Departmental news

Warwick Law School welcomes new Assistant Professor to our community.

Joshua Pike joins us from the London School of Economics where he was a LSE Fellow teaching and researching in tort law and jurisprudence.

Today (Friday 15th September), the House of Commons Transport Select Committee released its cross-party report on self-driving vehicles, calling for urgent legislation to be proposed by the Government to support innovators, regulate this emerging technology sector, and give the public confidence in the safety of connected and autonomous mobility.

Professor Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification and Validation at WMG, University of Warwick, who gave evidence to the inquiry and is quoted in the report, said:

"The Transport Select Committee is right to say self-driving vehicles (SDV) are a British success story and that our domestic innovators have energy, creativity, and expertise.

"To secure this progress, we need to ensure consumers can be confident of the safety of SDVs, because, as I told the Committee we can have the safest technology, but if we cannot convince the public, they will never use it.

"So, I’m delighted the Committee is calling for the Government to ‘bring forward and pass comprehensive legislation in the next parliamentary session’ to put in place a robust regulatory framework For SDVs, and I look forward to working with industry, ministers, civil servants and parliament to ensure the public can be confident in the safety of the next generation of transport innovation."

Professor Khastgir provided written and oral evidence to the Transport Committee’s Self-Driving Vehicles Inquiry. His evidence has been referenced (significantly) in this report, including the use of the Operational Design Domain (ODD) to design driving conditions so that SDVs can be tested and operate safely; the importance of ‘informed safety’ that the technology developers need to equip the users about the capabilities and limitations of the self-driving technology so they can use the technology safely.

Read the report here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-committee/news/197460/legislation-needed-to-continue-great-british-success-story-of-selfdriving-vehicles/Link opens in a new window

· Improved footballs for use in the World Cup and new technologies for defence against biological and chemical attack are examples of outcomes from six industry–academia partnerships shortlisted for this year’s annual Bhattacharyya Award

· Winning partnership will be announced at awards ceremony in Birmingham on 24 October 2023

The Royal Academy of Engineering has shortlisted six exceptional industry–academia partnerships from across the UK for this year’s Bhattacharyya Award.

The Bhattacharyya Award 2023 and a cash prize of £25,000 will be presented on 24 October 2023 to the team who best demonstrate how industry and universities can work together.

The Bhattacharyya Award is a tribute to Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya KT CBE FREng FRS, the Regius Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Warwick and founder of WMG who advocated for greater collaboration between industry and universities. Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the annual Bhattacharyya Award is open to UK universities and colleges that have demonstrated a sustained, strategic industrial partnership that has benefitted society and is deserving of national recognition. Industry–academia partnerships from any academic discipline are eligible for the Bhattacharyya Award.

This year’s shortlist illustrates the sheer diversity of challenges that can be successfully addressed through collaboration between universities and industry, including national defence against biological and chemical attack, the supply of drinking water, nuclear decommissioning, high-speed global communications, high-performance sportswear and equipment, as well as other challenges like decarbonisation that can be tackled through the power of process systems engineering.

The full shortlist of finalists is as follows:

University of Hertfordshire and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
New technologies for defence against biological and chemical threats

The collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) is focused on next generation devices and systems for monitoring and identifying biological and chemical threats. The collaboration aligns with the University of Hertfordshire’s objectives to stimulate enterprise and innovation, taking a pioneering approach to the transfer of knowledge from academic research to business and government. For Dstl, the collaboration has been central to its mission to explore, sustain, grow and evaluate state-of-the-art technological capabilities to develop protective measures against hazardous biological materials.

Imperial College London, UCL and the Sargent Centre Industrial Consortium
Unleashing the power of process systems engineering research

The Sargent Centre is the world’s largest multidisciplinary research centre in Process Systems Engineering, combining a deep understanding of chemical and biochemical processes with the ability to make fundamental advances across a wide range of systems and digital technologies for the benefit of society and industry. Bringing fundamental research advances to practice is deeply embedded in the Sargent Centre’s approach. For over 30 years, Sargent Centre researchers and process industry partners (e.g., ABB, BP, Eli Lilly and Company, Petronas, Pfizer, Procter and Gamble, Siemens, Shell, Syngenta) have collaborated to address challenges in manufacturing, decarbonisation, energy efficiency, optimisation, data science, multi-scale modelling, risk and uncertainty. This has resulted in successful spin-out creation and software licensing, with tools used across the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, consumer goods, food and energy sectors.

Loughborough University and adidas
Sports equipment and clothes for improved performance, safety and inclusivity

Since 2002, the Loughborough University and adidas cross-disciplinary teams have advanced engineering knowledge that has brought iconic products to market and been translated beyond the global sports sector for wider societal impact, making sport safer, more accessible and allowing people to perform at their best whilst developing the adidas talent pipeline.
The collaborative research has influenced all adidas major tournament footballs since 2004, and the analysis of short duration collisions in football has benefited other sports including new International Standards for cricket helmet performance that have eliminated facial injuries among professional helmeted batters. Another innovation is the first-ever sweat body maps of males, females and children to inform the company’s sector-leading clima® product range. This breakthrough underpins the first virtual Human Thermal Model which enables organisations worldwide to optimise product design for multiple populations across a range of industry sectors.

University of Sheffield and the UK water sector
Keeping drinking water crystal clear

Ageing infrastructure and the complexity of interacting physical, chemical and biological processes occurring within the vast hidden water distribution systems leads to discolouration, an indicator of water quality deterioration, and the number one service contact by consumers. Over the last two decades, by combining world-leading knowledge with a fundamental understanding of the processes and delivery of practical tools and techniques, the University of Sheffield has built the ‘Prediction and management Of Discolouration in Distribution Systems’ (PODDS) consortium across the UK water sector to address these challenges. This innovative partnership has helped the sector achieve improved levels of service without increasing costs, delivering more than 35% reduction in customer contacts regarding water discolouration and increased operational efficiency through better targeting of limited resources.

UCL Optical Networks Group and worldwide telecommunications industry
High-speed ultrawideband and low-delay optical communications networks for the cloud

Optical fibre communication networks underpin global communications, carrying over 95% of all digital data. The work of the Optical Networks Group has been key to the development of this critical high-capacity, low-delay, resilient and secure communications infrastructure. By deeply embedding their industrial collaborators within the group's research, the group has achieved society-wide impact, including a 100,000-fold increase in optical network data capacity, the doubling of transmission distances, and world record data rates, using its one-of-a-kind laboratories and expertise. Since the group was founded in 1994, it has become the centre of a web of over 60 leading international industrial laboratories and companies, across all telecommunications sectors: network operators and content providers (e.g., BT, Deutsche Telecom, Microsoft, KDDI), equipment and device manufacturers (Oclaro (now Lumentum), Nokia Bell Labs, Xtera, ADVA, Mitsubishi, Infinera) and optical fibre manufacturers (Corning, OFS).

University of Manchester and Nuclear Decommissioning sector
Providing expertise for quicker, safer nuclear decommissioning

The UK has been a nuclear nation for 75 years and has accumulated one of the largest. most complex nuclear legacies on Earth. Since 2002, Government has focused on cleaning up this legacy, a programme of work that will last over 100 years and cost over £140 billion. The Dalton Nuclear Institute coordinates the UK’s most comprehensive nuclear academic community, at The University of Manchester, to deliver skilled people, impactful research and support for Government policy development. The Institute’s research has, among other beneficial impacts, led to changes in effluent treatment at Sellafield and reduced discharges to the environment by 50-90%. The team have also developed robots for high hazard settings, including one of Time Magazine’s 200 best innovations for 2022; and improved the management of the UK’s separated plutonium stockpile. In a sector with a critical shortage of experts, the Institute also provides a vital pipeline of talent.

View the videos of the shortlisted partnerships.

Professor Dame Ann Dowling OM DBE FREng FRS, former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chair of the judging panel for the Bhattacharyya Award, said: “The six finalists for this year’s Award are inspiring and diverse examples of successful collaboration between academia and industry—it’s terrific to be able to highlight and to celebrate their innovation and impact and I hope they will provide inspiration for others. We know that there are other great partnerships like these between universities and colleges and industries across the UK in all sectors but that we need many more if we are to fully reap the economic and societal benefit of our research investment and capability.”

The winner of the Bhattacharyya Award will be announced on the evening of 24 October 2023 at a ceremony at the Edgbaston Park Hotel in Birmingham that will showcase the shortlisted partnerships. Anyone wishing to attend should contact awards@raeng.org.uk for more details.

Notes for editors

1. WMG, University of Warwick, is a world leading research and education group, transforming organisations and driving innovation through a unique combination of collaborative research and development, and pioneering education programmes. As an international role model for successful partnerships between academia and the private and public sectors, WMG develops advancements nationally and globally, in applied science, technology and engineering, to deliver real impact to economic growth, society and the environment.
2. The Royal Academy of Engineering is harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society and an inclusive economy that works for everyone. In collaboration with our Fellows and partners, we’re growing talent and developing skills for the future, driving innovation and building global partnerships, and influencing policy and engaging the public. Together we’re working to tackle the greatest challenges of our age.

Media enquiries to: Pippa Cox at the Royal Academy of Engineering Tel. +44 207 766 0745; email: Pippa.Cox@raeng.org.uk

The latest release of UK Foundation Programme Office data from 2021 reveals that our MB ChB finalists performed very strongly in their applications to the Foundation Programme, with 98.59% being allocated to one of their top 5 choices. This was the second highest rate in the UK.

Warwick Law School welcomes new Professor to our community.

Irit Mevorach joins us from the University of Nottingham where she worked as a Professor of International Commercial Law.

If you, or someone you know, are interested in studying one of our undergraduate courses the registration for our October open days is now open.

Our Campus Open Days are the best opportunity for you to know if Warwick feels right for you. Meet our staff and students to find out more about our courses, attend talks and tours of the department throughout the day. There will also be the chance to take tours of the University campus, find out about student societies and sports club as well as view our state-of-the-art campus facilities.

Register for an open day and find out more about our courses on the History Undergraduate webpage.

We are delighted to announce that Peter Kiss, a PhD student in the Theory and Foundations Research Division, has received the best student paper award at European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA) 2023, for his joint work with Joakim Bilkstad for the paper: "Incremental (1-eps)-approximate dynamic matching in O(poly(1/eps)) update time". The paper considers the problem of maintaining a large matching in a graph that is undergoing a sequence of edge insertions. They present an algorithm for this fundamental problem in dynamic graph algorithms, which has near-optimal approximation ratio and an update time that does not grow at all with the size of the input and is also polynomial in 1/\eps (the error parameter). In addition, their approach is simpler than previous algorithms on the same problem that achieved weaker guarantees.

For all students joining us in Autumn 2023, we are very pleased to welcome you to the History Department.

Please visit the Undergraduate handbook for more information and a welcome message from the Head of Department, Professor Tim Lockley, MBE.

The International History Review journal has published an article by History alumnus Sam Matthews Boehmer, winner of the Global History Prize dissertation from 2021-22.

Read the full article "Questionable Allies: British Collaboration with Apartheid South Africa, 1960–90" here.

Class of 2016 MSc Economics alumna Ankita Pathak got in touch with the exciting news that her book on Macroeconomics is a best-seller in India.

Since graduating, Ankita has been working as an economist in the Indian capital markets. The questions she encountered every day from clients, colleagues and managers inspired her to write The Macro Faire, which introduces macroeconomics in simple language with a specific focus on the Indian economy.

Ankita says:

“While textbooks are great, they never offer a practical perspective. Additionally, very few books cover the Indian economy in particular. I felt the urge to write what I know as an answer to those questions. It also turned out to be a great learning exercise for me.”

 

After 7 years in the capital markets Ankita has returned to study and has been accepted onto the MBA programme at INSEAD.

We asked Ankita to tell us more about her publishing success, her reflections on being a Commonwealth Scholar at Warwick, and her plans for the future.

What were your first career steps after graduating?

I was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Warwick. Staying true to this mission, I chose to contribute to India and its economy. I came back right after graduation and started working as Senior Economist at an institutional equity broking firm. I also worked very closely with organizations that contributed towards the education of teenage girls.

Can you tell us more about what being a Commonwealth Scholar meant for you?

The scholarship was an instrumental step in me finding the resources to study in the UK. I felt its mission, imbibed it and - to my best abilities - delivered it.

Warwick has insightful modules in Public Policy and Development Economics. Taking them as my electives made me realize the importance of the mission of the Commonwealth Commission even further, and I was further inspired by the opportunity to interact with Mark Carney, then Governor of the Bank of England, on our farewell dinner.

Being a commonwealth scholar at Warwick was something which changed the course of my life - it accelerated it in the right direction.

What’s the focus of your book?

The focus of my book is macroeconomics and very specifically, the many indicators in the subject such as growth, inflation, trade, balance of payments and many more. The book effectively simplifies these complex topics and tailors their understanding for investing in asset classes- equity, debt, commodity and currency. While the examples are from an Indian context the theory is pretty universal. Also, the book is a toolkit and application of the concepts can still be very individualistic.

How long did it take to write it?

I think it’s fair to say that it took two years of planning and 6 months of actual sitting down to write regime for me to make sure the book sees the light of day.

How did you keep yourself motivated to finish it?

It was something I was genuinely interested in so motivation was an easy find. In fact, finding time was the harder bit but I had the most supportive ecosystem at home and at work which made this an easier journey.

What do reviewers say about it?

While I await professional reviews, this is typical of what I’m hearing from actual people who have read it:

“The Macro Faire is a perfect bridge between the world of Academics and its practical application as far as Macro Economics goes. I wish I would have had the privilege of something like this when I started out my career in Equities. Needless to say it’s a useful read even for professionals who often in the day to day work schedule overlook the basics in search for the complex. And this book is uniquely Indian!”

I feel very grateful that I could contribute to people’s understanding and add some value to my peers.

What were your highlights from studying at Warwick?

I remember it being the most amazing time of my life - so much greenery, clean air, endless opportunities of knowledge enhancement and a fantastic peer set. Warwick still feels like home. It brings a very warm sense of nostalgia.

Among other things, the curriculum was amazing. The choice of electives were relevant. It was a very enriching time of my life. It is impossible to believe the amount of work and travel I was able to fit in one year.

What was your favourite module and why?

I think it was Public Policy. At that time, I was very keenly interested in the differences in public policy in emerging and developed economies. Coming from India, some cases and class discussions were not just engaging but also eye opening. They made me have a very different lens and perspective to the world- something that I did not have before.

Do you keep in touch with your fellow students from Warwick?

Yes, we did an all-girls trip 3 years after graduation. However, then covid-19 interrupted us. I have been to their countries and I have hosted 4 of my Warwick friends in India. We talk almost every week and we keep sharing Instagram stories/other trivia to keep it going. It doesn’t feel like it’s been many years, it always feels like we just were together last week or something.

And finally, what are your next steps now that the book is published?

In my last job, I was the lead economist with DSP Asset Managers in Mumbai. As of today, I’m enrolled in the MBA programme at INSEAD.

This is turning out to be another gruelling but exciting experience! I think some of us just always want to learn and I’m beginning to recognize myself as someone who’s always curious. I’m learning a lot every day and I hope to use the knowledge to advance myself and my country someday.

Here is a link to more information about Ankita's book The Macro-Faire: An Investor's Guide to MacroeconomicsLink opens in a new window