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
The Autism-Ready Libraries Toolkit
The Autism-Ready Libraries Toolkit has been created by University of Washington iSchoolto provide librarians with inclusive, research-based strategies to create inclusive environments for autistic learners. Main focus is on children in public libraries in the USA, but offers insight into needs of neurodiverse users and how to create a welcoming environment and promote literacy. The toolkit […]
LGBT Rights Activism at the United Nations and the Geopolitics of Sexuality
By Calogero Giametta Lecturer in Criminology LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) rights are divisive and prone to instrumentalisation, nationally and globally. In the past thirty years LGBT rights have attracted the attention of a diverse set of actors: from civil society to states, from liberal to conservative parties, and more recently from global capital […]
Space Lates: Jupiter
Join the team at the National Space Centre for their next Space Lates event, looking at the largest planet in our Solar System, Jupiter. Space Lates is an evening created for people who want to know more – those who have an interest in astronomy, space missions, and the exciting research happening here in the […]
Botanical Illustrations are not only pretty – they remain relevant today
As the University has announced an exciting programme of Summer events at the Botanic Gardens in Oadby, we explore the art of botanical illustration through our Special Collections.
Arch-I-Scan Colloquium and Workshop – Artificial Intelligence and Pottery Identification and Analyses, College Court, Leicester Thursday- Friday 20th-21st April
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 […]
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Representations in Marketing Require more Attention to Context.
Brands can play an important role in fostering inclusion in our increasingly diverse societies. 38% of the respondents to a recent survey conducted by Adobe, said that they are more likely to purchase products and services from brands that show diversity in their advertisements.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Staff away day
The latest staff away day took place at Stamford court, with university and departmental updates, a group activity over coffee to reflect on how the department could improve various aspects of the working environment via the working lives committee, bite-sized research presentations and lunch. In the afternoon, departmental staff got competitive at the sports hall. […]
The ‘China Dream’: conference programme and registration
Planning for ChiSRA’s inaugural conference (24th/25th September) continues apace. A provisional programme is now available to download from our website. The presentations will cover a range of themes and subject areas, including literature and film, visual arts, design and marketing. We are delighted to announce that Professor Zhong Xin from Renmin University will be delivering […]