Important Information

Dept Staff Monthly Meeting (June)

A big thank you to Victoria, Paul and Anika for presenting at this month's Dept Staff Meeting. The key updates included the revised New Starter Induction process (especially important for Line Managers), updates and reminders of the GTA process, an overview of the new dept website, REF scoring information and an upcoming EDI beacon event.

If you missed it, you can catch up by clicking this link to the Dept Staff Monthly Meeting (June) recording.

Our next staff meeting is scheduled for Tues 16 July, 10:05-11:00 and this will be the last meeting of the academic year. If you would like to present an item, or if you need the calendar invitation to be resent, do drop Chloe an email: environment-pa@york.ac.uk. 

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Events

Enhancing Research Culture Workshop - A roadmap to accessing Early Career Researcher funding for training and travel

Thurs 4 July, 2024, 11.30am-2pm, in-person, B/T/019

The next session of our Enhancing Research Culture Workshops is coming up next Thursday, organised by the Biology Postdoc Society and Enhancing Research Culture Workshop team. 

Keen to extend your network at a conference? Learn a new skill on a training course? Or explore short-term, focused research with independent funds? This workshop is all about empowering you to obtain your own funding towards these goals. We have an exciting line-up of speakers that will share their experiences on how to obtain funding for conferences, travel and training. We’ll provide insight into internal funding schemes and how these can complement external funding from councils, charities, industry and learned societies. This workshop is open to all UoY staff and PGR students. 

The speakers for this session are:

• Dr Charlay Wood (Former PhD student, Department of Biology, University of York) - in-person 

• Dr Ines Hahn (Lecturer, Department of Biology, University of York) - in-person 

• Jenny Spear (Sciences Impact Manager, University of York) - in-person 

• Professor Rachel Cowen (Professor in the School of Medicine, Director of the Centre for Academic and Researcher Development and University Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Manchester) - via zoom 

If you would like to attend please sign up via this google form. We can then order the right amount of lunch. Hot drinks will be provided at the start of the session, please bring your own cup. A buffet lunch will be served for those attending in-person after the talks and Q&A. 

If you are unable to attend in-person, we plan to live stream the session on the day and also have a recording to share after the session. Please indicate in the google form if your preference is to attend in-person or via live-stream. We will also send you a calendar invite.

We now have a dedicated email address for this Enhancing Research Culture Workshops project (enhancing-research-culture-workshop@york.ac.uk) as well as an updated webpage which links to our new google site. The google site includes recordings of previous workshops, case studies and useful resources to share best practice.

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YESI International Fellows Seminar: The production of urban space in Amazonas state, Brazil

Thurs 4 July 2024, 1pm to 2pm, In-person, ENV/105x, Environment Building, Campus West

Join our YESI International Fellows Seminar with Dr Paola Verri de Santana, from the Department of Geography, Universidade Federal do Amazonas (Federal University of Amazonas - UFAM).

This seminar will focus on the city of Manaus, an urban space that has also been produced through industrialization, promoted and articulated locally and worldwide. We are in the midst of a global environmental crisis, but under conditions of uneven development. These conditions manifest themselves in several ways, one of which is through precarious urban infrastructure, such as energy and health services. The talk will conclude by reflecting on possibilities and challenges for public intervention in service provision for a more equitable urbanising Amazon in Brazil. 

Register for Amazonas seminar.

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Right to Read Volunteering Opportunity - Helping primary school children

Through Right to Read, volunteers provide one-to-one reading support to primary school aged children for 1 hr/week for a minimum of one term in either a school or library. This is an opportunity to help raise literacy standards and boost confidence, acting as a brilliant role model for children. Our next training session will be: Wednesday 10 July, 12pm to 2pm at Aviva, Wellington Row, York, YO90 1WR. Placements will begin in September 2024. For more information or to sign up, please email Hannah at info@yorkcares.co.uk. 

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YESI International Fellows Seminar - Addressing Indonesia’s Air Quality Crisis: Peatland Fires, Urban Pollution, and Emerging Threats
Thurs 11 July 2024, 1pm to 2pm, ENV/105X, Environment Building, Campus West and online

Join our YESI International Fellows Seminar with Dr Windy Iriana, the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Indonesia.

Indonesia faces critical environmental challenges stemming from various sources of air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this presentation, I will share research conducted at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), focusing on the monitoring and analyses of these pollutants emitted, particularly by peatland fires and urban sources such as open waste burning. Register for air quality seminar. Register for the Air Quality seminar.

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Good News 

 Congratulations to Andy Dougill and Lindsay Stringer as co-authors on the following paper: Agyekum TP, Antwi-Agyei P, Dougill AJ,  Stringer LC. 2024. Benefits and barriers to the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices in West Africa: A systematic review. Climate, Resilience and Sustainability.

 Darpan Das has received Lila Albin Award Presented by the American Industrial Hygiene Association- Indoor Environmental Quality Committee for his peer reviewed article published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health - “Experimental studies of particle removal and probability of COVID-19 infection in passenger railcars”. The committee felt the study displayed excellent application of the scientific method to address the communicable disease risk among rail passengers. This work to control infectious bioaerosols should inspire rail transit authorities to invest in engineering a healthier commuter experience. A perfect example of impacting society through science.

Felicia Liu was invited to take part in the inaugural "Voice of the Global South in the Anthropocene" at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology. She presented her latest work on the role of "artivism" in the environmental movements of Southeast Asia in response to the worsening air pollution crises. 

 On 26 June, Sam Buckton gave an online presentation to participants of the COBALT Fellowship Programme about his research on transformation-focused evaluation and how this is being applied in the evaluation of North Yorkshire Council's food strategy.

Adrian Gonzalez initiated and led the co-authorship of a strategy paper "Embedding sustainability into Initial Teacher Education (ITE), Department of Education, University of York" with DoE colleagues. This builds on his ongoing work supporting the PGCE Geography and History teams in their sustainability CPD. The paper sets out the aim of the department becoming recognised as a committed and collaborative innovator in the delivery of sustainability grounded ITE education across all subjects and stages by 2030. The paper was presented to Professor Claire Ball-Smith (Director of ITE) who has agreed to move ahead with this strategic direction. Meetings will take place over summer to finalise the framework before presentation at the department's strategy away day in November 2024 to begin wider consultation on the detail and process. 

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Research Opportunities

Laura Bassi Scholarship for Early Career Researchers

The Laura Bassi Scholarship was established in 2018 with the aim of providing editorial assistance to postgraduates and junior academics whose research focuses on neglected topics of study, broadly construed. The scholarships are open to every discipline and the next round of funding will be awarded in Summer 2024:

Summer 2024

• Application deadline: 24 July 2024

• Results: 10 August 2024

All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of full-time employment. Applicants are required to submit a completed application form along with their CV through the application portal by the relevant deadline. Visit the Laura Bassi Scholarship application portal for further details, including previous winners.

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About the EDI Research Centre

To support the University of York’s EDI Strategic Objectives and commitment to being a university for public good, the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Research Centre was formed through a 2-year Enhancing Research Culture fund to serve as a central hub for innovative research, focusing on four main areas:

• Dismantling systemic inequities through and within research.

• Employing inclusive research methods and methodologies.

• Decolonising research.

• Advancing pedagogical research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Click here to find out more about the EDI research centre and sign up to the network. 

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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

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