Welcome to the University of Leicester academic and staff blog site.
From Royal Society Fellows to early-career researchers, corporate services to academic related – all members of staff are engaged in creating new knowledge, whether in the sciences, social sciences, business, the arts or wherever their interests lie. This wealth of research expertise means Leicester has a unique and critical role to play in helping to overcome major challenges faced by society.
This site aims to provide a platform for University of Leicester staff – whether early-career, established or somewhere in between; whether researching and rehearsing ideas, networking with peers, or an early form of publication. As you would expect from Leicester, it’s inclusive and accessible so we look forward to your comments.
Latest posts from the staff blogs
![Andrew Dunn](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/socscilibrarians/wp-content/blogs.dir/35/files/userphoto/89.thumbnail.jpg)
Dryad Basketry
https://www.leicestermuseums.org/Dryad-Basketry The first ever exhibition of Dryad basketry is now on at the New Walk Museum in Leicester and is a collaboration between the University of Leicester and Leicester Museums and Galleries. On till 9th March 2025.
Reflections on my Professional Fellowship: Part One
My name is Sarah Wood and I work as the Assistant Archivist for the University of Leicester. I am based in Archives & Special Collections and usually sat in the office adjacent to the Special Collections Reading Room (Library basement). Pop in and say hello if you are passing by! In November 2023 I was […]
MA Museum Studies Placement Week 7-8
My time now at the University of Leicester Archives and Special Collections has ended, and I am proud of what I have achieved. Through a lot of hard work, I was able to catalogue the Rose Griffiths Collection in its entirety. All 371 items have been looked at, cataloged, and repackaged. I was also able […]
Tackling Prolific Serial Offenders Through Crime Linkage: the What, Why and How
Matt Tonkin Associate Professor of Criminology & Director of Research for the School The majority of crime is committed by a minority of prolific serial offenders, with just 9% of offenders responsible for over half of crime committed in the UK. These prolific serial offenders impose significant human and financial costs on society, costing the […]
Enterprise Challenge brings innovative solutions to complex space challenges
Innovative solutions to tackle problems associated with satellite technology and sustainable moon habitation were showcased by students during our Enterprise Challenge hosted at Space Park Leicester. The three-day event saw students take part in a dynamic workshop designed to bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world business challenges. The event was organised in collaboration […]
![Chris Grocott](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/business/wp-content/blogs.dir/40/files/userphoto/117.thumbnail.jpg)
Social Security and the Gig Economy – Lessons from the French Intermittents du Spectable scheme.
A radical redesign of the UK benefits system for gig economy workers could draw inspiration from a French scheme that covers art industry workers writes Guillaume Wilemme and Piotr Denderski of the University of Leicester School of Business and Helene Benghalem of Lausanne University. From independent contracting and self-employment to on-call and temporary contracts, non-standard […]
Good luck, Victoria! It won’t be the samian without you.
please click here to go to the blog post on the Arch-I-Scan news website.
Discovery of Ancient Super-eruptions Suggests the Yellowstone Hotspot May Be Waning
Explosive super-eruptions (those involving more than 450 km3 of magma) are among the most extreme events to affect the Earth’s surface. Thankfully, humans have not experienced such an event in recorded history (the last massive volcanic explosion was 26,500 years ago). The only clues to help us better understand super-eruptions and their impacts are therefore […]
Political Cartooning in Côte d’Ivoire: Interview with Lassane Zohoré
JI: What first drew you to cartooning? LZ: I’ve been cartooning since I was little, before I started school. I remember entertaining myself by drawing on the living room door, I would draw everywhere! With my friends I would take part in cartooning competitions, we would challenge each other. Sometimes we would go looking for […]
![Physics & Astronomy](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/leicester-to-jupiter/wp-content/blogs.dir/74/files/userphoto/256.thumbnail.png)
Juno Mission unveils the depth and structure of planet’s shrinking red spot and colourful bands
Dr. Leigh Fletcher, Participating Scientist for the NASA’s Juno mission, reports on latest discoveries revealing the 3D structure of Jupiter’s deep atmosphere, in an article recently published on TheConversation. Further information can be found in press releases from JPL and from Leicester. Nasa’s Juno mission, the solar-powered robotic explorer of Jupiter, has completed its five-year prime mission to […]
![Emma Parker](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/english/wp-content/blogs.dir/36/files/userphoto/128.thumbnail.jpeg)
The Book Group
The Book Group was launched in October 2020 as a way to bring English students and staff together online during the lockdown necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Each week, one person talks about and reads from a book they cherish or wish to share, for whatever reason. It might be because the book is a […]
Michael J Curtis Job Tips
I was a 1970s undergraduate, at a time when there was much change in world of archaeology, and I found myself leaving university and venturing into that scary world of business. As it happened, what materialised was an interesting, and varied, journey and one which took me in and out of both the public and […]
![John](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/teachingr/wp-content/blogs.dir/79/files/userphoto/134.thumbnail.jpg)
Session 1: Reference intervals for African Buffalo
This blog discusses the teaching of data analysis with R. It was inspired by a short course that I first ran in the autumn of 2018. The notes for that course can be found on my github page. If you have not already done so then you might start by reading my introduction to […]
![Steve Rooney](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/lli/wp-content/blogs.dir/71/files/userphoto/261.thumbnail.png)
Supporting student learning in 2020-21: avoiding a common misstep
One if the many important questions to have arisen during the current pandemic, is how we can effectively induct and orient students into new ways and, indeed, new modes of learning. Although this is to be very much welcomed, some of us would also want to caution against and unfortunate move people sometimes make when […]
![carolyntarrant](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/sapphire/wp-content/blogs.dir/64/files/userphoto/218.thumbnail.jpg)
Quality Improvement in Colonoscopy: A view from Sweden
I am Annica, a PhD student from Sweden. Last autumn, I participated as a student in the module “Quality and Quality Improvement in Healthcare” taught by the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester. During my time in Leicester, the SAPPHIRE research group most kindly invited me to their meetings – and at […]
![jbridges](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/mars/wp-content/blogs.dir/76/files/userphoto/273.thumbnail.jpg)
Mars Sample Return is Underway with Mars2020 Launch
With the successful launch of Mars2020 from Cape Canaveral today the first stage in a long and complex sample return plan is finally underway. Mars Sample Return has been envisaged for many decades but it is only since around 2008 that a feasible architecture has been developed. Mars Sample Return has the ultimate aim of […]
Finding Helena
May 3rd is the Feast of the Finding of the True Cross. Here Sara Haslam, our volume editor for Evelyn Waugh’s novel about St Helena, reflects on the time she has spent with the woman Waugh credits with the discovery. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, was in her seventies when she travelled to […]
![Maria Rovisco](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/performingcitizenship/wp-content/blogs.dir/60/files/userphoto/203.thumbnail.jpg)
Dancing With Strangers: Body and Otherness in the Experience of Citizenship – by Rita Marcalo
This post is authored by Rita Marcalo, dancer, choreographer and Artistic Director of Instant Dissidence, as a response to the Workshop ‘Arts and Citizenship’ held at the Department of Media and Communication in June 2015. Since 2013 I have been developing a performance series entitled Dancing With Strangers. The first instance in the series took the European […]
![Deborah Toner](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/consumingauthenticities/wp-content/blogs.dir/58/files/userphoto/188.thumbnail.jpg)
Food Stories – the afterlife of a research project
It’s obviously been quite a while since this blog was updated, but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten about Consuming Authenticities! In fact, plenty of exciting developments have been quietly happening behind the scenes, which I will write more about over the coming weeks and months: we have been continuing to publicise and distribute our […]
![Alberto Fernández Carbajal](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/queeringislam/wp-content/blogs.dir/57/files/userphoto/125.thumbnail.jpg)
Tehmina Kazi reading and Muslim LGBT activism
As the final event of the Queering Islam events series for 2015-2016, Tehmina Kazi, the Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, visited us at the University of Leicester to do a reading of her story ‘The Tulip Asylum’, a story about homosexuality in contemporary Iran. Below you can find an excerpt of her reading and […]
Prize-winning poster!
We are delighted to announce that our project has just won the poster prize at the Society for Legal Scholars conference in York, which was attended by our project leader, Dr. Dawn Watkins. The poster, “Adventures with Lex… The Story So Far”, gives an overview of our project, a summary of the data collection, and […]
![Laura Dean](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/psychology/wp-content/blogs.dir/54/files/userphoto/176.thumbnail.jpg)
Congratulations to Mindhacks
www.mindhacks.com has won the British Psychological Society’s Public Engagement and Media Award. Whilst this site aims to increase engagement with academic research by ordinary members of the public, it is also a useful and interesting resource for psychologists in training too.
![Dawn Watkins](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/legalliteracy/wp-content/blogs.dir/50/files/userphoto/151.thumbnail.jpg)
Leicester Legal Eagles come in to land
Last Friday was the final day of activities for the Leicester Legal Eagles project. Students handed in their group work materials; each group having created and trialed in St Peter’s School a workshop for children in years 4 and 5. Our students had covered a variety of legal topics; animal rights, human rights, libel and […]
![Kerry Dobbins](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/loproject/wp-content/blogs.dir/49/files/userphoto/147.thumbnail.jpg)
Creating an effective e-learning resource: some helpful tips for a challenging process
One of my initial tasks when I started on the ‘Learning Outcomes Project’ was to develop an online resource that aimed to improve students use of their learning outcomes. My brief was as general as that, however, I knew that we wanted a resource that students would find useful as a learning support and would help them to […]
![Clare Anderson](https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/carchipelago/wp-content/blogs.dir/48/files/userphoto/148.thumbnail.jpeg)
A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies: book launch
On July 4th 2018, the eminent scholar of empire, Professor Philippa Levine (University of Texas, Austin), launched my edited volume, A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies, at the annual conference of the Australian Historical Association, held at ANU, Canberra. This volume is one of the key outcomes of my ‘Carceral Archipelago’ project. […]
About
The Landscapes and Communities Research (LACR) research theme aims to foster research that examines the constitution of and relations between communities and landscapes. Although run from the University of Leicester College of Science and Engineering the theme involves researchers from across the University and aims to foster the development of inter- and trans-disciplinary research, making […]