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Ten days (pro-rata) of annual leave permitted to be carried over to 2023/24

A reminder that HR have recently announced the following:

The University's Annual Leave Policy allows for carry over of up to five annual leave days. We appreciate that this year, for various reasons, some colleagues have found it challenging to take all of their annual leave. Therefore, for this year only, you will be able to carry forward up to ten annual leave days (pro-rated for part-time staff).

For those with an October to September holiday entitlement, you can choose to carry up to ten days into the 2023/24 leave year that commences on 1 October 2023. Any carry over should be taken by 31 December 2023.

On this occasion, carry forward can be done without seeking the authorisation of your line manager / Head of Department.

Mature trees to be cut down on York Road 🌳

Barry Volans has recently phoned in telling us about his disappointment over a plan to cut down some mature trees close to where he lives on York Road in relation to planning permission. 

He wondered whether anyone in our department would be willing to get involved to help stop the felling of the trees?

Anyone who feels strongly about this news is welcome to get in touch with Barry at barry245volans@gmail.com.

Plant-Based Universities Open Letter

Claire Sheldon (English and Related Literature student and campaigner of the student-led Plant-based Universities campaign which is now active at over 50 universities in the UK) invites you to sign the recently created Plant Based Universities Open Letter. It currently stands at over 400 signatures from academics across the globe.

Plant-based Universities began in late 2021, calling on universities to transition to 100% just and sustainable plant-based catering in order to tackle the climate and nature crises. Since its inception, this student-led campaign has achieved landmark votes for fully plant-based catering transitions at 7 UK universities, in Stirling, Cambridge, London, and Birmingham, with our most recent success being the UCL Student Union committing to 60% plant-based catering by 2024-5 with 10% increases year on year thereafter until fully plant-based. We expect to grow to 100 campaigns at the beginning of the 2023-24 academic year. 

We are trying to pull together many academics and notable figures, both within and without academia, to sign the above open letter endorsing the Plant Based Universities campaign. This will be used for media release and as a powerful lobbying tool for University Vice-Chancellors, Catering Managers, and Student Union Presidents across the UK. The letter will be made public on 4th September, as the 2023-24 academic year begins.

If you would like to sign this open letter, please email your name, title/s and role to info@plantbaseduniversities.org. 

BES Aquatic Group Annual Meeting

The BES Aquatic Group annual meeting will be held at the University of Lancaster on September 18th & 19th.

More information on the BES Aquatic group meeting can be found here.

• Felicia Liu's new interim report "Green FinTech and Data Centres in Singapore" has been published by the Singapore Green Finance Centre. The report seeks to communicate the preliminary findings of her project investigating the 'greenness' of the emerging green fintech sector in Southeast Asia, and will be shared primarily with industry, finance, and policy stakeholders in the data centre sector in Singapore.

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  Tabitha Kabora gave a talk titled "The Dream of Rewilding-Archaeological Evidence for Anthropocene Futures" at the 31st International Congress for the Conservation of Biology (ICCB 2023) in July as part of the Leverhulme Centre-led symposium titled 'Rewilding for Anthropocene' chaired by Dr Hanna Pettersson.

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  Bryce Stewart helped with and was quoted in an article in Bloomberg UK about the after effects of Brexit on UK fisheries. In addition, research led by Bryce was featured in an article on Brexit and Fisheries in EU Today.

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  Sarah Bridle was interviewed for the podcast, 'Mum, Will the Planet Die Before I Do?' about the impact of food on climate change and how better food choices can bring about change.

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  Apichaya Englong and Rob Marchant co-authored a paper published in the journal Quaternary titled High-Resolution Multiproxy Record of Environmental Changes and Anthropogenic Activities at Unguja Ukuu, of Environmental Changes and Anthropogenic Activities at Unguja Ukuu.

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  Andriannah Mbandi (recent SEI PhD student), Chris Malley (SEI), Dieter Schwela, Harry Vallack, Lisa Emberson and Mike Ashmore (SEI-affiliates), have a new publication in Energy Strategy Reviews on road transport emission policies in Kenya.

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Well done everyone on your fantastic achievements 👏