Global Sustainable Development News

The end of last month marked two moments in GLOBUS' history as the Editor's Edition of the student-run sustainability journal went on sale and Todd Olive stepped down as Editor in Chief. GLOBUS was founded in early 2015 by staff from the School for Cross-faculty Studies and was taken over by students in September 2016.

^{Photo credit: Warwickshire County Record Office, PH350 269a}

Dr. Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla, the Head of School for Cross-faculty Studies is part of a team that has successfully secured funding for a Public Engagement project at the University of Warwick. The project is being supported by Warwick’s Public Engagement Fund, designed to assist researchers of all levels to undertake projects or activities that build upon their public engagement experience and impact.

Your feedback helps to shape our GSD courses and the wider University at Warwick for future generations

• NSS is a national survey of final-year undergraduates at all UK universities, run independently by Ipsos Mori
• The survey asks for your views on your whole course and covers teaching, assessment, resources and support
• You'll be able to claim £5 credit on your Eating at Warwick card for completing the survey
• The survey is open from Monday 3 February 2020 and takes ten minutes to fill in
• Your personalised link will be emailed to you on Thursday 6 February 2020 or go direct to thestudentsurvey.com

NSS is a really important way for you to reflect on your experience as a GSD student. It’s a great opportunity to think about what you found productive or enjoyable, and it's a chance to make suggestions for our continuous development. We take your responses seriously: in the previous NSS survey, GSD students told us that they would benefit from improvements around employability. In response to this our dedicated Placement and Employability Manager is putting in place resources, meeting with students and running sessions designed to enhance employability skills.

For example, next week the first School for Cross-faculty Studies Work Placement Fair will take place on Tuesday 11 February, from 4-5:30pm in The Oculus, room OC0.01. Students from all years within the School for Cross-faculty Studies are invited to attend. This event is designed to improve your employability skills by giving you the opportunity to network and gain a better insight into work placements. You'll have the chance to learn first-hand from students about their work placement journey which will support you in shaping your future career.

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), the world's largest campaign to promote entrepreneurship, took place at the end of last year from 18-24 November. To celebrate this week, Warwick Enterprise hosted and co-hosted a number of student-focused and student-led events on campus.

As Innovation Fellows, students in Global Sustainable Development (GSD) and Liberal Arts were actively involved in running the events on campus, as well as writing content for the Warwick Enterprise website, promoting Warwick Enterprise around the University and attending events themselves.

The School for Cross-faculty Studies (SCFS) Work Placement Fair will be taking place on Tuesday 11 February 2020, 4:00pm-5:30pm, The Oculus, room OC0.01.

^{Image credit: Dr Marco J Haenssgen}

Supporting idea generation and research design for a project on behavioural spill-overs in Thailand, the Institute of Advanced Study and the Warwick Interdisciplinary Centre for International Development have awarded £3,150 and £950 to a research team around Global Sustainable Development (GSD) Assistant Professor Marco J Haenssgen.

^{Image credit: Dr Marco J Haenssgen}

Dr Jess Savage, Senior Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development has been awarded £44,676 from the University Global Challenges Research Fund: Accelerator Programme to undertake a research project titled "Protected Areas and People: Exploring perceived wisdoms surrounding natural resource management and sustainability". The aim of the research is to help find sustainable, long term solutions by developing strategic tools for the effective design and implementation of management systems. This will allow the expansion of current knowledge networks throughout Cambodia, and into nearby Myanmar.

Each year, the Global Sustainable Development (GSD) Department at the University of Warwick runs a competition for year 12* students. The competition was established to engage with talented school students and give insight into the type of thought-provoking issues involved in studying GSD at Warwick.

This is an exciting opportunity for students to think creatively and gain valuable research skills as they learn more about global sustainable development. Since it was established, we have expanded the types of entries that can be submitted to include videos, podcasts and poetry, as well as more traditional essay responses. This is in line with our overall aim to engage with students from a variety of different backgrounds and interests, giving them the chance to present their unique perspectives on issues of global sustainable development.

Entry for the 2020 year 12* competition is now open. Entries must be received by midnight (UK time) on Friday 10 April 2020.

Shortlisted entrants will be invited to a Campus Day at Warwick on Saturday 27 June 2020 with GSD students and teaching staff. Winners will be announced and awarded prizes.

To find out more about the competition, how to enter and look at past entries, please see here.

^{*Year 12 in the UK or sixteen to seventeen-year-old age group equivalent}

Senior Teaching Fellow in the Liberal Arts Department Dr Bryan Brazeau looks back on the largely successful Venice and Sustainability project, hosted in Liberal Arts. Find out what staff and students discovered in this innovative problem-based module during their time in Coventry and Venice, and watch a media project looking at cultural sustainability in the city produced by Global Sustainable Development students.

On Wednesday 4 December 2019 in London, The Black Women's Project won the Women's Society of the Year and the Society of the Year at the Bright Network's Society of the Year Awards 2019. The Bright Network's Society of the Year Awards is an annual day of celebration and recognition for university societies around the country that have made a real difference on campus.

The current executive team has had a flying start in their new roles, winning multiple awards at the event in December last year. Lois Disanka, one of our second-year Single Honours Global Sustainable Development students, is the Co-President of The Black Women's Project. We spoke to Lois about the organisation's recent achievements.