation that represents them. We hope to see this going up in the next semester!

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

My proudest moment has to be representing Loughborough on University Challenge. Despite feeling thoroughly out of my depth throughout, it was such a challenging yet incredibly fun experience. As an avid fan of University Challenge having been watching it with my parents since the age of about 12, to be chosen as one of the team was something truly special. I won’t sugarcoat it – results-wise it went terribly! – however I was incredibly proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and simply for making it on to the show – a feat in itself when we needed to be one of 28 teams selected out of a pool of over 120 who trialed.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

Fitting quite well with my Creative Writing MA, I am currently writing a Young Adult novel which keeps me busy outside of work. My aim is to finish it by the end of this year so keep your eyes peeled in bookshops over the coming years – I hope to be on the shelves!

What is your favourite quote?

“It never hurts to keep looking for sunshine.” – Almost any Winnie the Pooh quote is a good sentiment for life but looking for the light, even during a hard time really resonates strongly with me.

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

My Tips for Hosting a Celebration Event on a Budget 

Hi everyone! My name is Syazmin, and I’m a second year studying Economics at Loughborough University. As an international student from Malaysia, I’ve had the privilege of experiencing and organising various celebrations, each filled with unique traditions and memorable moments. However, being a student means sticking to a budget (easier said than done when you want to throw a great event). Over time, I’ve learned that hosting a celebration doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Here are some personal tips and lessons from my experiences that might help you plan a meaningful and budget-friendly gathering. 

What Worked and What Didn’t 

One of my favourite celebrations was a potluck dinner we threw for a friend’s birthday. It was a simple idea: everyone brought a dish, and we decorated the space together. It was amazing to see how much variety we ended up with! There was something for everyone, from homemade lasagna to desserts like brownies and fruit tarts. It felt like a feast, and the collaborative effort made it all the more special.   

However, not everything went smoothly. We overestimated how much food we’d need, ending up with leftovers for days! While it was funny at first, it also meant some people spent more than they had to. That experience taught me the importance of careful planning, knowing how much is “just enough” and communicating clearly about who’s bringing what.   

Finding Bargains Without Breaking the Bank 

When it comes to celebrating on a budget, finding affordable supplies is half the battle. Here are a few strategies I swear by:   

1. Supermarket Savvy: Timing is everything. Many supermarkets mark down fresh produce, baked goods, and even snacks towards the end of the day. Clearance sections can also be a treasure trove for party essentials.   

2. Discount Stores: Shops like Poundland, TKMaxx, or Wilko are my go-to for decorations and party supplies. You’d be surprised at the quirky and fun items you can find for just a couple of pounds!   

3. DIY Decorations: For a movie night-themed celebration, my friends and I made paper flowers and borrowed fairy lights to create a cosy vibe. The result was not only budget-friendly but also incredibly pretty.   

Feeding a Crowd Without Spending a Fortune 

Food is usually the biggest expense, but it doesn’t have to be. These ideas have been a hit at my events:   

1. Pasta Night: You can never go wrong with pasta. Cook up a couple of simple sauces (like tomato-based and creamy alfredo), and let guests customise their plates with affordable toppings like cheese, olives, or herbs.   

2. DIY Sushi: This one was a game-changer! We set up a sushi bar with rice, seaweed, and budget-friendly fillings like crabsticks, eggs, and cucumbers. It was interactive, fun, and surprisingly inexpensive.    

3. Themed Potluck: Ask guests to bring dishes inspired by a particular theme or their culture. It keeps things exciting, and everyone gets to share a piece of their story.  

Sharing the Costs: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work 

One of the best ways to keep costs low is to get everyone involved. Here’s how you can do it:   

1. Potluck Style: As I mentioned earlier, potlucks are a lifesaver. They not only ease the financial burden but also bring variety to the table.   

2. BYOB (Bring Your Own Beverage): Drinks can quickly inflate your budget, so I always encourage guests to bring their favourite drinks. That way, everyone has something they enjoy, and you don’t end up overspending.   

3. Shared Costs for Expensive Items: For things like renting a venue or speakers, splitting the cost among attendees makes it much more manageable.   

Trying New Traditions 

Hosting and attending celebrations from different cultures has been one of the highlights of my time in the UK. One of my first experiences with British traditions was during a Christmas dinner with friends. It was my first time pulling Christmas crackers and eating mince pies. Both felt so festive and unique compared to what I was used to back home.   

On the flip side, introducing my friends to Malaysian traditions during Eid Aidilfitri was just as special. We kept it simple with homemade chicken satay and added green and gold themed decorations to symbolise the festive season. Sharing the stories and meanings behind these traditions made the event feel so much more personal and connected.   

Conclusion  

At the heart of any celebration is the joy of bringing people together, never about how much you spend. Whether it’s crafting decorations, sharing traditional dishes, or simply splitting costs, creativity and collaboration go a long way in making an event memorable.   

The most important thing I’ve learned is that budget-friendly celebrations aren’t just possible, they’re some of the most meaningful. So, next time you plan a party, try these tips and embrace the spirit of teamwork and resourcefulness! 

My tips for gift giving or holding a celebration event on a budget 

Hi! I’m Natalie from the UK and I am a 2^nd year Graphic Design student. As we approach Christmas day, I’m sure a lot of people have been thinking about buying gifts and hosting festive celebrations and meals. And although Christmas time is wonderful, for some the thought of gift giving and hosting parties and meals might be quite difficult due to the current cost of living crisis.  But I want to let you know that it does not have to be this way. Hopefully the tips I share with you today will help you find ways to host celebrations and give gifts on a budget. 

Tip 1: Lean into your creativity–   If you are somebody who enjoys making creative things in their spare time, the Christmas time is a great time to showcase this. I personally enjoy crocheting, and using this skill I have made scrunchies, coasters, hats and a blanket which have made for great gifts in the past. You could also create a scrapbook for your friends and family filled with wonderful memories you had with them. If you are into photography, you could give your friends or family a framed picture you have taken of them. You could also create and paint pottery to give as gifts, knit something or embryoid something to give as a gift and even create a painting or drawing as well. The list goes on.  

Tip 2: Get people involved- Hosting a celebration does not mean you must do everything yourself. Potlucks are a great way to get people involved and add more fun to celebrations. Ask your friends and family to bring in one of their favourite dishes, drinks or snacks. Potlucks allow new social connections and cultures to be shared between communities. Not only are Potlucks a wonderful time, but it also takes the pressure off having to buy ingredients and make dishes by yourself which can be expensive and difficult especially as a student. 

Tip 3: Stay on the lookout for deals- In addition to using your student discount to get discounts on items, I would also recommend you stay on the lookout for good deals during this Christmas period. Stores like Aldi, Tesco and Lidl have many good deals and offers around this time of year, especially on Christmas food. Not only are they affordable, but these stores also have a great range of Christmas food. Lidl in particular have great weekly deals on many kinds of products that hopefully can be appealing to many people during this period. Another thing to be on the lookout for is reduced items. During the evening time the prices of products get reduced, and you can find some fantastic bargains in many different stores. 

I hope these tips can be of use to you this Christmas. 

 I just briefly wanted to share my experience with celebrating on a budget during the Christmas time. Something my church has always done is share the responsibilities of who is bringing what to celebrations. This helps people to not feel overwhelmed during the Christmas season and it allowed me and others to try different foods from different cultures and backgrounds. We had people bring in their favourite rice dishes, we had some people who baked cakes and other sweet goods. Others brought meat pies, and my family brought the drinks and snacks. It was so heartwarming to be able to share food with others and just socialise with friends and family. And to end off, I just want to remind you that you are not alone in this when it comes to the difficulty of managing expenses around Christmas. I too have experienced this, but I always found it was easier to be honest with friends and family about this and use the tips I have mentioned above.  

I hope this post has helped you discover ways of gift giving and holding a celebration event on a budget. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Finding and Using Images Ethically: A Guide for Researchers

Image use in scholarly communications, like articles, books and of course assignments and theses are a practice that has been going on for many years. However, with the unlimited access created by our new digital and connected world it can make it difficult to navigate the legal way in which images can be used.

This short guide on image use while studying or working at the University, can hopefully shed some light on the matter. Let’s have a look at what images are in terms of copyright.

Artistic works

Images fall under the umbrella term of artistic works. Artistic works can be:

• Graphic works like paintings, drawings, graphs, maps, charts or plan; engravings etchings, lithographs, woodcut or similar; typeface.
• Photographs.
• Sculpture, collage and architecture.
• Works of artistic craftmanship.

This guide will only look at some type of graphic works (drawings, graphs, charts) and use the term image to include them. Photographs fall under a different rule to images.

For more information on other artistic material, please get in touch with the Copyright and Licensing Manager.

Author

The author of an image is the person who is responsible for its design. For a photograph that can be a bit more complicated.

• Photographs taken at any time: The author is the person who created the photograph.
• Photographs created before 1 July 1912: The author is the person who created the photograph, unless the photograph has been commissioned.
• Photographs created between 1 July 1912 and 31 July 1989: The author is the person, who at the moment the photograph was taken, was the owner of the material (negatives). However, if the ownership was subsequently transferred and copyright was transferred as well, that would be the new copyright owner. This rule does not apply if the photograph was commissioned.
• Photographs created since 1 August 1989: The author is the person who created the photograph, normally the photographer.

It is important to note here, that even if an assistant of a photographer pressed the shutter button to take the photograph, if the photographer is the one who created the still, they are the first owner of copyright.  If a photograph was taken during the course of employment, the employer will be the first copyright owner.

If a photograph is merely a reproduction of another work, there may well be no copyright at all.

Copyright protection and duration

Copyright is an automatic right which applies to artistic works the moment these are created in physical (digital) form. You do not need to add the copyright symbol © to your work or register your work (in the UK) to get protection, however, it is advisable to use it to assert your rights but also to make it easier for people who would wish to use your creations to identify you as the author and copyright holder in case they wish to seek permission.

Standard copyright duration in the UK is the lifetime of the author plus 70 years.

Photographs taken during certain years as well as the fact that they are either published or unpublished differ from the above rule. Please get in touch with the Copyright and Licensing Manager if you have any questions.

How to use images

Using images in your research can enhance and explain your research to people. It can also break up text and express text in simpler ways. While studying and / or working at the University, certain exception to copyright can be used to use images without requiring permission or paying for licensing. However, other type of work that you might undertake, like for example using images in published pieces, be it on websites, blogs or in journal articles will require permissions or licenses.

However, if the images are in the Public Domain (copyright has expired or relinquished – please note this does not mean the entire Internet. However, you can find public domain items on the Internet, the Internet in itself is not the public domain) or under Creative Commons (CC) licensing then they can be used by following the requirements of the licenses.

It can be a complex maze to understand how to use images, but I will do my best to break it down further.

Assignments

If you are a student at the University and wish to use images in your assignments for the purpose of illustration for instruction, you can use images as long as you cite them correctly. Please do not modify or change images in any way unless the licence under which they are published allows modification.

There are free to use stock images and vectors in Microsoft 365, which can be used without issues. It is still useful to state were the images originated from so that people can find them and use them if they wish to.

You can also find free to use images on popular Stock sites. The University subscribes to Adobe Stock library, and images from Adobe Stock can be safely used for blog posts, websites and assignments.

Using images on slides

When you are using images on slides, be it for your teaching session, student presentation sessions or during a conference, some exceptions apply.  

When it comes to teaching sessions or student presentation sessions, you can rely on the illustration for instruction exception to use third-party images without requesting permission. However, please make sure you cite your sources, as seen in the example above. When it comes to recording your presentation during your teaching session, you create a secondary copy which is not covered by the illustration for instruction exception, and such is considered infringement. Make sure that you edit out any third-party material.

Same goes for any conference presentations which will be shared on open websites or recorded. Here it is especially important to make sure any third-party material is cleared. Some conference providers will have rules on image use in presentations. Please make sure you follow those.  

Theses

Theses are slightly different. You can still use an exception to copyright to use images in your examination copy, however, once you pass your viva and are ready to upload your thesis to Loughborough University’s Research Repository, if you have used extensive third-party copyright images, you will need to ask for permission and / or pay licensing fees to re-use them. You could redact them as well. More information on this can be found in Keeping Your Thesis Legal booklet.

If you wish to publish your thesis as an article or book chapter, or book, you will have to request permission or pay licensing fees, unless the images are under a CC licence.

Scholarly communications or journal articles, book chapters, books, etc. aka publishing your research

In general, for any type of publication you will need to make sure any third-party copyright images have been cleared. Each journal and publisher will have their own author guidelines and requirements on how to clear image rights.

The UKRI has published a very good guide on Managing third-party copyright for research publications. The document is intended for monographs or book chapters but can be applied to other scholarly communications such as journal articles as well. Please be aware that photographs do not fall under the fair dealing principle, and you will always require permission.

If you use previously published material, many publishers will make use of copyright clearance centres to request permission for use. These usually come with a fee. Please bear in mind that you will be responsible for paying said fee.

Remember!

There is no hard or fast rule on image use, it will always depend on the use. It is always easier to use material that is already in the public domain or material published under a Creative Commons licence. I do appreciate that that is not always possible. Depending on the use, you will be required to ask for permissions. For publications it is extremely important to clear all third-party copyright in the images you use. Read the author guidelines carefully and speak with your publisher about copyright.

Remember that material found on the Internet has the same copyright protection as physical items.

We also have a sourcing materials section on our copyright webpage to help find the right image.

If you have any questions on using images, please contact the Copyright and Licensing Manager for Loughborough University.

Disability History Month: A reflection on neurodiversity over the years

This is a personal reflection of the changes and progression for neurodiverse individuals over the last 30 years, written from the perspective and lived experience of me, a non-British white female. 

Growing up 

My mum always knew I saw the world differently when at age seven I could not read or write, and after moving me to a small school, she learned from teachers how to support me and worked closely with my primary school teacher (who at the time was progressive). By secondary school, the stereotypes, labels and discrimination kicked in, I was too blunt, called ‘stupid’ and ‘difficult to teach’, assertive to the point of rude and was told as a girl I needed to ‘know my place’ in society. 
 
The teachers couldn’t understand that I was clever but not academically doing well. No matter how many times I read ‘grammar for dummies’ I didn’t get it. Distracted and overwhelmed, I often was shoved to the back. 
 
This was a time when screening or formal diagnosis in schools did not take place and before computers existed, so there was no ‘assisted technology’. I felt alone, stupid and the construct of being an imposter crept in. Let’s remember that imposter syndrome, originally known as ‘bike face’, was a misogynistic strategy to stop women’s movement. 
 
I have much admiration for my mum who always believed in me – lifelong learning and never giving up is something she engrained into me. 

Life in the workplace 

My first workplace manager and mentor, Charles Paul, is an amazing man who in his own way supported me to be comfortable in my own self, as he saw my skills and strengths.  
 
At 35, I was formally diagnosed and offered a method of getting support through the Disabled Students Allowance, the mechanism for funding support in Higher Education. Since working at Loughborough University, I have had a wonderful supportive manager who has put in place adjustments, and I am now in my final year of studying an MSc in Strategic Leadership. 

Life as a mother

As a mother, I have found myself fighting for my own child to meet their potential. I recognised when they were three years old that they were different, they could solve puzzles and had amazing dexterity but would run and hide in overwhelm. Asking for support was sadly not enough to get reasonable adjustments and additional support. I’ve learnt the law, been an advocate and it’s taken three years to get an Education Health and Care Plan in place, which is the mechanism to provide schools with additional funding for SEN pupils.  

I battle a structure that does not recognise the harm caused by the school system, where reasonable adjustments should not be based on financial resources but individual need. Whilst social media has played a part in education and awareness, I realised that intersectional discrimination and assumptions still play a massive part of our education system. 

Charities have promoted the positives and the value of diverse thinking over the last 10 years and recent research suggests dyslexia is an essential element of human adaptation. The positives and strengths-based views of the neurodiverse brain are switching the narrative from that of a deficit model yet, the social construct and operational functions are yet to catch up. 
 
Sometimes I have to remind myself that the journey is exhausting and so I make time for self-compassion, but I know I can use my position and privilege to challenge systematic barriers and oppression to keep the narrative surrounding disability moving forward. 

Lisa Brooks-Lewis 

Social Impact and Inclusivity Manager

CRCC to host the symposium ‘Reactionary politics, women, and popular culture’

Universities must lend their weight to combating AI disinformation

Image courtesy of Getty Images

This piece written by Professor Nick Jennings and Andrew Chadwick was originally published on Times Higher Education.

By the end of this year, about four billion citizens across more than 40 countries will have voted in elections.  

Accordingly, the early months of 2024 saw a global outpouring of speculation about the democratic collapse that might be caused by AI-enabled online disinformation. Most of the commentary focused on the potential for highly realistic deepfake video to deceive the public. Some predicted the “first deepfake elections”.  

This was part of the “hype cycle” that history tells us all new technologies go through. Inflated early expectations of social and political impact –rose-tinted or, as here, doom-laden – are displaced over time by the realities of evidence and adaptation.  

The important thing is to quickly get beyond the hype – and the fatalism and sense of powerlessness it can promote – and focus on the technology’s real and lasting effects. These are often substantial but subtle, complex and more gradually felt than forecast by early optimists and pessimists.  

The challenge for researchers across all disciplines, then, is to learn rapidly from events and help citizens and regulators pinpoint when, where and how AI makes a difference – positive or negative – to civic life.  

In the event, there was no apparent deepfake crisis in the UK election, but this produced a narrative just as unhelpful as the doom-mongering. “Nothing to see here” quickly became the new vogue – just as revelations were emerging of some serious cases of AI-driven disinformation. 

During the campaign’s final weekend, investigative journalists at Australia’s ABC News uncovered a coordinated foreign disinformation campaign targeting UK citizens on Facebook with divisive, often racist, material (some of it illegal, unlabelled paid advertisements). Fake, AI-generated images were common – showing, for example, groups of asylum seekers massing at the UK coast.  

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, took it all down as Rishi Sunak issued a formal statement of concern. A government investigation was reportedly set up, but, by then, polling day had arrived. 

Meanwhile, Germany’s main public service news organization, ARD-aktuell, reported that similarly racist, anti-immigrant accounts on X were targeting the UK elections. Environmental campaign group Global Witness confirmed that automated X accounts were spreading divisive disinformation on climate change and migration, in posts viewed 150 million times. And two days after the UK vote, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed that a Kremlin-backed network of fake news sites had targeted the UK, French and US campaigns.  

Significantly, though, the much-feared deepfake videos – which, for now at least, remains difficult to produce – were largely absent from these influence operations – illustrating that AI-generated prose, still images and audio could actually prove more consequential. 

The network included sites that intelligence consultancy Recorded Future revealed in May as having used AI to “plagiarize, translate, and edit content from mainstream media outlets, using prompt engineering to tailor content to specific audiences and introduce political bias”.  

Meanwhile, at the start of the year, a canvassing call that used a synthetic version of Joe Biden’s voice disrupted the New Hampshire primary. A convincing fabricated audio clip of Sadiq Kahn impacted Spring’s London mayoral campaign. Equally convincing fake audio depicting health secretary Wes Streeting emerged during the UK election. 

Much of that campaign’s AI-generated visual fakery, such as the material ABC uncovered, consisted of still images. But, as we have also seen over recent weeks in the US campaign, most of these are not even photo-realistic. Evidently, they can still elicit strong emotions, but the fact that they are instantly recognisable due to their digital-paint aesthetic is due to leading generative AI platforms’ efforts – initiated under pressure from fact checkers, citizens and emerging regulators – to restrict how they respond to user prompts.  

These moves gathered momentum following February’s signing by major global tech companies of an AI Elections Accord. And though still highly imperfect and unevenly applied (for example on X’s Grok platform) they show how public pressure for regulatory guardrails can shape design choices that safeguard democracy.  

In other words, the social contexts of new technologies change as organisations and people adapt to them. Agile, well-informed regulation is achievable and starting to emerge, and vigilance among public bodies, media organisations and policy wonks about electoral threats is increasing.  

The UK Cabinet Office issued guidance on generative AI to electoral candidates and local officials. The government established a Joint Election Security Preparations Unit in early 2024. And during the campaign itself, a simple but effective Channel Four Dispatches documentary highlighted deepfakes, further raising awareness. We’re not as susceptible as we once were. 

Moreover, AI is starting to be used to promote accountability and fight fakery. While AI-driven online microtargeting has not yet taken off in election campaigns, the Labour Party experimented with Campaign Lab’s chatbot scripts to help canvassers communicate effectively with voters, using research by anti-polarisation think tank More in Common. And an Electoral Commission guidance bot helped candidates stay within the increasingly complex law regulating privacy and spending. 

Similar tools are now used to help human fact checkers – at the UK’s Full Fact, for example. Meanwhile, evidence from the US suggests prose AI generators can help journalists provide sophisticated rapid responses to live televised debates. 

Universities across the world must lend their weight to such efforts. They must sidestep the hype cycle to help regulators and communicators respond quickly and effectively to the threat of online disinformation in time for the next big year of elections. 

Andrew Chadwick is professor of political communication and director of the Online Civic Culture Centre at Loughborough. Professor Nick Jennings is vice-chancellor of Loughborough University and was the UK’s chief scientific adviser for national security from 2010 to 2015. 

This Week at Loughborough | 9 December

General

Disability History Month: Screening and Discussion ‘When homosexuality was labelled a disability’

10 December, 1pm-2pm, Online

In this session, Dr Marcus Collins, Reader in Contemporary History, introduces broadcast footage to show how the medicalisation of homosexuality took hold in post-war period and how it was overturned by gay liberationists and renegade medics in the 1970s.

University Carol Service

10 December 2024, 5.30pm-7pm, Edward Herbert Building, Atrium

Join the Chaplaincy for the annual University Carol Service. A time for Christmas reflections, carol singing and festive cheer before the end of semester one.

Create and Connect – Art Cart Session

11 December, 2.30pm – 4.30pm, Loughborough Students’ Union

Creative Workshops and networking sessions for International students. In this session you will create Christmas cards for children in hospital.

Stage society – The Crucible

13 December, 7.30pm, 14 December, 1.30pm, Cope Auditorium

Stage society are performing The Crucible this weekend in the Cope Auditorium.

Loughborough Festivities

Wellbeing Service Drop In Session

13 December, 11am – 2pm, Pilkington Library

If you would like to speak to a Wellbeing Advisor please come along to the Library for a drop-in appointment.

Loughborough Men’s Rugby: Loughborough vs. Redruth

14 December, 2pm kick off, Loughborough University 1st XV Rugby Pitch

In their next home fixture, Loughborough Students Rugby will face off against Redruth. Come and cheer on the African Violet as they battle it out on the field.

Loughborough Men’s Football: Loughborough vs. Corby Town

14 December, 3pm kick off, Loughborough University Stadium

Come and enjoy the full match day experience as Loughborough take on Corby Town FC. Students can attend for a discounted price of £2 if you pre-book. 

Design in Organisations Module to host an engaging, industry-leading guest speaker lineup. 

Design in Organisations module, run at the Institute for Creative Futures as part of MA/MSc Design Innovation and MSc Service Design Innovation programmes, is hosting an external guest speaker line-up as part of the module. It will feature industry experts in the area of design and innovation in organisations, providing students with a real-world insight into the broader question that underpins this module: what are the different ways in which design materialises and is applied in the organisations within a service economy?

For any queries, please contact the module leader and MA/MSc Design Innovation programme director, Dr. Ksenija Kuzmina on k.kuzmina@lboro.ac.uk

Upcoming talks will include:

Cheryl Cheung – Date: 02.12.2024

Lecture title: Designing for Impact: Harnessing Design to Transform Public Services and Organisations

Biography: Cheryl Cheung, is an alumni of MSc Design Innovation, Loughborough University London (2018), and a seasoned service designer with over a decade of experience spanning social impact, public services, and sustainability-focused design. 

Talk synopsis: In her lecture, Cheryl will delve into how design bridges the gap between strategy and implementation in organisations, using lessons from her work to inspire students to think critically about design’s potential for creating meaningful change.

Dr. Clemens Kerschbaum – Date: 9.12.2023 

Biography: Clemens Kerschbaum is an Assistant Professor at New Design University in St. Pölten, Austria. In addition to his academic role, he works as a researcher and consultant at Argus-AI. His research focuses on non-rational types of knowledge and their application in various business domains, including innovation, business development, and the secure integration of new technologies into existing organizational structures. Clemens is currently the program director of the interdisciplinary master’s program Management by Innovation that addresses the intersection of Management and Design.

Talk synopsis:
Organizational or corporate purpose has become a highly debated topic in recent years, both as a way to articulate the reason for an organization’s existence and as a means to challenge the traditional fixation on profit maximization. Yet, beneath the surface, much of an organization’s purpose remains implicit—woven into its values, history, culture, and broader context. This implicit nature poses a critical challenge: when corporate actions fail to align with this underlying purpose, stakeholders often perceive the organization as inauthentic or unsuccessful. Yet, how can organizations and respective decision-makers uncover or act upon their true purpose? A novel perspective lies in the concept of organizational aesthetics, which allows us to understand organizing in a profoundly human and sensory way. By leveraging this perspective, organizations can move beyond abstract ideals and design purpose-driven systems that resonate with both their internal and external stakeholders. This talk explores how aesthetics can serve as a transformative tool for identifying and enacting organizational purpose, offering insights for building organizations that are authentic, aligned, and future-ready.

Prof. Eenasul Fateh – Date: 10.12.2024

Lecture title: The dynamics of ‘high performance’ in advanced organisational leadership and management.

Biography: Professor Eenasul Fateh is a social scientist, psychologist, strategy consultant and artist-researcher. At this lecture-workshop on ‘high performance dynamics’, he will be sharing his  knowledge of the biopsychosocial determinants of “human performance”, founded on his ground-breaking interdisciplinary practice across sectors, including trauma-informed work in clinic.

Professor Fateh is a senior associate and board member of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (originators of the concept of “high performing teams). For several years he was a member of the British Psychoanalytic Council award-winning Trauma Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust (pioneers of ‘trauma-informed’ therapeutic practice with patients with complex trauma), continues as a board member of its associated charity and has been a specialist youthworker engaging with street gangs; he trained at the Tavistock and Portman, the Institute for Psychosynthesis and Goldsmiths University.

Photo credit: Sofiia Vinnichenko

As a strategy consultant he has advised an array of innovators, including Citibank, LVMH, Schlumberger, Adidas, DEFRA, Bureau of Investigative Journalism, bdnews24.com, TheCowgirls.Co, the Mayor of London, regeneration projects in Fogo Island,  Aarhus, Berlin, Deptford etc. In 2002 his strategy consultancy work for EDF received the Financial Times/Arts+Business award for  CPD. He has taught at Loughborough, LSE, LBS, Cranfield, Copenhagen Business School, Manchester University, Royal College of Art etc. As an interdisciplinary artist his work has featured at the ICA, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Manifesta Biennial etc. https://bit.ly/3Q0vN4

Talk synopsis:
Exploring the core psychological, behavioural, ‘biopsychosocial’ and trauma-informed skills and strategies essential for generating, sustaining and accelerating the development of resilient and high performing leadership and management – using a step-by-step, actionable approach.

Aleksandra Melnikova – Date: 12.12.2023 

Lecture title: (Un) Designing Organisations

Biography: Aleks is a co-founder of Cosmic Velocity, a product and service design agency that places inclusivity at the core of what they do. Aleks has led various design teams across top UX/product design agencies such as ORM, Foolproof, BIO, Radley Yeldar, Publicis Poke and Inviqa (ex-Webcredible), delivering successful products and services for many clients worldwide. She’s driven by passion for helping people and businesses create truly inclusive experiences.

Talk synopsis: The role of design in organisations has grown over the years, so much so we are talking about applying it to the organisation itself: how many of organisations that exist today are intentional, and how many developed in a fairly unorganised manner? Businesses are difficult to change and challenge, often due to their systematic and interconnected nature – so where may we start, as designers?

In order for us designers to have “a seat at the table” we often help organisations re-design the table: looking at people, processes and the product itself, changing the business. In this talk, we will look at real-world examples of building design capabilities within organisations of various sizes, and will talk about the challenges and successes we had along the way in implementing design methodologies and thinking across multiple client groups.We will then try our hand at understanding the building blocks of an org design, and the potential for impact – in a game / workshop form.

Reviewers - how to advocate for Open

If you review for journals (or other such publications) you have an opportunity to advocate for Open Research. Below are two paragraphs from Krzysztof Cipora (Open Research Lead for School of Science), which you can remix as you want:

DRN2025: Drawing Negation Call for Presentations

Deadline 10th January 2025

Submission link: https://forms.gle/yNhkShf9YYDpFoXr9

This series of online events aims to explore the role of negation in drawing. By this we suggest that negation is inherent to drawing as a verb and noun.  

Before the first gesture, before its leap, before the best shot of intention casts its arc, there is perhaps a reverence to be found as witness to the surface in advance of the mark. A suspension of dis/belief. An arrest on a groundless ground of the here and now, haunted by the yet to be and the yet to be otherwise. This is the not here, not now, and we await the dehiscing of that which brings to be in the augenblick. Where is it that negation runs untied to its positive opposite in dialectical trajectory? As an unsublated radical, a remainder, always and forever out of reach of the totalising grasp of concepts. Or as an interior otherness, a ghost. An empty origin for this trembling before the page. To place is to displace, and then we leap and the mark is made. A trace of that which it is not.

Each session of presented papers aims to provide a space for discussion, dissemination, and the exchange of knowledge. With the intention of promoting fertile interactions that explore this conceptually rich terrain, we suggest the following as starting points and as possible themes, prompts and provocations:

• How can negation be absorbed into personal practice? 
• In what ways can negation be co-emergent, co-creative, or multi-disciplinary through drawing? 
• How can the relation between negation and the accidental or unintentional be investigated?
• Can negation be politically transformative through acts of drawing? 
• In drawing, does the space around meaning construction present positively, or negatively, or something other? 
• How can gaps, spaces between, and discontinuities be explored beyond the binary of positive and negative?
• How can the relationship between mark and surface be investigated with or without negative space?

Each event will take the form of 2/3 presentations, which address the call’s theme, followed by a Q&A session. We would like to invite proposals for a 20-minute presentation which addresses the theme from practitioners, theorists, and practitioner-researchers. To apply please submit one word .docx document, labelled as follows: surname.forename.presentation and include the following:

• 250-word abstract detailing the research question and proposed presentation
• 1 or 2 supporting images of personal practice
• 50-word biography
• If appropriate, a link to your personal website

Submission link: https://forms.gle/yNhkShf9YYDpFoXr9

Five Minutes With: Stevie Ashurst

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

My job title is Senior Web Designer / Developer, but I’m also the LGBT+ Staff Network Chair and I take great pride in both roles. I still can’t believe I’ve been at Loughborough University for over 26 years but as I have a long service award it must be true.

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

I love the fact that from from one day to the next I can be engaged in very different types of work – from sitting quietly with headphones on staring at HTML or CSS code, to representing all of the University Staff Networks at an EDI Operational Board meeting. I thrive on variety and the opportunity to solve problems, whether that’s a technical challenge of making a web page look or behave the way it’s should, or a logistical challenge of how we take a research project that might have partial information and difficult timescales then producing a clear and focused solution for the target audience, through to deciding whether we have enough flags for the LGBT+ Pride March.

As a lot of people do these days, I find I have a lot of meetings, but I actually really enjoy these. Following the pandemic where we were all forced into isolation, I discovered that I actually do like spending time with people.

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

I’ve worked on so many projects at Loughborough, from webcasting literally hundreds of graduation ceremonies to attaching a video camera to my car and doing a virtual drive round campus, to realising I have built 5 generations of the University Library website! But I think my favourite project has been looking after the University Research Projects hosting and delivery. I realise most projects are referring to something short term that has a clear start and finish, where as this is something that has been ongoing for many years and will hopefully continue for many more years, but I take pride in the fact that (with support from IT colleagues) it runs smoothly and that we’re able to deliver websites for so many varied and fascinating research projects. I love that no two are the same and that for each instance we need to be able to find the focus and reach the right audience.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

Again, having worked here for so long I have a lot of proud moments – within the Web and Digital team and within the LGBT+ Staff Network. But I think I have to say that the moment that sticks in my mind, was leading the LGBT+ Pride March earlier this year on a glorious sunny day, so much positivity in the air and walking with friends and colleagues. The point that stuck in my mind particularly was walking in front of the Hasslegrave building and looking back to see so many people accompanying us that they were still emerging from behind the Hazlerigg building. At that moment I felt a particular emotional connection to the reason we were there. That’s going to stay with me for a very long time.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I realise I can’t sit still for very long, as I interests in painting and digital art as well as writing and publishing short stories. But whilst these things come and go depending on my mood, I absolutely couldn’t do without playing badminton. I started playing when I was young, but following a back injury in my mid-twenties I decided to take it more seriously, getting coaching and joining multiple clubs, eventually getting to play in the Leicestershire League and played matched as high as division three. Having a family changes priorities not to mention time available. I’ve never stopped playing but now I play at a more casual level. My claim to fame is that once during a staff badminton session I played doubles, paired with a visiting player – who never made a mistake – only to discover afterwards that it had been a previous world champion visiting the university.

What is your favourite quote?

“Do one thing every day that scares you” – Eleanor Roosevelt. This quote has really stuck with me and inspires me to really try and live life to the fullest.

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

Graduation: the perfect ending to my incredible Loughborough experience

My graduation in the summer of 2024 was the ultimate highlight of my academic career. After four years of studying through Covid, writing a dissertation, studying abroad in America and making memories to last a lifetime, my graduation was the final step to close this incredible chapter of my life. 

The excitement I had for my graduation had been building since my first year and thankfully it was everything I could’ve hoped for. I spent the morning getting ready by myself, reflecting on the past four years, putting on my dress, and going to get my robes with friends I made the first week I moved to university and others I met on the journey.

My family joined me later on in the day and showered me with flowers. As the first university graduate in my family, I could see on all their faces just how proud of me they were, a direct reflection of how I felt about my accomplishment. The day I graduated was my dad’s birthday and he said that this was the best present he could’ve received, to watch his daughter officially become smarter than him.

I hadn’t been completely sure about university until I came to Loughborough, but as soon as I got here it felt like home. The day of my graduation truly solidified to me just how much Loughborough meant to me and how it had become my new home.

I felt so privileged to be sat in that ceremony, surrounded by some of my best friends and course mates that I feel I grew up with, with my family sat in the crowd filming every part of my achievement. It truly was the best day of my life thus far.

Walking across that stage was surreal. When I heard my name called out over the speaker I don’t even remember actually walking across the stage; I just remember the cheers from my friends and families. It made me really glad they filmed it so I could look back at the ceremonial receiving of my degree.

After the ceremony I took copious amounts of photos to be able to look back on this momentous day and remember all who helped me get there, which was followed by my friends and family joining me at the pub for a dinner. It was the best send-off I could think of to officially end my chapter of university. It also felt fitting that my first official outing after Covid restrictions lifted at Loughborough was a pub trip with my new flat mates and my last one was the same, a true full-circle moment.

There are many things that I am going to miss about university: studying a subject I am truly passionate about, late night library sessions with all my friends (where there was definitely more chatting than studying), spontaneous outings to the union which we decided on 15 minutes before leaving, and so many other things.

Since finishing my degree, I knew I didn’t want to stray too far from my home at Loughborough and thankfully secured a job which allows me to share my experience at university with the next generation. I now get to spend my time talking to students about how impactful university can be, how Loughborough can help them achieve their dreams, and the memories you get to make that don’t compare with anything else.

How to beat the winter blues

As the days get shorter and temperatures drop, winter brings unique challenges for both our physical and mental health.

Winter colds, lower energy, and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can impact our wellbeing and productivity. For some, the run-up to Christmas can also heighten feelings of stress and anxiety.

Here are some tips to keep yourself healthy during winter:

• Get a flu vaccination – Find out how you can get the vaccine
• Stay warm – Cold weather can increase blood pressure and breathing in cold air can increase the risk of chest infections, so it’s important to ensure your home is the right temperature, the Energy Saving Trust recommends heating your home to between 18-21 degrees Celsius
• Take a vitamin D supplement – According to the NHS, between October and early March we do not make enough vitamin D from sunlight, government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter
• Regularly sanitise your workspace – Use disinfectant to clean surfaces and make sure to switch off devices before sanitising
• Try light therapy – Light therapy lamps can be an effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
• Incorporate key nutrients into your diet – As well as vitamin D, other important nutrients to keep you healthy in winter include vitamin C, iron, zinc, and vitamin B6
• Use a good moisturiser – Cold, dry air in winter can strip your skin of moisture

Try out some of these self-care ideas to lift your mood

• Start a journal – Document your thoughts and goals, you can pick up a free copy of the LU Arts journal
• Decorate your home or office with seasonal colours and decorations
• Create a winter reading list – You can borrow books from Pilkington Library on campus and explore their online reading lists
• Create a vision board for the year ahead – Try using Canva’s Vision Board Maker
• Do some winter baking – Experiment with comforting seasonal recipes
• Attend a meditation session on campus
• Create a self-care box – Include your favourite book, photos, snacks, or anything that brings you joy
• Go for a walk with a hot drink

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you stay healthy and brighten your winter.

This Week at Loughborough | 2 December

Men’s BUCS Super Rugby vs Leeds Beckett

4 December, 7pm, Loughborough University 1st XV pitch

Join us and cheer on the boys in AV as they aim for victory and work towards reclaiming this year’s league title.

University Choir Christmas Concert

4 December, 7.30pm-9pm, Cope Auditorium

The programme is packed with traditional carols, lesser-known pieces, new versions of familiar carols and light-hearted Christmas music.

Film Screening: Bajo Fuego/Under Siege

5 December, 4pm-6pm, James France, CC013

Bajo Fuego depicts the unravelling of peace for a group of coca-growing peasants in the southwest of Colombia.

Fruit Routes Autumn Walk

6 December, 2pm-3.20pm, Barefoot Orchard

This is the first in a series of walks following the seasons with our senses and connecting in embodied ways to experience nature.

Flix Cinema – Kneecap

5 December, 7pm, Cope Auditorium

When fate brings Belfast teacher JJ into the orbit of self-confessed ‘low life scum’ Naoise and Liam Og, the needle drops on a hip-hop act like no other.

Stage society – Frankenstein

6 and 7 December, 7.30pm, Cope Auditorium

Stage are putting on two performances of Frankenstein this week.

Loughborough Students vs Macclesfield

7 December, 2pm, Loughborough University 1st XV Rugby Pitch

National League 2 West, part of the English rugby union’s tier four, offers semi-professional competition, featuring teams from across the Midlands and Southwest England.

Loughborough Lightning FC vs Lincoln City

8 December, 2pm, Loughborough University Stadium

Join us at Loughborough University Stadium for Loughborough Lightning FC’s next home game of the season as they face off against Lincoln City in the FA Women’s National League.

From the Vice-Chancellor – November 2024

In my November newsletter: Building partnerships in Singapore and Malaysia, an additional £44m for the Modern Energy Cooking Services research programme, the inaugural Autumn open day, and marking Disability History Month.

Reinforcing our connections in Singapore and Malaysia

At the end of October, I undertook my first official visit as Vice-Chancellor to Malaysia and Singapore. These overseas delegations are an important aspect of our strategic activity, as they enable us to showcase the University’s research and education strengths to influential individuals and organisations, explore new partnership opportunities and strengthen our in-country alumni networks. 

Our first stop was Malaysia, where we went to the Ministry of Higher Education and visited the University of Technology Malaysia to find out more about their research ambitions in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Their new AI Faculty will play a central role in Malaysia’s aspirations to embrace AI technology. 

We met with representatives from Petronas to explore research collaborations in sustainable energy engineering and how Loughborough could support the company with its continued recruitment of high-quality graduates, and we also hosted a reception attended by around 100 alumni based in Malaysia. 

On the Singapore leg of the visit, we met with Nanyang Technological University, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and the National University of Singapore to discuss research collaboration in sport, health and hydrogen. 

We had also been invited to take part in Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology, known as SWITCH – a major global event that brings together founders, investors and industry leaders in pioneering technology across a range of sectors, including health, environment, digital and manufacturing. 

Three key Midlands’ collectives – Midlands Innovation, the Midlands Engine Partnership and Midlands Enterprise Universities – joined forces for the event to showcase the combined capabilities of 17 universities from our region, with a view to encouraging partnership development and investment. Loughborough’s focus for the exhibition was the work that’s underpinning our ambitions for the Hydrogen Works initiative to drive skills development, innovation and productivity, and the ways that global organisations can benefit from our world-class research and innovation base through the Science and Enterprise Park (LUSEP). 

I was also invited to give a keynote speech at the SWITCH AI Summit on the creation of effective AI innovation ecosystems and participate in a panel discussion on the ways that the UK is building a flourishing AI habitat. 

It is the first time that we have joined forces with others to be part of an overseas event such as SWITCH. If we harness the power of working together, to scale-up our strengths, our ambitions and our offer to investors, universities are undoubtedly stronger in the hunt for investment and partnership building.

Further Government funding awarded to MECS

Each year, some of the most powerful and influential people from around the world gather for COP, a global summit focused on the climate crisis and, importantly, the steps the world needs to take to address it.  

A number of Loughborough colleagues from the Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment and Resilience Centre (STEER), in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, contributed to this year’s event in Baku, Azerbaijan. For example, researchers from Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) were part of an event to spotlight the Green Grids Initiative, which brings together governments, legislators and international organisations to accelerate the construction of the new infrastructure needed for a world powered by clean energy. 

At COP, the UK Minister for Development, Annelise Dodds, announced a further £44 million of funding for the Loughborough-led Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) research programme, taking the total investment to £99 million.  

The additional funding from UK Aid (the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) will extend the MECS programme by five years and enable the team to continue their mission to support 10 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Indo-Pacific to transition from biomass to clean cooking. 

MECS was launched to find clean, affordable, reliable and sustainable cooking alternatives to biomass fuels, such as charcoal and wood. Currently, over a third of the world’s population cook using these polluting fuels, leading to poor air quality and around four million premature deaths each year – primarily among women and children. Using charcoal and wood to cook also has a significant impact on climate change, contributing three per cent to global CO2 emissions every year.  

MECS embodies our strategic aim to work in partnership to undertake research that has the potential to make a global impact and bring about meaningful change. Since its establishment in 2018, MECS has enabled more than 3.8 million people to access cleaner and more efficient cooking equipment and practices, which has helped to reduce their fuel consumption and improve air quality. 

Additional open day held in November

Ensuring that Loughborough continues to attract the very best students is one of our key strategic aims, and the open days we hold each year play a crucial role in showcasing the University to prospective students. The events enable Year 12 students and their families to visit academic departments, talk to staff and students, view accommodation and find out more about sport, recreational activities and why Loughborough is one of the leading universities in the country.   

Each year the Loughborough open days attract thousands of visitors – attendance at our events has increased by almost 50% over the last 10 years and the open days this year, in June and September, attracted almost 32,000 visitors. The events are now so popular that we decided to add an additional autumn open day to our calendar and on 16 November we welcomed more than 4,000 visitors to the Loughborough campus.  

As the open day was held during term-time, some elements were slightly different from our June and September events – for instance, visitors were able to take virtual reality tours of hall accommodation – but having our current students around gave the campus an authentic feel and allowed the prospective students to gain a real perspective on university life. 

I know that holding an additional event in our open day calendar has increased the demands on staff in some areas, and I want to thank you, as always, for your commitment and support in ensuring that prospective students have the best experience here when they visit us. I always get lots of positive feedback from those who’ve attended. Given the current financial climate, it is more important than ever that we do everything we can to ensure that Loughborough continues to attract good numbers of well-qualified students, who will contribute so much to the continued success of the University.

Marking Disability History Month

From the middle of November to mid-December, we are marking Disability History Month, which this year has the theme of ‘Disability, Livelihood and Employment’.

Alongside the events we’re hosting, members of the University’s Disability and Inclusion Network have written a blog to share their personal experiences of living with different visible and invisible disabilities. They want to raise awareness of different conditions, some of which you may be aware of and others perhaps not, to reduce stigma and help colleagues across the University to be mindful of what others may be going through. I’d encourage you to take ten minutes to have a read. 

The Disability and Inclusion Network, which is one of our staff network groups, supports those at Loughborough who have disabilities or care for others who have a disability. They have recently established two subgroups: the Cancer Support Group and Neurodiversity Support Group. 

Our staff networks offer safe and supportive spaces, where staff can share and discuss their experiences, ideas and opinions. They play a significant role in influencing and shaping the University’s policies and practices and are integral to our work around Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. 

Save the date! Open Research Week 3-7 March 2025

Loughborough University has again joined with De Montfort University and the University of Leicester to arrange Open Research Week, scheduled for 3-7 March 2025. Stay tuned for all the detail and save the date.

(Here’s a link to what we did in 2024.)

Webinars and whatnots - November 2024

Figshare and Symplectic EMEA User Conference 2024

Open (as possible) research: Some things to think about when we can’t do it all – Open Research conversation from University of Sheffield.

Don Steward's blog 'Median': a source of high-quality teaching and practice materials

This blogpost was written by Dr Tom Francome. Tom’s work connects research, scholarship, and practice. He also leads Loughborough’s mathematics PGCE. His recent research focuses on practising mathematics and developing both mathematics and mathematicians through curriculum. There are links to learn more about Tom’s work, and the subject of this post, at the bottom of the blogpost. Edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott. 

Don Steward’s median blog (https://donsteward.blogspot.com – linked at the end of this blogpost) is an invaluable repository of mathematics teaching resources. Don’s notes are being published for anyone who would like to go deeper. In this blogpost, Tom Francome remembers Don Steward and pays tribute to his work as a mathematics educator and task designer. 

Introduction

Don Steward (1950-2020) inspired countless teachers and learners in his fruitful career as a mathematics educator and resource designer. He worked as a mathematics teacher and advisor for 47 years in Shropshire, UK, and led professional development across the country. Don was also an expert task designer, sharing his ideas through his advisory work, his company (MEDIAN), and later his popular blogsite (Median – linked at end) where he freely shared his resources for teaching mathematics.  

Don’s hugely popular blog, where he’s published his delightful ‘tasks with depth’ since 2007, has been a source of reliably high-quality inspiration with millions of views from across the globe. The tasks are mainly aimed at learners in the 11-16 age range and are easily searched by topic or by clicking the links on the right-hand side of the page. Don designed his resources to support teachers in delivering engaging and thought-provoking mathematics lessons. His resources help develop problem-solving skills through carefully curated mathematical tasks that encourage deeper thinking.  

The magic of Don’s mathematics teaching resources

Don’s teaching materials were often crafted with hidden depths, but one of his greatest talents was making these tasks feel approachable. To both pupils and teachers, they appeared like any regular exercise; however, while students could engage with them like simple exercises, they would often find themselves noticing and discussing interesting patterns and ideas along the way. Over time, and with a bit of exploration, teachers could uncover these deeper aspects, leading to richer discussions and greater insights from their students. 

I was fortunate to know Don, having first met him when I was a newly-qualified teacher in 2003 during a local authority training day. Somehow that day he managed to share hundreds of ideas from his ‘Median’ resources, alongside insightful ways of bringing out the richness of the mathematics and getting children noticing and generalising relationships. He profoundly influenced my teaching from then on. I got to know him better through professional development meetings, conferences and conversations about developing teaching, particularly on the mathematics PGCE where he led brilliant sessions that were different every time. He was always generous and supportive of me and this generosity extended to the wider community as he was always willing to give up his time to talk or provide materials or ideas for others. Sadly, on 3^rd May 2020 Don died of Covid-19.  

The last time I saw Don, we spent a day planning our joint ATM¹ conference session just before the first lockdown. As always, he was generous, interested and excitable, and I was looking forward to working with him much more in the future. He had offered to support us in developing the LUMEN Curriculum (Loughborough University’s free, research-informed secondary mathematics curriculum, linked at the end of this blogpost), and whilst some of his ideas are adapted there, their main home is his blog. 

I said in Mathematics Teaching:

However, that might not offer enough insight into the thinking. Mathematics teachers like it when they get to see people’s working. So, when Don’s paper notes were passed on to us, we thought others might enjoy seeing how his ideas evolved and what influenced his thinking. Don’s family gave us permission to digitise the materials to be shared on his blog. Don’s notes on tasks for teaching mathematics were stored in over 140 ring-binders. The tasks are mainly aimed at learners aged 11-16 and the notes include early versions of tasks on his blog, some of the paper-based Median resources, and notes, workings, and ideas in development.

It took quite a while to do the scanning – consisting of over 22,000 pages and presented somewhat idiosyncratically. While Don’s blog is easily navigated to quickly find something you need, these notes are better suited to more leisurely browsing. Don’s notes are now freely available on his site (link at end).

 Some favourite lessons from Don

Here I offer some examples of the kinds of material available in Don’s notes that might pique your interest. There are lots of Don’s ideas I might have drawn on here by way of example – I’m particularly fond of his classic median worksheets. 

‘2 congruent halves’ is perhaps my favourite ever worksheet and I was excited to find an original hand drawn version within his notes. [Shape bits, p.119] 

He developed this task over time and a number of variations can be found on his site. For example, if you want something a bit more open:  

How many ways can you dissect this shape into two congruent halves?  

For a while, Don and I were both working on the idea that school geometry could be helpfully introduced by working where possible within the structure of a grid. I was very excited to see some notes he’d made on a task he developed and gave to my PGCE students. I thought I’d lost the only paper copy! This task exploited the grid structure and askes learners to complete shapes to make a certain fraction or area of a rectangle. You can see part of the task below. 

His notes also provide some insight into the level of care he put into developing tasks as he worked on and reordered problems to provide the best mathematical experience.  

I expanded on the idea of exploiting the grid structure in the Mathematical Association’s Journal, ‘Mathematics in School’’s tribute to Don⁴ and also within, in particular, the Length and Area module of the LUMEN Curriculum (you can find links to these, and others, at the end). 

Don’s Legacy

Don would have described himself as a ‘collector’ of resources, but he was also an innovator – constantly tinkering, adapting, extending and polishing tasks – adding his own sparkle to make the tasks shine.  He never considered any of the tasks to be ‘his’, but wanted his work to remain freely available to help teachers and learners. He hoped people who use his resources might donate to charities supporting education in Africa, so please consider doing so if you are able: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jessesteward

On Don’s website, there are many tasks that develop mathematical thinking in interesting and thought-provoking ways and I would encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to spend some time exploring his blog. If you’d like to know more, we hope you will find something of interest within Don’s notes. If you are interested in task design, you may like to see how early versions of tasks (such as two congruent halves above) evolved. You might also be able to see where some of the inspiration came from for Don’s more polished ideas. As Dave Hewitt noted,  

Although he was an expert task designer, he was relentlessly modest and was always eager to credit others for inspiring him.  

Losing Don has been a great loss to me personally and to the profession, but thankfully the huge contribution he has made will live on to inspire future teachers and mathematicians.  

Note: This work was made possible thanks to generous support from Loughborough University’s Centre for Mathematical Cognition funded by Research England. 

Don’s blog contains all the polished tasks, resources and ideas for teaching mathematics to 10 to 18 year student. They are for teachers “who like tasks with some depth, novelty and a focus on generalising relationships and on transformation”. These resources can be used, reproduced, and modified, for non-commercial purposes by teachers and learners. If you want tasks on a particular area of mathematics, then look at the topic menu on the right hand side. Click to bring up all posts on that topic. 

As noted above, we had permission to digitise Don’s paper notes and these were recently uploaded to his site. They can be accessed by clicking one of the eight folders at the bottom of the page. This takes you to Google Drive where you can view the files. 

Don wanted his work to support the teaching of mathematics so please feel free to use it in your teaching. This material (and other material on Don’s blog) may be reproduced, and modified, for non-commercial purposes, under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 detailed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ – all other rights reserved by Don’s family. If you recognise any third-party materials that you hold the copyright of then please email: Dme@lboro.ac.uk  

Further reading 

Francome, T., Sugarman, S., Hewitt, D., Pitt, A., and Charles, G. (2020) ‘Remembering Don Steward’, Mathematics Teaching, 272, pp. 42-43. https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT272/18__Remembering_Don_Steward.pdf   

The files referenced above can be found in 8 – ‘shape bits’ : https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TGCfIFww4skIdAdtQz0sW4BWo5jSw5SZ

Two congruent halves: p.161,  

The newer versions for comparison are here: https://donsteward.blogspot.com/search/label/congruent%20parts  

Fraction rectangles: p.223 

Building on Don’s work of using grid structures to help with learning mathematics, I suggest ways grids can be exploited here n the Mathematical Association’s Journal, Mathematics in School’s tribute to Don:  

Francome, T. (2021) ‘transforming the way you teach quadrilateral properties’, Mathematics in School. Vol. 50 – No.3, pp. 12-14 https://hdl.handle.net/2134/19341782.v1 i

Also within, in particular, the Length and Area module of the LUMEN Curriculum: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/services/lumen/curriculum

where grids are used very intentionally. Some of Don’s impressive thinking can be found on his blog here: https://donsteward.blogspot.com/search/label/angles%20on%20a%20grid

and this has been expanded on in more depth by Anne Watson: http://www.pmtheta.com/dose-of-don.html  

If you want to know more about Don and his life, please see the memorial page here: 

https://www.gatheringus.com/memorial/don-steward/3488?c=973

References

1 Association of Teachers of Mathematics: https://atm.org.uk/

2 Tom’s ref

3 Dave’s ref

4 MA tribute to Don

This Week at Loughborough | 25 November

Webinar: How to Apply for a PhD

26 November, 12pm-1pm, online

Our panel will be on hand to give you information and advice about the application process, writing a research proposal, finding a supervisor and more. 

International Futures – How to Unravel the UK’s Hidden job market

26 November, 6pm-7pm, EHB 0.01

The UK’s Job Market is one of the most competitive job markets in the world as an international student this can be difficult to navigate! This session will help you unravel the job market

Men’s BUCS Super Rugby vs Exeter

27 November, 7pm, Loughborough University 1st XV pitch

BUCS Super Rugby returns to campus as the reigning 2023/2024 National Champions in African Violet gear up to host Exeter in their next BSR showdown.

Mock Assessment Centre

28 November, 6pm-7.45pm, online

Delivered by the Careers Network and staff from a range of top companies, you’ll hear first-hand what to expect and learn how to prepare effectively.

LSU Christian Union Carol Service

29 November, 7pm, Emmanuel Church

Join LSU Christian Union for their annual Carol service with LSU Classical and LSU Sing.

Disability History Month: Living with a disability or neurological condition 

The Disability and Inclusion Network at the University is committed to supporting all staff with disabilities at work across both campuses, and those who care for other people with a disability.  

Members from the Network have shared their personal experiences of living with different visible and invisible disabilities below, each offering a unique perspective into their feelings and the way they manage it in day-to-day life.  

This blog intends to raise awareness of different conditions you may or may not know about, to reduce stigma, and to help colleagues be more mindful of what others may be going through.   

Arthritis 

Arthritis is a condition that can cause symptoms such as joint pain, swelling and stiffness. There are different types of arthritis, and it can affect people of all ages. Whilst there is no cure for arthritis, treatment can help to manage the symptoms.  

“It’s like having toothache in your joints. No- can see if you have toothache. Some days are bad, others are fine, but you just fight through the bad days. You realise that some days, it just takes longer to get up and working.” 

ADHD  

Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is a neurological condition that affects a person’s ability to focus and control themselves. Symptoms can include hyperactivity and impulsiveness, as well as difficulty concentrating. ADHD is often diagnosed in childhood, but for many it can be undiagnosed when symptoms seem less obvious.  

“ADHD to me is like having 15 emails open, 30 unfinished books on my kindle but knowing I could go back into them at any time and carry on reading. Hyper focusing on a new Netflix series or book series until I have watched/read everyone available and then feeling lost when I have finished them.  Its craving routine but then wanting excitement and a challenge.” 

“Having ADHD means that you lack the social filters that neurotypical people enjoy. Every unread or poorly structured email in your inbox and every undisciplined meeting makes you shrink inside because it’s like a noisy room full of people screaming for attention; where every voice needs to be given full attention because it might, possibly, be something important.” 

“It’s like having a head full of crickets, each singing a different song, but you can’t pick out just one song…” 

Fibromyalgia 

Fibromyalgia causes pain and tenderness across the body, resulting in symptoms such as fatigue, joint stiffness, headaches, depression, tenderness, numbness or tingling, increased sensitivity to light and noise. It is a long-term condition which means symptoms can suddenly get better or worse. There’s no cure for Fibromyalgia, but treatments can make the symptoms easier to live with.  

“I look fine, smile almost always in place, but I live in constant pain. I’m fatigued. Not just tired, but exhausted. Balancing work, life, rest, appointments, medication, is wearying, and using annual leave to rest is essential, but really sad. I miss my energy.” 

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)  

GAD is a mental health condition which causes an individual to experience anxiety about lots of things. As a result, individuals can feel restless, have difficulty sleeping, feel lightheaded or dizzy, experience stomach problems, and be more likely to experience low mood or depression. GAD is a common condition, and treatment can range from talking therapies to medication.  

“The thing about an anxiety disorder flare-up is you don’t always realise it’s taken hold until it’s too late. When the spiral hits, you’re already sinking. It makes you live on your guard not just for external threats, but for anxiety itself every minute of every day. It’s exhausting.” 

Colitis 

Colitis is a long-term condition causing inflammation of the colon and rectum. The main symptoms are stomach pain, recurring diarrhoea, and the need to go to the toilet frequently. This can cause extreme weight loss, fatigue and loss of appetite. Colitis flare-ups can occur for individuals with the condition, which can cause further symptoms. Medicine can treat the condition, but in more severe cases surgery may be considered.  

“I do not have the vocabulary to explain how I am to my IBD nurse. I eventually resort to language used by children to explain the issues for fear of appearing coarse or rude. It’s hidden and not discussed in open conversation. Sometimes it can be very debilitating and embarrassing and it’s always at the back of my mind when planning anything.” 

Autism 

A neurological condition where the brain works in a different way to those who do not have autism. Autism is a spectrum, meaning those with the condition all have very different experiences. Symptoms can include finding it hard to communicate with others; difficult understanding how others think and feel; and finding situations or certain external factors like light and noise overwhelming and stressful.  

“It can feel like every day is your first day. Sometimes, I ask myself if everyone else has been given a handbook on how to be a human and I’ve been missed out.” 

Type 1 Diabetes 

Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body cannot make a hormone called insulin, which helps your body to use glucose (eg sugar) for energy. Type 1 diabetics need to take insulin every day to manage their blood glucose levels. There is no cure and people can be diagnosed at any age, although it’s more likely to start during childhood.  

“It means you are constantly fighting to maintain good blood sugar levels.  Too low and you risk hypo’s where you can easily go unconscious.  Your brain activity, ability to focus and speech is all affected. Too high and you feel tired, nauseous, aching joints and eyes. You have to remember to always keep food and insulin injections with you, wherever you go.” 

Cancer 

Cancer is a condition where cells from a part of the body grow and reproduce uncontrollably and can invade nearby healthy tissue such as organs. It is believed that 1 in 2 people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime, with the four most common types of cancer in the UK being bowel cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and lung cancer. Treatments for cancers can vary and can include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.  

“A cancer diagnosis stops everything in its tracks. And it throws you into a world of paradoxes: you (might) feel healthy but you’re not; you are strong but you’re vulnerable and wobble; everyone around you wants to help and support you but you feel alone.” 

Epilepsy 

Affecting the brain, Epilepsy causes frequent seizures which can cause other symptoms to occur. It can start at any age and is lifelong. Treatment options can include medicine, surgery, and diet management.  

“People have a very narrow view of what this is – unconscious seizures. What it actually is – tiredness, sensory overload, no driving license, seizures no one can see, brain altering medication, but also, the love of family and friends, supportive colleagues, learning self-care and prioritising your wellbeing.” 

PTSD 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur following a particularly distressing and/or frightening event. Symptoms such as flashbacks, insomnia, and nightmares can all play a significant impact on an individual’s day-to-day life. It can occur immediately after an event or a week, months or even years later. PTSD can be treated, dependent on the severity of symptoms.  

“It affects your sleep (nightmares), your perceptions of reality (flashbacks), everyday activities you no longer can or want to perform (avoidance), your social interactions (disconnection), your thinking patterns (brain freeze), and pretty much your whole identity.” 

Support 

• Any staff members who have or are affected by physical or invisible disabilities are welcome to join the Disability and Inclusion Network. Find out more about the Network on their dedicated webpages.  

• The University has a range of support services available for staff, including the Employee Assistance Programme, opportunities to get involved in sport and physical activity, as well as policies to support a work/life balance. Discover the staff wellbeing offering available at Loughborough. 

• If you want to learn more about living with a disability or neurological condition, many colleagues have previously shared in-depth personal experiences of living with or caring for someone with a disability or neurodiverse condition on the EDI blog   

Explanation– Proofs providing Insight

This blogpost was written by Saf Shah, a PhD student investigating mathematics undergraduates’ conceptions of intuition and rigour.  Saf has been at the DME since 2020, and his PhD supervisors are Dr. Paola Iannone, Prof. Lara Alcock, Prof. Ian Jones, and Dr. Fenner Tanswell.  There are links to learn more about Saf’s work, and the work of his supervisors, at the bottom of the blogpost. Edited by Dr. Bethany Woollacott.

In this blog post, Saf reviews the literature on the role of explanation and its relationship to proof. Saf starts by reporting theoretical research into the purposes and roles of explanation and how it relates to instruction in undergraduate mathematics.  This is followed by reporting two empirical studies investigating undergraduate students’ understandings of proofs, which can give insights into undergraduates’ engagement with proof validation and construction and the explanatory role of proof.

Introduction

There is much research into the different roles of proof in undergraduate mathematics¹. These roles can be more than simply verifying a mathematical statement (verification), including explanation, communication, and discovery¹. In this blog post, I focus on explanation.

Theoretical Research

Mathematicians often use proofs to gain insights into conjectures and to comprehend the underlying reasons behind their validity. According to Rota², while verification is an aspect of proof, it may not “necessarily provide a reason” (ibid., p. 186) as to why a theorem statement is correct. Therefore, appealing to reason or explanations is crucial in mathematical practice³. Hanna⁴ distinguishes between proofs that confirm and proofs that explain, arguing that solely using syntactic methods (using quantifiers and formal language) does not often provide a rationale based on underlying mathematical ideas and, thus, is not explanatory. Practising mathematicians value proof as a tool for conceptual understanding – like an explanation – rather than just correct syntactical derivations (i.e., using first-order logic)^4,5.

“According to Rota, while verification is an aspect of proof, it may not “necessarily provide a reason” (ibid., p. 186) as to why a theorem statement is correct.“

The Role of Mathematical Proofs in Teaching Undergraduates

In the context of undergraduate mathematics instruction, proofs should be presented and described considering the level of detail, classroom context, and students’ experience⁶. Explanatory proofs can take various forms, such as a calculation, a visual demonstration, or a guided discussion, depending on the grade level and instructional context⁶. Hanna⁴ suggests that the challenge for students is understanding the accuracy of known results and why they are true. Students can gain insight by relating mathematical statements to specific examples, facilitating the transition from procedural to conceptual knowledge^7,8. Additionally, specific proof methods, such as proving through contradiction or mathematical induction, may verify but not explain.  As such, it is essential for instructors to carefully select examples of proof to enable undergraduates to gain insights into the underlying reasoning in proofs and gain explanations from them.

“Explanatory proofs can take various forms, such as a calculation, a visual demonstration, or a guided discussion, depending on the grade level and instructional context.“

Below is a visual proof as an example of the explanatory role of proof.

Empirical Research

A large body of existing empirical research relates formal proof (in the educational sense) to its role as being explanatory^7,9. In this review, I present the results of two empirical studies (a mixed methods study and a qualitative study) to illustrate the main findings within the corpus of research literature on the explanatory role of proof in undergraduate mathematics.  The findings presented are corroborated by other studies in this domain¹⁰. 

Firstly, Stylianou and colleagues¹¹ investigated students’ beliefs about proof relating to the roles of verification, explanation, and communication.  The authors used mixed methods and asked 535 undergraduate students to (i) complete a multiple-choice test and (ii) a questionnaire. The multiple-choice test was designed to ask students what constitutes proof and their thoughts on its role in mathematics – it also asked students to evaluate simple proofs to check their competency. The questionnaire (again multiple-choice) aimed to elicit students’ beliefs about proof and their previous classroom experience with proof.  60 of the 535 students also participated in a written test. The written test asked students to construct proofs for conjectures included in the multiple-choice test.  Then, finally, out of the 60 students who completed the written test, 40 were interviewed for 30 minutes using a list of carefully prepared questions.

The findings suggest that students have a double conception of proof: proof arguments that they thought would receive the best mark or proof arguments that they would adopt for themselves (ibid.). Further, the authors found that students did not perceive symbolic-deductive arguments (e.g., proof by contradiction) as explanatory and saw proofs explained in words as explanatory.  This finding suggests that semantic parts of a formal proof can help undergraduate students derive explanations – from such statements, which is significant in the context of university education.  If semantic arguments can facilitate proof validation (and production) within a proof and are seen as being explanatory, then engaging with such arguments can act as a bridge to better understanding the overall reasoning of a given argument or proof.

A second study by Simon and Blume¹² corroborated the finding that engaging with proving (e.g., validating proofs) can aid in understanding the overall reasoning in a given proof and help gain insight. The authors presented research from a three-year project with prospective elementary school teachers’ mathematical and pedagogical development in a teacher preparation program. The authors interviewed 26 prospective teachers and found that validating and constructing proofs helped the participants gain insight into the underlying reasoning in the given proofs. Participants could create and validate their ideas relating to proof and develop understanding by engaging in the justification of mathematical conjectures and statements. The study also found that conceptual understanding affected what participants accepted as a valid justification. When participants justified their answers, they relied on explaining procedures and their appropriateness, which helped students gain insight into the procedures and concepts being explored. This study found that when participants aimed to justify conjectures, this activity developed insight and resulted in learning (ibid.).

Although both studies addressed the need for proofs to be explanatory, neither investigated the potential context dependency of the proofs presented. It is plausible to assume one proof may be explanatory for one student while not for another due to contextual factors (e.g., targeted audience, conventions of writing proofs in sub-disciplines, etc.). For example, a proof may be relevant for publication and explanatory within the relevant mathematical communities, while the same proof may not be explanatory to undergraduate students. Therefore, contextual factors relating to explanatory proofs within undergraduate mathematics need further empirical research.  My PhD research is focused on exploring undergraduate students’ awareness of this explanatory role of proof by presenting them with a visual proof from Ording¹³.

Summary

In this blog post, I have concentrated on presenting theoretical and empirical research into the explanation role of proof. The theoretical research shows that proofs can provide insight and explain why a theorem is true. The literature surrounding instruction in undergraduate mathematics suggests that teaching explanatory proofs allows the learner to gain further insights into proof beyond verification. The two empirical studies that I have presented here corroborate this view and further show the value of explanatory proofs, suggesting that exposing undergraduate students to proof methods can develop their conceptual understanding of an underlying theorem.  It is important to note that context can play a large role in mathematical proofs, with a certain proof giving insight for some but not others.  For one of my PhD studies, we aimed to corroborate existing literature to understand whether undergraduate students are aware of the different roles of proof (like explanation) other than just their verifying role – please get in touch if you have any questions using my contact details via the link below.

References

1. Hanna, G. (2000). Proof and its classroom role: A survey. Atas do Encontro de Investigação em Educação Matemática-IX EIEM, 75-104.
2. Rota, G. C. (1997). The phenomenology of mathematical beauty. Synthese, 111, 171–182.
3. Mancosu, P. (2001). Mathematical explanation: Problems and prospects. Topoi, 20(1), 97–117.
4. Hanna, G. (1990). Some pedagogical aspects of proof. Interchange, 21(1), 6–13.
5. Weber, K. (2014). Reflections on justification and proof: Justification and proof in mathematics and mathematics education. Mathematics & Mathematics Education: Searching for Common Ground, 237–257.
6. Hanna, G. (1995). Challenges to the importance of proof. For the Learning of Mathematics, 15(3), 42–49.
7. Weber, K., & Alcock, L. (2004). Semantic and syntactic proof productions. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 56, 209–234.
8. Easdown, D. (2007). The role of proof in mathematics teaching and the plateau
   principle. Proceedings of The Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education.
9. Weber, K. (2010). Mathematics majors’ perceptions of conviction, validity, and proof. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 12(4), 306–336.
10. Weber, K. (2001). Student difficulty in constructing proofs: The need for strategic knowledge. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 48, 101–119.
11. Stylianou, D. A., Blanton, M. L., & Rotou, O. (2015). Undergraduate students’ understanding of proof: Relationships between proof conceptions, beliefs, and classroom experiences with learning proof. International Journal of Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, 1, 91–134.
12. Simon, M. A., & Blume, G. W. (1996). Justification in the mathematics classroom: A study of prospective elementary teachers. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 15(1), 3–31.
13. Ording, P. (2019). 99 variations on a proof. Princeton University Press.

Five Minutes With: Sam Grogan

What’s your job title and how long have you been at Loughborough?

I’m the new Pro Vice Chancellor for Education and Student Experience and I’ve been here 12 days!

Tell us what a typical day in your job looks like?

Based on 12 days of work here, I’m not sure there is one…..

What’s your favourite project you’ve worked on?

Ask me again in 3 years! There’s lots to do and exciting times are ahead in an HE environment which places a number of challenges at our door. What’s been great in these early days of my time here is getting to see and understand the phenomenal strengths and fantastic practice. This provides an amazing bedrock for future innovation. It’s going to be fun…

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

On day 12 of my time here, there’s undoubtedly more to come…. My proudest moment to date was visiting the open day with my family and them seeing the passion and knowledge of colleagues, students on display in an amazing setting, and then it sinking in that I’m part of this and I have something of value to give to our university. Very humbling.

Tell us something you do outside of work that we might not know about?

I am an outdoors enthusiast – happiest when I’m under canvas, or in our campervan (affectionately called Ruby). I love trail running, walking, surfing, paddleboarding or anything that puts me on a board, or up a hill/ mountain. Ruby is a 1971 VW baywindow. I’m restoring her and so I also spend a fair bit of time swearing/ celebrating the wins. Its a long term project and a lot of fun….

What is your favourite quote?

I have a couple – its impossible to choose! ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover’ Mark Twain. ‘Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.’ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Chapter 1. ‘Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’ Ferris Beuller

If you would like to feature in ‘5 Minutes With’, or you work with someone who you think would be great to include, please email Lilia Boukikova at L.Boukikova@lboro.ac.uk

TRACEY Journal call for articles: Drawing beyond the visible

Guest editor – James Bowen 

Deadline – 31st January 2025

Submission: https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/TRACEY/about/submissions

This edition seeks to question the primacy of vision through explorations of trace-making beyond the optic or graphic mark. To explore drawing beyond the visible is as much a call to acknowledge drawing as having the capacity to exceed or escape itself—to be more than. The fundamentality of a drawing act is perhaps expressed through its engendering a sense of immediacy; of a gesture, becoming mark, becoming trace. Here, questions around binaries of presence and absence, subject and object, and permanence and impermanence have proved pertinent to the ongoing debates in drawing that seek to navigate its richly ambiguous terrain. Yet to make a graphic mark is also to make a sound and to engage with sensation, thought, and matter beyond the optic. 

In drawing, connections are made between divisible surfaces, relations are engendered. Rather than being isolated, these surfaces exist in relation to their milieus. In this way relations propagate and disseminate outwards. Simultaneously relations are brought inwards, what is exterior and separable to the drawing act is interiorised; the milieu makes its way onto the page. To draw is to make contact, to touch and be touched in and out of the act. Like drawing, sound transgresses. Vibration can pass through a surface as much as be reflected by it. Sound can be considered an ‘object’ yet one that endures only in its passing. An object or ‘thing’ but also an event—much like drawing itself (Newman, 2003; 105).  If the senses of sight and audition share a commonality, it is perhaps how they both act haptically. That is, as modes of touch. To look is to touch and be touched at a distance; to listen is to realise the intimacy of the far away (Bonnet, 2016; 142). 

By acknowledging the excesses in drawing this edition seeks investigations that engage in the apprehension of trace-making across senses. By doing so we ask what might other academic fields such as sound studies, cognitive science and psychology, and philosophy offer drawing, and how might this enliven critical debates into what it means to draw? 

Particular areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following questions:

• In what ways can drawing be used as means of exploring sound beyond its visualisation?
• How might collaborative practice be used to explore non-graphic trace-making in drawing? And how can techniques, processes, and ideas be shared across academic fields and used to generate further knowledge? 
• How might the ephemerality and inherent relationality of sensation be used to explore the spatio-temporal nature of drawing?
• How can sensation be considered a drawing? And how can this be used as a means of practice-based/led research?
• In what ways can drawing be used to explore and enrich ontological debates in sound studies such as phenomenological and/or material vibrational definitions of sound?
• How can non-graphic traces be used to explore identity and difference, be that social, political, material, and/or metaphysical? 
• How can digital and/or analogue technologies be used as a process of non-graphic trace-making? 

Responses are sought from outside and on the fringes of the arts – all rigorous research related to drawing or the ideas mentioned above, whatever your field, will be warmly welcomed.

TRACEY would like to invite the following submissions in response to the theme:

Full academic papers between 4500 –6000 words to be submitted through TRACEY’s online submission portal: https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/TRACEY/about/submissions Please note, as we have updated the submission portal, even if you have previously submitted a paper to TRACEY, you will need to register for an account to be able to make a submission.

Please ensure that you use the template for your submission, which can be downloaded from the submissions link above.

Deadline for all submissions: 31st January 2025

Please include the following information for papers:

Author(s)

Institutional Affiliation (if appropriate)

50-word biography

This Week at Loughborough | 18 November

Why do we need International Men’s Day?

18 November, 1pm-2pm, Edward Herbert Building, 205

EDI Services are pleased to announce their next ‘Voices of Diversity’ event, Why do we need International Men’s Day? They have invited a panel of men from across the University to share their experiences and explore some of the issues faced by men today. 

Whatuni Student Choice Awards review collection stand

19 November, 9.30am-4.30pm, Loughborough Students’ Union

To participate in the review collection process, visit the Whatuni Student Choice Awards stand in the and submit a review to tell us about your student experience and the first 200 students will receive a BomBom cookie for their time.

International Men’s Day Walk

19 November, 12.30pm-1.30pm, Meet outside Hazlerigg Building

The walk will be a space for individuals to discuss their experiences and to encourage everyone to unite and raise awareness about men’s mental and physical wellbeing.

Webinar: How to Apply for a Master’s Degree

20 November, 12pm-12.45pm, Online

In this webinar, our panel will be on hand to give you information and advice about the application process, personal statements, key deadlines and more. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask your own questions live during the session.

Transgender Day of Remembrance Service

20 November, 1.30pm-2pm, University Chaplaincy

Loughborough LGBT+ Staff Network, LSU LGBT+ Students Association, and the University Chaplaincy will hold a service of remembrance to mark Transgender Day of Remembrance on Wednesday 20 November in the University Chaplaincy.

White Ribbon Day: Panel Discussion

20 November, 3.15pm-4.15pm, Edward Herbert Building, 001

‘It Starts with Men’ is the theme for White Ribbon Day 2024, which encourages men to take action to end violence against women and girls. Loughborough University’s Maia Network recognise the importance of this day in terms of communicating message of accountability and support and will be hosting a panel discussion event with colleagues from across the University.

Film Screening – Trap

21 November, 7pm, Cope Auditorium

Flix will be screening Trap at the Cope Auditorium this week at 7pm! A man and his teenage daughter realize they’re at the centre of a dark and sinister event while watching a concert.

Tuxedo Swing 24 Hour Tux-a-thon

22 November – 23 November, 7.30pm – 7.30pm, Cope Auditorium

The event kicks off at 7:30pm and runs straight through to 7:30pm the following day. A single ticket purchase grants you a wristband for unlimited entry, so you can join them as many times as you like throughout the event. Every penny raised goes directly to Movember!

International Students Day: Our Testimonials

At Loughborough University, we pride ourselves on fostering a welcoming and diverse community that empowers students from all over the world to pursue their dreams, connect with peers, and grow in a supportive environment. In honor of International Students Day, we’ve gathered testimonials from international students to share their backgrounds, experiences, and advice for future students.

Nekbeer Mangat

Course: Economics BSc

Country: Singapore

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

I’m 23 years old and served in the Army for two years before coming to the UK for university. I enjoy playing sports, mainly football and tennis. My time at Loughborough as been full of adventures and eye opening opportunities. There have been ups and downs, but it’s mostly been fun and I’m excited to see what comes next!

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

Definitely the food, especially because my mother is there and she makes the best meals.

Why did you choose Loughborough?

The University’s sports facilities and high rankings really appealed to me. I also prefer rural areas over urban ones, as they’re less crowded and noisy, except on clubbing nights.

What’s been your favorite experience here?

Managing the Malaysian and Singaporean Society has been amazing. I didn’t expect to take on that role, but I loved helping freshers settle in and planning fun events.

Your advice for future international students?

It may be hard to grow out of your shell when moving to a different country, but once you meet the right people, the university experience becomes better and more enjoyable. So go out and join something that works for you, something that you find pleasure in, like sports, societies, clubs, or hall activities. You might just meet lifelong friends, even at a fire drill!

Sarjeel Rashid

Course: Mechanical Engineering PhD

Country: Bangladesh

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

I completed my BEng in Mechanical Engineering here and did a research internship that led to my PhD offer. Loughborough has given me incredible opportunities to grow in my field.

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

The people, the winter weather, and of course, the spicy food.

Why did you choose Loughborough?

My dad was doing his PhD here when I was applying to universities. I visited the beautiful campus before my A levels, and I was hooked!

What’s been your favorite experience here?

It’s a tie between joining the Hiking Club and volunteering for Lboro Sport. I’ve seen stunning UK landscapes and played badminton with people from around the world.

Your advice for future international students?

Academics come first, but get involved! Meeting people from different cultures can change your perspective on life. Join societies, volunteer, and keep an open heart and watch the most incredible people walk into your life!

Lisa Ndubai

Course: Business Analytics MSc

Country: Kenya

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

I’m in my final year and love sports like football and futsal. My time at Loughborough has been full of varied and exciting experiences. I’ve met people from different backgrounds, each with interesting stories to share.

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

The food and stable weather!

Why did you choose Loughborough?

I heard Loughborough had a strong reputation in sports and the Business School’s high ranking both appealed to me.

What’s been your favorite experience here?

Going to the yearly Loughborough town fair with my friends and trying out all the rides!

Your advice for future international students?

Get involved in as many extracurriculars as you can. It’s a fantastic way to make friends and have a diverse range of experiences.

Shirlyn Ng

Course: Media and Communications BSc

Country: Malaysia

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

I’m in my final year and came to Loughborough as a non-athlete. Now, I’m deeply involved in the Recreational Sport program, encouraging students to stay active. It’s been a great way to try new sports and connect with others.

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

The food! I especially miss my grandmother’s cooking.

Why did you choose Loughborough?

I wanted a university with high student satisfaction. Loughborough’s reputation in both student support and my course made it the ideal choice.

What’s been your favorite experience here?

Being part of multiple committees has allowed me to make a real impact on student life and I love being a course ambassador.

Your advice for future international students?

Branch out and meet different people. Your nationality’s community is important, but you’ll add so much to your experience by connecting with others

Jie Zhan

Course: Media and Communications BSc

Country: China

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

I’m a media student who loves sketching and journaling. As an introvert, Loughborough has helped me find a balance between enjoying solitude and meaningful moments with friends.

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

Our diverse culture and amazing food. China has so much to explore!”

Why did you choose Loughborough?

The media program is excellent, and the sports culture here inspired me to try new things and stay motivated.

What’s been your favorite experience here?

Being part of the International Student Network, where I’ve met incredible people and learned a lot through our events.

Your advice for future international students?

Don’t be afraid to communicate, even if English isn’t your first language. Approach cultural differences with curiosity, and you’ll find your place.

Geoffrey Sie

Course: Computer Science BSc

Country: Malaysia

Tell us about yourself and your time at Loughborough.

Hi, my name is Geoffrey, and I’m a Computer Science student currently in my placement year working in cybersecurity. I aspire to pursue a career in tech, ideally in cybersecurity or a related field.

What’s your favorite thing about your home country?

I love the diversity of our food—it’s unique because it comes from so many different cultures.

Why did you choose Loughborough?

I chose Loughborough because of its strong reputation in Computing and the beautiful campus atmosphere.

What’s been your favorite experience here?

My favorite experience has been the late-night study sessions with friends, although we didn’t get much studying done.

Your advice for future international students?

Always be on the lookout for new opportunities around campus, like Get Ahead Together and Study Café. They’re fantastic ways to meet new people and often come with lots of freebies!

Our international students bring their own cultures, perspectives and passions to our campus, making Loughborough a great place to live and learn. To all our international students, thank you for making Loughborough a diverse and welcoming community!

Top 5 downloads from the Loughborough Research Repository October 2024

The Loughborough Research Repository currently contains over contains 56,508 items.

Staff processed 358 new research deposits during October 2024.The 5 most downloaded articles from the repository are below. These figures comes from IRUS UK, a JISC funded service that provides standardised statistical tools for measuring institutional repositories.

• Hignett, Sue; McDermott, Hilary (2015). Qualitative methodology for ergonomics. Loughborough University. Chapter. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/23558 Downloads 213
• Keiningham, Timothy; Aksoy, Lerzan; Bruce, Helen L.; Cadet, Fabienne; Clennell, Natasha; Hodgkinson, Ian; et al. (2019). Customer experience driven business model innovation. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/9205919.v1 Downloads 161
• Hogervorst, Eef; Craig, Jen; ODonnell, Emma (2021). Cognition and mental health in menopause: a review. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/17155811.v1 Downloads 149
• Asadullah, Ahmad; Faik, Isam; Kankanhalli, Atreyi (2018). Digital platforms: a review and future directions. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/24081825.v1 Downloads 148
• Greipl, Simon; Moeller, Korbinian; Ninaus, Manuel (2020). Potential and limits of game-based learning. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/13621973.v1 Downloads 124

There are other items which, while not having the highest number of downloads, have had the the highest increase over the last three months. These are items that seem to be attracting interest.

• Hodgen, Jeremy; Foster, Colin; Marks, Rachel; Brown, Margaret (2018). Evidence for review of mathematics teaching: Improving mathematics in key stages two and three. Loughborough University. Report. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/36958
• Arcelus, Jon; Witcomb, Gemma; Mitchell, Alex (2014). Prevalence of eating disorders amongst dancers: a systemic review and meta-analysis. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/18993
• He, Yu; Song, Kechen; Meng, Qinggang; Yan, Yunhui (2019). An end-to-end steel surface defect detection approach via fusing multiple hierarchical features. Loughborough University. Journal contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/12249215.v1

This information was collated by a Rising Items app created by Lara, our Research Data Manager. If you are interested in the statistics of the repository (and why wouldn’t you be?) she has developed more tools such Map your repository for tracking which countries download our research.

From the Vice-Chancellor – October 2024

In my October newsletter: Celebrating our athletes’ achievements at the Paris Games, a successful Aftrak trial, marking Black History Month, the first symposium for the UK SCALE Centre, engaging with the political agenda, and Dame Angela McLean’s public lecture.

Event celebrates Loughborough’s sporting success at Paris 2024

This month we held an event at The Kia Oval in London to celebrate the success of Loughborough’s athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Hosted by alumnus, University Council member and Sky Sports News presenter Mike Wedderburn, the evening brought together athletes, coaches, support staff, researchers, sporting partners and University staff to celebrate Loughborough’s enviable success in Paris, with our athletes bringing home an incredible 35 medals across both games.  

The celebration event included panel discussions hosted by alumnus and University Chancellor Lord Sebastian Coe. Medal-winning athletes Daniel Wiffen, Tully Kearney MBE, Alex Haydock-Wilson and Charlie Dobson discussed how they have cultivated performance mindsets and worked with their teams at Loughborough to deliver truly world-class performances. Our coaching teams and leaders from UK Athletics and Paralympics GB shared how they have built outstanding performance support teams over Olympic and Paralympic cycles. Our video provides a summary of the evening. 

I am incredibly proud of the world-class ecosystem at Loughborough, which underpins these successes and recognises the transformative power of sport. Our inclusive approach is also reflected in our landmark partnership with ParalympicsGB announced earlier this month. By working together ParalympicsGB and Loughborough will support our world class athletes, and inspire and empower individuals of all abilities to participate in sport. 

Our newly-launched Para and Disability Sport Strategy similarly has opportunity at its core – opportunity for disabled students to be active in the way they want, opportunity to become a coach or official, or the opportunity to strive for glory at the Paralympic Games. 

One of our strategic aims is to excel in sport and use our pre-eminence to create new opportunities; I think we’re making huge strides in doing just that. 

First phase Aftrak trial proves successful

When undertaking research, we often strive for it to have an impact on society. Sometimes this takes time, and sometimes it’s more immediately evident, as with the Loughborough-led Aftrak project, which this year won the international, $1million Milken Motsepe Prize in Green Energy.  

Aftrak combines solar microgrids and tailored tractors to empower smallholder farmers, with the aim of significantly increasing crop yields and incomes and providing rural communities with access to clean, green electricity; currently 89% of the population in Malawi lives without access to electricity. 

Over the summer a team that included academics from Loughborough went to Malawi to implement the first phase of Aftrak’s integration within local communities. They built a solar farm with eight panels that is sufficient to provide electricity to the village and also set up a small solar farm as a demonstrator at the headquarters of Tiyeni, a Malawian non-governmental organisation. Our video shows the team’s work. 

Following the success of the initial trial, the team is now looking to carry out a further field trial that will run for up to two years. Ultimately their aim is to roll the project out throughout Malawi and into neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. 

Aftrak is currently raising investment to deploy its innovative technology across Malawi and aims to contribute to World Bank goals of providing electricity to 380 million people in Africa by 2030. 

Projects such as this are hugely strategically important. Aftrak involves a partnership of researchers from the University’s Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology, Tiyeni, and the Consortium for Battery Innovation. It has been supported by Innovate UK, and one of the world’s largest battery manufacturers, Varta by Clarios. It also shows how cutting edge research and innovation can bring tangible international engagement and impact, in line with our Climate Change and Net Zero theme.

Events mark Black History Month

Throughout October we have been marking Black History Month with a series of events and workshops themed around ‘Reclaiming the Narrative’, which encourages us to challenge the dominant voice, correct historical inaccuracies, tell untold stories and honour those who have been overlooked. 

There have been a number of engaging events over the course of the month, including the annual Black History Month March that took place yesterday. There’s still time to catch the final event in the series; next month’s Presidential election in the US could see Kamala Harris, the first woman of African and South Asian descent, elected to hold the most powerful office in the world – on 5 November, a panel will gather to discuss what this could mean for women worldwide. 

Although Black History Month takes place in October, it’s important that we shine a light on Black histories, cultures and identities all year round. You can find out more about the race equity work taking place at Loughborough on our Black History Month webpage, including toolkits and resources to support your work and discussions with colleagues. 

I know that this year has been particularly distressing for many within our community, with ongoing conflict impacting so many people around the world, and violence in the UK, such as this summer’s race and Islamophobic rioting and the rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents.  

In light of this, next month the EDI team will hold a Peace Assembly, to bring together staff and students in solidarity for peace. The Assembly will be a space for expression through respectful discussion, creative and performing arts and quiet reflection. The aim is for the Peace Assembly to be a forerunner to community members coming together to form a Loughborough University Peace Alliance, supporting further community events to be held in the future. 

I hope you will consider attending the Assembly and joining the Peace Alliance.

First symposium hosted by new UK SCALE Centre

This month we held the first symposium hosted by the UK Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Centre, which was launched this summer and is part of the prestigious MIT Global SCALE Network. 

The centres in the MIT network bring together industry and academia to pool their expertise and collaborate on research projects that address real-world supply chain and logistics challenges, helping companies worldwide navigate an increasingly complex business environment.  

The symposium allowed partners from industry, policy and academia to share their vision, drive and ambition that will help to shape the future of supply chain management and logistics and accelerate the nation’s economic growth – a key strand of government policy. 

This month we held the first symposium hosted by the UK Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Centre, which was launched this summer and is part of the prestigious MIT Global SCALE Network. 

The centres in the MIT network bring together industry and academia to pool their expertise and collaborate on research projects that address real-world supply chain and logistics challenges, helping companies worldwide navigate an increasingly complex business environment.  

The symposium allowed partners from industry, policy and academia to share their vision, drive and ambition that will help to shape the future of supply chain management and logistics and accelerate the nation’s economic growth – a key strand of government policy. 

By working collaboratively across sectors through the UK SCALE Centre, we can deliver transformational impact. For example, we will be able to maximise advanced digital technologies to better track the movement of goods, enabling businesses to become more agile in meeting shifts in customer demands. And we will be able to accelerate the application of the circular economy to work towards a more sustainable future for everyone.  

We have worked with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – the world’s top-rated university in the global QS rankings – for many years, particularly on engineering collaborations and now on supply chain and logistics management. Intensifying and expanding strong partnerships such as these are the cornerstone of our strategic Partnerships core plan.

Engagement aims to help shape political discussions

Every autumn, UK political parties hold their annual conferences, bringing together politicians, party members and affiliated groups. The conferences offer opportunities for us to engage with key political voices on issues that are important to both Loughborough and the higher education sector.  

Staff from the University attended both the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences again this year. 

At the Labour Party Conference, we held a fringe meeting on the role hydrogen can play in meeting net zero targets. Professor Dan Parsons, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Loughborough MP Dr Jeevun Sandher (who is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen) and representatives from the trade body Hydrogen UK and the gas network company Cadent sat on a discussion panel with a very engaged audience. Opportunities such as these are important progressions in our ambitions for the for The Hydrogen Works – a strategic consortium led by Loughborough to drive skills, innovation and productivity to create a hydrogen superpower in the East Midlands. 

Alongside the Labour conference we took part in an event to showcase activity and regional strengths in creative technology R&D and innovation. The event was hosted by the CoSTAR Foresight Lab (a collaboration that includes Loughborough and focuses on the knowledge, trends and needs of the creative industries) and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. 

Alongside the Labour conference we took part in an event to showcase activity and regional strengths in creative technology R&D and innovation. The event was hosted by the CoSTAR Foresight Lab (a collaboration that includes Loughborough and focuses on the knowledge, trends and needs of the creative industries) and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. 

Following on from the party conferences we launched our Living Well Inquiry, which looks at what it takes for people and communities to live well in mid-21st Century Britain. The Inquiry is being led by Dr Holly Collison-Randall and Professor Mark Monaghan, who are Co-Fellows in the Policy Unit.  

The University is well-placed to shape the ‘living well’ agenda, with expertise across a broad range of relevant areas. Following initial engagement with the University’s research community, the Inquiry has published a White Paper, which defines ‘living well’, looks at how other nations measure and shape policy on wellbeing and poses questions for further consultation on five themes: Clean Living, Creative Living, Dignified Living, Healthy Living and Smart Living. 

The inquiry team is now undertaking a programme of external engagement with government departments, think tanks and advisors, as well as organisations and charities whose work contributes to the ‘living well’ themes. If you would like to contribute to the Inquiry you can still do so through the website.

Honorary Distinguished Professor gives public lecture

In July this year we appointed Dame Angela McLean, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA), as an Honorary Distinguished Professor at the University, and I was delighted to welcome her to campus this month for her first official engagement in that capacity. 

In her role as GCSA Dame Angela is responsible for providing scientific advice to the Prime Minister and members of cabinet, advising the government on aspects of policy on science and technology, and ensuring and improving the quality and use of scientific evidence and advice in government. She is the first woman to hold the role. 

In her lecture this month to staff, students and members of the public, Dame Angela set out her priorities for ensuring that science advice is central to decision making. She talked about the importance of knowing the right person to ask and what to ask them and outlined the science challenges of today and the future. In the face of ever-evolving global challenges, such as political instability, global pandemics or cost-of-living crises, ensuring that robust, evidence-based and high-quality scientific advice can inform government choices and policies is vital.   

Whilst she was at the University, we were able to show Dame Angela some of our facilities, including the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NCSEM), the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport and the National Rehabilitation Centre that are all playing a crucial role in driving forward knowledge and innovation in health sciences. 

If you missed it - October 2024

• An update on MRC’s Data Sharing Policy and Data Management Plan template (contact rdm@lboro.ac.uk for the passcode)
• Edinburgh Open Research Conference 
• OpenFest 2024 Universities of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam

This Week at Loughborough | 11 Nov

Armistice Day 2024 – Ceremony of Remembrance

11 November, 10:50am-11:10am, Garden of Remembrance

Ceremony of Remembrance will mirror other commemorative events held on this day in which we remember all whose lives have been touched or ended by wars, including those who lost their lives during the First and Second World Wars.

‘The poetry is in the pity’: War Poetry Reading at the Carillon Tower

11 November, 11:15am-12:15pm, The Carillon Tower

The landmark Carillon Tower and War Memorial Museum serves as the backdrop for a pop-up poetry reading of famous and unexpected war poems on Armistice Day.

Workshop – The Hologram

11 November, 12pm-3pm, International House

Learn about The Hologram practice with artist Cassie Thornton.

East Midlands Conversations: Sharing Adjustment Experiences for Recruitment and the Workplace

12 November, 1:15pm-2:45pm, online

This online event is being offered as part of an East Midlands collaboration with other local university Employability and Careers Services, offering tailored events and opportunities to those with disabilities.

Care in the Ruins (roundtable discussion)

12 November, 2pm-4pm, International House and online

This event is part of Cassie Thornton’s Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) fellowship. The roundtable discussion will focus on strategies for practising care amidst the ruins: how can we engage in acts of solidarity, of rest, and of vital healthcare, when societal infrastructures fail?

Mock Assessment Centre

12 November, 6pm-8:15pm, West Park Teaching Hub

Delivered by the Careers Network and staff from a range of top companies, you’ll hear first-hand what to expect and learn how to prepare effectively.

Tech and Skills Builder Series

14 November, 11:30am-2pm, Careers and Enterprise Hub

This monthly event is designed to provide a hands-on experience with essential tools and techniques that can enhance your business offerings, improve your skill set, and make the most of the resources available at the Careers and Enterprise Hub.

National Theatre Live: Prima Facie

14 November, 7pm-9pm, Cope Auditorium

National Theatre Live presents the Empire Street Production of Prima Facie, written by Suzie Miller and directed by Justin Martin

Loughborough Students vs Clifton

16 November, 2pm, Loughborough University 1st XV Rugby Pitch

Rugby action returns to Loughborough as the Students continue their 2024/2025 campaign in the National League 2 West.

Diwali Disco Party

16 November, 6pm-12am, Village Bar

Join us for our Diwali party on campus – and enjoy an exhilarating celebration of the Hindu Festival of Lights, which marks the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil.

AI-powered universities: Professor Nick Jennings presents public lecture for Royal Academy of Engineering annual regional event

Professor Nick Jennings CB FrEng FRS, Vice-Chancellor and President of Loughborough University, presented a keynote lecture on the topic of ‘AI-powered universities’ at the Royal Academy of Engineering’s East Midlands Annual Regional Event held at the University of Leicester.

A recording of the lecture can be viewed below: