News round up

Published: 17 October 2017

Professor Trevor Gale FAcSS...New Director for IT Services...Policy Scotland lecture - Brexit...Learning and Teaching Development Fund - small bids Call.

Professor Trevor Gale FAcSS

Trevor Gale, Head of the School of Education and Professor of Education Policy and Social Justice, is one of sixty-nine leading social scientists conferred as Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Gale is an international figure in the field of education policy and social justice. 

Announcing the conferment, Professor Roger Goodman FAcSS, Chair of the Academy said: “Each new distinguished Fellow has been recognised for their outstanding and impactful contributions in their respective fields, and will prove invaluable additions to the range of expertise within the Academy. This speaks not only to the power and scope of the social sciences to address the big issues of our time, but also to the growing depth and breadth of representation within the Academy as the voice of the social science community as a whole.” 

New Director for IT Services

Susan Ashworth, Executive Director, Information Services & University Librarian, has announced the appointment of a new Director of IT Services. Mark Johnston, currently Director of IT Services at Glasgow Caledonian University, will join the UofG early in the New Year. Prior to his current role Mark worked as Assistant Director of ICT at the University of Southampton. He takes over from Sandy Macdonald, who retired from the post at the end of July.

Policy Scotland lecture - Brexit

by Sean McGivern, Public Affairs and Public Policy Officer

The Principal was delighted to welcome former UK Ambassador to the EU Sir Ivan Rogers to the University for the latest in Policy Scotland’s expert series of lectures on Brexit.

Addressing about 300 people in the Sir Charles Wilson Building, Sir Ivan – arguably the UK’s most qualified and knowledgeable expert on the internal machinations of the European Union – gave an overview of the trajectory of the UK’s relationship with Europe in recent decades, charting out the path which led to the eventual vote to Leave last summer.

The talk – titled “The History and Origins of Brexit” – was the latest in the Policy Scotland series, which has thus far heard from the author of Article 50 Lord Kerr, the Chair of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee David McAllister MEP and the Scottish Government Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland’s Place in Europe Michael Russell MSP, and has cemented the University’s position as the premier venue in Scotland for leading thinkers and experts to outline their views on what is clearly the defining issue in Scottish and UK politics.

Learning and Teaching Development Fund

The Learning and Teaching Development Fund (LTDF) was established to support developments in Learning and Teaching which are innovative, sustainable, transferable and contribute to the delivery of the objectives of the University's Learning and Teaching Strategy. Awards made through this scheme have greatly contributed to the enhancement of learning and teaching across the University.

‌‌‌‌‌A second Call for small bids for 2017-18 is now open. Bids should be submitted to mary.ramsay@glasgow.ac.uk​ by 17 November 2017.

LTDF Small Bid Application (Word Doc)

Bids are invited for small (up to £3K) projects. Projects will run from 11 December 2017 to 31 July 2018. All University of Glasgow staff are eligible to bid for funds and LTDF funding may be used to match other funding.

Please note that a Call for Bids (Large and Small projects) for funding in 2018-19 will be published in January 2018.

Flash fiction competition Quantum Shorts opens for entries

QuantIC, the UK Quantum Technology hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging based at the University of Glasgow is pleased to announce a call for entries to the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition. The competition is open to stories up to 1000 words long that take inspiration from quantum physics and include the phrase “There are only two possibilities: yes or no”. The competition is free to enter, offering prizes of up to US $1500.

Professor Miles Padgett, Principal Investigator of QuantIC said, “QuantIC is delighted to be UK Scientific Partner again for this international competition and we’re excited to see what new ideas might pop up that could one day become quantum technologies of the future.”

CQT is the organiser of Quantum Shorts, which has alternated between annual calls for short films and fiction since 2012. Scientific American, the longest continuously published magazine in the U.S., and Nature, the international weekly journal of science, are media partners for the competition.

“It takes colossal imagination to wrap your head around quantum physics and dream up new technologies. Who better to explore these ideas than writers of fiction?” says Artur Ekert, Director of the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore and a co-inventor of quantum cryptography. “I’m excited to judge the entries to Quantum Shorts again this year.”

The 2017 Quantum Shorts competition is also supported by scientific partners in five countries. The scientific partners are the Australian Research Council Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems; the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, Canada; the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter at Caltech in the United States; the UK Quantum Technology Hub in Quantum Enhanced Imaging; and QuTech in the Netherlands, a collaboration between Delft University of Applied Sciences and Dutch innovation centre TNO.

Eminent judges including authors and scientists will select the winners and runner-ups in two categories, Open and Youth. The public will also vote to decide the People's Choice Prize from entries shortlisted across both categories. All shortlisted entries will collect awards including a one-year digital subscription to ScientificAmerican.com. Winners will receive in addition a trophy and cash prizes. The winner of the Open category will also be featured on ScientificAmerican.com.

Submissions to Quantum Shorts 2017 can be entered via the website: http://shorts.quantumlah.org, which also features resources on quantum physics and a full set of rules and guidelines. The deadline for entries is 23:59 GMT, 1 December 2017.

 


First published: 17 October 2017