What do you do when you are dealt an unfortunate circumstance, a disruption that affects your every waking minute, one that you have no choice over? 

You keep on adding value. 

You keep on moving forward. 

You keep on making a difference. 

You walk 5,000 steps, one for each person living with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in the UK, to raise awareness. 

Hear from Chris Johnson as he reflects on his journey from a 30-year policing career he loved to facing the toughest challenge of all. A challenge that became the catalyst for raising disability awareness, turning struggle into a strong desire to make the most of what you have. 

Chris will talk about his motivation for joining the police force, moving up to executive-level policing, the operational challenges and the important values of leadership to overcome them. He will share how he then deals and manages with a hidden disability, how it affects your personal and professional resilience. 

Chris shows both extraordinary effort and courage, turning his misfortune into something positive, motivating and inspiring us all.  

And giving back, one step at a time. 

Prof Mark Hart (Aston University) and Prof Stephen Roper (University of Warwick) debate what will matter most as the economy seeks to recover from the COVID-19 crisis? Will recovery depend more strongly on entrepreneurship and new firms? Or, will it be innovation which drives new growth and productivity. Join this lively debate and take part in the discussion.

Mapping Women's Suffrage is a community project mapping as many early twentieth-century British women's suffrage activists as possible on to an interactive map. The series of events will launch with a live webinar focusing on researching the suffrage past of your family or neighbourhood.

Some of the biggest challenges we currently face, especially those involving the environment and sustainability, require action on a global scale. How can we cooperate and coordinate across nations? How can social sciences help improve patterns of human interactions and behaviour that are adversely affecting the environment? What role can we all take in changing policy and addressing climate change? A panel of international researchers will explore these questions and more from a range of different perspectives and disciplines.

How fast will economic activity rebound and have some types of work suffered a permanent reduction? To what extent will remote working practices continue? In this webinar, join Professor Mirko Draca (CAGE director, Department of Economics, University of Warwick) as he reports on new research using 'real-time' data that looks at the economic impacts of the Covid-19 crisis in the UK. Using daily online job vacancy data to measure the state of the labour market as well as structural changes in the nature of jobs, our analysis of real-time data allows us to address these questions with a specific focus on conditions around Coventry and the West Midlands.

Science on the Hill is moving online!

'Science on the Hill' is a new exciting programme of public engagement events being jointly hosted by the School of Life Sciences and Warwick Medical School. Due to Covid-19 these events will now be held live, virtually, and you can join from the comfort of your home. We'll be keeping the interactive aspect and there'll be plenty of opportunity to ask questions of the speakers.

These interactive hour-long events will serve to showcase the new research being performed at the Gibbet Hill campus by these two schools to the local community.

The new virtual Science on the Hill events will still be free to attend and will take place between 18:00 - 19:00 on Tuesday evenings. You'll be sent a link to watch live on YouTube.

Covid-19: transmission and testing - Tuesday 10th November

Join us for our first virtual science on the hill evening to discuss some of the science behind Covid-19 and the work that has been going on here at Warwick since the pandemic began. Professor Lawrence Young will be introducing to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, how it's transmitted and how infection results in disease. Then Dr Chrystala Constantinidou will discuss how she can track the movement of the virus throughout a hospital by studying tiny changes in the genetic code. Dr Nicole Robb will also discuss her latest work on detecting the virus and the development of a 5 minute test for Covid-19. As usual there will be plenty of time for a Q and A session at the end.

For queries please contact scienceonthehill@warwick.ac.uk

We're holding a brand new virtual Masters study fair! Join our FindAMasters Virtual Study Fair wherever you are in the world. Discuss your options with top UK and international universities, attend webinars and receive funding advice. The virtual study fair is totally free to attend and split by subject so you can speak to the right university representatives.

Many people with intellectual (learning) disabilities are prescribed psychotropic medicines to manage behaviours that may be challenging - but many of these people do not have a mental health condition. These medicines have side effects, some of which may be serious and can have an added effect on health inequalities. Doctors, pharmacists and nurses therefore need to check regularly that these medicines are still needed and give information on how to reduce the risk of side effects. Stopping and reducing medicines is called deprescribing and needs to be carefully managed to keep people well. This event will explore some of the issues around deprescribing and how health care professionals can consult and make joint decisions with service users.

I:DNA is an immersive art installation, developed between social scientist Professor Felicity Boardman (WMS) and STAMP Theatre and Media Productions CIC . It explores the social and ethical implications of genomic medicine from the perspectives of people with genetic conditions, using their own words. It is intended to spark reflections on the ever-expanding capabilities of genomic medicine, at a time of its increasing relevance to the whole of society, and its integration into NHS care. This special online edition of the work will include audio recordings, videos, a live Q&A with Professor Boardman, and a digital game.

Our Change Maker Series welcomes influential leaders, sourced from the alumni community and beyond, to Warwick Business School. Sharing their perspectives on change, the aim of the series is to help inspire transformational thinking and to deepen your understanding of the intricacies of business and management.

We are delighted to welcome Executive MBA Alumna Elham Fardad, Founder and CEO of the charity Migrant Leaders and Co-Founder & CEO of ID Inclusion. Elham will speak about her unique perspective on leadership and management; to make the case for collaborative leadership, in bringing together the corporate, charitable and public sectors. This has been key to the success of Migrant Leaders.

Speaker biography

Elham’s professional career spans 25 years in senior leadership roles in blue chip multinationals including GE, News Corp and Ernst & Young, where she has advised clients on their most challenging operational problems. She advises leadership teams on strategy, operations and talent.

Elham is the Founder and CEO of the charity Migrant Leaders, Co-Founder and CEO of ID Inclusion and is a member of Advisory Boards including WinTrade and on the Global Committee of GTF Athena40.

Elham is a WBS MBA alumna, completing her Executive MBA and graduating in 2004

We're holding a brand new virtual Masters study fair! Join our FindAMasters Virtual Study Fair wherever you are in the world. Discuss your options with top UK and international universities, attend webinars and receive funding advice. The virtual study fair is totally free to attend and split by subject so you can speak to the right university representatives.

If you can’t wait to start your postgraduate study journey, we have plenty of other ways to help:

FindAMasters Weekly Newsletter - From postgraduate loans to Brexit, there's a lot on the horizon for postgraduate study in the UK (and beyond!). Our Newsletter will help you provide insight and support throughout your search.

The FindAMasters advice blog - Featuring a range of authors, our blog is an eclectic mix of postgraduate news, advice and humour. And we're always on the lookout for new student contributors.

The Postgraduate Forum - Our lively and friendly postgraduate forum is a great way to chat to past and present students about all aspects of study.

'Disquieted Life' is a British Academy funded podcast series exploring ideas about philosophy and mental health. The podcasts will be freely available online at the start of the festival. Episodes feature conversations on mental health with leading thinkers from the worlds of philosophy, literature and the arts. Later in the week, a workshop will engage with young people, who will be invited to share their views and questions on the themes raised in the podcasts. Their reflections will be posted to the podcast webpage at the end of the week.

This panel investigates the ‘missing link’ in the history of codebreaking and cipher machines, typified by the famous German ‘Enigma’. It connects the period of Bletchley Park with the Internet era. It seeks to explore cryptography in the latter decades of the twentieth century, arguing that technical processes of interference in trusted devices produced a significant flow of intelligence, mostly from countries in the global south. It draws on new documents released in Europe and the USA, expanding our comprehension of technical co-operation between United States, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, focusing on the control of technology corporations. It showcases the latest published work by Warwick early career researchers supported by the Warwick Cyber GRP. The talk will be historical, but will inform current debates over trusted devices, supply chain security and 5G.

Cracking is a new play created by the award-winning arts organisation ‘Alright Mate?’. It tells the story of new parents unfolding on the counselling couch where the father is afraid of his own vulnerabilities triggered by new parenthood. It is inspired by the lived experience of couples who’ve been through postnatal illness.

The piece has been reimagined as a three-part audio play which will debut at this year’s ESRC Festival of Social Sciences. Audiences will have online access to the episodes during the Festival, beginning with a listen-remotely-together debut of episode 1, and then join a live panel discussion on father’s perinatal mental health and the culture(s) that surround it later in the week.

The panel will include the play’s writer and sound designer, peer support workers, experts by experience, innovators in the field and academic researchers from the University of Warwick.

Confirmed panellists:

Cally Hayes (Cracking writer)

Hugh McCann (Alright Mate? CIC)

Julian Bose (DadPad)

Luke Burgon (expert by experience)

Amelie Foster (expert by experience)

Nikhwat Marawat (The Delicate Mind CIC)

Dr Emma Langley (University of Warwick)

Jodie Dowse (Bluebell Care)

Dr Mark Pulsford (University of Warwick, panel Chair)

Listen to the 3 part audio drama any time from 8pm Saturday 7 November 2020

Born out a desire to promote reconciliation and peace, Coventry was a pioneer in twinning and went on to become twinned with 26 towns and cities around the world. Towns and cities in UK have twinned with other cities for four key reasons:

• to break down barriers and misunderstanding (e.g. several cities in England became twinned with cities in Eastern Europe after the second world war)
• to express a sense of solidarity (e.g. the active seeking of ties with cities in the global south)
• to promote economic ties (e.g. new links with cities in China and Japan)
• to strengthen already close ties (e.g. links between cities in EU countries).

Our project was particularly interested in schools and here twinning has encouraged sporting, drama and other cultural exchanges as well as collaboration on curriculum projects. Projects have sometimes been supported for trusts and philanthropic grants, and in Europe by EU funding.

Coventry has a rich and particular tradition of twinning and this talk will explore this history. We will illustrate our story with pictures of artefacts including: a tablecloth signed by women in Coventry as a fund raiser for the besieged people of Stalingrad in the Second World War; the Stalingrad Madonna that hangs in the city cathedral; and a cover of a programme for a pantomime put on by Coventry students in Jinan in the 1980s. We will suggest that twinning is worthwhile but requires planning and the active participation of participants.

For more about our project on twinning visit our website.

In response to the global pandemic, Coventry and Warwick universities joined together to launch 'Coventry Creates' a project to support the local arts and cultural sector whilst also providing researchers with the opportunity to explore their work through an artistic lens. This culminated in an online digital exhibition showcasing both the research and the artistic responses. This event will discuss how these collaborations worked, the benefits to those involved and the lessons learned for closer collaboration between universities and their local communities.

The year 2020 has seen us having to deal with both a rise in racism (and a concurrent increase in anti-racist activism) but also the unexpected and novel challenges of a global pandemic. But how have these twin pandemics impacted on the way we see ourselves?

Join us for an interactive and participatory workshop in which we will explore how our identities have been affected over the last 11 months. We will be discussing topics including race, family, LGBTQ identity, health and wellbeing, isolation, identity and support networks.

And we want to hear from you! Through taking part in a ‘show and tell’, we invite you to present an object(s) that symbolises your experience under lockdown, related to Covid 19 and race/ racism. Through sharing stories and experiences we will build up an autoethnographic picture of life under lockdown.

There will also be the opportunity to take a screen shot of the attendees with their objects to capture, as a piece of artwork and in a socially distanced way, the relationship between faces, objects and people coming together in a virtual space.

Please note: participation in the screenshot is optional and not mandatory. You are in control of the extent to which you participate. To this end, you are welcome to turn off your camera or anonymise your name (to for example a pseudonym). Those people captured in the screenshot will be asked to consent to their participation in the screenshot as a piece of artwork. However, if you change your mind at a later date, please email the organiser requesting removal.”

Mapping Women's Suffrage is a community project mapping as many early twentieth-century British women's suffrage activists as possible on to an interactive map. This webinar is the final event in a series which has included a webinar focusing on researching the suffrage past of your family or neighbourhood and daily multi-media releases on a variety of themes. The daily releases which are still available included presentations on music and women’s suffrage; suffrage walks and digital mapping; Kent: a local case study; the 1911 census and the suffrage movement; sexual violence and women’s activism.

Webinar: Legacies of the Suffrage Movement

This final webinar will consider the legacy of the suffrage movement; its resonance for contemporary activism such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter; and how an understanding of a community’s suffrage past might lead to re-interpretations of established local histories. Our keynote speaker for this event is the women’s activist and writer, Helen Pankhurst, the great granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Personal profile can be one of the most powerful elements in your business armoury, but you have to know what tools and techniques will help you build it, protect it and drive your success. Culturally, many of us are brought up not to "toot our own horns" or "shout about our successes", but in today’s highly competitive world if you don’t stand out, you’re likely to watch those with a higher profile pass you by on their way to the top.

Throughout this interactive and practical session Vanessa will share stories from her career; starting in Banking in the City at 16 and her rise to the C-suite.

s working from home has become the ‘new normal’ for many of us, does it require us to re-evaluate the skills we need to be successful?

Join our panel of experts from the WBS Organisation and Human Resource Management group to discuss how we can continue to work effectively in a remote environment.

• What do we know about managing a virtual team?
• What have we learned since March 2020?
• How can we develop trust and provide psychological safety in virtual teams?

This will be an interactive session, so questions and insights from your own experiences will be encouraged. Are you beginning to suffer from online working fatigue? How do we keep the momentum going as lockdowns and social distancing continue? Join us for this informative and collaborative session.