News in brief

Held to account
More money for international student recruitment and extra posts in the research support unit to improve the service it provides were agreed as part of this year’s review of corporate services.

Other funding requests approved included a co-ordinator post for the Logik centre and increases for the library above the level of inflation.

Deans of faculties questioned each of the pro-vice chancellors and directors, together with their heads of services, on their costs and operations in a series of four whole-day meetings held at Weetwood at the end of January. Each area had to demonstrate that their expenditure plans were aligned to the University’s strategic priorities and to argue their case for any additional funding.

Services were also expected to show they are cost-effective and to demonstrate, where possible, opportunities for savings. The budget for services for 2007/08 to 2011/12 has now been agreed by the faculty management group.

The process for reviewing faculty plans starts in May with faculty reviews being held during June. More about the budget for corporate services will be published shortly at www.leeds.ac.uk/finance

Tropical forest link to carbon
The results of a Leeds study looking at the role of African tropical forests in the global carbon cycle were presented to Africa’s largest botany conference in Cameroon this month.

Botanist Simon Lewis in the School of Geography recently completed fieldwork in Gabon and Ghana, where he was invited to help set up a new funding scheme for African scientists. He then attended the conference of the Association for the Taxonomic Study of the Flora of Tropical Africa (AETFAT).

Dr Lewis has joined a United Nations expert group on biodiversity and climate change and will speak at the 2007 International Conference on Climate Change in May.

Podcast lecture breaks new ground
Three Scottish farmers used a podcast to educate students in the School of Earth and Environment about how they are coping with climate change.

Taped interviews were made into a 20-minute podcast, which students then downloaded to their computers or MP3 players.

Lecturer Dr Mark Reed said: “Podcasting technology enabled them to impart their knowledge of climate change without having to travel.”

In Aberdeenshire, just a small rise in average winter temperatures is having a huge effect on agriculture, with less snow and frost than in the past, when it was often 6ft deep. One of the farmers described climbing out his first floor window to dig a tunnel to his front door!

Dr Reed said their experience is consistent with climate change models that suggest Scottish winters will become warmer and wetter in the future, with more risk of summer drought.

To listen to the podcast, click www.see.leeds.ac.uk/misc/envi2131/scottishagriculture.mp3

Scales of justice tip to attract talent
Leeds will be involved in a £1.5 million scheme starting in September that will encourage up to 750 students a year from less privileged families to enter the legal profession.

The ‘Pathways to law’ programme seeks to recruit fresh talent by targeting students from state schools who are the first in their family to attend university.

Leeds is among five universities chosen to help sixth formers with their course applications and interviews, and provide them with mentors and work experience.

Funded by the College of Law and the Sutton Trust, the idea was prompted by a 2005 report which found that more than two-thirds of top barristers and three out of four judges in the UK were educated at private schools.

Apply now
The University Court invites applications and nominations for qualified, experienced individuals to be appointed as lay members of the Council and Court. The closing date is April 20. Further information and forms are available in electronic or hard copy format from Helen Pickersgill in the secretariat, email h.j.pickersgill@adm.leeds.ac.uk or phone ext. 34036.

Read all about it
The best research by students on taught courses in the School of Earth and Environment is profiled in the latest issue of Earth and Environment, available online at www.env.leeds.ac.uk/~mreed/ejournal/issue2.htm. The 11 selected papers include a study into the potential for using household waste as fuel, the sustainability of urban regeneration projects in Leeds, and an environmental review of the printing industry.

Staff centre gets new friends
Three new staff have been elected to the University’s staff centre committee for the next two years, following a ballot. They are Professor Roger Boyle from the School of Computing, Dave Kelly from Estate Services and Peter Dawson from the School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering.

Honours
A knowledge transfer partnership between Leeds University Business School’s credit management research centre and Leeds City Credit Union won one of the top three awards at the Knowledge Transfer Awards 2007 event held in London in March. The ESRC-sponsored award was for ‘best application of social or management science’.

Leeds and its White Rose partners, the universities of York and Sheffield, have been shortlisted among the the UK’s top 10 ‘beacons for public engagement’. The five winning ‘beacons’ will be at the forefront of an £8 million Research Councils UK and Wellcome Trust project to help universities and research institutes support public engagement at all levels.

Professor Dionisius Agius has been awarded a £7,000 prize by the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation and the British Kuwait Friendship Society for his book Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman: The People of the Dhow (published by Kegan Paul) for being the best scholarly work on the Middle East.

Professor Marjorie Wilson, Pro-Dean for research in the Faculty of Environment, was appointed to the top decision-making body of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) in March by the Department for Trade and Industry.