Geography News Spring 2009

The IESR 2009 conference on Creative Industries and Creative Communities will be held on November 11th 2009. The aim of the conference is to focus on a wide a range of creative sectors, including ceramics, art, media, film, music, and the performing arts. The conference will bring together a wide range of groups with an interest in promoting and growing creative industries and communities, including academics, businesses, policy managers, planners, local authorities, other public sector organisations, and creative workers.

Keynote speaker: Professor Calvin Taylor, Chair in Cultural Industries, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds.

The 2009 conference, on the 21st October 2009, will bring together a wide range of groups with concerns for relationships between the environment, well-being and lifestyles, including academics; local government officers with responsibilities in sectors such as housing, planning, recreation and transport (RENEW); representatives of the voluntary sector (e.g. Groundwork); the health sector (e.g. PCTs, health authorities); and public agencies (e.g. CABE, Natural England).

Keynote speaker: Hugh Barton from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Policy, University West of England.

Download the Conference Programme (PDF, file size: 124.78KB) here and also the Booking Form (RTF, file size: 44.37KB) .

The Inaugural Lecture of Professor Fiona Tweed took place on Thursday 4th June, 2009.

Fiona’s main research interests are cold environments and natural hazards.

Her research focuses on the formation, evolution and drainage of ice-dammed lakes, the impact of associated glacial outburst floods or 'jökulhlaups' and the hydrology of glaciers and ice sheets.

Many friends, colleagues, staff and invited guests attended a most interesting and well delivered lecture.

Congratulations from all your friends and colleagues in the Faculty.

The ERASMUS programme allows both staff and students to study at partner Universities, one of the links we have is with Oldenburg University in Germany.
Students from geography, biology, ecology and forensic science would all fit into the programme of study well.

Please see associated word document (DOC, file size: 41KB) with full details.

Other resources

There is a box file in the Learning Resource Centre 4th Floor Mellor Building, marked Oldenburg – ERASMUS with more information.

Key contacts

Jon Fairburn from the Geography has been to Oldenburg and you can have an informal chat with him or email him at Jon.Fairburn@staffs.ac.uk.

Ingo Mose head of the Regional Science group ingo.mose@uni-oldenburg.de

Katja Kaboth responsible for incoming international students at Oldenburg University katja.kaboth@uni-oldenburg.de

Susan Lloyd International Office, Staffordshire University 01782 294838 s.r.lloyd@staffs.ac.uk 
 

Hugh Deeming was recently awarded a PhD for his work on community resilience to coastal flooding.

Hugh was an undergraduate in Geography at Staffordshire University and began his PhD here in October 2004, supervised by Gordon Walker and Fiona Tweed.

He transferred to Lancaster University with Gordon in 2005 and completed his research in November 2008, having worked on hazard and risk-based projects alongside his PhD research. Hugh’s thesis is entitled ‘Increasing resilience to storm-surge flooding: risks, trust and social networks’.

Hugh is now a Research Associate at Lancaster University and is working on flood-related research projects.

The 2009 conference will bring together a wide range of groups with concerns for relationships between the environment, well-being and lifestyles, including academics; local government officers with responsibilities in sectors such as housing, planning, recreation and transport (RENEW); representatives of the voluntary sector (e.g. Groundwork); the health sector (e.g. PCTs, health authorities); and public agencies (e.g. CABE, Natural England).

Keynote speaker: Hugh Barton from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Cities and Urban Policy, University West of England.

Please find attached a series of workshops that we are offering for free to businesses kindly sponsored by Renew North Staffordshire http://www.renewnorthstaffs.gov.uk/
 
You can also find out more about the project as a whole by visiting www.staffs.ac.uk/energy

Please download the Workshop Flyer here (PDF, file size: 54.06KB) .

Please download the Workshop Booking Form here (PDF, file size: 23.04KB) .

Allan Watson of the Geography Department travelled to Abu Dhabi in January 2009, as part of a small team of international academics, to deliver a two-day workshop to a large number of prestigious guests from the city’s government, business and educational organisations. The workshop, entitled “New ways of thinking about Abu Dhabi as an emerging global city” was commissioned by the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development, and delivered by academics from the Globalisation and World Cities Research Network. The aim was to foster new ways of thinking about the rapid development of the city and its position within global economic, cultural, and social networks. Themes covered included knowledges and networks, transport and logistics, governance, cultural and creative economy, education, and sustainability.

Three Geography tutors from The University of Madras in Chennai, India visitied the Geography Department at Staffordshire during 24th - 28th November 2008 for a staff development workshop. A further staff development workshop for University of Madras tutors was held at Staffordshire in January 2009 and staff from Staffordshire Geography department plan to visit the University of Madras in September 2009.

A partnership between the Geography Departments at Staffordshire University and The University of Madras was established in 2004 to support the delivery of the Staffordshire University MA in Sustainable Development within India. A key component of this partnership is collaboration between the two Geography departments to develop new e-learning modules and joint awards that can be added to the portfolio of environment and sustainability awards already offered by Staffordshire University and delivered by distributed learning. During the forthcoming workshop Prof. T. V. Kumaran (Head of Geography at the University of Madras) and Drs. V. M. Suresh and M. Sakthivel will work with staff from Staffordshire Geography department to progress development of these new modules and awards.

The Faculty of Sciences Geography department is ranked among some of the highest performing modern universities in the sector, ranking in the top 15 of all 65 UK Geography departments in the "Guardian University Guide 2009".