Departmental news

• Time-consuming and resource-intensive charging processes could be replaced by wireless charging for e-scooter rental fleets

• The ease of use for consumers and a reduction in operating costs through wider adoption of this technology would be a big advantage for the UK’s biggest rental scheme operator, Voi
• Trial in partnership with Bumblebee Power and WMG on the University of Warwick campus allows real-world testing in a ‘mini-city’ environment
• A successful trial will pave the way for seamless and convenient charging of e-scooters

Voi Technology, the UK’s largest e-scooter rental operator, has partnered with Bumblebee Power and WMG to trial the use of Bumblebee’s wireless e-scooter charging at the University of Warwick campus over a 6-month period potentially changing the future of the micromobility industry.

As with the charging of electric cars, the charging of e-scooters is a challenge for the operators of extensive rental schemes. The batteries powering their zero-emissions e-scooters are currently charged safely at their warehouse; however, they are replaced when vehicles are either receiving their regular in-house inspections or by the company’s in-field team who visit each e-scooter to perform fresh battery swaps.

These processes can lead to high operating costs for their business as the processes can be both time-consuming and often resource-intensive by requiring additional warehouse infrastructure for safe battery charging as well as transportation costs. Therefore, Voi began exploring new charging methodologies as a result that could provide the same excellent user experience whilst also delivering a similar vehicle efficient and effective battery performance. The potential solution: wireless charging.

In partnership with Bumblebee Power, the wireless charging pads make it possible to charge e-scooters where they are parked, reducing not only operational costs but make their integration into the street and transport infrastructure more streamlined, making the modal shift to a convenient and flexible mode of transport easier for new and existing riders.

The University of Warwick campus ‘mini-city’ environment has been selected for this trial and provides an excellent, safe test bed for testing transport innovations. Available to estate staff only, a busy environment with a large population of students, staff, and industrial partners means the University of Warwick is an ideal ‘living lab’ environment to enable sustainable research and development of this technology.

The trial will provide data on the wireless system performance as well as user behaviour and interaction with the technology, which is crucial to any future large-scale deployment. If the trial proves successful it could be expanded to cover more of the Voi fleet across the UK.

David Yates, CTO of Bumblebee Power explains:
“The Bumblebee patented technology, which originated from Imperial College London, provides automatic connection via a very efficient wireless charging system, saving operational expenditure for the fleet operator by eliminating battery swaps. In addition, it makes possible the ability to extend the battery’s life, by controlling the charging regime whilst maximising vehicle availability.”

Sam Pooke, Senior Policy Manager at Voi UK and Ireland, said:
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Bumblebee Power to develop wireless charging for our e-scooters, an innovation that could change the whole micromobility industry.

“Applying this technology has the potential to not only reduce the operational impact of how we charge batteries for our vehicles but also in making an already convenient and flexible service even more accessible for new and existing riders. Over the coming months, we’ll look forward to working with our partners to maximise the innovative potential of this technology.”

David Evans, Lead Engineer at WMG, University of Warwick, said:
“Wireless charging technology for micromobility has the potential to reduce operational costs for fleet operators and provide a convenient charging solution for users. The University of Warwick campus is an ideal location to trial transport innovations such as these, providing a real world, mini city environment with world class teaching and research facilities.”

We are holding our first History Department Alumni careers event this Thursday - all welcome!

The Department of Economics is pleased to announce that we have achieved excellent results in the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) 2022, with the overall satisfaction amongst the postgraduate taught cohort of 92% with 99% of respondents saying that they would recommend the University of Warwick to other students.

This high level of overall satisfaction with the quality of the course remained the same as in the pre-pandemic year - 92%. This was achieved with a response rate of 37.3% of the postgraduate taught cohort.

The top satisfaction scores in PTES were in:

• Teaching: 94% agreed that “the course has enhanced my academic ability” and 91% agreed that “staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching.”
• Resources: 97% agreed that “there is appropriate access to online library resources” and 94% agreed that “I have been able to access subject specific resources necessary for my studies.”
• Engagement: 92% agreed with the statement “I am encouraged to ask questions or make contributions in taught sessions,” and 88% agreed that ‘My course has challenged me to produce my best work.”

Professor Caroline Elliott, Deputy Head of Department (Teaching & Learning) said:

“As a Department, we are determined to deliver the best education possible and these results are really encouraging. However, we’re not complacent and we’ll turn our attention to addressing some of the areas in which our scores could have been higher like assessment and skills development. We value student feedback and would like to see more students taking part in future PTES surveys as well as keep submitting their feedback to us throughout the year.”

Examples of how we have responded to student feedback recently can be found on our webpage - We have acted on your feedbackLink opens in a new window.

Further details of PTES 2022 results for the University of Warwick can be found on the PTESLink opens in a new window webpage.

Professor Jackie Hodgson and Dr Rachel Lewis have been awarded £30,000 to work with West Midlands Police (WMP) to translate the findings from their research on police community engagement through arts and culture, into changes in police training, policy and strategy.

A new paper from Dr Anant SudarshanLink opens in a new window, co-authored with Dr Eyal Frank of the University of Chicago, studies the impact on human well-being of the sudden collapse of vultures in India and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the cost of biodiversity losses.

Vultures have evolved as highly efficient scavengers and play an important sanitation and public heath role in India. By eating livestock carcasses, vultures remove the remains from the environment, preventing the bodies from rotting in the open air and potentially transmitting pathogens to other scavengers or allowing them to enter the water supply.

The highly effective scavenging of vultures – able to reduce a cow to bones within 40 minutes – also limits the numbers of non-vulture scavengers such as dogs and rats that can transmit diseases to humans by leaving them little or nothing to eat.

In the mid 1990s, vulture populations fell dramatically – the fastest collapse of a bird species in recorded history. The cause of death was initially mysterious. It was not until a decade later, in 2004, that a paper in Nature traced the near extinction of these birds to a chemical called diclofenac.

Diclofenac is a common painkiller that has been prescribed to people since the 1970s. But the expiry of a long-standing patent and the development of generics in 1993, made it cheap enough for farmers in India to use it to treat livestock as well. Unfortunately, this medicine – safe for human beings and for cattle – turned out to be fatal to vultures. A bird that ate a carcass from an animal that had been given diclofenac would likely die within weeks.

Comparing data from before and after the widescale adoption of diclofenac by farmers, the researchers find that death rates increased by more than 4 per cent after the near-extinction of vultures in areas where they had previously thrived – an increase of close to 0.5 additional deaths per 1,000 people. To put this in context, that increase is about 4 times as large as the 2021 mortality rate in England and Wales.

The cause of these additional deaths was an increase in animal carcasses that were no longer being picked clean by vultures, creating a significant public health risk. This may have led to an increase in dog and rat populations, in turn spreading infectious diseases and rabies. Carcasses disposed in water bodies may also increase water pollution and spread pathogens.

By increasing understanding of the social costs of keystone species collapse, the research will help inform policy decisions on investment into species conservation and rehabilitation.

Dr Sudarshan said: “The vulture collapse in India is a particularly stark example of what can happen when new chemicals are introduced into a fragile and diverse ecosystem – and our findings show that consequences are not confined only to the species that is directly affected.

“Although it is generally agreed that biodiversity loss is damaging, there is very little evidence of the effect of specific species loss on human well-being, and a particularly large knowledge gap around the social costs of the loss of keystone species like vultures.

“Our evidence on the public health implications of the decline of vulture species in India will help inform current vulture recovery work in India, and global conservation policies more broadly. More generally this type of work underscores the importance of carefully targeting conservation efforts”

• The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence From The Decline of Vultures in India Eyal G. Frank and Anant Sudarshan October 29, 2022 Warwick Economics Research Papers No. 1433Link opens in a new window

This November, free exhibition Injecting Hope: The race for a COVID-19 vaccine will open at the Science Museum to explore the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The History department’s Professor Roberta Bivins, Director of Centre for the History of Medicine, has been involved with this amazing exhibition as an advisor.

The Research Excellence Celebration Event, running on 14th December from 3pm until 8pm in The Slate, will feature Professor Roberta Bivins as a guest speaker. This event will celebrate the amazing achievements of our researchers and staff who support research from across the University.

The University of Warwick will be hosting the Seventh Workshop on Algebraic Complexity Theory (WACT) from March 27 to March 31, 2023.

https://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~u2270030/wactLink opens in a new window

Algebraic Complexity Theory is a vibrant field that has been seeing a tremendous amount of activity in the recent years. Its classical questions have been interwoven with deep questions from algebraic geometry, invariant theory, and representation theory. Researchers study a wide range of interlinked topics: arithmetic circuit lower bounds, algorithmic algebra, algorithmic invariant theory, geometric complexity theory, tensor rank, polynomial identity testing, and polynomial reconstruction, to name a few. The workshop brings together experts from different parts of this rich field to discuss the current state of the art, discover new connections, and set the directions for the future.

Two papers by members of Warwick Quantum were accepted to QIP 2023, the most prestigious conference in Quantum Computing and Quantum Information.

These works provide a methodology for boosting the power of quantum algorithms using deep mathematical tools from additive combinatorics, as well as provide the techniques, tools, and abstractions necessary to answer when classical zero-knowledge protocols remain secure against quantum attacks.

• "Quantum Worst-Case to Average-Case Reductions for All Linear Problems" by Vahid R. Asadi, Alexander Golovnev, Tom Gur, Igor Shinkar, and Sathyawageeswar Subramanian.
• "Post-Quantum Zero Knowledge, Revisited" by Alex Lombardi, Fermi Ma and Nicholas Spooner.

Not only has law graduate Jessica Tinubu (LLB Law, 2022) been inspired by the trailblazing women she knows, but as one of Powerful Media’s Future Leaders, she is now an inspiration to others. An alumna of all trades, Jessica founded a start-up stationery business and has amassed a following of more than 13,000 on TikTok where she shares advice about Warwick and her law degree. And she’s only just getting started.