Departmental news

Working on the development of a new composite steel and CLT floor system, which is supported by the UK Forestry Commission through the Wood into Management (WiM) Forestry Innovation Fund initiative. 

A seasonal message from our Head of Department.

We are approaching the end of the first term for this academic year. With the festive season upon us, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the hard work that you have put in this term, and to wish all of you a relaxing break over the holiday period, spending time with family and friends (where possible).

I hope 2024 will be a great year for all, bringing health and happiness to you and your families.

Several festive events are happening on campus, for details of activities please visit the University's Christmas at Warwick webpage.

Department Closure Dates

The department will be closed over the festive holiday from 5pm on Friday 22nd December 2023 to Tuesday 2nd January 2024.

Best Wishes,

Professor Ben Lockwood

Head of Department - Economics

On Tuesday 28^th November Professor Jonathan Haskel CBE, external member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), delivered a speech at Warwick University in an event jointly hosted by the Warwick Finance Societies and the Warwick Economics Society.

Oliver Greenfield, Head of Markets at the Warwick Finance Societies, reports:

"Jonathan Haskel is one of the 9 committee members who sets the UK bank rate whilst also currently being a Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School. Professor Haskel's research interests of productivity, innovation, intangible investment and growth led him to be a distinguished member on the editorial boards of Economica, Journal of Industrial Economics and Economic Policy.

"In his speech, UK inflation since the pandemic: How did we get here and where are we going? Professor Haskel explored the drivers of the UK inflation experience since 2020 by applying the Bernanke and Blanchard (2023) model. Using this model, he explained how the exogenous shocks which hit the UK economy fed through to result in the elevated inflation figures experienced, dispelling the commonly cited narrative that the Bank of England was wrong to characterise inflation as transitory. After reflecting on his experience on the MPC, Jonathan gave some thoughts on the future of monetary policy and concluded that without a sufficient loosening of labour market conditions inflation would stay elevated and hence interest rates would remain restrictive.

"After the event, Professor Haskel generously stayed behind to answer all of the many questions that students, academics, professors and external attendees wanted to ask. The event provided an invaluable insight for all those who attended and served as a great reminder of the application possible with the economic theory taught at Warwick University."

• The text of Professor Haskel's speech and his slide deck can be found here: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2023/november/jonathan-haskel-speech-at-warwick-university.

The first ever commercial crop of British-grown baked beans have progressed to the tinning phase, a pivotal step in their journey orchestrated by Professor Eric Holub. It is hoped that the baked bean breakthrough will reduce the reliance on imports.
Press Release (29 November 2023)

Gram negative bacterial pathogens use so called Type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) to deliver virulence effectors into target cells (either animal cells or other bacteria). Besides structural and effector proteins, many other proteins, such as adaptors, co-effectors and accessory proteins, are involved in this process. MIX domains can assist in the delivery of T6SS effectors when encoded as a stand-alone gene or fused at the N-terminal of the effector. However, whether there are other conserved domains exhibiting similar encoding forms to MIX in T6SS remains obscure.

In this work, we scanned publicly available bacterial genomes and established a database which include 130,825 T6SS vgrG loci from 45,041 bacterial genomes. Based on this, we revealed six domain families encoded within vgrG loci, which are either fused at the C-terminus of VgrG/N-terminus of T6SS toxin or encoded by an independent gene. Among them, DUF2345 was further validated and shown to be indispensable for the T6SS effector delivery and LysM was confirmed to assist the interaction between VgrG and the corresponding effector. Together, our results implied that these widely distributed domain families with similar genetic configurations may be required for the T6SS effector recruitment process.

Read the paper here.

On 14 November 2023, Warwick Law School held a roundtable discussion titled “The Russia-Ukraine War and Frontiers of Law”, organised by Professor Andrew Williams, Dr Solange Mouthaan and Dr Aisel Omarova.

On 29 and 30 December, Warwick Agri-Tech is showcasing its expertise at The CropTec Show 2023 at Stoneleigh. Warwick Agri-Tech is a WMG-SLS collaboration combining advanced engineering with plant science to shape the future of agriculture.

Watch the Agri-Tech video

The Council of the European Law Institute (ELI) has recently approved an interim report for its project on Guiding Principles and Model Rules for Algorithmic Contracts directed by Professor Christian Twigg-Flesner.

Applications are invited for 3 new academic appointments to join us in the School of life Sciences:

• Assistant Professor or Associate Professor of Human Microbe Interactions
• Assistant Professor or Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution
• Assistant Professor or Associate Professor of Cardiorespiratory Physiology