University shortlisted for three Times Higher Education Awards
06 Sep 2018
The awards celebrate excellence in the higher education sector
International Collaboration of the Year - sponsored by Microsoft
Professor Dame Tina Lavender leads the Centre for Global Women’s Health (CGWH) which has a distinguished track record in improving the health of women and babies in low and middle income countries. The collaboration was developed to improve and increase midwifery research and strengthen evidence-based practice in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It has resulted in more than 200 midwives being trained and 20 peer-reviewed publications.
Outstanding Support for Students - sponsored by Anderson Quigley
Professor Richard Reece, Associate Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students and Stuart Phillipson, Media Technologies Team Lead, have been shortlisted for their innovative use of cutting-edge robotic cameras to support student learning. 97% of all lectures at Manchester are now recorded, with 60,000 hours of recorded lectures being produced each year. As a result of very high student engagement, there are over 6 million video views per year and extremely positive feedback in the NSS and module evaluation surveys.
Professor Reece said the use of robotic cameras had been "transformative" to the student experience, adding: "The recording of these activities enables students with a variety of learning styles to both revisit and revise material at their own speed. The support this gives to students has been invaluable."
Stuart Phillipson said: "Recognition in the Times Higher Education Awards shortlisting is a great achievement. This project was very technically challenging, but has delivered some of the latest technology in lecture capture to our students and it’s fantastic to have the team’s hard work highlighted in such a way."
Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences - sponsored by Elsevier
The Young Voices Study is a collaborative project led by Dr Sarah Parry from Manchester Metropolitan University, supported by Dr Filippo Varese from The University of Manchester. Their study looks at individual experiences of hearing voices for young people - the first study of its kind to seek first person accounts from young people who hear voices, nationally and internationally, and the impact on their parents/carers. The experience of hearing voices is much more common than thought, with around 1 in 12 young people thought to hear a voice or voices at some stage in their childhood.
MMU's Dr Sarah Parry said: "Being shortlisted for this award is a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of this misunderstood experience and decreasing the stigma that so many young people say upsets them."
Dr Filippo Varese adds: "The Times Higher Education nomination is a fantastic achievement for our team. We hope this will help us to improve public understanding of hearing voices in young people. Our research is uncovering that many children see their voices as a useful and even pleasant part of their lives, which can help them to cope with difficult life events and circumstances.
"We will continue to work with our collaborators at MMU and our third sector partners to progress this important line of work in the future.”
The Times Higher Education is proud to shine a spotlight on the individuals and teams who underpin this success.
Congratulations to those shortlisted and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony taking place on 29 November at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.