Departmental news

Dr Alex Baker is named winner of the RSC’s Early Career Prize for Excellence in HE in recognition of brilliance in chemistry education. bit.ly/4fRBPye

The drying process of polymer latexes is visualized in real time with TeraHertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy.

Administrating life-saving drugs for cardiac arrest directly into the bone does not improve survival rates compared to the standard intravenous (IV) method according to new research from Warwick Medical School in partnership with NHS Ambulance Services.

Camille Aymond, who studied our Law 3 year LLB degree and graduated earlier this year, has written a touching story titled ‘Remembering Rawa-Ruska: Artistic sketches of the Second World War camp’. Camille’s story is based on the experience of her great-grandfather Pierre and the pictures he drew to document the Second World War.

We are delighted to announce that Martin Costa, a PhD student at the Theory and Foundations research division, has received a highly competitive Google PhD Fellowship for his work on designing clustering algorithms for dynamic datasets. The Fellowship comes in the form of an unrestricted gift from Google, of 60,000 USD per year, for up to two years. Under the category of "Algorithms and Theory", besides Martin only two other PhD students in Europe (from University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich) received a Google PhD Fellowship this year. Many congratulations to Martin for this achievement!

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of NHS England, recently visited Warwick Medical School to learn more about what we do within the School and the University’s Health Innovation activities.

Professor Fred Reid, Emeritus Professor and former Head of Department for History, features in the 13 November dated edition of 'insite', the Warwick staff hub, for Disability History month.

Fred, who was 14 years old when he went blind, is known for his work to support blind and disabled people across the UK. He and his wife Etta have even been presented with honorary Warwick degrees to recognise their efforts.

UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) is an annual event which aims to promote disabled people's rights and their struggle for equality now and in the past. This year, UKDHM will take place from 14 November – 20 December 2024. Every year, UKDHM focuses on a theme. This year, the theme is Disability, Livelihood and Employment.

Read the insite article in full.

On 13 November 2024, a delegation from Airlangga University Faculty of Law in Indonesia visited Warwick Law School to discuss a collaboration between our two institutions.

The University of Warwick has been rated as ‘Good’ in a recent Ofsted report that focuses on its degree apprenticeships provided by departments including Warwick Medical School.

Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray MP was the keynote speaker at a Parliamentary reception held on 11 November 2024 to officially launch the new Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax).

MPs, peers, invited guests from tax and business think tanks, research groups and the media, and guests from the University of Warwick and the LSE gathered in the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House for the event, which was co-hosted by the APPG on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax. Among the University of Warwick guests were Vice-Chancellor Professor Stuart Croft, Provost Professor Emma Flynn and Head of the Department of Economics Professor Ben Lockwood.

Mr Murray said: “Rigorous, quantitative and qualitative research is critical to this government’s decision-making process and its tax administration policies.

“We greatly value the contribution made by external academics and researchers and we are keen to see more, which is why I am here today, which is why I want to have a vote of confidence in the work that CenTax will do, and why I want to make sure that collaboration between CenTax, Treasury and HMRC continues for many years into the future.”

Mr Murray also set out some of the goals the new Government has to improve how tax is administered in the UK, including implementing a digital strategy to enable more people to organise their tax affairs online; taking action to close the tax gap; and modernising, digitising and reforming HMRC services.

The launch of CenTax marks the next stage of an ambitious research and policy agenda which began six years ago when CenTax Directors Dr Arun Advani and Dr Andy Summers first started working together.

Dr Summers spoke briefly to thank the centre’s supporters, and highlight the unique strengths of CenTax, saying: “We wanted to highlight three things that make us distinctive. The first is that we are a team of economists and lawyers. We think this is essential for effective tax policy analysis.

“The second is that we are able to work on policy development from end to end – we’re not just aiming to evaluate existing policies.

“Finally, we think that government needs input from academic researchers and that the public interest is best served by the independent scrutiny that academic research can provide. With the best will in the world, government analysts don’t always have time to follow the latest advances in econometric methods or the vast international literature. We are here to help.”

Dr Summers also highlighted that CenTax was committed to political independence and full academic transparency.

Dr Advani gave some insights into how CenTax chooses its research projects: “It’s about producing research that really matters for policymaking, and looking for the questions that we don’t yet have the answers to.

“One thing you can expect from our work is that it will be agenda-setting, not just responsive. A major part of where we think we can add value is in setting out the issues and the evidence in areas that people are not already talking about.

“It’s a really exciting time to be launching a new centre focused on tax. Clearly there’s a lot of demand out there for it, which is wonderful. While recognising the huge amounts of work that already go on in this space, I hope we’ve highlighted that we have something genuinely distinctive to offer, and we look forward to working with you all to deliver it.”

Dr Advani concluded by inviting all present to engage with the new centre, whether by speaking to the research team in the room, visiting the website, signing up to CenTax’s newsletter, or getting in touch by email.

13 November 2024