Other News

On Wednesday 26 August, our first Staff Summer Festival will take place between 1pm-9pm in our new plaza on central campus. Come along to enjoy:

· live music - including a brand new staff choir put together especially for this event, a new band ‘Dark Side of the Koan’ and a range of other talented staff performers

· a craft market - including stained glass, monster making, jewellery making, books, photography, glass fusing and a family friendly activity from the Allsorts Centre

· sports and games - including disc golf, touch tennis, volleyball, ping pong, croquet, karate, circus skills, surf simulator, Mario Kart on the Big Screen Piazza and a bungee run

· food and drink – free Pimms, cider or soft drink (first come, first served) plus a number of stalls from the popular food market providing a range of cuisine for you to buy

· an open air cinema – watch a family friendly film on the big screen from 7pm. Free popcorn and buy hotdogs and 50^th Anniversary beer

Plus plenty more!

If you’re planning to come, please register your interest at https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/warwick50/events/stafffestival/registerinterest/

We would like to thank all of our students, recent graduates and staff for our excellent results in the 2015 National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS is completed by finalists, throughout the UK, and is a key component of league tables published in the media.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved an overall satisfaction rating of 92 per cent. This was achieved through a 93 per cent response rate - the highest turnout rate out of all academic departments at Warwick. We have been commended by the University for this amazing achievement.

Other key NSS headlines include:

• PAIS are rated No 1 in the University for assessment and feedback.
• PAIS are joint 1st in the University for organisation and management.
• Now in the Top 3 for overall satisfaction in terms of academic departments at Warwick with large conventional undergraduate cohorts.
• Taking the average scores across all categories and overall satisfaction, we are now the 2nd placed department at Warwick.
• We are now the leading department in the Faculty of Social Sciences in terms of those with conventional undergraduate degrees
• Our departmental scores have gone up in EVERY SINGLE category of the NSS (e.g. teaching, assessment and feedback, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, personal development and overall satisfaction). In some cases, our scores have increased significantly. For example, assessment and feedback has increased by 13 per cent and academic support by 11 per cent.

And, in terms of our Russell Group competitors (a group of 24 leading teaching and research universities in the UK):

• Politics at Warwick is rated No 1 for feedback
• And No 2 for organisation and management.
• And No 2 for personal development.
• Politics at Warwick is No 1 in the Russell Group for fair assessment arrangements and marking, efficient timetabling and access to specialised equipment, facilities and rooms.

We look forward to working with our fantastic students and staff in partnership to sustain and build on these great results. We will feedback these results in more detail to our students at the start of the next academic year; and we’ll discuss and take forward with our SSLC.

To all of our current and incoming students, we hope you enjoy the rest of the summer vacation and we look forward to seeing you all in October!

The booklet below is an account of the development of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Warwick from the opening of the University in 1965 to the end of the 1970s. It has been written as part of the University’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2015.

The Founding of a Politics Department Politics at the University of Warwick - Wyn Grant

In an article for the Huffington Post UK, PAIS PhD researcher Ragnar Weilandt argues Michel Platini is unlikely to be willing or able to substantially reform Fifa, and that it might be time for creating a new World Football Organisation.

Prof Chris Hughes, Head of Department, was recently interviewed by Peter Ennis for Dispatch Japan in an article entitled 'Abe Doctrine Marks a Radical Shift in Japanese Security Policy.'

The interview can be read here.