Top Tips from PSS staff

Last week, Professional Services staff got together to share top tips with each other at an Away Day. We thought colleagues across the Department might find these helpful so I will be sharing all of the ‘top tips’ in 4 categories, sharing 1 category per week, within Staff newsletters throughout July:

Stay tuned for handy hints and tips throughout July 😃

Upcoming Events 🎫

Q&A on Waste at the Uni - SEI York, E&G and ESAY

🗓️ Wednesday 17th July at 11:00 - 12:00

📍 ENV/005

Join us for All things Waste! A Q&A opportunity with Mark Clough and Elizabeth Parker, in ENV/005 on 17th July, 11:00-12:00.

Mark Clough and Elizabeth Parker have kindly agreed to come and be quizzed about all things to do with waste at the University of York - so do come to meet them in person on the day (or online, of course). Mark Clough is responsible for sustainability in his role in DTEF (Directorate of Technology, Estates and Facilities) and is on the ESAY (Environmental Sustainability at York) Leadership team. If you have any questions you'd like to ask, please add them to this Menti .

 We look forward to seeing you there!

Good News and Media Engagement ⭐

⭐ Jenny Pollard has been nominated and shortlisted for the Great Service Award in the GSA Awards 2024! This award goes to either a support staff member or team from the University who has provided excellent day to day service to postgraduate students, ensuring that student’s time at York is made as easy and enjoyable as possible. Congratulations, Jenny

⭐ Oliver Wilson spent a week in southern Brazil, hosted by Unochapecó (Universidade Comunitária da Região de Chapecó). The visit included three talks to staff and students, a meeting with a representative of FUNAI (the Brazilian government's Indigenous people's agency), and visits to three Indigenous communities to discuss potentially participating in collaborative research and knowledge exchange projects with York, Unochapecó, and other UK/Brazilian partners.

⭐ Anika Haque was interviewed by the ITV news on the impact of climate change on the grass root sports in the UK, which was telecast on the 19th June 2024.

⭐ On Tuesday 3rd June, Laura Chapman was involved with the first Science outreach group run by The Place. The Place aims to support local school children from areas with low progression to higher education and raise aspirations. 75 Year 6 students were involved in this first week, with activities across the university and other partner educational insititutions. The students undertook a hedgerow survey on Walmgate Stray to enable them to understand the ecological value of hedgerows and the importance of conserving them. Despite some challenges (mostly associated with the "gross value" of slugs and fear of spiders), the students engaged fantastically well and undertook the surveys just as well as our undergraduates. If anyone is interested in getting involved with The Place, please do contact Laura.

⭐ As part of its Masterplan, the National Railway Museum is currently developing a new flagship gallery titled the Railway Futures: the Porterbrook Gallery, which will examine the future of the world's railways. Students from Environment and Geography and the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past recently participated in an exciting five week youth panel to help develop the gallery's key concept. The Museum's Interpretation Manager (Masterplan), Lorna Hogger and Lead Curator (Railway Futures Gallery), Rob Scargill led the sessions and were thrilled with the students' input saying "the ideas generated in these last five weeks, particularly those presented and discussed in a final group session, will transform the gallery from an educational space into something interactive, engaging and empowering.”

⭐ Sohail Ahmad presented a paper on "The efficiency of cities in using land: A comparison of Africa and Asia" at the What Works Climate Solutions Summit, June 9-12 2024 TU Berlin, Germany.

⭐ On 20th June, Christopher Lyon gave an evening talk on the meaning of cliimate projections beyond 2100 for and adaptation at the Otley Science Café as part of the Otley Science Festival at the Otley Courthouse Arts Centre.

Research Opportunities and Updates 🔬

Celebrating Spaces: Connecting Researchers - Thursday 27th June 2024

You are warmly invited to attend the Celebrating Spaces: Connecting Researchers event on Thursday 27th June in the Exhibition Centre (in Physics)

Celebrating Spaces: Connecting Researchers is an internal open day that aims to bring together all of the University of York’s researchers and research-enabling staff to showcase, explore, and enjoy both the wide range of research carried out at our institution and the unique and often unknown spaces that facilitate that research. The event will give you the opportunity to connect with fellow researchers, technicians, and those who make research at York possible. 

Organised by a team of postdoctoral researchers, Celebrating Spaces: Connecting Researchers forms part of the 10 days professional development offered to postdoctoral, postgraduate and technical staff, and is open to everyone in the research community. You are encouraged to attend the full event or as much of the programme as you are able. 

The schedule for the day includes:

• 9:30 - 10:00      Welcome from Matthias Ruth, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, and the Celebrating Spaces organising team

• 10:00 - 12:00    Lightning Talks 

• 13:00 - 16:30    Open Spaces across campus

• 10:00 - 16:30    Researchers' Exhibition & Showcase

• 17:00 - 19:00    Closing celebration and networking (Catered) 

If you are a supervisor of a postgraduate researcher, or a line manager of research, technical or research enabling staff, please encourage your team to take part in this event.

Add Celebrating Spaces: Connecting Researchers to your calendar

Register for the Closing Celebration and Networking Event.

Find out more information by visiting the webpage or email the organising team: celebrating-spaces-event@york.ac.uk

-Matthias Ruth, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research

Do you have an item to share in our next newsletter?

Great! Please add it to the Research, Teaching, Outreach and Good News Spreadsheet. Please use the most relevant tab for the activity/news and ensure that the description details are written out in full as you would like it to be presented. If your item does not fit the spreadsheet, please email it to environment-pa@york.ac.uk by 12:00 next Thursday.

Thank you for your help in making the newsletter a great way to catch up on all of the Department's latest news and activities

New HR Adviser

Due to some movement in HR portfolios, we now have a new HR Adviser: Catherine Dearden.

You can contact her at hr-operations@york.ac.uk or +44 (0) 1904 32 5713.

⚠️ Action on the Climate & Ecological Emergency: Open Letter

Staff and students at the University of York have written open letter to the Vice Chancellor, titled Action on the Climate & Ecological Emergency: The University's Role and Responsibility.

The authors and co-signatories would love for as many people as possible to take 5 minutes to:

• Read the letter here (http://tinyurl.com/UoYClimateAction )

• If you support its aims sign it via the form at https://forms.gle/hRbqkt9BXpY8HxjG7

• Share it with anyone who you think would support it

A range of student, staff and alumni signing in support would signal that there is appetite and motivation for change. It also might be a mechanism to help bring together people from across the university to support one another's efforts. 

P.S. To give you a  flavour of what we have written the six key areas we have highlighted where we feel greater leadership is needed are: 

1. Education fit for a transforming world.

2. Research that informs and accelerates transformation.

3. Greater ambition and progress on sustainability targets.

4. Cutting the ties: partnerships and investments.

5. Transparency, accountability and democracy

6. Facilitating academic advocacy and activism

Year end is approaching! ⚠️ Expense claims deadline Thurs 11 July at 4pm ⚠️

🤔 Do you have any expense claims that need to be paid in the current financial year? If so, please obtain the relevant budget holder’s approval in the first instance. If you are not sure who the budget holder is for a work order, please see Column C of the work order list spreadsheet ⬅️ one to bookmark!

⏰ Thursday 11th July at 4pm - Expense claims 💰

Submit expenses to environment-finance@york.ac.uk. Follow the Wiki pages with expense claim instructions and use the new expense claim form (with extra guidelines).

To ensure your expense claims are not classified as out of policy, please adhere to the following guidelines:

• Timely Submission: Submit your expense claims as soon as possible after the event.

• Processing Time: Allow at least one month for processing to ensure your claim is handled within the three-month window.

• Cut-off Date: After 28th June 2024 out-of-policy claims will not be accepted unless there are exceptional circumstances. 

By following these steps, you can avoid having your claims classified as out of policy.

Upcoming Events 🎫

🎫 Digital Accessibility Conference 💻

🗓️ Date / Time: Wednesday 26th June at 9:30 - 16:00

📍 Location: SLB/001 to 003 (Spring Lane Building)

This year's Digital Accessibility Conference on 26th June will be hosted online by University of Nottingham. This means events are streamed live but at the Uni of York, we will have 3 rooms on campus for us to participate together. SLB/001 to 003 have been booked. The conference offers lightning talks, short papers, round table discussions and posters. You can register to attend online or in person at UoY (both are free). 

The line up offers a wide variety of topics to engage with, including:

• Accessible Maths

• 360 video

• Accessible libraries and archives

• Accessibility checking

• Accessibility statements

• Accessibility training

• Captioning

• Champions programmes

• CPD

• Employability

• Gen AI

• Leading accessibility transformations

• Learning design

• Procurement

• Student awareness resources

• Student needs and student voice

• Student personas and profiles

• Students as change agents

• UX design

• Accessible VLE sites (Blackboard and Moodle)

➡️ Register now! Please contact Lilian Joy (lilian.joy@york.ac.uk) for more information. 

International Staff Drop-in Event 

🗓️ Date / Time: Wednesday 26th June, 13:00 - 14:30

📍 Location: Church Lane Building (CL/A/025)

Are you an international member of staff looking to meet other international staff, share experiences and build a network? Then we welcome you to come to our international staff group drop-in event. Sponsored by the School of PET and the SREF Ops Team this event will take place on 26th June from 1-2:30:30 in Church Lane Building (CL/A/025). Refreshments will be provided. Feel free to come for the whole event or just to drop by for a bit. 

For more information contact Simone Quinn (simone.quinn@york.ac.uk) or Aiko Mizumori Hirst (aiko.mizumorihirst@york.ac.uk).

Good News and Media Engagement ⭐

⭐ Darpan Das presented his recent work: Co-creating an indoor air quality study with different vulnerable groups of India in the UKIEG 2024 conference held at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

⭐ On 10th June, Sam Buckton gave an online presentation to North Yorkshire Council's Public Health team about transformation-focused evaluation and how it has been applied in the evaluation of NYC's food strategy.

⭐ A short documentary output titled "Clean cooking: fast path to saving forests in Nigeria" linked to Lindsay Stringer's Royal Society International Collaboration Award was recently released: https://youtu.be/EFXoj9fg2kE

⭐ Lindsay Stringer took part in a visit to Kasertsart University and met with Thaliand's Department of Agriculture, alongside colleagues from York's Centre for Novel Agricultural Products. Discussions focused on how interdisciplinary research is fostered in York, as well as how different countries and their policies approach the regulation of gene edited crops.

⭐ Congratulations to Emilie Stokeld (and Chris West, Simon Croft and Lindsay Stringer) for passing her PhD viva.

⭐ On Monday the University welcomed 70 Year 9 and Year 10 students from 6 local secondary schools to take part in a Sustainability Enrichment Day! The Enrichment Day aimed to give students three main opportunities: to expand their knowledge of sustainability, to experience university life and encourage future applications, and to have fun meeting peers from other schools. It was also a chance for the PGCE geography trainees to practise designing and leading workshops in consultation with Adrian Gonzalez, Georgia Ramsay and UoY PGCE Geography trainees. Over the course of three interlinked workshops in the morning, students calculated carbon footprints for different families, explored green and ethical jobs, and used New York City as a case study to apply ideas to York. After lunch, student groups used what they learned to re-design York as a sustainable city focusing on transformative change while considering its historic constraints. Prizes were awarded to All Saints RC School for the winning sustainable city idea. A huge thanks to all the schools, students, and staff for engaging in these important sustainability issues!

⭐ Sahar Hofmann has:

• A new paper published: The ‘colorblindness’ of climate finance: how climate finance advances racial injustice in cities in City.

• Been nominated and shortlisted for the Great Service Award in the GSA Awards 2024.

• A research paper that has been accepted, "Grappling with real property supremacy in US urban climate finance" in City. This paper is co-authored with Julia Wagner, Mark Kear, Sarah Knuth and Zac Taylor.

• Been awarded a funding grant from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for a workshop, 'Disentangling the relationships between race, property and climate finance' that will take place in October 2024.

⭐ Jason Snape is on a panel today in Biology talking about how to effectively engage with industry to maximise impact. The session is called “Conversations between academia and industry.”

Research Opportunities and Updates 🔬

🔬 The University Research Priming Strategic Capital funding is now available!

Deadline for applications: Noon, Friday 17th July 2024

Funds are now available from the University Research Priming fund for the purchase of strategically important capital assets (e.g. equipment or non-equipment items such as large databases). Applications are invited for assets valued between £20,000 and £200,000. 

Please visit the Internally-distributed funding website for more information. Please do not hesitate to contact the Internal Funding Team if you have any queries (re-internal-funding-team@york.ac.uk).

Do you have an item to share in our next newsletter?

Great! Please add it to the Research, Teaching, Outreach and Good News Spreadsheet. Please use the most relevant tab for the activity/news and ensure that the description details are written out in full as you would like it to be presented. If your item does not fit the spreadsheet, please email it to environment-pa@york.ac.uk by 12:00 next Thursday.

Thank you for your help in making the newsletter a great way to catch up on all of the Department's latest news and activities

Year end is approaching! Please note key deadlines

🤔 Do you have any expense claims that need to be paid in the current financial year? If so, please obtain the relevant budget holder’s approval in the first instance. If you are not sure who the budget holder is for a work order, please see Column C of the work order list spreadsheet ⬅️ one to bookmark!

1. ⏰ Thursday 11th July at 4pm - Expense claims 💰

Submit expenses to environment-finance@york.ac.uk. Follow the Wiki pages with expense claim instructions and use the new expense claim form (with extra guidelines).

To ensure your expense claims are not classified as out of policy, please adhere to the following guidelines:

• Timely Submission: Submit your expense claims as soon as possible after the event.

• Processing Time: Allow at least one month for processing to ensure your claim is handled within the three-month window.

• Cut-off Date: After 28th June 2024 out-of-policy claims will not be accepted unless there are exceptional circumstances. 

By following these steps, you can avoid having your claims classified as out of policy.

2. ⏰ Friday 19th July at 4pm - deadline for Purchase Order requests (for existing suppliers only).

Complete the Purchase Order Request Form for any new staff/student related PO requests. Please note that the supplier must already be on the finance system.

Prof Inaugural Lecture No.5 - Recordings 🎓

Thank you to Profs. Claire Hughes and Lindsay Stringer for delivering the final Professorial Inaugural Lecture of 23/24 last week.

• To watch Lindsay's lecture, click this link. 

• To watch Claire's lecture, open this Powerpoint > click Slideshow > From Beginning (Do not click the play buttons or adjust the time bar - the slides will move on automatically. It is best viewed on a laptop with Powerpoint installed)

Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN) - are you interested in joining the working group/working with the group?

As part of her ILO role, Jenny Pollard is part of the working group for Dales to Vale Rivers Network. Please get in touch if you are interested in joining/working with the working group. More info can be found below.

The Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN) is a partnership of people, groups and organisations who work together to improve the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Ouse, Wharfe, Wiske and Foss. Last year we asked for your help in refreshing our aspirations for each of the catchments we cover.  We had over 250 responses, in which you shared with us your thoughts and opinions on the priority issues and the projects you would like to see addressing those issues.  We have built your responses into the Catchment Managment Plans which will be used to drive forward strategic, collective action across our river catchments for the benefit of all.   

The Catchment Management plan is now published on our webpage along with actions for each river catchment.  

Working together we can achieve so much more to improve the quality, biodiversity and function of our rivers and the resilience and wellbeing of our communities than we can independently.  I really appreciate the support you have all given us and I look forward to driving forward actions to improve our rivers and their catchments.

Charlotte Simons, Senior Catchment Partnership Officer

🎫 Events

🎫 Reminder! Environment/Natural World events at York Festival of Ideas, 1st - 14th June

Dr Sarah Mitchell (Head of Events and Deputy-Director, York Festival of Ideas) would like to share a selection of this year's Festival programme, which is being delivered either online or in-person. The vast majority of these are free to the public.

This year the programme includes a number of Environment/Natural World events, which might be of interest to staff and/or any partners/networks you may have

Good News and Media Engagement ⭐

⭐ Sarah Bridle was interviewed by Adam Fleming about the environmental impact of meat vs plant based diets for AntiSocial, BBC Radio 4 . Listen to her interview on BBC Sounds.

⭐ Christopher Lyon was interviewed on the CBC North Bay 'Superior Morning' radio show in Canada about the implications of climate change driven boreal forest decline featured in research with Lindsay Stringer, Rob Marchant, and external colleagues recently published in Royal Society B.

⭐ Claire Hughes and Lynda Dunlop (Education, ESAY), and Hannah Smith and Louise Thurston (Careers and Placements) published a Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) blog article on 'Higher Education and the Green Workforce Transformation' on 27th May. The article outlines the crucial role higher education has to play in the green workforce transformation, and how Universities should - and must- have a seat at the table when policy-makers discuss how to address the green skills gap.

⭐ Congratulations to Gideon Baffoe who is a lead author for a paper published in Urban Forum with colleagues from the University of Rwanda: Baffoe, G., Manirakiza, V. & Uwayezu, E. (2024): Two Sides of the Coin: Unveiling the Socioeconomic Impacts of Land Expropriation on Kigali Residents. Urban Forum.

Research Opportunities and Updates

🔬 Proposal for Collaboration: Co-Hosting Our Upcoming Conference

Donia Hamdy is delighted to invite colleagues to collaborate with IEREK as a partner and co-organizer for the 1st International Conference on "Environmental Integration on Sustainable Perspective and Beyond (EISPB)". The conference aims to explore the significance of environmental integration in sustainability and introduce innovative approaches to environmental management. Despite global efforts, challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution persist, underscoring the need for novel and integrated strategies. Through discussions and presentations, the conference seeks solutions for a more resilient and sustainable future, focusing on sustainable resource management, climate change adaptation, circular economy practices, green technology advancements, and community engagement. Participants will exchange knowledge, share experiences, and collaborate on pressing environmental challenges. We have reserved the 8th and 10th April 2025 in our agenda for (EISPB) in collaboration with Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines.

IEREK plans to publish its conference proceedings in the Scopus-Indexed Springer Book series (Managed by IEREK) entitled Advances in Science, Technology, and Innovation (ASTI). More information on the series can be found here: https://www.springer.com/series/15883

For reference, please take a look at the conference details.

🔬 Undergraduate Dissertation Prize - RGS-IBG Latin American Geographies Research Group

Deadline: 5 July 2024

The Latin American Geographies Research Group (RGS-IBG) awards an annual prize for an undergraduate dissertation focusing on Latin American geographies. Please see details below. We welcome dissertations submitted in 2023 and 2024. We would be grateful if you could circulate the call within your networks. 

The Latin American Geographies Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society welcomes the submission of nominations to the prize of best undergraduate dissertation. The prize is open to any undergraduate student enrolled at a UK institution in a degree programme in geography or closely related disciplines who submitted their dissertation in 2023 or 2024. Thanks to the kind support of the Journal of Latin American Geography (JLAG) the winner will receive an award of £100.

The dissertation should be an excellent piece of original work and submitted in 2023 or 2024. Latin America needs to be central to the theoretical and/or empirical focus. The awarded dissertation’s author will feature in our website. Please see Sophia Grijalva's post, the winner of the last prize on https://lagukinfo.wixsite.com/lag-uk/post/fog-catchers-in-lima

Nominations should be sent by the student’s department (maximum of two entries per department, one for each year) in either Word or PDF files alongside the student’s contact details post-September. Please include “LAG UG dissertation submission” as the subject header. Submissions to: gabriel.silvestre@ncl.ac.uk

Do you have an item to share in our next newsletter?

Great! Please add it to the Research, Teaching, Outreach and Good News Spreadsheet. Please use the most relevant tab for the activity/news and ensure that the description details are written out in full as you would like it to be presented. If your item does not fit the spreadsheet, please email it to environment-pa@york.ac.uk by 12:00 next Thursday.

Thank you for your help in making the newsletter a great way to catch up on all of the Department's latest news and activities