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Political Communication and Environmental Challenges

The Centre for Research in Communication and Culture and the Successful Transitions Under Environmental Change research theme will be hosting a research seminar on Political Communication and Environmental Challenges. The event will take place on May 14^th from 10-11:30 in D201.

The research seminar will be centred around empirical studies at the intersection between politics, communication, environment/geography, and sociology – with four short research talks followed by a discussion period chaired by Duncan Depledge.

Please join us to discuss early-stage research on:

• “The role of civil society organizations in the European Union and their responses to climate change-induced migration” – Judith Fortunova-Russell
• “The scale and influence of the fossil fuel industry in sport sponsorship” – Theo Frixou

• “News avoidance and scepticism about anthropogenic climate change: Survey evidence from 18 countries” – Anthony Kevins and James Stanyer
• “Triadic polarisation in climate debates: Climate change and culture wars in English-language tweets in COP26 and 27” – Dayei Oh and John Downey

We look forward to seeing many of you there!

#ClimateChange #PoliticalCommunication #EnvironmentalResearch #Lboro

Bringing the EYFS to the PhD: A Reflective Account of Lifelong Learning from Educator to Researcher

Jess Green is a doctoral researcher at Loughborough University. Jess’s primary interest is in supporting the teaching of mathematics within early years settings and using her experience as an early year’s educator to support her research. Edited by Beth Woollacott.

In this blogpost, Jess explores her journey from early years educator to doctoral researcher, highlighting how the Characteristics of Effective Learning—central to the Early Years Foundation Stage—continue to inform her practice as an adult learner in higher education. Jess reflects on how principles such as curiosity, persistence, and critical thinking have supported her transition into research, and how they remain essential in navigating her PhD in mathematics education. Through this lens, Jess considers how early learning frameworks can have enduring relevance across all stages of lifelong learning.

The journey so far…

I first started volunteering at a nursery while studying for my degree in social psychology at Loughborough University. Initially, I volunteered to switch off completely from academic work and to do something that required me to be fully present in the moment; I particularly enjoyed the outdoor games and joining the imaginary worlds created by the children.

However, my time at the nursery became less of an academic switch-off as I started to learn about theories of child development in my psychology course. I was fascinated by how these theories developed and seeing them play-out in action.

As I became an early year’s practitioner, I was aware of how the other educators were planning their teaching and learning and using child development theories to encourage children’s learning. I attended several professional development days with my colleagues and found myself inspired by the current research being shared, eager to put it into practice and see its impact.

I challenged myself to take this further by enrolling in an Early Years Teacher Training PGCE after completing my undergraduate degree. During this training, I spent more time working with other age groups, took deep dives into child development theories, shadowed other educators, attended online conferences and most importantly for my current journey, conducted my own research projects and led professional development sessions.

I began to recognise the importance and potential impact of research-informed practice, again recognising the critical role of professional development opportunities in supporting this.

Following my PGCE, I then took on the role as a room leader in a preschool room; alongside teaching children, I was now responsible for the day to day running of the room, leading other practitioners, and maintaining a stimulating, high-quality environment. Being a pre-school room leader was a challenging job, but some of the things I loved about the role were: being able to have a wider perspective of the teaching and learning that was taking place, organising training opportunities for my team of educators, and ensuring that the learning environment was expanding children’s learning as well as meeting their needs.

I was able to spend time reflecting on the strengths of my team and where we were having to work harder. One of these areas, for me, was supporting children’s early mathematics. At school, mathematics had never been my favourite subject, and I realised the extent to which my own mathematics experiences were shaping my teaching. I noticed I was not alone in this whilst observing other practitioners’ teaching and the lack of enthusiasm that our mathematics PGCE lectures were met with compared to our typical lectures!

This led me to think about the impact of mathematics experiences for educators and what could be done to change this for future generations, starting with the children in our nurseries.

So, I took a leap of faith and applied for a PhD. After a couple of attempts, and plenty of refining my research focus, I was awarded a place on the master’s and PhD programme in the Department of Mathematics Education at Loughborough University, funded by the Centre for Early Mathematics Learning (CEML). And just like that, I went from being a teacher… to becoming a student again.

From educator to educatee: utilizing the characteristics of effective learning as an adult learner

During my first master’s lecture, I quickly sensed how different it felt to shift from an educator to becoming a full-time learner again — moving from the early years sector into the world of higher education. As everything around me changed, I knew I needed to hold onto something familiar.

Within the early years curriculum there is a two-pronged approach to teaching and learning, these are based on what children learn and how children learn. What children learn is determined by 7 key areas of learning including things such as physical development, communication, and language and maths. How children learn is determined by the characteristics of effective learning. Specifically focussing on these characteristics is designed to encourage a love of learning and greater academic success.

Early on in my master’s, I realised that these characteristics of learning did not only apply to learning done by children within early years education, but are just as relevant to me as a learner within higher education. The early years curriculum highlights three overarching themes of effective learning: Playing and Exploring, Active Learning, and Creating and Thinking Critically, and these continue to guide my approach to learning and research.

Playing and exploring

As a researcher, curiosity is a key skill, I can “play” with ideas and explore where they take me — often in unexpected directions. This process of playing and exploring has shaped the direction of my research.

I initially began by investigating the rates of mathematics anxiety among educators; but, as I explored the topic further and kept asking questions, my focus evolved. I began to investigate how professional development can have an impact on teaching and learning within the early years.

Active Learning

Research requires a lot of self-motivation and persistence: with no set curriculum to follow, I’m free to venture down unfamiliar paths, enjoying the learning and discoveries along the way.

Active learning, for me, means not just “keeping on trying,” but also staying immersed in current research debates, reading widely, and maintaining an internal drive to grow.

That intrinsic motivation — so often nurtured in early years settings — is something I now consciously apply to my own development as a researcher.

Creating and Thinking Critically

As an early year’s educator one of the most rewarding parts of my job was supporting children’s creative and critical thinking – seeing them link ideas and create new ideas was always a joy.

Now, as a researcher, I am linking my thoughts, creating new ideas and both curiously and critically engaging with the world around me.

Some Final Thoughts

My research journey continues and though my environment has changed, the foundations of how I learn haven’t.

The Characteristics of Effective Learning continue to guide me, helping me stay curious, motivated, and thoughtful in my approach. From educator to educatee, the learning never stops — it simply evolves.

Funding

Jess Green’s PhD studentship is funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/W002914/1] through the Centre for Early Mathematics Learning.

Open Research: Meet the team - Lara Skelly

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

I’m the Open Research Manager for Data and Methods. I currently hold the record for the longest job title among all library staff members. I’ve been at Loughborough University since June 2022.

Why did you choose to work in Open Research?

I’ve spent my whole professional career working in libraries. Due to my own interest in research, I moved fairly quickly to supporting research, but I never lost my love of cataloguing. My current role has the best blend of my favourite tasks.

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

Like just about everyone in my team, no two days are the same. Some days, all I do is catalogue the weird and wonderful things that come into the library collection (some recent additions include poems from emails, pictures from an exhibition and a dataset about batteries). Other days, I mix it up by commenting on Data Management Plans for funding bids and working on Open Research advocacy, such as marketing the Midlands Innovation Open Research Week (see what I did there?). Whatever the day holds, I always try to squeeze in some coding. I’m exploring different ways of making materials available from the Research Repository, such as this custom display I created for the Water Development and Engineering Centre.

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

I love seeing the amazing research that happens every day. As an Open Research Manager, I’m at the forefront of creative discoveries, each with the potential to change the world. I’m exposed to projects, ideas and outcomes that I could never have even dreamed up, and never encountered without this job.

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

Right now I’m excited that Open Research was explicitly mentioned in the Research Excellence Framework 2029 pilot guidance: “Connectivity: Enabling inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches both within and between institutions, fostering co-creation and engagement with research users and society, and recognising and supporting open research practices “(section 17, emphasis mine). Open Research practices have been increasingly making an appearance in various policy documents – including it in REF is a significant milestone.

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

It’s so easy to get started – and as soon as you do, you’ll see the benefits.

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

I am unreasonably entertained by dental commercials.

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

Definitely to stop time – then I could read everything that interests me!

Five minutes with: Richard Jackson

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

I’m a Customer Services Assistant and I’ve been working at Loughborough University for 14 years.

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

My day-to-day duties include:

• Responding to customer enquiries via email and telephone
• Helping students with their parcels
• Printing new ID cards
• Advising staff and students with our print and postal service

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

My favourite project was helping set up a new parcels system on campus.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

My proudest moment at Loughborough was helping out at Summer Graduation. It was such a special event to be a part of and I felt proud to contribute to making the day run smoothly for everyone attending. It really highlighted the sense of community and achievement that makes Loughborough such a special place.

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

I volunteer as one of Santa’s helpers through my local Rotary Club!

What is your favourite quote?

Short and sweet – ‘Keep calm and carry on!’

April Copyright Reads

Ah, the air feels lighter, the days are longer, and the vibrant colours of new life are all around us – spring has sprung! As nature awakens, why not take a break and read some interesting copyright articles in the sun? To help you make the most of these brighter days, we have a whole host of good articles lined up for you in this month’s Copyright Reads. So, grab a refreshing drink, find a sunny spot, and dive into the latest discussions and insights from the world of copyright.

Creators’ Earnings Calculator – Beta Launch

The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem

Is Web Scraping the Only Copyright Concern for AI?

How Google Used AI to Re-Create ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for the Las Vegas Sphere

AI bots are destroying Open Access

Rebooting Copyright For The Age Of AI

AI, Ownership And The Legality Of Generative Inspiration

One copyright to rule them all?

Copyright law in the age of AI: analysing the AI-generated works and copyright challenges in Australia

[Guest post] ‘Ghiblification’ and the Moral Wrongs of U.S. Copyright Law

What’s Up With Copyright Lately?: Spring Cleaning Edition

How is artificial intelligence actually being used in higher education?

Rebooting Copyright: How the UK Can Be a Global Leader in the Arts and AI

AI Copyright Litigation: Recent Legal Developments

Studio Ghibli v. OpenAI: is this the next U.S. copyright lawsuit to drop?

The AI-Generated Studio Ghibli Trend, Explained

Mislabelled Cats, Deep Research and ‘Bigger and better’ – a few recent LLM Trends

Celebrating 136 Years of the Eiffel Tower & Its Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)

A trade mark cocktail: Why PORTSOY whisky and port wine do not mix

The Style Returns: Some notes on ChatGPT and Studio Ghibli

Guest Post — The Open Access – AI Conundrum: Does Free to Read Mean Free to Train?

How many people are using generative AI on a daily basis? A Gemini report

“ER” Sues “The Pitt” [Video]

…And Justice For Us: Metallica v. Napster 20 Years Later

We hope you enjoyed this edition of Copyright Reads! If you don’t want to miss our blog posts, please subscribe to our monthly digest.

CRCC Welcomes Local Councillors and MP

The Centre for Research in Communication and Culture will be participating in several events on May 9^th as part of a campus visit by Cllr. Naomi Bottomley, Dr. Jeevun Sandher, MP, and Cllr. Margaret Smidowicz.   

Schedule Highlights:

• 12:30–13:00 – Informal Lunch (CRCC event): An opportunity to meet Dr. Sandher and chat informally over lunch.
• 13:00–14:00 – The Future of Higher Education Policy (LUCU event): Dr. Sandher will share his perspective on the direction of HE policy, followed by an Q&A session. This is a hybrid event, open to all staff.
• 14:30–16:00 – Life in Politics (IRPH/CRCC event): This session kicks off with refreshments and informal conversations, followed by a panel where Cllr. Bottomley, Dr. Sandher, and Cllr. Smidowicz will talk about their political journeys and engage in a Q&A.

Drawing (Paper) Show ‘25 Open Call

Open Call to exhibit in the Drawing (Paper) Show ‘25 at The Bridewell Studios and Gallery, Liverpool @bridewellstudiosliverpool, be published in the 10th Edition of Drawing Paper and be featured in the Directory of Drawing Artists (DoDA).

The exhibition runs during Liverpool Biennial ‘25 from Friday 11th July until Thursday 31st July, with the exhibition launching Thursday 10th July, (times tbc).

Be published in the 10th Edition of Drawing Paper, both a printed and digital publication.

Featured in the Directory of Drawing Artists (DoDA) is a Directory which exclusively features artists who have exhibited in the Drawing (Paper) Shows. The Directory of Drawing Artists (DoDA) allows people to find, hire or buy directly from artists who specialise in drawing, with a 100% of any sales or fees going directly to the artist. 

The Drawing (Paper) team will be joined by acclaimed artist Curtis Holder to help select the show’s exhibitors. Curtis Holder http://www.curtisholder.co.uk, @curtisartist is a renowned winner of Portrait Artist of the Year 2020. Curtis, a London-based artist known for his stunning large-scale portraits and figurative works crafted with graphite and colored pencil, will bring his expertise to the judging process.

How to enter 
– Enter via our website – http://www.drawingpapershow.com(through a google form)
– Pay entry fee (£10 per artwork/max of 3 artwork)
– Upload image
– Include: artwork’s title, medium, size, year made (must not be more than 3 years old)
– Provide your Instagram handle you would like us to tag when we share your entry/entries on our Instagram stories

It is not required for entries to be shared in our Instagram stories, however if you would like your entry to be shared and tagged, please make sure it is enabled in your Instagram’s privacy settings.

Cost
£10 per artwork submitted, maximum of 3 submissions per artist. Please note only one work will be exhibited from artists selected.

Who can enter
International open call to all drawing artists.

What can be entered
Contemporary drawings, traditional drawings and drawings that challenge the conventional definitions of drawing. Drawing in any form and in/on any medium. 
For work that exceeds 1.5 meters in any direction or has very specific hanging requirements, please contact us to check if we can accept it.
For live or site-specific work please upload an image/video of previous work/examples of what you would propose to do in the medium section.

Triptych/ Diptych – can be submitted as a singular piece.

Deadlines
Artists can apply from 14th April until 11th May 2025, Midnight (GMT). 

Notification
Both successful applicants and unsuccessful applicants will be notified by 25th May. Please note we will be unable to provide feedback on unsuccessful applications. 

For full terms and conditions please visit http://www.drawingpapershow.com

Navigating grief in the workplace

Image: Courtesy of Getty Images

Grief is a deeply personal and challenging experience that affects individuals in various ways.

It can manifest as sadness, anxiety, exhaustion, or difficulty concentrating. Some people may prefer to keep busy at work, while others may need time away. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and it’s important to respect each person’s unique process.

Working through grief

Returning to work while you’re grieving can be a particularly challenging time so it’s important to be kind to yourself.

• Establishing a daily routine can help provide a sense of stability.
• Be patient with yourself as healing takes time.
• Focus on small, manageable tasks.
• Take care of yourself by eating well and exercising.
• Prioritise rest and allow yourself to take breaks.
• Seek support and let others know what you need.

How to support colleagues going through bereavement

When a colleague is going through bereavement, it can be difficult to know how to offer support. Grief can sometimes feel like an uncomfortable subject but in times of loss, small acts of understanding can make a world of difference.

• Give them time and space to share their situation at their own pace, don’t press for details if they are not ready.
• If they choose to talk, let them share as much or as little as they want without interruption or judgement.
• Choose an appropriate time and private setting to have a conversation, away from high-stress work situations or busy environments.
• Small gestures like covering a task, checking in with them, or offering to grab lunch can provide comfort and ease some of their burdens.
• Be mindful of anniversaries and triggers, certain dates or events may bring up emotions. A thoughtful acknowledgement can show you care.

Find more guidance and advice about supporting someone who is grieving.

Support available for staff

The Employee Assistance Programme is available to provide support to you if you need it. More information on support for bereavement from Health Assured. If you would find comfort in the Chaplaincy, you can contact them on 01509 223741 or by emailing chaplaincy@lboro.ac.uk. 

Information on the University’s compassionate leave policy.

The following organisations offer specialised services that could help you cope with bereavement:

• At a loss – find bereavement services and counselling across the UK.
• Child Bereavement UK – offers support if you are bereaved after losing a child.
• Child Death Helpline – helpline for all those affected by the death of a child. 
• The Compassionate Friends – find support for bereaved parents and their families.
• Cruse Bereavement Support – offers face-to-face, telephone, email and online support for anyone who has experienced a loss.
• Dying Matters – resources to help people talk more openly about dying, death and bereavement, and to make plans for the end of life.
• The Good Grief Trust – a charity run by bereaved people, helping all those experiencing grief in the UK.
• Hub of Hope – database of mental health services in the UK, including community, charity, private and NHS mental health support.
• The Loss Foundation – offers support to people who have lost someone to cancer.
• Samaritans – if you’re struggling you can call Samaritans any time on 116 123 to talk about anything.
• Sands – information and support for anybody affected by the death of a baby.
• Sue Ryder – offers bereavement support, including ways of finding bereavement support online.
• WAY (Widowed and Young) – advice for people who have lost a partner before their 51st birthday.

Keep an eye on our events page for upcoming wellbeing webinars. The next webinar on the topic of ‘Dealing with Grief in the Workplace’ will take place on 14 May 2025.

Decoding the Beat: Intellectual Property in the Music Landscape

I know what you are thinking. First, she came for the books, now she is coming for the music. The reality is that music and Intellectual Property (IP) are intrinsically linked.

What is IP exactly? IP refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions (patents), literary and artistic works (copyright), designs (design rights) and symbols, names and images used in commerce (trademarks and trade secrets).

When it comes to music, IP plays a crucial role in ensuring and safeguarding the rights of musicians, composers, and producers, making sure they can thrive in a competitive market.

Different IP will protect different parts of a musical creation, from the musical works themselves, to the recordings, and performances. These are all protected. Let’s have a look at each in turn.

Music copyright

Hopefully by now you know what copyright is, but just in case you are new to this page: copyright is an automatic right given to an original work, which has been created somehow in a tangible form. It does not protect ideas.

Musicians will typically own their recordings and compositions (written music and lyrics). However, if they have a publisher or record label, those entities might own, share ownership or even “lease” those rights for a time. It very much depends on the contract signed with the labels.

Let’s see how that can play out in real life, and we shall take cat-lady extraordinaire and all-round businesswoman, Taylor Swift as an example of fighting back.

Taylor Swift signed early on in her career with Big Machine Label Group, who owned all the master recordings of her first six albums. The Label Group was acquired in 2019 by Scooter Braun, including Taylor’s catalogue. She claimed that she was never given the opportunity to buy the master recordings back. In response to the takeover, she announced her intention of re-recording her first six albums which would mean she would gain control over her music and devalue the original recordings owned by the new label. However, she has also had to contend with claims of copyright infringement, the case being ultimately dropped. Haters gonna hate, eh?!

Music publishing rights

As with copyright, the first holders of publishing rights are the authors, however, if there is a contract with a music publisher, then the music publisher will own those rights. A music publisher, can ensure that the use of the song is done with the correct renumeration and credit, making sure that the creators are rewarded for their creativity.

• Rights for a song recording – the music industry, relies on the first recording of the song, called the master recording, to which it will mostly own the rights to. As mentioned above. In this recording both the authors as well as the performers authorise the recording of the lyrics and composition and the performance of these. Once the record is done, the record label who has done the recording will have rights over that recording.
• Rights for musical copies – the same music can have multiple rights owners as we have seen, the exploitation of music can be done by obtaining different licenses, in particular mechanical licensing.
• Rights for music performance – the same as above, the authors, performers and producers of recordings own the right to public performance. As such, any type of public performance, live music, background music or streaming platforms will require a licence from the rights holder. In the UK, there are multiple agencies which offer licence for music broadcast, distribution, and performance: TheMusicLicence, PPL and PRS.
• Rights for use of music in movies and video games – music and film just go together, same goes with video games. I mean, the Blair Witch Project game would be half as creepy without the atmospheric background music. These two industries could licence music through what is called a synchronisation licence, self-explanatory I hope, or as for The Lord of the Rings, they could commission completely new music from artists. Best known here are Enya’s song May it Be and Ed Sheeran with I See Fire in The Hobbit.
• Rights for use of music in TV programs and the radio – ever wondered if your favorite café needs permission every time a song plays in the background? That’s where “blanket licenses” come in handy. Think of them as an all-access pass from a music rights organization. For a set fee and by reporting the music they use, businesses like restaurants can legally play any song in that organization’s vast library. This system ensures songwriters get paid fairly based on how often their music is played. To make this happen, these organizations need to know exactly which songs are being used and who owns them, which is why registering music with a local rights group is so important for creators.
• Rights for printing lyrics or music notes – think about buying sheet music to learn a new song – that’s print rights in action. These rights cover the act of writing down a musical composition and its lyrics, as well as sharing and selling those written versions, both on paper and online. Even something seemingly simple, like putting song lyrics on a t-shirt or a poster, involves print rights and could potentially infringe on the lyricist’s ownership. While copyright generally protects these rights, there are specific cases where using song lyrics or sheet music is permitted. To know when these exceptions apply, you need to understand the copyright laws and any limitations in the country where the song is being used.

Trademarks and music

Another important IP in music, is trademark. Musicians as well as bands, might protect their names and logos as trademarks. Bon Jovi for example, or Taylor Swift. The protection through trademarks enables artists to engage with fans through memorabilia and merchandising.  As the band expand its fanbase, trademarks will ensure exclusivity over the use of their names and logos.

Patents for musical innovations

While patents might at first seem to be a strange IP to have in music, inventions do play an important role in how we listen to music, for example. From the crackle of vinyl on a record player to the seamless streaming on our phones, patents have driven the evolution of music access. Beyond listening, patents have also fuelled crucial advancements in music creation, like mixing technologies and innovations that enhance instruments like guitars. These patented inventions have ultimately benefited both musicians and the fans who enjoy their work.

IP issues in music

Behind the catchy tunes and memorable lyrics of the music industry lie some landmark legal battles over Intellectual Property. These famous infringement cases, often involving allegations of copyright theft, have not only captivated public attention but have also significantly shaped the legal landscape of music. By examining these high-profile instances, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of music IP and the far-reaching consequences of its infringement for artists, rights holders, and the industry as a whole.

So, let’s have a look at some famous cases:

Ed Sheeran and his woes with Thinking Out Loud

Led Zeppelin and Stairway to Heaven

Queen & Bowie vs Vanilla Ice

Napster vs the Music Industry

Famous Music Copyright Cases Revisited: Ed Sheeran, Led Zeppelin, Katy Perry and More

Free Expression or Infringement? 10 Famous Copyright Cases to Know

iTunes Playlist

To offer a unique perspective on the complexities of music copyright, we’ve curated an Apple Music playlist featuring some of the iconic songs at the centre of famous infringement lawsuits. By listening to these tracks side-by-side with the works they were alleged to have copied, you can become your own judge. Explore the sonic similarities and differences and perhaps gain a fresh appreciation for the delicate balance between inspiration and imitation in the creative world of music. This playlist invites you to engage directly with the controversies that have shaped the legal landscape of the industry.

We have also added some notable and innovative songs; some songs created specifically for film and of course some Romanian songs. Enjoy!

Webinars and whatnots – April 2025

Midlands Innovation Open Research Week 2025

• Tuesday, 6th May, 11:00am – Improving student research training through a consortium model (Dr Charlotte Pennington, Aston University)
• Tuesday, 6th May, 1:00pm – Open Peer Review: perspectives from editor, author and reviewer (Dr Lara Skelly, Loughborough University)
• Wednesday, 7th May, 11:00am – What if I really can’t share my data but want to be open? Synthetic data (Dr Krzysztof Cipora, Loughborough University)
• Wednesday, 7th May, 1:00pm – The intersection of neurodiversity and open scholarship (Dr Mahmoud Elsherif, University of Leicester)
• Thursday, 8th May, 11:00am – Computer Vision for Old Books: Open Research in the Digital Humanities (Dr Hazel Wilkinson, University of Birmingham)
• Thursday, 8th May, 1:00pm – Get Feedback, Work Smarter: The Hidden Perks of Preregistration (Dr Roni Tibon, University of Nottingham)
• Thursday, 8th May, 3:00pm – Building a Thriving Research Culture: The Importance of ‘Openness’ in its broadest sense! (Dr Marie Sams, Vicky Strudwick, & Dr Jake Spicer, University of Warwick NCRC)
• Friday, 9th May, 11:00am – Measuring Ourselves: A Self-Assessment Tool for Open Research Practices (Dr Masi Noor, Keele University)
• Friday, 9th May, 1:00pm – What can open research learn from the open source movement in computing? (Professor Stephen Eglen, University of Cambridge)

Other webinars:

• UKRI new draft research data policy information webinar

Interesting read(s):

• Kroon-Batenburg, L. (2025). Toward the Open Science model: publish your raw diffraction data. Structural Dynamics, 12(2_Supplement), A59-A59. https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000368

Catch up on recorded webinars:

• Demonstrating Impact Beyond Metrics: How Lancaster University Uses Altmetric To Support Its Researchers
• Open Research Conversation – Early career researchers and open research
• Open Research Week at The Open University:
  • DAY 1: The fundamentals of open research: decisions around data.
  • A great start to the week with webinars on using open science to support science communication, the launch of the OU’s freely available course on Open Research, and a dedicated session for OU staff and students run by the Library Research Support Team on understanding the OU’s new Research Data Management Policy. 
  • DAY 2: Collaboration, AI and open education resources.
  • The second day hosted a detailed account, spanning over 20 years, on open research in Artificial Intelligence, as well as a real-world example of five open practices to support effective capacity building and co-creation when developing open education resources.  
  • DAY 3: Citizen science showcase.
  • The OU’s support and knowledge of citizen science platforms was demonstrated via the expansive Pelagios Network, the award-winning iSpot, and the hugely popular nQuire platforms.  
  • DAY 4: Open publishing pathways.
  • Open access journals and open book publishing was the focus of the fourth day with practical sessions on how the Open Arts Journal has supported and expanding public-facing research, and on understanding the book commissioning and editing processes at the Scottish Universities Press.  
  • DAY 5: Accessing data. Open Research Week’s final webinar focussed on driving open research with AI and detailed the COnnecting REpositories (CORE) team’s current work on CORE-GPT, SDG-Classify and soFAIR.

Previous months’ Webinars and whatnots:

• March 2025
• February 2025
• January 2025
• December 2024
• November 2024

Innovation machines: can AI boost human creativity?

Co-authored by Lise Jaillant and Prof. Nick Jennings

AI won’t replace human creativity. But it could become an invaluable creative partner, say Nick Jennings FREng and Lise Jaillant.

If you think that machines cannot produce art, think again. There is now ample evidence that artificial intelligence can expand human creativity and produce stunning artwork.

Take the example of “Machine Hallucinations: Unsupervised” by the Turkish-American media artist Refik Anadol, exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2022. After training the model on the museum’s wide-ranging collection, the artist ceded some creative control to AI, allowing it to “hallucinate” and generate its own “dreams” and interpretations. The exhibition was so successful that it was extended four times, and eventually, MoMA acquired the seven-by-seven-metre “data sculpture” for its permanent collection.

Soon after, an AI-generated “photograph” fooled judges and was awarded the Sony World Photography Award. In 2024, a prize-winning Japanese author admitted part of her book was generated by ChatGPT. While AI-generated artworks and creative writing may divide opinion at times, when it comes to evaluating artistic quality, research shows that they are often considered at least as good or even better than the average human creation.

From threat to opportunity

The AI era comes with extraordinary creative opportunities, but also widespread fears. Some believe AI will exhaust our scope for creativity. In 2023, AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru and colleagues wrote that with AI, “nothing new is truly created, a stale perpetuation of the past”. Last year, researchers at UCL pointed to a risk that, despite the possibility for individual gains, “collectively a narrower scope of novel content is produced”. Then, there is the potential economic impact: AI is already disrupting existing jobs and labour models in the creative industries, enabling the production of quality work in a fraction of the time and cost required previously.

Many artists fear that if they share their work online and on social media, it will be used to train AI systems. To avoid plagiarism and breach of copyright, it may be tempting for artists to withdraw from the online sphere. Withdrawal may also prevent reputational damage – for example, if AI tools are used to create offensive images imitating the style of the artist. But having less visibility reduces artists’ ability to find new clients and opportunities, leading to more economic loss. As an alternative, artists can check if their work has been used to train AI without their consent with tools such as “Have I been trained?”. They can then opt out of future AI training by adding images or domains to the Do Not Train Registry.

Do these threats of copyright infringement and economic loss exist? Yes, undoubtedly. Should we get rid of AI and go back to a world of human-only artworks and creative writing? No. It is simply not possible to turn the clock back on these developments. Moreover, we believe this is undesirable because it would prevent artists from harnessing AI to enhance their creativity.

Crossing the art/science divide

First, no human artist could ever gather a range of sources comparable to the huge datasets on which AI systems are based. Artists and writers do not reinvent the wheel each time they produce a new artwork, book or poem. They are influenced (and not always consciously) by their cultural environment and by other artists, past and present. It is these influences that lead to “original and unusual ideas” – which is at the core of the definition of “creativity”.  

In his book Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World, David Epstein argues that the world’s most successful artists, musicians and scientists have developed broad interests and skills. Their vast knowledge base is key to understanding the way they produce new and imaginative work. The same applies to AI systems: although they cannot feel or use personal experience, they have access to a mass of information much broader than any human could possibly gather. Drawing on the full scale of their training data, they can generate good-quality creative outputs.

Second, AI can be used to overcome technical obstacles. For instance, the French-Senegalese photographer Delphine Diallo has used AI as a creative partner for her visual project Kush, which transposes an ancient Egyptian civilisation into a utopian future. “I understood that AI would allow me to do what was impossible with photography,” Diallo told French language magazine Azerty in 2024. “Thanks to it, I can create universes never seen by anyone else, without cost limits.” She goes on to explain that at first, the technology did not generate satisfactory images of African faces. To move beyond biases and clichés, she prompted the AI to draw on a more diverse range of ethnic groups from different parts of Africa. Diallo’s artistic work exemplifies the use of machine learning to push human creativity towards new horizons.

Since AI makes it much easier to produce technically advanced artistic work, professional artists will also need to distinguish themselves from amateurs. For a performance on speculative bubbles, for example, the British artist Anna Ridler put together her own database of tulip photos and created an installation that could generate new tulip shapes, linked to the price of bitcoin. Such distant connections highlight the possibilities for collaborations across the art/science divide.

Human, machine, co-creation

Musicians are also creating AI-generated or augmented audio compositions. The Icelandic musician and artist Björk created Kórsafn, an adaptive sound installation for a New York hotel. It processes real-time environmental data, such as weather and bird movements, to generate a continuously evolving musical composition, blending her choral arrangements with the ambience of the city.

AI models can also produce unconventional rhythms and patterns. Berlin-based artist Holly Herndon designed Spawn, a collaborative AI trained on her voice, to produce entirely new vocal compositions. Going forward, we might see creative outputs labelled as “human only,” “machine only,” or “co-created”. This would create accountability for artists, and transparency for potential customers.

While current AI systems are expanding the frontiers of creativity, we do not believe they will entirely replace humans. When researchers tried to train an AI system to generate Beethoven’s unfinished tenth symphony, the result was disappointing at the artistic level, lacking the depth of feeling and originality of the musician’s finished works.

Nevertheless, today’s artists who use AI to enhance their work have much to gain. Some serious risks need to be negotiated, but human–AI co-creativity has the power to unlock extraordinary new and original work at the crossroads between art and technology.

The Enduring Magic: Why Books Still Matter in the Digital Age

Welcome all to this year’s World Book and Copyright Day! Last year’s blog post looked at what World Book and Copyright Day is, so have a read if you haven’t yet. Why do we celebrate this day? Reading is an important pastime, for both widening our horizon, understanding, escapism and the fact that in general it makes us more knowledgeable and is good for our mental health.

However, worryingly, according to a YouGov poll, only 40% of Britons have read or listened to a book in the last 12 months.

In this blog post, we will have a look at why you should read more and how copyright intertwines with the written word.

Books vs Kindle vs Audible

There are many ways to read a book: you can read a physical book, use a Kindle for ebooks or use apps like Audible to listen to books. Not everyone can focus on listening to books, for example I am terrible at listening to books, as my mind tends to wander, so I prefer to curl up with a good book. But my colleague loves them because she can crochet while she reads.

Physical books do have a magic of their own. Their feel, their smell are something that most of us can associate with our childhood, and let’s face it, for the booklovers and bookworms among us, there is nothing like the smell of books.

Kindle readers are also useful. They are handy to take on holiday with you, unlike real books where you might have to limit yourself to maybe 2 or 3, you can have 10 books ready to read when you reach your destination. Drawback: you need to make sure your Kindle is charged, or you might run out of battery during the best part of the book. Audiobooks are similar to ebooks. You can have as many as you want on your account, and all you need is your headphones.

Books and copyright

Many books are protected by copyright. Copyright ensures that books cannot be reproduced or used without the authors’ or rights holders’ specific permission, and / or paying licensing fees.

Now a book is not always just about the text. There are of course children’s books, which will have text and images. Here there might be multiple copyright holders, the writer or writers, and the artist(s).

Sometimes, books will be changed to keep up with increasing changes in our world and how we perceive things. Many books, especially older books present the stereotypes and views of a world the modern reader cannot associate with. As such, publisher’s update these works so that they resonate with the new reader.

These updates are being facilitated through copyright. Once copyright to a work expires (usually protection lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years) anyone can update, change and sell the books. This will usually add another 25 years’ worth of copyright protection to the ‘new’ work.

Let’s take a much-loved Jane Austen novel (it might be much loved by me, but that is beside the point). Currently there are a billion book adaptations, spinoffs and retellings of the same story. Did you know that Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding is one of them? Copyright allowed that. In what way you ask? Well, once copyright expired on Pride and Prejudice, people were free to use their imagination to create something new, which then created a whole new universe with many ramifications and gave us an exasperating and loveable character (Bridget Jones) and a myriad of books and films we can enjoy. Which in turn are protected by copyright.

Books as artefacts

Books can be multiple things, they can transport you to magical places like Westeros or Narnia, you could be taken on an adventure by a grumpy wizard called Gandalf, without even a handkerchief, but they are also an immense well of knowledge of the human race through different lenses of experience.

What do I mean by that? Books can bring cultures of different nations to the fore. We all experience life through our own lens, we cannot understand at times what other people go through, their culture is so much different to ours, but books can present that culture through the lens of the people living it. These books can be seen as artefacts.

For example, Through the Language Glass: Why The World Looks Different In Other Languages by Guy Deutscher, looks at how the languages we speak will change our perception of things. Another good book Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo is also a great read, presenting the interconnected stories of black British women.

Where to find your next read

If we have whetted your appetite and you are rearing to go, and wanting to read or listen to books, why not try our World Book Day reading list on Libby? We also have a number of multi-cultural books. Here are some more inspirations for culturally diverse books around the world.

And of course this blog post would not be complete, without me highlighting some good Romanian writers as well as some books which have been translated into English.

Whatever your medium of choice is, take some time for yourself today and read a book!

Trans Day of Visibility 2025

To mark Trans Day of Visibility (31 March 2025), we would like to share a poem written by a member of the LGBT+ Staff Network. Whilst the author has chosen to remain anonymous, their writing provides a glimpse into their lived experience, offering readers time to reflect and resonate.

What do you see
When you look at me?

The polarising ‘epiphany’
Of leaders and tyrants
Sowing seeds of uncertainty?

They say I’m confused
How long is a phase?
They say I’m deluded
My truth is a lie

Touch down in a country
I thought I was stealth
They invited me here.
Now I’m ‘misrepresenting’ myself?

We see the distraction
Of course, we can see
The scandal and chaos
Like pirates at sea

Still, does what they say
Shape what you think about me?

I’m buying a coffee
Brush past on the train
Hold the door open
As you rush through the rain

So when we’re invisible
Why shouldn’t we be visible?
And when we are visible
Why should we hide?

From the Vice-Chancellor – March 2025

In my March newsletter: the new Women in Sport hub, BUCS Big Wednesday, Loughborough’s Real Living Wage supplement, Sustainability Week, and recognising our students’ entrepreneurial and academic achievements.

New hub to drive research and innovation in women’s sport

Women’s sport is growing and professionalising at a rapid pace, but research and education to date has not progressed sufficiently to understand the unique challenges that women face in the sector. As the world’s top-ranked university for sports related subjects – we retained our number one placing in the recent QS rankings for the ninth consecutive year – Loughborough is at the forefront of driving this agenda. But we want to do even more, which is why we have invested more than £2 million in our new Women in Sport Research and Innovation Hub.

The Hub was launched this month by Stephanie Peacock, Minister for Sport, Tourism and Civil Society within the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to an audience that included Karen Carney, the University’s ambassador for Sport, Health and Wellbeing, and Denise Lewis, UK Athletics President. It will bring together academics from four of our Schools/Institutes (Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, the Sports Technology Institute, Design and Creative Arts, and the Institute of Sport Business in London) with industry partners, national governing bodies and athletes to drive positive change at every level of the women’s sporting ecosystem.

We have a strong foundation from which to build. For instance, research by the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport has led to a rule change in World Wheelchair Rugby, increasing female participation in the sport; and research by the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences informed UK Sport’s pregnancy guidance to help support performance athletes who want to have a child.

The Women in Sport hub, which is a priority within both our Sporting Excellence and Opportunity core plan and our Sport, Health and Wellbeing strategic theme, will help more women from all backgrounds to be active, provide valuable insight into the issues that women in sport face, and support the government’s goal of removing barriers to sport.

Our new Director of Sport, Louise Gear, whose appointment we announced last week, will also bring a wealth of experience to this agenda.  

Louise, a former netball player, is currently Head of Development at The Football Association (The FA). During her time at The FA she played a key role in helping to double participation in women’s and girls’ grassroots football, was instrumental in working with key commercial partners, including from Sport England and UEFA to grow the women’s game, and launched an award-winning disability football programme.

I’m sure you will join me in welcoming Louise to Loughborough later this year.

Loughborough Real Living Wage supplement addresses pay compression

The work of Loughborough’s Centre for Research in Social Policy on the Minimum Income Standard, which identifies the amount of money different types of households require to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living, has been instrumental in encouraging employers, including the University, to adopt the Real Living Wage (RLW). From November 2024 the RLW hourly minimum increased to £12.60 per hour; as an accredited Real Living Wage employer, we have committed to implementing this uplift.

This is a positive move, but it has also presented us with some challenges, primarily pay compression within the University salary scale structures, particularly in the lower grades. This is a nationally recognised issue and not unique to us, but in order to address it, we have decided to implement a Loughborough Real Living Wage supplement to spine points F06 to F18 for 2025/26, creating a 1.1% pay differential to the take home pay for staff on grades 1 to 4, with effect from April 2025. Further details of this and how it will be implemented will be shared in the staff newsletter on Friday.

This decision, in liaison with our trade union partners, to address lower pay compression at this financially challenged time, demonstrates our strong commitment to all our staff and aims to show a genuine appreciation for their contributions.

Events mark Sustainability Week

Earlier this month we held Sustainability Week, which allows us to find out more about the actions we can all take to create a more sustainable future for everyone.

During the week we announced a partnership with JogOn, a social enterprise that aims to reduce the number of trainers and sports shoes that end up in landfill. You can now drop off your old shoes at the collection bin in the Herbert Manzoni building on the East Midlands campus and JogOn then sort them; shoes in good condition are reused, those at the end-of-life are disposed of through a government programme. This aligns with the work being undertaken by the Centre for Sustainable Manufacturing and Recycling Technologies (SMART) at Loughborough, which has been exploring and developing recycling processes to improve the quality of recycled footwear materials.  

Our students were also invited to take part in a hackathon to help influence the future of food sustainability at the University; and on 11 March, honorary graduate Sir Jonathon Porritt CBE, the eminent writer and campaigner for sustainable development, gave a lecture in which he discussed the criminalisation of environmental protest, looking at instances such as the Just Stop Oil arrests and imprisonments.

This month the University’s Infrastructure Committee, which advises Senate and Council on the best use of the estate, formally approved the Sustainability Strategy that 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. The strategy’s delivery will be overseen by the Sustainability Sub-Committee, which has been established to reflect the importance of this area.

We’ll be formally launching our Sustainability Strategy later this year, and I hope you will all engage with its delivery.

BUCS Big Wednesday brings more Loughborough success

Campus was alive with activity last week as the University hosted BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) Big Wednesday, showcasing the very best of elite student sport. More than 2,000 athletes, coaches and support staff were at Loughborough to contest 57 Championship, Trophy and Vase finals across 16 different sports, with around 2,500 spectators cheering on their respective university teams. More than 100 student volunteers from Loughborough’s Coach and Volunteer Academy (CVA) helped to deliver the event.

It was a hugely successful day for our athletes, with Loughborough securing 14 of the 20 possible pieces of silverware, with victories in sports ranging from basketball to volleyball – a perfect illustration of our strategic aim of Sporting Excellence and Opportunity.

As well as the BUCS Big Wednesday action, the University was also the finish line for day three of Jamie Laing’s Comic Relief challenge, which saw him run 30.5 miles from Market Harborough to the University. Over the course of the week Jamie, who co-founded the Candy Kittens sweet company with Loughborough alumnus Ed Williams, ran five ultra marathons in five days, raising more than £2 million.

Congratulations to all those involved in these events and thank you to everyone who worked so hard to deliver them.

Recognising our students’ entrepreneurship

Those of you who watch the BBC programme Dragons’ Den may have spotted Loughborough alumnus Zak Marks’ appearance a few weeks ago. Zak and his business partner successfully pitched to the dragons, securing £75,000, the full investment they had requested, for their company Kitt Medical.

Kitt Medical provides schools and businesses with adrenaline pens, which are stored in a secure wall-mounted kit along with instructions for administering the medicine during a life-threatening allergic reaction. Zak began developing the concept during the final year of his degree at Loughborough. Kitt Medical launched in 2023, assisted by a £2,500 grant from Loughborough’s Start-Up Fund, one of three funding schemes run through the Loughborough Enterprise Network to help students and graduates on their enterprise journeys.  

Providing our students with opportunities to be imaginative and creative and ensuring they are supporting in running their own businesses is part of our Education and Student Experience core plan. I’m always astounded by the entrepreneurship of our students and graduates, who are regularly recognised for their products and companies.  

Last month, three of our graduates – Sri Ellen Hollema, Katie Michaels and Katerina Mouliadou – were named winners of Innovate UK’s Women in Innovation Awards for 2025, each receiving a grant of £75,000 and business support to accelerate the growth of their businesses.

Sri founded Mat Zero, a heated sleeping mat powered by solar energy that provides a safe and sustainable source of warmth for refugees and disaster relief; Katie developed Moti Me, a physiotherapy-focused product to help children with learning and movement disabilities such as cerebral palsy; and Katerina founded LIGNOO, the first brand to create sustainable water bottles using biobased materials and UK supply chains.

Each will now be honoured with a purple plaque, a scheme developed by Innovate UK to inspire more girls into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The plaques will be displayed in the graduates’ schools and on the University campus.

Celebrating our high achieving students

We recently held the Academic Excellence Awards celebration to recognise and reward some of our top performing students. Thirty-three students were presented with awards this year, each receiving £500 in recognition of their achievements.  

Our students work very hard and this event is always a wonderful opportunity for us to mark significant milestones in their journey through the University. I have no doubt that many of them will go on to achieve incredible things in whatever they choose to do in their lives.

As well as congratulating the award recipients, I would like to say thank you to the members of staff in the Schools who support the students with their academic progression. I know it is a real team effort that includes the academics who teach them, the technicians who help to bring the students’ ideas to life, and the many support staff who help our students to navigate university life. You should all be proud of the part that you play in helping our students on their journey through Loughborough and beyond.

The Figure of the "Mad Scientist" and Victorian Attitudes to Science and Religion

By Jasmine Cairns

I am currently in my second year of History (BA) at Loughborough University. I’ve always had a fascination with the past, but it was during my GCSEs that a particular teacher changed the way I saw the subject: History isn’t just a study of what was, but a warning of what could be again- a reflection of our own capabilities for courage, cruelty and change. Studying at Loughborough thus far has further compounded this sentiment, helping me appreciate not just the what, but the how and why, transforming my view on the world around me, and shaping me into a more thoughtful and perceptive individual.

One of the most, admittedly unexpectedly, eye-opening modules I have taken is Dr Peter Yeandle’s Victorian Values Reconsidered. While I came into it expecting crinoline skirts and stiff upper lips, what I found instead was a period in crisis – grappling with change, anxiety, and the promise (and threat) of progress. Sound familiar? Nowhere was that tension clearer than in Victorian attitudes toward science, and how these were expressed through the fascinating figure of the “mad scientist”, a cultural phenomenon both feared and revered, and the focus of my coursework essay “How did the figure of the mad scientist reflect Victorian attitudes around scientific developments?”

***

We often think of the mad scientist as a wild-eyed figure in a lab coat, tinkering away with lightning and test tubes. But this trope didn’t come out of nowhere – it is rooted in the nineteenth century clashes between rapid scientific development and religious belief, moral certainties and doubt, and challenges to traditional views of authority. The mad scientist, I’ve come to realise, was not just a character. He was a cultural warning sign.

Take Charles Darwin, for example. Today, he’s remembered as the father of evolutionary biology, a groundbreaking mind. But when On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Darwin’s theory of natural selection was seen by many as nothing short of heretical. It flew in the face of the biblical story of creation, prompting outrage and ridicule. To many Victorians, he was a dangerous figure – someone who had “played God” by daring to question divine design. The reaction to Darwin helps explain why some eminent Victorians came to see some scientists as “mad”, not necessarily because they were mentally unstable, but because they crossed the moral and spiritual boundaries that society wasn’t ready to let go of.

That fear wasn’t just centered around real people, it was fictionalised, too. When brainstorming ideas for my essay topic, it was Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) that kept reappearing in my mind. Stevenson’s depiction of Victorian society formed a large part of my understanding of the era prior to this module, and the novel tackles a plethora of themes: science, religion, human nature, and social responsibility, and so on. The line between genius and madness is explored dramatically in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A well-respected doctor, seeking to separate the good and evil within himself through science, instead unleashes Hyde: a creature of primal violence and immorality. Hyde’s “ape-like fury” and “troglodytic” nature reflect Darwinian language, hinting at humanity’s animal instincts lurking just beneath the surface. Jekyll’s fate is similar to other more contemporary “mad scientists” (think Dr. Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man and Dr. No in Dr. No). He is destroyed by his own creation, not because science is evil but because he pursues it without restraint or empathy.

I also explored Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This iconic work, though originally published in 1818, gained a renewed audience in the Victorian period, and its message was clear: scientific ambition without responsibility is dangerous. The Protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, literature’s first “mad scientist”, embarks on a blasphemous venture to replicate the role of God: to create life from death. His desire to “bestow animation upon lifeless matter” sounds impressive, until you realise the monster he creates is unloved, rejected, and ultimately turns to violence. Victor became absorbed by ego and unchecked ambition, and like Prometheus – referenced in the novel’s subtitle The Modern Prometheus – he is punished for defying the natural order.

The tragedy of Frankenstein is a warning for overstepping the boundaries believed set by God; the scientist’s downfall encapsulates Victorian fears of science as a disruptive force when untethered from moral or spiritual guidance.

That fear deepens when science seems to shrug off morality altogether. In real life, the story of Dr. Robert Knox – an Edinburgh anatomist linked to the infamous Burke and Hare murders – is a chilling case in point. Knox purchased cadavers from the two men for medical dissection, turning a blind eye to where they came from. Whether he knew they were murdered or not, his “clinical detachment” terrified the public. Knox embodied the stereotype of the cold, obsessive scientist, willing to forego ethics for the sake of discovery.

What I found most interesting when building my essay was how Victorian-style fears still linger in our culture today. The mad scientist remains a powerful image – from horror films to superhero stories – and it always comes back to the same questions: Should we do something just because we can? What happens when we value knowledge over ethics? And who decides where the boundaries lie?

In the end, the Victorian “mad scientist” was less about actual madness and more about moral panic. These figures represented a society trying to come to terms with massive change, unsure whether science would save them or destroy them. It’s a dilemma that still feels relevant today – in the age of AI, genetic editing, and chemical weaponry, we’re still asking: where does progress end, and hubris begin?

Some recommended reading:

Novels:

• Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1891 edition.
• Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. London: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1886.

Secondary Sources:

• Goodall, Jane. “Electrical romanticism.” In Frankenstein’s Science: Experimentation and Discovery in Romantic Culture, 1780-1930, edited by Jane Goodall and Christa Knellwolf, 117-132. London: Routledge, 2016.
• Sanders, Elizabeth M. Genres of Doubt: Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Victorian Crisis of Faith. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017.
• Toumey, C. P. (1992). “The Moral Character of Mad Scientists: A Cultural Critique of Science.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 17, no. 4: 411-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399201700401.
• Weingart, Peter, Claudia Muhl, and Petra Pansegrau. “Of power maniacs and unethical geniuses: Science and scientists in fiction film.” Public Understanding of Science 12, no. 3 (2003): 279-287.

Image by: Logan Gutierrez on Unsplash

Five Minutes With: Michelle Richey

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

I’m a Senior Lecturer in Technology and Entrepreneurship, focusing on social entrepreneurship and community leadership. I’ve been at Loughborough for 10 years now in roles on both campuses, working with students and community partners to understand how entrepreneurial approaches can create positive social change, especially for people on the margins.

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

My days vary enormously, which is part of what I love about academic life. I might start with a research meeting with partners from refugee support organizations, discussing how their mentorship programs are developing. Later, I could be teaching entrepreneurship concepts to students, often bringing in real-world case studies from my fieldwork. I regularly collaborate with social enterprises and philanthropic foundations across Europe and Africa on evaluating their impact. At some point, I’ll likely be writing, whether that’s academic papers, policy recommendations, or guidance for practitioners. What ties it all together is working with people who are using entrepreneurial approaches to create meaningful change in their communities.

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

I’d have to say it’s a project that started as a small evaluation of TERN’s (social enterprise) support for refugees and grew into something much bigger. Our findings ended up informing Home Office policy on business support for refugees, which was pretty incredible to see. The work has since expanded across Europe and East Africa. One of the most rewarding aspects has been bringing together stakeholders from across the refugee sector to create a community-led network. Before this, many support organizations were working in isolation, but now they share knowledge, develop best practices together, and collaborate on funding opportunities. It’s a perfect example of what academic work can achieve when it bridges research and real-world practice.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

I’m most proud of the relationships I’ve built with communities that often face stigma and marginalization. There’s always a delicate balance in research between sharing findings and protecting people’s dignity and privacy, and I’ve worked hard to get that right. My work in the Kakuma refugee camp really stands out for me. The opportunity to do research there didn’t happen overnight, it came after years of building trust across the refugee sector. When I finally arrived in Kenya, the local refugees and their business mentors welcomed me into their community because of that foundation of trust. This allowed me to document insights that might otherwise have remained hidden and to highlight the remarkable resilience and innovation happening in communities that rarely get the recognition they deserve. Seeing my academic work help amplify these voices has been incredibly meaningful.

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

When my children’s school expanded from a middle school to a full high school, I put my entrepreneurial hat on and established the school’s first PTA. That involved establishing charitable status for a new organization, recruiting community volunteers, and starting to host fundraising activities and events. We have been going less than a year, but have already funded a sensory room for students with additional developmental needs, equipped departments with up-to-date resources for their GCSE students, and we’re currently fundraising to refurbish the library. It’s another example of seeing real-world impact, using the same principles I teach and research to create something valuable for our local community.

What is your favourite quote?

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards – Soren Keirkegaard

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

Protecting the Season: An Overview of Easter-Related Intellectual Property

As Easter is fast approaching, I decided to do a bit of digging into Easter and how it relates to the world of Intellectual Property. Yes, you read right, Easter and IP. As sorely I am tempted to discuss mainly Easter recipes and traditions around the world, this is a copyright blog after all.

Here goes.

Easter Eggs and the Easter Bunny

Who would have thought the humble Easter egg could cause mayhem in the IP world?! Traditionally, Easter eggs are a combination of ancient Pagan beliefs and Christian symbolism. Eggs have long been associated with new life and rebirth, and the tradition of decorating eggs and giving them as gifts dates to at least the 13^th Century. Christians later adopted the egg as a symbol of Jesus’s resurrection.

So how does the humble Easter egg cause chaos in the IP world? Well, if you create an original Easter egg design, that design can be protected by copyright law and trademark law. Think of the Lindt chocolate bunny. It is iconic for Lindt, and it is intrinsically linked with the Lindt brand. While the sitting bunny cannot be protected, Lindt has managed to protect the gold colour of the foil the bunny is wrapped in, causing some issues with a previous case which was initially dismissed i.e. no protection for the sitting bunny itself.

Another case happened in 2010, when Cadbury and Nestle were involved in a trademark dispute over the use of the colour purple on their Easter egg packaging. Cadbury had registered a specific colour purple as a trademark, which Nestle argued caused issues. However, the court ruled in Cadbury’s favour.

In Central and Eastern Europe, eggs can be extremely elaborately decorated. Indeed, no Romanian Easter table is complete without the iconic red (symbolism for blood) painted eggs. In some areas of Romania (and other countries, however, since I am Romanian, I might be excused for promoting my country first) it is an art form, and it is called ouă încondeiate. While this type of decoration is protected only as intangible cultural heritage, different artists can of course protect their designs if those are original enough; some of these eggs have become works of art.

Traditional recipes

Most traditional Easter recipes would have been handed down through generations, and while recipes themselves cannot be protected by copyright, they can however be protected by trade secrets, think of the secret Coca Cola recipe.

Did you know that there is a patent for Hot Cross Buns? Yes, you did read that correctly. The application of the cross on the buns is patented.

Lamb dishes are a staple of the Easter dinner table (unless you are vegetarian). In Italy for example, there is a lamb preparation typical of the Roman cuisine, called abbacchio which is protected by the European Union with the PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) mark, a new form of IP.

If these tasty protections have whet your appetite, why not have a look at the EU’s GI cookbook ‘Sensational’ and enjoy an IP taste feast. 

Who would have thought that Easter could be fraught with so many IP traps?! All this talk of trademarks and copyrights makes you wonder if the Easter Bunny has a legal team on retainer.

Whether you’re celebrating Easter with vibrant traditions, observing another cherished holiday this season, or simply enjoying the arrival of spring, may your time be filled with joy, laughter, and connection. And while the world of Intellectual Property might seem like a surprising guest at our festive tables, let’s raise a (carefully chosen, non-infringing) glass to a season of happiness for all.

Happy holidays!

Midlands Innovation Open Research Week Booking now open!

Open Research Week 2025 marks a significant milestone as all eight Midlands Innovation partner universities come together for the first time to celebrate and promote open research.

This week-long event is designed for researchers and colleagues across the partnership who advocate for open research practices. The theme for this year’s event is “Just for the love of it”, where we aim to spotlight open research beyond compliance—focusing on the principles, values, and innovations that drive researchers to embrace openness as a way of working.

Throughout the week, participants will have the opportunity to explore groundbreaking research, engage in thought-provoking discussions, and discover new avenues for collaboration.

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How Early Years Practitioners Engage with Research Summaries

Dr Bethany Woollacott is a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Early Mathematics Learning at Loughborough. Beth’s primary focus is investigating how we can narrow the gap between research and practice through effective research communication. She is interested in making educational research more accessible and relevant to education practitioners. Edited by Dr Colin Foster.

In this blog post, Beth reviews her recently published paper which explores how eight early years practitioners engaged with research summaries, shedding light on the barriers and facilitators of effective research communication in their eyes. From a series of interviews, Beth identifies key challenges—including time constraints, complex language and presentation issues—while also highlighting how well-designed summaries can support educators in applying research to practice and critically reflecting on the research and their practice. These insights offer practical guidance for researchers, knowledge-brokers and policymakers striving to bridge the research-practice divide.

Introduction

The gap between educational research and classroom practice is a long-standing challenge. Research findings can have a real impact on teaching and learning, but only if educators can access and engage with them. Many organisations now produce research summaries to make findings more accessible, yet there is little evidence that these are effective.

This blog post explores the perspectives of early years practitioners—an underrepresented group in education research—on research summaries. What makes a summary engaging? What prevents educators from using the research discussed in their practice? And most importantly, how can we improve research communication to ensure it is truly useful for educators?

Why Focus on Research Summaries?

Research summaries are increasingly used to bridge the gap between researchers and educators. However, most summaries are not designed with early years practitioners in mind. Much of the existing research on research-practice communication focuses on primary and secondary teachers, potentially neglecting the perspectives of early years practitioners.

This study set out to explore how early years practitioners interact with research summaries, identifying key factors that influence engagement.

Analysis and Key Findings

After collecting the interview data from each of the eight early years practitioners, I thematically analysed the transcripts using reflexive thematic analysis¹. Using this approach, it is important to acknowledge that my role as a researcher is an inherent part of this process where meaning does not reside in the data but is made by how I engage with it. My own perspectives and experiences will have inevitably influenced the themes that I identified during this process and this is seen as a strength, aiming to generate discussion and ideas for further research in this area.

I present the five main findings in an infographic format below.

Educational Impact: What can researchers do to support early years practitioners?

1. Improve Research Summary Design

Research summaries should be created with educators in mind. Practical strategies include:

• Writing in clear, accessible language which is not technical
• Using visuals and structured layouts (using colour or text blocking) to aid comprehension
• Minimising in-text referencing in favour of giving references at the end – don’t just remove references
• Reflecting on the relevance and timeliness of the information being communicated

2. Make Research Easier to Access

Given that time constraints are a significant barrier – and one which is often mentioned – research summaries could aim to be:

• Concise, focussing on the core components needing to be communicated
• Actionable: with clear support or examples of practical implications (where appropriate)
• Formatted for quick reading: considering how instructional design features (such as colour or text blocking) can support educators in easily understanding the material

3. Involve Educators in Research Communication

Involving educators in the development of research summaries could ensure that they meet educators’ needs more effectively. This is true at any stage of the research, where taking account of educators’ views could hugely improve the relevance and usefulness of research from the outset.

At this point, I would like to emphasise that these findings and recommendations (particularly this one) are not necessarily applicable to all types of research: some research is valuable from a theoretical or methodological perspective, and does not necessarily have real-world applications – and nor should we expect it to.

4. Consider the specific challenges that early years practitioners face

Although our findings predominantly reflected those in the existing literature with primary and secondary teachers, a key difference was that early years practitioenrs reported finding that the majority of research failed to account for children who could not yet read or write. Therefore, it is important to consider which age range your research applies to, and whether there are any practical implications that you could suggest which do not require reading or writing skills.

Conclusion

Effective research communication is essential for bridging the gap between research and practice. This study highlights key areas for improvement, showing that well-designed, relevant, and accessible research summaries can help early years practitioners engage with educational research more effectively.

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

References

1. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806

Five Minutes With: Felix Plasser

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

I am a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and I have been here for about seven years.

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

I get into the office between 8:00 and 9:15, depending on whether or not I brought my children to school first. After I get into work, I usually try to get 2-3 hours of uninterrupted work time where I can concentrate my full attention to a task that I want to achieve that day. This could be working on a paper, a grant, a new lecture course, or marking student work. During this time I usually keep my emails and Teams turned off to avoid distractions.

Later in the day I open my emails and usually find out that my inbox is filled with requests from a variety of different people, such as undergraduates, research students, admin staff, or international collaborators. The next hours are then filled with responding to and acting on these emails.

Scattered during the day, I also have lectures and various in-person and online meetings. These meetings could be related to various administrative tasks, such as the Learning & Teaching Committee and the Undergraduate Admissions Taskforce or I could be talking about research to my PhD students and colleagues.

On most days, enjoy the variety of different tasks that my job offers and the mix between research and teaching. Sometimes, my job gets a bit hectic if too many requests and tasks are coming in at the same time.

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

I am very much enjoying a joint project with an organic chemist at Cambridge. We are working on translating some fairly abstract theory, developed by me initially, into rules that can be effectively be used by him to make new molecules that can ultimately improve the efficiency of solar cells.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

I was very proud when my first PhD student, Patrick, graduated and later found a great job he enjoys.

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

I enjoy running with my running club. In summer, you can find me paddle boarding on the Soar river. If I have some more time I enjoy a good hike (especially back home in the Austrian Alps).

What is your favourite quote?

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. (Richard Feynman)

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

Being visibly trans in 2025 

I wanted to take a few minutes to stop and think about what this actually means to me, being out as transgender in 2025. I’ve got past the initial embarrassment and awkwardness that I had when I first came out a few years ago. The fear of being rejected just for being different. I don’t think about that part so much these days. Obviously, I’m very lucky that my place of work is supportive and understanding in letting me be myself. But even in the nearly six years since I came out, the landscape has changed, and the general understanding and perspectives have changed too. 

In the last few years it felt like there was a wave of people coming out as openly trans, that broke a barrier of ignorance in western cultures. Which meant that I could almost casually stroll into an understanding environment. Obviously, it didn’t feel like that at the time, and I don’t think I would have come out at all if I didn’t feel that I might – to some extent – just be accepted, and have people move on with their lives. Actually, this is pretty much how things went. I was extremely lucky to have supportive colleagues, family and friends, that on the whole just accepted me and moved on. This is what I’d always hoped for, but at the beginning never dreamed would actually happen. In the media, LGBT+ support in general was seen as a positive thing. I was also aware that big business was riding on the back of this popular cultural wave and likely cashing in on what was for them, a very lucrative thing to support. Even if the reasons for support were for self-interest, I didn’t mind too much if the outcome was positive for the LGBT+ community. It felt like a period of enlightenment and acceptance for the LGBT+ community, for which I was very happy to be a part of. 

Obviously there have always been people who don’t support the trans and non-binary community, they didn’t go away, they would still have been making their views known, through words and violence. But it wasn’t long before it felt like supporting LGBT+ was old news and people didn’t care so much about being seen to openly offer support. And indeed, it didn’t take long after the coverage of Isla Bryson – a transgender rapist – for more people to vilify the entire transgender community. Suddenly I felt that people might look at me in the same way – that my coming out as trans was simply an excuse for unacceptable behaviour, then using the transgender identity as some kind of diplomatic immunity. 

Back when I first came out, I decided that I didn’t want to make a thing of using the women’s toilets, but I also didn’t feel comfortable going into the men’s toilets anymore. Luckily most buildings at Loughborough University have at least one single cubicle, accessible toilet. So, I chose to use this rather than risk making either male or female colleagues feel uncomfortable by my presence. Yes, I realise I’m jumping on the typical trans points of conversation – either toilets or tablets! – but it’s true, something that most people take for granted feels like a potential battleground. On occasions where a building doesn’t have an accessible toilet, I then have to decide carefully whether I feel comfortable enough to go in the men’s, women’s or disabled toilet. Or to hold it in until I can get to somewhere I feel safe to go. This challenge is then multiplied if I choose to go on a night out. In short, I do my best to try and be a ‘nice’ trans person. Someone who can hopefully be one someone people might think ‘yes, I know a trans person and they aren’t evil’. 

Jump forward to the election of Trump as the new President of the USA and the rise of the ‘anti-woke’ brigade that followed. The future felt bleaker than ever. Anyone with a voice against the LGBT+ community suddenly looked like their day had come and they could openly condemn anything they disagreed with, under the banner of freedom of speech. These have become scary times indeed, with comparisons being drawn between current world leaders and past dictators. However, one unusual comfort that I’ve been able to draw upon, is that there now seems to be a rebellion against this unkind perspective. Even humorous lampooning, calling out the idiocy of it all. Creating one of my favourite satirical quotes: ‘Everything I don’t like is woke.’ Suggesting a childish reaction to something they don’t understand and putting it under a term they probably don’t understand either. This has also led to what feels like a better camaraderie with fellow minorities under the umbrella of EDI or DEI. 

To conclude this rambling post, I feel that we’re in significant a depression of acceptance, and that things are worse than they have been for a long time. But I also feel confident that these things come in waves; that things will improve, as a reaction to the negativity being experienced now. And with a new generation carving their way into the world – I count my own children as part of this – as they were raised with an understanding of what life can be. And so I hope they will fight not just for acceptance, but for improvement and celebration of uniqueness. So, I choose to wear my rose-tinted glasses in looking forward, and hope that others do to. 

Written by Stevie Ashurst, Senior Web Designer and LGBT+ Staff Network Chair

Three tips on making Shiny apps more accessible 

By Lara Skelly & Emma Hibbert

Disclaimer: This post is about R, R/Shiny and accessibility. If you don’t know what any of that is, please stop reading now and have a cup of your chosen beverage. It’s guaranteed to be more enjoyable than reading this

Using R to create dynamic websites is a fun way of making research more accessible. With the ability to fully customise the look and feel through cascading style sheets (css), it’s little wonder that the developers of this library opted for something quite bland as their out-of-the-box styles. Unfortunately, for the R-coders, it means that you have to remember to style for accessibility.

Below are three tips we’ve come up with to improve the accessibility of all the apps we make.

1. Explicitly code for h1 headings

The basic titlePanel is an h2 heading, so you have to alter this to an h1 heading. You can do this in your css, or directly in the code:

titlePanel( 

  tags$h1("Your App Title", class = "title") 

) 

2. Change the navigation bar colours 

The greys of the standard Shiny app navigation bar do not meet colour contrast standards. The bslib library allows developers to add the Bootswatch themes, some of which have a better colour contrast. You can also change this with a custom css: 

.navbar { 

    background-color: #222 !important;  

    color: white !important; 

    border-bottom: 3px solid #000;  

} 

 

.navbar-nav > li > a { 

    color: #f1f1f1 !important;  

} 

 

.navbar-nav > li.active > a, 

.navbar-nav > li.active > a:focus, 

.navbar-nav > li.active > a:hover { 

    background-color: #666 !important;  

    color: white !important; 

} 

 

.navbar-nav > li > a:hover { 

    background-color: #777 !important;  

    color: #fff !important;  

} 

 

.navbar .navbar-header .navbar-brand { 

    color: #ffffff !important;  

    font-weight: bold; 

}  color: #ffffff !important; 

  border-radius: 5px; 

} 

3. Include an Accessibility Statement 

If your app is going to be a standalone website, and not embedded somewhere, then it needs to have an accessibility statement. You could create one that you use across all your apps, linking to it in your app. That’s what we’ve chosen to do, putting this code at the end of the ui.R: 

  tags$div(class = "footer",  

           fluidRow( 

             column(12,  

                    tags$a(href = 'https://doi.org/10.17028/rd.lboro.28525481',  

                           "Accessibility Statement") 

             ) 

           ) 

  ) 

Tools to help you check the accessibility 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) evaluating web accessibility overview has a range of guidance and tutorial videos regarding checking your site or app for accessibility. They also provide a web of accessibility tools list with evaluation tools that are free to use.  

Government guidance provides a range of resources and blogs regarding accessibility and meeting the needs of various users. The dos and don’ts of designing for accessibility provides useful information regarding guidance and best practice.  

WAVE accessibility checker provides a suite of evaluation tools that support making web content more accessible to individuals with varied needs. Tools include easy-to-use browser extensions to assess accessibility in any web browser. 

Examples of Shiny apps from Loughborough University Library 

If you are curious about what kind of Shiny apps we’ve been working on, take a look at these: 

• Word Cloud My Repo: Create word clouds from a list of titles chosen in the Loughborough University Research Repository. 

• WEDC Illustrations and Graphics: A collection of illustrations and graphics produced by the Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) 

• Future Flight Scenarios: Imagine a future where flying is different 

Introducing Dr Arnoud Arps

I am very grateful that I was selected to join the IAS for a fruitful month of writing, speaking, and collaborating at the end of 2024. I found out about the IAS Residential Fellowship through social media, where a post was shared by Professor Emily Keightley. Her formative work on media and memory was already familiar to me and the opportunity to come to Loughborough University to meet and discuss the common ground in our research was the main reason I applied for the fellowship. Hence, I jumped at the opportunity to apply.

In addition to Professor Keightley, it was instructive to meet and have lunch with Loughborough University colleagues from Communication and Media and in particular those from the Media, Memory and History research expertise. The fellowship allowed me to meet people with whom I share a common network, such as Dr. Jilly Kay. Connecting over a cup of coffee and speaking to scholars whose work I had already engaged with was exciting and valuable. The fellowship really facilitated these kinds of informal meetups.

A key prerequisite for doing research is the conducive environment in which it is done. It was therefore my pleasure to have stayed in the IAS Flat which really had everything that was needed to do my work. It was the perfect base from which to join IAS events, leave for the abovementioned coffee meetings, and walk to the Pilkington Library to access books. Besides that, it was quite an experience to live in the heart of Loughborough University’s campus. The flat is just around the corner from the IAS, which was a similarly pleasant place. In large part because the IAS team consisting of Kieran, Connor, Laura, Ksenia, and Yajie made sure I felt very welcome and helped wherever it was needed. I also came to understand that the IAS takes pride in the quality of their lunch and I can attest to this.

The month went by quickly, mostly because there were many events to attend. While I was in Loughborough, colleagues from the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture held an inspirational roundtable and double book presentation with The New School’s Julia Sonnevend. My stay in Loughborough coincided with a Memory Studies Association Research Centres Meeting in Nottingham. It was a real pleasure to be able to travel there with my new Loughborough University colleagues and to represent both my home research institute the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture as well as the IAS and Loughborough University’s Media, Memory and History group.

The location of the town of Loughborough is so central that, in my capacity as IAS Residential Fellow, I could reconnect with former colleagues at the University of Oxford and give a guest lecture at the University of Sheffield. At the IAS itself I presented twice. I gave a research seminar on work-in-progress as well as an academic career workshop for Loughborough University’s postgraduate research seminar. The former was even graced by the attendance of Indonesian students who came over from Nottingham.

In all, my time at the IAS was highly productive and enjoyable. The groundwork has already been laid for future collaborations and I hope to welcome my former Loughborough University colleagues at the University of Amsterdam. In addition, I hope to be able to return to the IAS in the future as well.

Dr Arnoud Arps

Dr Anshuman Sharma - Exploring Research Synergies: My Experience as an Open Programme Fellow at Loughborough University

My recent visit to Loughborough University as an Open Programme Fellow was a highly rewarding experience, shaped by academic collaboration, knowledge exchange, and the exploration of new opportunities. With a strong motivation to strengthen my ongoing research partnerships and establish new ones, I embarked on this journey with several key objectives in mind.

Strengthening Collaborations and Building New Partnerships

A primary driver for my visit was to nurture my existing collaboration with my host, Dr. Yasir Ali. Our research synergies have been fruitful, and this visit provided the perfect setting to deepen our discussions and set the foundation for further projects. Additionally, I had the opportunity to engage in insightful conversations with my PhD student, Mr. Tamim, who is also contributing significantly to our research efforts.

Beyond these existing relationships, I was eager to connect with other researchers at Loughborough University. One of the most promising developments was my interaction with Dr. Marcus, where we explored avenues for potential joint research work. I also aimed to showcase my research and exchange ideas with a broader academic community, receiving valuable feedback that will help refine my future investigations.

Another major goal of my visit was to explore the possibility of establishing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between IIT (BHU) and Loughborough University. Such an agreement could open doors for enhanced academic exchange, including the potential development of a joint PhD program. This initiative would not only strengthen institutional ties but also provide students with greater access to international research opportunities.

Advancing Research through Collaborative Insights

The visit proved immensely beneficial to my research. Through discussions with esteemed colleagues, I gained fresh perspectives on ongoing projects and identified new research directions. The feedback I received was particularly valuable, helping me refine my approaches and methodologies. One of the most exciting outcomes of my visit was the identification of potential joint funding opportunities, which could play a crucial role in sustaining and expanding collaborative projects. These funding prospects pave the way for impactful research that bridges expertise across institutions and disciplines.

A Memorable Experience at Loughborough University

Beyond the academic engagements, my experience at Loughborough University was exceptional in every aspect. The campus itself is a beautiful and well-planned environment that fosters both learning and collaboration. The facilities were outstanding, from the well-equipped research spaces to the excellent cafeteria, ensuring a comfortable and productive stay. The accessibility and overall organization of the university further enhanced my experience, making my visit smooth and enjoyable.

Looking Ahead

As I reflect on my time at Loughborough University, I am grateful for the opportunity to engage in meaningful discussions, develop new collaborations, and explore pathways for long-term academic cooperation. This visit has reinforced my belief in the power of international partnerships to drive innovative research and enrich the academic experience. I look forward to building on these connections and contributing to impactful research that transcends borders.

Dr Anshuman Sharma

Dr Xiaoya Xun - Exploring Youth Development and Social Dynamics: A Journey Through My Research

The development and behaviour of young people have long fascinated me, particularly how personal traits interact with environmental influences to shape their life paths. My research focuses on understanding the complex interplay between individuals and their surroundings, spanning several interconnected projects.

Longitudinal Research on Juvenile Delinquency

At the core of my work is a decade-long longitudinal study on juvenile delinquency. This project examines how personal characteristics—such as morality and self-control—interact with environmental factors like peer influence and community conditions. Over the past ten years, we’ve completed three waves of data collection, and I’m excited to announce that the fourth wave is about to begin.

Through this study, I aim to uncover how these dynamics evolve as young individuals grow and transition through critical life stages. Tracking these changes longitudinally offers a unique perspective, revealing patterns that may otherwise remain hidden. This research not only deepens our understanding of youth development but also holds potential for informing more effective interventions and support systems.

Exploring Moral Education in Alternative Schools

Another significant area of my research focuses on alternative educational settings for young offenders in China. These schools are designed to support young people who have committed offenses but are not legally liable due to their age.

In collaboration with Dr. Neema, I’m investigating the role of moral education in shaping the behaviours and attitudes of these students. Our goal is to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and provide evidence-based recommendations to enhance their impact. By understanding how moral education influences these young individuals, we hope to contribute to the broader discourse on restorative justice and youth rehabilitation.

Bridging the Gaps in Understanding School Bullying

My third project addresses the pervasive issue of school bullying. One of the key challenges in tackling bullying is the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition. My research examines the differing perceptions of school bullying among students, teachers, and parents in China.

I believe that bridging these gaps in understanding is crucial. If all stakeholders share a common framework for identifying and addressing bullying, it becomes much easier to collaborate on preventive measures. My work aims to highlight these discrepancies and pave the way for a more unified approach to combating bullying in schools.

A Vision for the Future

Through these projects, my aim is to contribute to a better understanding of youth development and social dynamics, particularly in contexts where personal traits and environmental factors intersect. Whether it’s through longitudinal studies, exploring alternative educational models, or addressing the challenges of school bullying, my hope is to inform policies and practices that support young people in reaching their full potential.

I am deeply passionate about these topics and look forward to engaging with fellow researchers, educators, and policymakers to create meaningful change.

Dr Xiaoya Xun

Webinars and whatnots – March 2025

Forthcoming:

• GW4 Open Research Week 2025 – 31 March to 4 April 2025 (Monday – Friday)
• Early career researchers and open research – 23 April 2025 (Wednesday)
• *** Midlands Innovation Open Research Week – 6 to 9 May 2025 (Tuesday – Friday) *** stay tuned for more information
• 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)
• International Conference on Open Repositories – 15 to 18 June 2025 (Sunday – Wednesday) Chicago, Illinois, USA

Catch up on recorded webinars:

• Open research across different epistemic cultures
• File organization in Figshare: options and suggestions for researchers and curators
• British Social Attitudes and ‘Dividing Lines’ 40 years of open-access research
• Open Qualitative Research Challenges – Limitations and Possibilities
• Recognising and Rewarding Open Research
• Open research and AI – both changing the nature of scientific research
• Lessons learned from setting up REPOPSI – supporting open psychology research in Serbia
• Measuring, Monitoring and Evaluating Open Research
• At the intersection of openness, reproducibility and training
• The impact of being ‘open’ for small charities

Previous months’ Webinars and whatnots:

• February 2025
• January 2025
• December 2024
• November 2024

From Overwhelm to Clarity: How mindfulness and fitness transformed my life in the UK

Rahul Shankar, currently studying for a Master’s in Sport Management at Loughborough University, shares how he embraced mindfulness, fitness, and structure to transform his wellbeing.

Moving to a new country is a whirlwind of new experiences, new people, and an entirely different way of life. When I first moved from India to the UK for university, I expected excitement, adventure, and growth. What I didn’t anticipate was how much it would challenge me mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Suddenly, everything was different. The weather, the food, and the academic expectations all felt overwhelming. For a while, I questioned if I had made the right decision. It had been a long time since I last studied, and the pressure felt suffocating. My mind played tricks on me, convincing me that I had made a mistake.

But then, something shifted. Instead of focusing on the external chaos, I turned inward. Mindfulness and fitness became my anchors, and I experienced an unexpected transformation.

Meditation: From external struggles to internal mastery 

I’d heard of mindfulness, but it wasn’t until I committed to a daily 20-minute practice that I truly understood its power. Unlike guided meditations, I chose to simply sit in silence, observe my thoughts, and detach from the noise.

And that’s when things started shifting.

At first, it gave me clarity, the kind that cuts through the fog of doubt and overthinking. Instead of resisting discomfort, I embraced it. The more I focused on my internal world, the more my external reality started aligning effortlessly.

What changed

• I stopped reacting to external situations and started creating my internal state first.
• I realised what temporary discomfort is and how pushing through it leads to clarity.
• I began influencing outcomes. Just before meetings I’d pause and tell myself, “This is going to be an amazing meeting” and it almost always was.

Fitness: Structure in the midst of chaos 

If meditation was my mind reset, fitness was my physical anchor. The moment I stepped onto a tennis court or into the gym, everything else faded.

Beyond just physical health, fitness gave me structure. In a new environment where everything was unpredictable, working out was something I could control. It became my non-negotiable, and the benefits went beyond just strength or endurance.

How fitness helped me

• It gave me a daily sense of stability.
• The endorphins kept me in a high-energy, positive state.
• It reinforced the idea that consistency beats motivation, even on bad days I showed up.

Overcoming struggles

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Along the way, I struggled with two major things.

Cooking for myself was a disaster. I had no clue what to make, or when to make it, and would waste time every day figuring it out. I even tried making a food timetable, but it never worked. The solution was meal prepping. Three months in, I finally started prepping meals in advance, and it was a game-changer. Now, eating is structured, efficient, and stress-free.

Balancing studying, tennis, my brand, and my social life was a nightmare at first. I kept feeling like I wasn’t doing enough or falling behind. But thankfully, the University’s workshops on time management changed the game. Now, everything I do is on my calendar, every deadline, every commitment, even self-care. Having that structure has made my days far more productive and less overwhelming.

This journey led me to a state I can only describe as ‘superbeing’

• I feel clearer and more in control than ever before.
• I no longer react to situations, I shape them.
• I’ve gone from questioning my decision to move here, to feeling like I belong more than ever.

My challenge to you 

If you’re feeling lost, overwhelmed, or questioning your decisions, pause. Instead of trying to fix the outside world, try shifting your internal state first.

• Try mindfulness daily, just sit, breathe, and observe.
• Move your body at least 3-5 times a week.
• If something feels overwhelming, find a system that works for you.
• Before stepping into a stressful situation, use confirmation bias to your advantage, tell yourself it will go well, and you’ll be surprised how often it does.

Visit the Student Services Events page for workshops to support your wellbeing at university.

This Week at Loughborough | 24 March

General

Live Lounge

24 March, 7:30pm – 9pm, The Lounge

If you enjoy live music and discovering new artists then come along for a special, laid back evening as best talent from Loughborough University will be presented in an open mic night. Come along and support our students and experience something special.

This event is part of Music Month (26 February – 26 March 2025) – a celebration of music on campus with performances, workshops and short courses.

Create and Connect

26 March 2025, 2:30pm – 4:30pm, Students’ Union

Create & Connect is a series of fortnightly sessions designed specifically for international students at Loughborough University. It’s a chance to come together and do something creative in your spare time while getting to know fellow students in a safe and welcoming space.

Geometric Pop-Up Books with artist Chiara Dellerba

26 March 2025, 6:30pm – 8:30pm, Martin Hall

Come along for an exciting hands-on workshop where you will learn how to make your very own geometric pop-up book. Step by step, Chiara will guide you through each stage of production: cutting, assembling, pasting, adding hinges, and binding.

Social and Creative Venture Series

27 March 2025, 9:30am – 1pm, Loughborough Town

This workshop will explore what an inclusive economy could look and feel like for Loughborough, Charnwood and the wider region. Participants will engage in discussions and activities focused on creating systems that ensure equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of background, economic status, gender, race, or abilities.

National Theatre Live: Dr. Strangelove

27 March 2025, 7pm – 10pm, Cope Auditorium

Watch ‘Dr. Strangelove’, this explosively funny satire, about a rogue U.S General who triggers a nuclear attack, is led by a world-renowned creative team including Emmy Award-winner Armando Iannucci and Olivier Award-winner Sean Foley.

Introducing Dr Achituv Cohen

Ever since I was a child, I have been captivated by maps. I vividly remember sitting on the kitchen floor, plotting imaginary journeys across crinkled paper maps with toy cars in hand. Each line and symbol led to new worlds and grand adventures in my mind. As I grew older, maps became more than childhood games—they guided my real-life explorations. Before digital navigation, I was the one entrusted with maps on family trips, eagerly leading the way through tangled streets. My passion went beyond reading maps; I immersed myself in city rhythms, walking streets and using public transportation. Walking was more than travel—it was a connection to my surroundings. Today, as a researcher, I’ve combined these passions, using maps, spatial data, and technology to make cities more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable, focusing on active transportation solutions.

When I first embarked on my academic journey as a master’s student, my focus was on understanding how the urban environment impacts vulnerable groups, particularly blind pedestrians. Our initial aim was to determine the optimal routes for visually impaired individuals based on their starting points and destinations. This work evolved as we developed an index to evaluate accessibility levels for blind pedestrians across different urban areas. Through our research, we discovered that pedestrian traffic plays a critical role in determining route choices for blind pedestrians, as it affects their sense of safety and comfort. However, acquiring accurate data on pedestrian traffic patterns proved challenging, as such data was often scarce or inaccessible for every street. To overcome this, we adapted Bluetooth systems originally designed for analyzing vehicular traffic, using them to estimate pedestrian flow. Additionally, we leveraged machine learning algorithms and open-source platforms like OpenStreetMap to predict pedestrian traffic patterns.

Over time, my research expanded to encompass not just blind pedestrians, but all pedestrians and active transportation users. I sought to understand their behaviors and needs within urban environments through various geospatial approaches. One of my collaborative endeavors was with Dr Asya Natapov, where we developed an open-source plugin aimed at enhancing the understanding of sightlines between street intersections and points of interest. This tool was designed to improve wayfinding, enhance pedestrian safety, and better orient pedestrians by revealing how urban structures influence visibility and movement.

Reflecting on my journey, I am grateful for the opportunity to share insights from my past and current research and to explore the challenges that lie ahead. Together, I believe we can continue to shape urban environments that are not only more accessible and inclusive but also sustainable for generations to come.

Dr Achituv Cohen

Exploring the Dynamics of Disaster Response in Malawi

In September 2023 I touched down in Blantyre, Malawi, to start my PhD fieldwork exploring the role that humanitarian shelter response can play in building community resilience. This was six months after the devastation of Cyclone Freddy, the longest lasting cyclone on record. Malawi had been particularly badly impacted by Freddy, with nearly 700,000 people displaced and over 1,000 deaths. In response, the international humanitarian community had been activated through the Malawi Shelter Cluster to support the reconstruction and relocation of multiple affected communities. My fieldwork plan was to connect with some of these Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that were engaged in the response, and see how their activities influenced community social resilience in affected populations.

It was in Malawi that I first met with Dr Tanja Hendriks, postdoctoral research fellow at KU Leuven, who’s project Duty and Diligence in Disasters: civil servants and the climate change crisis in Malawi is focused on the roles and responsibilities of government officials in preparing for and responding to disasters across the country. After an initial connection through social media, we found ourselves in Blantyre at the same time and were able to meet to discuss our mutual interest in the role of various external actors engaging with community members. Both civil servants and NGO staff often find themselves in similar situations when in the field supporting disaster response programmes. Both will be attempting to collect and report data on the impact of a given event. Both will be distributing relief items, often not enough, with too little time and too little support. And yet, we also began to identify some of the key differences between our experiences following our informants to visit project sites.

When I left Malawi, I knew there was still a lot more I wanted to discuss with Tanja, and so we began searching for ways to allow us to continue to work together. The IAS Open Fellowship Programme provided the perfect opportunity to bring Tanja to Loughborough for one week in January 2025. In addition to Tanja’s excellent presentation on her research at the IAS seminar, we were also able to host a playtest of the disaster governance boardgame that Tanja has been developing with Serious Game artists to help players put themselves into the shoes of actors responding to disasters in Malawi. The session was very enjoyable (and a little heated at times!), and by connecting with other disaster scholars and researchers interested in game design, Tanja was able to get feedback on the prototype, which will hopefully support its further development. We were also able to visit London to meet with colleagues at Loughborough London, as well as to allow me to meet with some of Tanja’s other collaborators in the UK at UCL and the Centre for Disaster Protection.

Thanks to the generosity of the IAS, I was able to further develop my research plans with Tanja, beginning to put together a draft of a journal article, a proposal for an edited volume that we hope to lead on, and even a potential podcast series! On top of that, I was also able to meet with other Malawi-focused researchers, both here at Loughborough and further afield, and to expand my own network alongside Tanja’s.

Without the IAS, Tanja and I would have stayed in contact and (hopefully!) met again in Malawi in future fieldtrips, but now we have had the chance to formulate a coherent plan for our research agendas together and build a wider network of interested people to engage with in order to turn some of our ideas into realities… Watch this space!

George Foden, host of IAS Open Programme Fellow Dr Tanja Hendriks

Disaster Data

We were stood on the station awaiting the train that would take us back to St Pancras on the final day of my visit to Loughborough with the IAS, when we had a moment of realization regarding many of the interesting discussions we’d been having all week around the concept of disaster data. Our train was delayed, and with the departure of my Eurostar train looming, we became increasingly invested in checking the indicated yet constantly changing times and information on the screens and listening to the announcements in the station, even though we could not really act on it. The train was 5 minutes delayed, then 10, eventually it was simply ‘delayed’, before again being only 7 minutes behind schedule. The access to up-to-the-minute (entirely inaccurate) ‘data’ caused increasing stress as a potentially missed Eurostar connection approached.

When our train eventually showed up after (only!) a 15-minute delay, we concluded that the provision of more information did not make us feel more in control at all, but it did make us feel more responsible for making the right decision (i.e. do we wait, do we take a taxi?) – even though there weren’t really any other viable and affordable options. Where it is perhaps unfair to compare navigating the UK railway system to dealing with disaster responses in Malawi, it is this heightened sense of experienced responsibility that formed the basis of many of our conversations throughout the week with IAS.

I am an anthropologist who studies the state, bureaucracy, disasters and development in Malawi; a donor-dependent and disaster-prone country in southern Africa where dystopian climate change scenarios are unfolding. In line with global agreements such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, states are primarily responsible for dealing with disasters in their territories, although it is increasingly recognized that some may need additional assistance in order to be able to do so. Malawi is one of these states: in the last ten years, it declared a ‘state of disaster’ eight times, struggling to respond to cyclones, droughts and floods. With the majority of its population dependent on rain-fed subsistence agriculture to survive, the weather has immediate effects on food security and the country’s wider economy. Each of the declarations of disaster represented separate disaster events, but their effects on the ground are profoundly cumulative, making it increasingly difficult and costly for the Malawi state to cope with the impacts of climate change. Using ethnographic methods, my work has focused on civil servants of the Malawi government Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) and the ways in which they perform their duties.

For my PhD research I focused on district-level civil servants as they dealt with Cyclone Idai (2019), which affected more than one million Malawians. To do so, DODMA relied on donor-funding for most of its activities, meaning civil servants collaborated with numerous non-state actors. Spending 12 months studying their everyday practices of governing I was struck by the disconnect between my own observations and the descriptions of Malawian/African bureaucrats as venal and indifferent, prevalent in academia and the development industry. Rather, I found ample empirical evidence that the under-resourced and overstretched civil servants I studied attempted to do their jobs well, despite difficult circumstances. This led me to argue that we cannot properly understand everyday state functioning without taking into account civil servants’ sense of duty. My current postdoctoral research project builds on this finding but focuses on national-level DODMA civil servants, studying their aspirations, motivations and the moral obligations they experience in relation to their work. I conducted fieldwork in the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy (2023) and the recent El Nino induced drought (2024-2025), which is when I came across the work of (soon to be Dr.) George Foden.

George and I had connected on social media in the fall of 2023, as he was preparing for a fieldwork visit to Malawi. He had experience working in the humanitarian sector and our conversations quickly revolved around how disaster relief interventions and recovery projects are experienced differently across the state/non-state divide. This, despite the fact that the entire disaster governance system is set up to facilitate state/non-state collaborations, and despite the fact that the state/non-state divide is not particularly pronounced in Malawi: many of the individuals involved move across state and non-state organisations throughout their careers, and – partly due to the regular occurrence of disasters – are well acquainted with each other. Based on our different starting points, our discussions moved into many directions, covering themes such as the meaning(s) of disaster data, project-based interventions, sustainability trade-offs between present and future responses, and how collaborations can be contested or accepted – overtly and in more subtle ways. Wanting to discuss and collaborate more ourselves, I got the opportunity to visit the IAS, where I was hosted by George.

Early January 2025 we spent a week continuing our discussions during a wide-range of activities. I was introduced to the IAS, the Loughborough campus, the PhD students in George’s office – with whom we went out for dinner to the local carvery, a culinary highlight of my stay! – and George organized a Playtest for the disaster governance game that I have been developing together with two Serious Game artists. Played at the IAS with a group of disaster scholars, I received valuable feedback on the prototype which seeks to allow game players to walk a mile in Malawian civil servants’ shoes during disaster relief interventions. The final day of my stay in Loughborough was spent visiting the Loughborough London campus with George and we also managed to connect with people at the Centre for Disaster Protection and (Malawi-focused) scholars at University College London.

It was in these discussions with new colleagues at LU and beyond that our thoughts around disaster data began to coalesce. I presented on my research at the IAS, highlighting the pressures that civil servants are put under to collect data to inform responses and the importance of “getting the numbers right”, something that means very different things to different people. In discussions with George, we found similar experiences on the part of NGO staff and civil servants in attempting to make effective decisions based on limited or absent information, as well as expectations from above that data could be presented to inform funding and operational decisions far away from the sites of disasters. We spoke with many colleagues about different funding mechanisms for disaster preparedness and response, considering the ways in which international donors operationalize finance streams to support disaster response, and what this necessitates that national actors must do in order to be accountable to their funders. Often this can result in a top-down accountability structure for civil servants aiming to “get their numbers right” to appeal to potential donors, at the expense of accountability to affected populations. This is one of the key topics that George and I are hoping to explore further in a future paper, as we share the view that the pressure placed on practitioners to deliver up-to-date data to inform decision making processes adds significant stress to everyone involved whilst, often, failing to support actors in their efforts to make the ‘right’ decisions during a time of crisis. That may be as true in the offices of DODMA as it is while waiting on a train station watching the minutes to your Eurostar departure tick down!

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at IAS Loughborough and hope to be able to visit again in the future!

March Copyright Reads

Welcome back, copyright explorers! Get ready to dive into a world of exciting stories this month! We’ve got a treasure chest of copyright adventures just for you.

First up, we’re going behind the scenes of Hollywood, exploring some super cool movie copyright cases – including a really interesting one about… Moana! Yep, that’s right, your favorite ocean voyager is making waves in the legal world!

Then, we’re zooming around the globe to see how copyright and AI are mixing and matching. It’s like a superhero team-up, but with robots and rules! And of course, we’ll check in on what’s happening in America, where research funding is getting a bit of a shake-up.

And guess what? We saved the best for last! We’ve got a special link to the Dragon’s Den IP blog. Imagine inventors pitching their amazing ideas, and learning all about protecting them! It’s like watching a real-life quest for innovation!

So, grab your detective hat and let’s jump into this month’s copyright reads. You won’t want to miss it!

South Africa: Education unions call for copyright reform to protect learning

NIH Cuts ICR – Implications for Research Institutions and Scholarly Publishing

Prince estate blocks release of Netflix documentary by Oscar-winning director Ezra Edelman

Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet.

New Copyright Ruling Just Made AI Skills The Biggest Advantage

Gruffalo carvings removed over copyright claims

Dragons’ Den: the Intellectual Property blog

Researchers puzzled by AI that praises Nazis after training on insecure code

Why did Birkenstock try to claim its sandals are art?

Judge Allows Michael Crichton’s Estate to Pursue Lawsuit Over ‘The Pitt’

Disney’s ‘Moana’ Is on Trial—But Should It Be?

The end of the student essay? Reasoning AIs are starting to cross into pass territory

AI, Copyright, and the Future of Content Creation: How Global Regulations and the EU AI Act Are Reshaping Creators’ Rights

The power of reputation: EUIPO confirms stronger protection for renowned trade marks

Design or art? French court rules that Birkin Bag is a copyright work

Copyright in fictional universes

Copyright and Generative AI: Opinion of the European Copyright Society

Navigating Research Data and Software: A Practical Guide for PhD Supervisors

Open Content: Navigating Creative Commons Licenses

Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants

AI Boom or Copyright Doom? Lessons from Asia

Judge dismisses copyright suit against Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You

It’s March, so let’s give a big round of applause to the women who’ve made history and continue to inspire us!

Celebrating Women’s History at Lboro Library

International Women’s Day: Female Entrepreneurs

Celebrating Women’s History Month: Notable Women in IP

Mind the ( gender ) gap: empowering women in the IP arena

Oh, and how could we forget? It’s also St. Patrick’s Day! Time to get ready for some green fun and maybe even find a lucky four-leaf clover!

St. Patrick’s Day IP – Shamrock Trademark History

St Patrick’s Day: Everything you need to know

A Trademark History of St. Patrick’s Day

We hope you really enjoyed diving into this month’s copyright stories! If you’re keen to keep up with our latest discoveries and updates, please do give us a ‘like’ and subscribe. We’d love for you to join us again!

Five Minutes With: Jessica Noske-Turner

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

I’m a Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Creative Futures, Loughborough University London, and I’ve been here since 2019.

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

A typical day involves a lot of multi-tasking! I’m involved in two research projects at the moment – Para Sport Against Stigma, and Un/Making Communication and Social Change, plus working on grant applications for new projects, so there is a lot of communication with my collaborators asssociated with those. I’m also Prorgamme Director for three masters programmes (MA Communication, Media and Development; MA International Development; and MSc International Sustainable Development) which keeps me busy. And in between I try my best to carve out quiet time to make progress on my forthcoming book, ‘Communication and Development in a Capitalist World’.

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

Unfair question – they are all my favorite! If I had to choose, it would probably have to be the Un/Making Communication and Social Change project. In that project I used creative and participatory methods and had a lot of freedom for methodological innovation. I worked with some amazing partner NGOs in Malawi and India., and we experimented with ‘reverse engineering a recipe’ to analyse algorithmic power of social media, ‘making metaphors’ workshops where participants made 3D models of concepts which offered incredibly powerful critiques of power and agency in international development, poetry workshops, and even had a theatre performance of a play that was banned when it was first performed in Malawi in 1988. So that has been a really joyous, rewarding and exciting project.

What is your proudest moment at Loughborough?

Anytime we see impact from projects I feel immense pride and a huge sense of reward. The Para Sport Against Stigma has seen huge impact driven by so many people – including an increase in the number and depth and quality of national media stories and features about para sport in Malawi, a first ever corporate sponsor of the Malawi National Paralympic Committee, and contributions to the new National Disability Policy in Malawi on using para sport for disability rights awareness. From the Un/Making CSC project, it was seeing some of the national newspapers cover our conference (which included the theatre performance of the banned play) with double page spreads, which to me showed that the research project really was contributing to a nationally important debate on localization of development.

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

I’m an avid swimmer – I’m part of my local Masters Swimming Club (in fact, I’m currently the Chair of the Club!), and I love doing long-distance, open water swims. I recently did the One Day Scilly Swim Challenge, which involved about 6km of walking and 12km of swimming between islands of Scilly.

What is your favourite quote?

“There is no tomorrow without a project, without a dream, without utopia, without hope, without creative work, and work toward the development of possibilities, which can make the concretization of that tomorrow viable.” Paulo Freire

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

AI in Sport - Opportunity, Excitement, Progression and Acceleration

Co-authored by Seb Coe and Prof. Nick Jennings

Artificial Intelligence in Sport

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will revolutionise all aspects of sport — enhancing athlete performance, improving on pitch decision-making, and elevating fan experiences. But too often, its real-world influence gets drowned out by overblown hype. 

To help rectify this, Vice-Chancellor and world leading researcher in AI from my own Loughborough University, Professor Nick Jennings, has joined with me to write this piece in which we examine some of the most profound short to medium term impacts of this exciting technology.

The Power of AI in Sport

There are numerous examples of the impact of AI in sport, but here we focus on a few of the most important — identifying talented athletes, accessing top quality coaching, turbocharging anti-doping testing and enhancing fan experience.

AI can be a great leveller and can help developing nations and those with less mature sport ecosystems to discover hidden talent and overcome geographic and financial barriers. Helping develop these robust and powerful uses of AI is the only way to unlock this true potential.

Identifying Talented Athletes

AI is transforming the way athletes are scouted and developed. Traditional talent identification processes rely on subjective assessments and limited data, which result in missed opportunities. AI, on the other hand, can analyse vast amounts of data from various sources, such as performance metrics, physiological data, and even social media activity, to identify promising athletes at an early age. 

By exploiting video processing and machine-learning algorithms, AI can detect promising individuals from uploaded mobile phone videos which significantly widens the talent aperture. From such inputs, the algorithms can highlight those who are worthy of further investigation and so focus the efforts of human scouts onto those with the most promise. 

Having identified talented individuals, AI-powered platform scan analyse footage of athletes in action over time, assessing their technique, speed, agility and other performance indicators. This data can then be compared against benchmarks and historical data to assess the trajectory of exceptional talent. In so doing, AI can continuously monitor an athlete’s progress, providing real-time feedback and recommendations for improvement. This proactive approach ensures that talented athletes are identified and nurtured from a young age, maximising their chances of success.

A great example of this is the NFL Digital Athlete – an innovative initiative aimed at enhancing player health and safety through the use of AI and machine learning. This collaboration between the NFL and AmazonWeb Services, collects and analyses data from various sources, including game footage, player tracking systems and sensors embedded in equipment. By creating a comprehensive view of players’ experiences, the Digital Athlete helps teams understand individual needs, predict and prevent injuries and develop personalised training and recovery programmes. 

Accessing High Quality Coaching

AI is revolutionising the way athletes access coaching and training resources. In many regions, particularly in developing nations, access to high-quality coaching is limited due to geographic and financial constraints. AI can bridge this gap by providing personalised coaching programmes and virtual training sessions. AI-driven coaching platforms can analyse an athlete’s performance data and generate customised training plans tailored to their specific needs and goals.

For example, Dinetiq (a Loughborough spin out) offers a range of data-driven, science-backed coaching services for cricket fast bowlers. Their system embeds 20 years of world-leading research into a mobile phone app that provides personalised advice to individuals to improve their performance and reduce injury risk.

AI can also simulate game scenarios, allowing athletes to practise and refine their skills in a controlled environment. Virtual coaching sessions can be conducted through video conferencing or virtual reality platforms, enabling athletes to receive real-time feedback and guidance from expert coaches, regardless of their location. In so doing, AI systems can provide athletes with access to a wealth of training resources, such as instructional videos, drills, and exercises, which can be accessed at any time. This democratisation of coaching ensures that athletes from all backgrounds and all skill levels have the opportunity to improve and reach their full potential.

Turbocharging Anti-Doping Testing

AI is playing a crucial role in enhancing anti-doping efforts by improving the detection and prevention of doping violations. Traditional methods often rely on random testing and manual analysis, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error. In contrast, AI systems can analyse large datasets with much greater frequency and can, therefore, more effectively identify anomalies that may indicate doping. 

In particular, machine-learning algorithms can be trained to recognise patterns associated with doping, such as sudden changes in an athlete’s performance metrics or physiological data. By continuously monitoring this data through trusted measurement sensors and devices, AI can flag suspicious activities and trigger targeted testing, increasing the likelihood of detecting doping violations. Additionally, AI can analyse data from various sources, such as biological passports, to identify long-term trends and detect subtle changes that may indicate doping. This proactive approach not only enhances the effectiveness of anti-doping efforts but also acts as a deterrent, discouraging athletes from engaging in doping practices.

Enhancing Fan Engagement

AI can significantly enhance fan engagement by offering personalised experiences tailored to individual preferences. By analysing fan behaviour data—such as viewing history, preferences, and social media activity—AI systems can deliver customised content. This can include match highlights, news, and product recommendations, all designed to engage fans more deeply by providing content that aligns with their specific interests.

Additionally, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are transforming fan interaction. These technologies can handle fan queries, provide real-time game updates, and foster engagement during events via social media platforms. By maintaining an active presence beyond the event itself, these tools enhance the overall fan experience, keeping fans connected and engaged with the sport in real time.

Furthermore, AI can power virtual and augmented reality(VR/AR) experiences that immerse fans in an interactive and dynamic viewing environment. Fans can experience the thrill of being courtside or standing on the field, creating a more engaging and memorable connection with the event. On top of this, AI-driven predictive analytics can assist fans in fantasy sports by offering data-backed insights to improve team decisions, considering factors like player performance trends and injuries.

Challenges

Ethical and privacy concerns are paramount when it comes to safeguarding athletes’ rights and autonomy, particularly as AI increasingly plays a role in tracking and analysing personal data. Real-time data accuracy is essential for providing actionable insights during training and competition, where even minor inaccuracies can have a significant impact on performance and decision-making. To address these concerns, it is crucial to implement robust governance, enhanced security measures, and improved data protocols that protect athletes’ rights while maximising AI’s potential in enhancing sport performance and decision-making.

The ethical and privacy implications of AI are especially critical in the context of sensitive data, such as athletes’ health metrics, performance statistics, and biometric details. While these datasets are invaluable for optimising training and performance, they also carry significant risks of unauthorised access, misuse, and discrimination. Without proper regulation, AI applications could lead to invasive monitoring or data breaches. Fortunately, modern privacy preserving technologies can now store, manipulate and aggregate such data (using approaches like aggregated conversion modeling and homomorphic encryption) in a safe way without it being shared or distributed widely.   All of this is paramount but still does not address the sadly all too familiar use of AI in online abuse and cyber bullying.  It is rare for this type of abuse to be solely AI generated.  There is inevitably a malicious human intending to cause harm sitting behind the abuse that many of our athletes have unfortunately been targets of.  Here we need vigilance, law enforcement and social media platform leadership to track, take down and prosecute the individuals. At World Athletics we have conducted a 4 year study of online abuse of our athletes from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to the Paris 2024 Games, taking in two of our own World Championships. The reports make unpleasant reading but through reporting, to platforms and police, we have had some success in removing abusive posts and handing individuals over to local law enforcement. The legal system is catching up but we need stronger partnerships with social media platforms to eliminate this scourge.

Conclusion

AI is a game-changer for sport, offering unprecedented opportunities to discover talent, enhance performance, ensure competition is fair and better engage fans. By leveraging AI’s capabilities, we can unlock new possibilities, particularly in regions like Africa, where there is immense untapped potential waiting to be realised. The future of sport is bright with AI. It is time to take action and harness its power for the betterment of athletes, fans and the entire sports community.

Familiarity vs. the Count-list: What Drives Number Order Processing?

This blogpost was written by Dr Declan Devlin, an independent researcher with a PhD in Mathematical Cognition. His research focuses on the development of early numerical skills and the cognitive mechanisms underpinning basic numerical processing. Edited by Dr Bethany Woollacott.

In this blogpost, Declan discusses a recent journal article co-authored with colleagues from Loughborough University and KU Leuven (linked at the end of the post). In this article, they aimed to identify the cognitive mechanisms underlying one’s ability to process numerical order. In particular, they investigated the role that familiarity and memory retrieval may play when judging whether number sequences (e.g., 1-2-3) are “in order” or not. In the following, Declan reviews the literature and then describes his recently published research.

Introduction and Literature Review

To work confidently with symbolic numbers, a child must be able to comprehend both numerical magnitude (cardinality) and relative position within an ordered sequence (ordinality). As an example, this might mean understanding both that (i) six is greater than four and that (ii) five comes after four and before six.

Although both cardinality and ordinality are central aspects of numerical development, order processing has received considerably less research attention than magnitude processing. Despite this, the existing literature suggests that the ability to process numerical order is one of the strongest predictors of arithmetic performance, even surpassing magnitude processing (e.g., making judgements such as 3 > 2)^1,2. Moreover, deficits in this this order processing capacity are a frequent feature of mathematical learning difficulties, such as developmental dyscalculia^3,4.

In this context, numerical cognition researchers are motivated to understand the cognitive mechanisms and strategies underlying order processing performance. This is because an improved understanding of the mechanisms driving order processing proficiency may lead to the development of more effective screening techniques and targeted interventions for individuals with mathematical learning difficulties.

What drives order processing performance?

A popular approach to investigating the mechanisms underlying order processing is to consider how order is processed differently for different kinds of sequences. For example, when tasked with judging whether sequences are “in order” or not, people tend to be faster at verifying consecutive sequences like 1-2-3 than non-consecutive sequences like 3-5-7^5,6.

Explaining what causes this consecutiveness effect (also known as the “reverse distance effect”) may provide insight into the cognitive mechanisms underlying order processing performance⁷. In this context, two competing explanations of this effect have been proposed, with each implying distinct cognitive mechanisms.

Count-list explanation

The first proposed explanation suggests that children’s early ordinal knowledge is strongly influenced by their repeated exposure to the verbal count-list (“one, two, three, four…” and so on). It is thought that this exposure may lead children to initially believe that “in order” refers only to sequences that directly match the count-list^8,9. Supporting this view, many young children consistently judge non-consecutive sequences as not being in order¹⁰.

Even after learning that non-consecutive sequences can be considered as ordered, both children and adults still process non-consecutive sequences slower than consecutive sequences^11,12. From the count-list perspective, it is thought that non-consecutive sequences are processed slower because they conflict with this early-formed intuition that only count-list sequences are correctly ordered⁹. One could liken this to how early experiences with positive integers continues to impede the processing of negative numbers and fractions even in adults^13,14. For example, our intuitive understanding that 3 is greater than 2 might interfere with our judgement that ½ is greater than ⅓.

Familiarity explanation

Comparatively, the second proposed explanation suggests that order processing is driven primarily by memory-retrieval mechanisms. For example, people may verify “1-2-3” as ordered simply by retrieving this sequence from long-term memory. Under this perspective, the more familiar a sequence is, the easier it can be retrieved from memory. For example, familiar sequences such as 1-2-3 and 2-3-4 are expected to be processed faster than less familiar sequences such as 2-5-8 and 5-7-9. Supporting this view, a recent study found that memory-retrieval strategies were the most common self-reported strategy during an order processing task¹⁵.

In this context, because consecutive sequences are generally more frequently encountered in everyday life than non-consecutive sequences, they are more familiar and thus more easily retrieved from memory. Accordingly, this perspective argues that the consecutiveness effect results from consecutive sequences being processed faster than non-consecutive sequences because they are more familiar and thus more easily retrieved from memory^6,7.

Differentiating between these two explanations

One challenge to differentiating between these two explanations is that they initially appear to make the same prediction: consecutive sequences are predicted to be processed faster than non-consecutive sequences. However, this is not actually the case. Although the count-list perspective does expect consecutive (i.e., count-list) sequences to always be processed faster than non-consecutive (i.e., non-count-list) sequences, the familiarity perspective instead only predicts that familiar sequences will be processed faster than unfamiliar sequences.

Consequently, we can differentiate between these two explanations by considering the processing of familiar but non-count-list sequences such as 2-4-6 and 3-6-9. From the count-list perspective, these sequences are expected to be processed slowly due to not matching the count-list. Whereas, from the familiarity perspective, these sequences are expected to be processed fast due to being highly familiar.

The present study

To differentiate between the familiarity and count-list explanations of the consecutiveness effect, we first needed to isolate familiarity from consecutiveness. To do this, we selected sequences from a previous study in which participants repeatedly compared pairs of sequences on the basis of their familiarity¹⁶. For example, participants were repeatedly asked questions such as “which sequence is more familiar to you, 1-2-3 or 1-3-5?”. This process produced familiarity scores for several sequences, ranging from 0 (least familiar) to 100 (most familiar).

Using these familiarity scores, we then created two versions of an order processing task. The first version included the three most familiar consecutive sequences and the three least familiar non-consecutive sequences (enhanced familiarity condition). The second version included the three least familiar consecutive sequences and the three most familiar non-consecutive sequences (balanced familiarity condition). These sequences are shown in the figure below:

We hypothesised that, if the count-list explanation is correct, the consecutive sequences would be processed faster than the non-consecutive sequences in both conditions. In contrast, if the familiarity explanation is correct, the consecutive sequences would be processed faster in the enhanced familiarity condition, but not in the balanced familiarity condition.

Our findings

A group of 100 adults completed both versions of the order processing task.

We found that participants processed consecutive sequences faster than non-consecutive sequences in the enhanced familiarity condition, but not in the balanced familiarity condition. This finding is consistent with the familiarity explanation as it suggests that reaction times are influenced more by familiarity than by consecutiveness. These results are visualised below:

Conclusion

The key finding from our study was that consecutive sequences were only processed faster than non-consecutive sequences when they were also more familiar. This suggests that the consecutiveness effect observed in order processing likely results from consecutive sequences being more familiar rather than from their relation to the count-list. Accordingly, this study suggests that familiarity-based memory-retrieval mechanisms likely play a central role in how we process numerical order.

References

1. Lyons, I. M., Price, G. R., Vaessen, A., Blomert, L. & Ansari, D. Numerical predictors of arithmetic success in grades 1–6. Dev. Sci. 17, 714–726 (2014).

2. Sasanguie, D. & Vos, H. About why there is a shift from cardinal to ordinal processing in the association with arithmetic between first and second grade. Dev. Sci. 21, e12653 (2018).

3. Decarli, G. et al. Severe Developmental Dyscalculia Is Characterized by Core Deficits in Both Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Number Sense. Psychol. Sci. 34, 8–21 (2023).

4. Morsanyi, K., van Bers, B. M. C. W., O’Connor, P. A. & McCormack, T. Developmental Dyscalculia is Characterized by Order Processing Deficits: Evidence from Numerical and Non-Numerical Ordering Tasks. Dev. Neuropsychol. 43, 595–621 (2018).

5. Lyons, I. M. & Ansari, D. Numerical order processing in children: From reversing the distance-effect to predicting arithmetic. Mind Brain Educ. 9, 207–221 (2015).

6. Vos, H., Sasanguie, D., Gevers, W. & Reynvoet, B. The role of general and number-specific order processing in adults’ arithmetic performance. J. Cogn. Psychol. 29, 469–482 (2017).

7. Devlin, D., Moeller, K., Reynvoet, B. & Sella, F. A critical review of number order judgements and arithmetic: What do order verification tasks actually measure? Cogn. Dev. 64, 101262 (2022).

8. Hutchison, J. E., Ansari, D., Zheng, S., De Jesus, S. & Lyons, I. M. Extending ideas of numerical order beyond the count-list from kindergarten to first grade. Cognition 223, 105019 (2022).

9. Gattas, S. U., Bugden, S. & Lyons, I. M. Rules of order: Evidence for a novel influence on ordinal processing of numbers. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 150, 2100–2116 (2021).

10. Gilmore, C. & Batchelor, S. Verbal count sequence knowledge underpins numeral order processing in children. Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 216, 103294 (2021).

11. Sella, F., Sasanguie, D. & Reynvoet, B. Judging the order of numbers relies on familiarity rather than activating the mental number line. Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 204, 103014 (2020).

12. Lyons, I. M. & Beilock, S. L. Ordinality and the Nature of Symbolic Numbers. J. Neurosci. 33, 17052–17061 (2013).

13. Obersteiner, A., Van Dooren, W., Van Hoof, J. & Verschaffel, L. The natural number bias and magnitude representation in fraction comparison by expert mathematicians. Learn. Instr. 28, 64–72 (2013).

14. Vamvakoussi, X., Van Dooren, W. & Verschaffel, L. Naturally biased? In search for reaction time evidence for a natural number bias in adults. J. Math. Behav. 31, 344–355 (2012).

15. Dubinkina, N., Sella, F. & Reynvoet, B. Symbolic Number Ordering and its Underlying Strategies Examined Through Self-Reports. J. Cogn. 4, 25 (2021).

16. Devlin, D., Moeller, K., Xenidou-Dervou, I., Reynvoet, B. & Sella, F. Familiar Sequences Are Processed Faster Than Unfamiliar Sequences, Even When They Do Not Match the Count-List. Cogn. Sci. 48, e13481 (2024).

This Week at Loughborough | 17 March

General

BUCS Big Wednesday 2025

18 March – 19 March 2025

Loughborough University is proud to host BUCS Big Wednesday 2025 for the second year running; one of the biggest events in the university sport calendar.

This prestigious team finals event will see the best university teams from across the UK compete for Championship and Trophy titles in 16 different sports. There will be 58 fixtures and 116 teams battling for glory.

Book Club: The Lost Bookshop

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

On the United Nation’s International Day of Happiness, join the University Book Club to discuss an uplifting and inspiring book by Evie Woods called ‘The Lost Bookshop’.

Progress to Postgrad

19 March 2025, 1 – 3pm, James France

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take the next step in your academic and professional journey. Join us for an afternoon filled with enriching discussions, invaluable resources, and a glimpse into the vibrant postgraduate experience at Loughborough University.

Our event will provide invaluable insights into the countless opportunities available at our campuses in Loughborough and London’s iconic Olympic Park.

Fruit Routes: Barefoot Intentions – A Spring Equinox Ceremony

21 March 2025, 3 – 5pm, Barefoot Orchard

Join Fruit Routes for an afternoon of ritual and ceremony in the Barefoot Orchard. Here there will be a relaxed space for you to make your own herb tea parcels and explore the equinox intentions.

From the Vice-Chancellor – February 2025

In my February newsletter: a grant from the Wolfson Foundation for clean energy research; next stage of LUSEP development unveiled; the development of Law at Loughborough; Emeritus Professor Ruth Lister’s public lecture; and partnership opportunities forged through a visit to Boston.

University awarded more than £1m to advance clean energy research

At the start of the month, we received news that we had been awarded a grant of £1.1 million from the Wolfson Foundation, an independent charity, to set up the Wolfson X-Lab Extreme – a new facility that will be pivotal in the advancement of Loughborough’s clean energy research.

The Wolfson X-Lab Extreme will establish the University and East Midlands as a hub for hydrogen productivity and manufacturing of materials under extreme conditions and will be a crucial step for a sustainable hydrogen economy in the UK. This aligns well with our Climate Change and Net Zero strategic theme and particularly our plans, as part of The Hydrogen Works, to work with partners to enhance hydrogen skills, innovation and productivity, and position the East Midlands as a hydrogen superpower.

The Wolfson X-Lab Extreme will house the Gleeble 3800, a specialist piece of equipment and the first of its kind in the UK and Europe. The Gleeble will enable us to undertake materials testing for designing, manufacturing and maintaining new and existing hydrogen storage, distribution and end-use application infrastructure, all essential to achieving the UK’s ambitious net zero targets

The new lab, which will be located in the School of Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering (MEME), will also be open to external collaborators, enabling students, researchers and scientists from both academia and industry to access it. It will foster collaboration, inspire the next generation of engineers, and enhance our reputation as a hub for world-leading materials research.

The Wolfson X-Lab Extreme is set to open in late 2025 for testing in early 2026.

Next stage of plans for LUSEP revealed

Earlier this month we held a public consultation on the next major phase of the strategic development of Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park (LUSEP), which is sited at the west end of our East Midlands campus.

The University’s strategic plan, Creating Better Futures. Together, outlines our ambition to expand our high-quality research and innovation that has the potential to make regional, national and global impact. Much of this will be done in partnership with internationally renowned businesses and organisations. LUSEP will be central to the realisation of this ambition. The Park offers a unique opportunity for us to work collaboratively with some of the world’s leading companies, who are developing pioneering tech that will benefit a range of sectors.

Our overall plans for LUSEP’s development will create a dynamic and vibrant place for new business ventures, retail and hospitality, opening up opportunities for job creation and thereby further strengthening our position as an economic powerhouse for Loughborough and the East Midlands.

At the consultation event we also shared plans for a new building, the development of which would enable us to strengthen our partnership with Druck, a successful local technology company which, since its formation in 1972, has grown into a global pressure measurement business that is recognised for designing, developing and manufacturing world class high-quality and high-accuracy piezoresistive pressure sensors and calibration instrumentation.

To support its business needs and growth ambitions, Druck is looking to relocate from its current site in Groby and build a purpose-built global HQ. We are delighted that, subject to planning, Druck has chosen to locate its new HQ on LUSEP, bringing its workforce of around 600. The company is a long-standing partner of the University. Their proposed relocation to LUSEP will strengthen our partnership and bring benefits to the whole of the University, including research and development opportunities, work-based learning projects, executive education and studentships.

If all conditions are met as part of the planning process, we would expect work to begin on the site in November 2025, with the new building ready for occupation by October 2027.

The overall development of LUSEP is being phased over a number of years. It is already home to more than 90 organisations, with a total workforce of more than 2,500 people. Organisations based on LUSEP range from high-tech start-ups to research and development divisions of global companies, such as the National Centre in Combustion and Aerothermal Technology which has put Loughborough at the heart of UK aerospace engineering and technology development, and SportPark, which is a hub for sports organisations and businesses, including UK Sport, Aquatics GB and British Wheelchair Basketball.

When fully developed the Science and Enterprise Park will house businesses employing as many as 7,500 people, of which about 4,500 could be new jobs.

Introducing Loughborough Law

In order to continue attracting high achieving students, who graduate with the skills, knowledge and experience required for their chosen career path, we continually reflect on the academic programmes we offer. Sometimes we will change programme titles or alter course content to ensure programmes remain relevant, and on other occasions, after careful consideration, we branch out into completely new areas of study, as we did in 2016 with Architecture and currently are with the establishment of Loughborough Law. Our aim is to offer, in the first instance, an LLM programme, based in London, to commence in September 2025, with an undergraduate LLB programme, based at Loughborough, to begin from September 2026, as well as a PhD programme across both campuses. Loughborough Law will sit within the School of Social Sciences and Humanities.

The development of Loughborough Law aligns with our social justice ambitions as part of our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) aim, and the strategic theme of Vibrant and Inclusive Communities. Loughborough Law will also allow us to capitalise on one of the largest educational markets globally, to support our desire to increase and diversify our international population, particularly at postgraduate level on the London campus.

Our plans are progressing well. At the start of the year we welcomed to Loughborough Rosemary Hunter, who has been appointed as Professor of Socio-Legal Studies and Founding Head of Law at the University. With a BA (Hons) and LLB (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, Australia, Rosemary did her postgraduate study at Stanford University in the US. She began her academic career at the University of Melbourne, went on to Griffith University, Brisbane, where she was Dean of the Law Faculty, before moving to the UK in 2006 to become Professor of Law at the University of Kent. After a period at Queen Mary, University of London, Rosemary returned to Kent, becoming Deputy Director (People and EDI) of the Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice and then head of Kent Law School.

Rosemary’s research focuses on family justice, particularly in relation to domestic abuse, judging and the judiciary, and access to justice. She was one of the founders of a new methodology for feminist socio-legal critique and activism and her current research includes a project for the Office of the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, piloting a review and reporting mechanism on the family courts’ handling of domestic abuse cases. Rosemary was awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2012 and appointed KC (honoris causa) in December 2022 for her scholarly achievements in the study of the Family Justice System and her work in the field of domestic abuse that has directly affected legislative developments.

We have appointed several other members of staff who will join us in the coming months to work with Rosemary on this exciting new area for us. I am sure you will join me in welcoming them all to Loughborough.

Lecture by Emeritus Professor Ruth Lister reflects on the importance of community

A few days ago we hosted a public lecture by Baroness Ruth Lister, Loughborough’s Emeritus Professor of Social Policy, in partnership with the local charity Equality Action. If you weren’t able to attend, the lecture is now available through or ReVIEW system.

Emeritus Professor Ruth Lister is a well-respected voice on social policy issues, such as poverty, citizenship and asylum. She worked for the Child Poverty Action Group for 16 years, spending eight years as director, and is now the group’s president. In 1987 she moved into academia, joining Loughborough in 1994 as Professor of Social Policy. Her work was instrumental in the University receiving the 2005 Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education for its contribution to social policy.

When Ruth retired in 2010, she was appointed as a Labour Peer to the House of Lords, becoming The Baroness Lister of Burtersett CBE. She has sat on the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement.  She is an officer on the All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) on Domestic Violence and Abuse, and Poverty and Inequality, is vice-chair of the Migration APPG and co-chair of the Poverty and Inequality group. Baroness Lister also sits on the advisory board for the University’s Living Well Inquiry, alongside the Rt Hon Baroness Nicky Morgan and Loughborough MP Dr Jeevun Sandher, and has provided feedback on the Inquiry’s White Paper.

Professor Lister’s lecture looked at the issue of community, through the lens of the horrendous riots that took place in the UK last summer. Afterwards, Professor Lister was joined by Veronica Moore (Director of EDI Services), Helen Carter (Chief Executive of Loughborough Wellbeing Centre), Dr Jeevun Sandher MP, and Richard Herrick (Asylum Policy Officer for East Midlands Strategic Migration Partnership) for an engaging question-and-answer session.

At a time when society can often feel quite fractured, we have to acknowledge and try to address difficult and challenging issues if we are to foster a sense of belonging and cohesion, a sentiment that lies at the heart of both our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion core plan and our Vibrant and Inclusive Communities strategic theme.

Visit to the US to discuss partnership opportunities

I have recently returned from a visit to Boston in the US, which enabled us to further some initiatives in which we’re already a partner and to be part of a broader programme, involving three key Midlands’ collectives, to encourage partnership development and investment.

Professor Jan Godsell, Dean of Loughborough Business School, and I went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to discuss future opportunities offered through our membership of the MIT Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network. Loughborough has worked for many years with MIT, the world’s top-rated university in the global QS rankings, and last year we broadened our links with them further through our partnership in the UK Supply Chain Excellence Centre within Loughborough Business School – the UK hub of MIT Global (SCALE) Network. Centres in the 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.

During our visit to MIT, we also explored opportunities to extend an entrepreneurship and exchange programme offered to our students, working with the Loughborough Enterprise Network, and visited MIT’s Centre for Transportation Logistics and its sports lab.

Then we joined forces with Midlands Innovation, the Midlands Engine Partnership and Midlands Enterprise Universities to take part in two roundtable events, alongside leaders from MIT, Harvard and Northeastern University. The first was focused on knowledge diplomacy and the geopolitics that universities need to navigate both now and in the future; the second concerned the innovation and investment opportunities that universities offer, and the value that science parks such as LUSEP can provide in fostering innovation and growth, particularly in the areas of health and life sciences.

The agenda shared by the three Midlands groups allowed us to showcase the capabilities of 17 universities from our region. By harnessing 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. Strong partnerships with great organisations and institutions are central to all that we do, and intensifying and expanding our collaborations is the cornerstone of our strategic Partnerships core plan. 

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

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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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\

………………………………………… 213L3……………………………………………………………………….
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.

313m5

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…)…

313n2

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.

313p1

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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………………………………………… 213L3……………………………………………………………………….

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.