SBS Head of School update [April 2017]

28 Apr 2017

April has proved to be another busy month for the School as we continue through our first year. We are currently planning our Divisional away days and if these prove to be successful, we plan to hold a School away day. Details of these events will be circulated once finalised.

At the start of the month I met with our Research Reps network which has been set up to ensure research staff from each Division have a voice to feed back their views and suggestions. We had a productive meeting and I look forward to working with them going forward and for their input to our future strategic planning.

Several members of the School received Higher Education Academy (HEA) awards at the Faculty’s Academy for Education and Professional Development launch event, in recognition of their contribution to teaching and learning. Congratulations to Caroline Bowsher who received Higher Education Academy Principal Fellow status and to Maria Canal, Maggy Fostier, Ruth Grady, Katherine Hinchliffe and Michelle Webb who all received Senior Fellow status. In addition, Nicky High, Kelly Osgood, Ken Grieve, Kathleen Nolan, David Boam, Rachelle Donn, Katherine Hinchliffe, Ingo Schiessl and Miriam Smith received recognition for their completion of the PG CertHE and continued support of professional development within the Faculty.

I would like to once again thank everyone from the School who took part in the Staff Survey – the final figures show that SBS topped the response rates from the Faculty. In the spirit of healthy competition, we offered the Division with the highest response rate a prize of £500 towards a social event. Well done to joint winners, the Division of Cell Matrix Biology & Regenerative Medicine and the Division of Evolution & Genomic Sciences who both finished with an 80% response rate and will each receive a prize.

We will also be organising a special thank you lunchtime event for our School Office staff who led their office to a fantastic 83% response rate according to final figures. Work on analysing the results of the survey has now begun and I will keep you up to date with our School action plan over the coming months.

Our seminar and happy hour presentations this month were given by Dr Urmas Roostalu and Dr Joanne Konkel who discussed ‘Developmental dynamics and plasticity of perivascular cells studied by in vivo lineage tracing’ and ‘On-going Mechanical Damage from Mastication Drives Homeostatic Th17 Cell Responses at the Oral Barrier’ respectively. May’s event will take place on Friday 19 May and our presenters will be Kimme Hyrich from the Division of Musculoskeletal & Dermatological Sciences and Siddarth Banka from the Division of Evolution & Genomic Sciences.

Attendance at the Happy Hour continues to be excellent but sadly the same cannot be said for the seminars. This is very disappointing for the speakers who put considerable effort into their presentations.

These events are an opportunity to support your colleagues and hear about research from across The School. The future of these events depends on improving attendance so I would encourage as many of you who can do so, to please come along.

On 3 May, Caroline Bowsher and Sam Griffiths-Jones will give their inaugural professorial lectures in the second of our three events this year. The final inaugural lectures for this year will be delivered by Paul Dark and Will Dixon on 17 May. These are proving to be popular events so please be sure to reserve your ticket – 3 May / 17 May.

If you have been involved in any Public Patient Involvement and Engagement activities, you may wish to take part in a short survey currently being run by the Faculty’s Centre for Engagement and Involvement. The survey relates to engagement and involvement activities with patients, schools and the public over the last 3 years (April 2014 – April 2017) and the data collected will enable them to maintain a register of activity and expertise for the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health. This covers all activities associated with research and teaching in the Faculty within and outside Europe.

The survey can be accessed from this link: PPIE Survey and you can find out more details from the recent FBMH news article.

Finally this month I would like to give a special mention to retired Reader in Genetics, Dr David Moore, who along with his wife Elizabeth was recently awarded the British Mycological Society’s first national award for ‘outstanding contribution to Education and Public Outreach’. The couple have received the award for their work raising awareness of fungi, the full news story can be read on Staffnet news. I am sure those of you who worked with David in the Faculty of Life Sciences until his retirement in 2009 will be pleased to hear of his and Elizabeth’s well-deserved recognition.

Jane Worthington
Head of the School of Biological Sciences