Staff Newsletter 17 November 2023

Morning all 🌞 This week, we've got stealth tips on how to contact IT support and a free CPR course. You can't say we don't treat you

Chloe Mitchell - PA to HoD

Changes to IT Support

There are a few changes in IT Services at the moment and this is the first one.

Our phone lines are now open 9am-12pm and 2-4pm, Monday to Friday. Our email and voicemail service will be monitored when the phones are off and we will respond to any urgent queries and call you back if needed.

To help you get the support you need as soon as possible, please make sure you visit the IT Services website and search our support articles before you contact IT Support. Our support articles answer common IT queries and include lots of helpful information on many different aspects of IT.  You can also find out if there are any known issues affecting our services here.  If these sites don't answer your query you can complete the form to contact us.

Please see our guide below on the best place to get support based on your query.

• Visit the IT Services webpage and search our support articles to look for answers to common queries, find guides on how to do things and to check for scheduled downtime or issues to services. Use the form to contact us if you need further help. Available 24/7.

• Email us via itsupport@york.ac.uk if something non-urgent breaks, if you need software or have other requests. Available 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday.  

• Call us on (0)1904 323838 if something urgent breaks or suddenly stops working as it should or you have another urgent query  Available between 9am-12pm and 2-4pm, Monday to Friday.

• Drop in to the JB Morrell Library for quick fixes such as help with passwords, two-factor authentication or connecting to wifi. Available 2-4pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Except for during vacation times. Subject to change depending on demand. See our IT Support page for up to date information.

We will also arrange in-person or Zoom appointments for more complex issues, Monday to Friday, 9am-4pm.

Finally, please do not send your IT issues to me or Mark Tolley directly.  Follow the instructions above. If you email IT Support, please add FAO Mark Tolley in the subject line and ITSO will triage your request to ensure you get the fastest resolution.

Dave Hay  - Departmental Technical Manager

🏆 MTD Awards - Winners to be announced in next staff meeting! 🏆

The University recognises and values the hard work, commitment and achievements of all staff. The 'Making the Difference' awards are intended to provide recognition to any member of staff whose contribution on a one-off or short-term basis has been exceptional or outstanding and is worthy of particular note.

Congratulations to all nominees below! The winner/s will be announced in our last All Staff Monthly Meeting of the year on Thursday 30th November, 11:05-12:00. If you haven't received a calendar invite for the meeting, please email Chloe Mitchell: environment-pa@york.ac.uk. 

Seminars taking place next week 

DEG Seminar - In person Date / Time: Tuesday 21st November at 12:05 Location: Hybrid (ENV005 and Zoom) - click here to join Speaker name: Glenn Milne Title: Towards improved understanding of Late Quaternary ice sheet and sea-level evolution in eastern North America Blurb Glenn has studied and worked in both the UK and Canada and has been a professor at the University of Ottawa since 2008. His research interests include the modelling of sea level changes that arise due to climatic changes, and this is the focus of his talk today. Geological reconstructions of relative sea level change and ice sheet extent provide important data control for testing and developing computer models that are used to simulate these changes, both in the past and into the future. In his presentation, he will review two case studies and highlight specific model limitations that impact our understanding of ice sheet and sea-level changes on a range of timescales. He will also look forward as to how we might address these model limitations. .......... Click here to watch the recording of the previous DEG Seminar entitled 'Resource politics and colonial entanglements in Jordan’s nature reserves.’ Passcode: %8yByx*u

Sustainability Seminar - In person Date / Time: Wednesday 22nd November at 13:05 Location: In person only this week - ENV/005 Chair: Truzaar Dordi Speaker: Beth Eden  Title: The SDGs and Social Impact: Why acting on community-based problems sets you up for impactful careers. Blurb This session will provide you with a deep dive into how the SDGs and HEI’s can lead students and academics to a career of social impact. Taking a bottom up approach, regeneration supports the SDGs which are the blue print for change beginning in local communities. Beth will go over how QS ImpACT Charity, partner of QS are challenging the way we teach and recognize social impact. About The Department of Environment and Geography is thrilled to host Beth Eden, CEO of QS World Merit on November 22, 2023. Beth Eden is a fifth-generation English-Canadian, leading the QS partner charity, QS ImpACT, which recognizes and supports young people for their social action towards a regenerative future.  Beth has worked on numerous sustainability, social entrepreneurship, environmental and youth engagement-related projects with national spans in the United Kingdom, Morocco, India, Canada, and internationally for 14 years. She began her engagements as a young entrepreneur at age 13, becoming England's Young Entrepreneur of the Year through Solutions for the Planet. She was later recognized as one of Canada's 30 under 30 Sustainability Leaders with Corporate Knights and 25 under 25 Environmentalists with Starfish Canada in 2020. Her visit will include a public "Sustainability Seminar Series" lecture at 13:05 - 14:00 at ENV/005. Staff and students are also welcome to register for one-on-one's with Beth on that day.

Visit from Beth Eden, CEO of QS World Merit - Next Wednesday

The Department of Environment and Geography is thrilled to host Beth Eden, CEO of QS World Merit on November 22, 2023. Beth Eden is a fifth-generation English-Canadian, leading the QS partner charity, QS ImpACT, which recognizes and supports young people for their social action towards a regenerative future. 

Beth has worked on numerous sustainability, social entrepreneurship, environmental and youth engagement-related projects with national spans in the United Kingdom, Morocco, India, Canada, and internationally for 14 years. She began her engagements as a young entrepreneur at age 13, becoming England's Young Entrepreneur of the Year through Solutions for the Planet. She was later recognized as one of Canada's 30 under 30 Sustainability Leaders with Corporate Knights and 25 under 25 Environmentalists with Starfish Canada in 2020.

Her visit will include a public "Sustainability Seminar Series" lecture at 13:05 - 14:00 at ENV/005 (see full details above). Staff and students are also welcome to register for one-on-one's with Beth on that day.

Save the date! DEG Festive Potluck/Moving Feast! Thursday 14th December, 13:00-16:00 🎄

• Where: Environment & Geography building

• Who: All staff/PGRs, including BioArch and SEI-Y

• What: Everyone is invited to bring in drinks and dishes from their culture/home/that they like making, to share with the rest of the department!

Further details will be circulated next week but for now this festive celebration should appear in your calendar - if not please email Annabel Jackson at environment-pa@york.ac.uk :)

IGDC Annual Lecture Next Tuesday - Towards Decoloniality and Justice: when the past pushes unfinished into the present

IGDC has its Annual Lecture next week with guest speaker, Professor Uma Kothari. All staff and students are welcome to attend. 

Date / time: Tuesday 28 November / 16:00-17:00

Venue: ENV005

Click here to view full details and to register a place on at the IGDC Annual Lecture.

Free CPR Course on campus on 27 Nov

We at St John's Ambulance First Aid Society are running more free CPR sessions where any university student or staff can come and learn CPR (adults, children, infants) and to use an AED.    

Sessions are run on Monday the 27th November at 1pm, 3pm, or 5pm in SLB/001. All sessions are the same and will last about 1hr 15 mins. University staff can email us at sjafirstaid@yusu.org to book onto sessions. 

Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Catherine - YUSFAS Vice President.

Our wonderful Director for Students, Samarthia Thankappan is back with her weekly audio messages for students. Click the links below to listen to Samarthia's messages:

• S1 Week 1 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 2 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 3 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 4 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 5 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 6 Message from DfS

• S1 Week 7 Message from DfS

Sarah Bridle presented a webinar for The Centre for Food Policy at City University as part of their Food Thinkers lecture series, titled ‘How Can We Reduce the Impacts of Food on Climate Change and vice versa’.

Bryce Stewart was a judge (for the 4th year) for the annual Marine Stewardship Council Seafood Awards and attended the awards ceremony at Fishmonger's Hall in London.

John Wilkinson was interviewed for an upcoming BBC Panorama episode concerning sewage and impacts on rivers.

Well done everyone on your fantastic achievements 👏

COP28 / UK Universities Climate Network - Call for experts

York is part of the UK Universities Climate Network and they are looking to hold a record of all UK climate experts and to separately collect evidence on net zero in the run up to COP28. They are looking for experts across the climate space not just pure climate scientists.

If you would like to add yourself to the list or submit evidence on net zero, you can do so by clicking this link. 

A York Introduction to NERC Funding

Research Development Manager, Robyn Cooper Inglis, has put together a guide to NERC funding at York, which is aimed at helping researchers and those supporting them to develop research plans to understand what the various schemes offer.

A York Introduction to NERC Funding.

This guide is intended as an overview of the NERC funding opportunity landscape, and York’s university-level processes relating to them, and signposts to further guidance which can often be hard to find across multiple websites, as well as incorporating info from webinars and other funder engagement routes and highlighting recent successes. It is not intended to detail or supersede Departmental or Faculty info and processes around costing and submission of grants, or duplicate detailed information from NERC which can be accessed via links in the document.

Alan Turing Institute PhD Enrichment Scheme

The PhD Enrichment Scheme run by the Alan Turing Institute is open for applications from 15th November. These awards provide 2nd or 3rd year PhD students the opportunity to spend 6-9 months based at the Turing main office in London and enhance and further their studies. They welcome a broad range of disciplines that apply methodologies within the general data science/AI domain. A stipend is awarded. They will be competitive.

If you have further questions for follow-up, please contact Guy Harrington (guy.harrington@york.ac.uk) directly. Please also follow #turing-university-network slack channel for more events and opportunities from the ATI.

Enhancing Research Culture Fund 23/24

BRIC are pleased to announce the launch of this year’s Enhancing Research Culture Fund. This scheme offers grants to enable staff working in our research community to develop projects to enhance our research culture at York, using funding provided by Research England. A total fund of up to £200,000 is available to support initiatives as per previous years.

At this time we would like to invite applications from any members of staff within the University community who work in a research or research-related role, including technical staff and professional services staff who support research in addition to academic researchers at all stages, including postdoctoral. This document explains the funding guidance in more detail including some important changes to the fund this year, and contains a link to the short application form.

Please get in touch via bric@york.ac.uk if you have any questions about applying to this fund.