Departmental news
Warwick Law School Excels in Latest National Student Survey (NSS) 2024 Results
We are thrilled to announce that Warwick Law School has achieved excellent results in the 2024 National Student Survey (NSS), reflecting high levels of student satisfaction. The survey gathers feedback from final-year undergraduate students on a variety of academic and student experience factors.
Warwick Law Student becomes WIHEA Fellow
Naveera Abhayawickrama, who is currently in her second year studying on our LLB 3-year law degree has been awarded a Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) Fellowship. Congratulations from everyone at WLS Naveera, and best of luck in your activities with WIHEA.
The dirty truth: how common are faecal bacteria on your everyday care products?
Dr Fabrizio Alberti and Dr Pan Prasongpholchai recently tested toothbrushes for the presence of bacteria for a BBC Morning Live item about dirty toothbrushes. The episode aired on Friday 25 October.
Watch the clip on iPlayer.
Find out more in the Alberti Lab blog.
WMG Professor appointed Editor-in-Chief of Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials
WMG Professor appointed Editor-in-Chief of Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials
Congratulations to WMG and University of Warwick’s Director of the International Institute for Nanocomposites Manufacturing (IINM), Professor Tony McNally, who has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Advanced Composites & Hybrid Materials.
The journal, published by Springer Nature is top ranked in the field of composites science with an Impact Factor (2023) of 23.2. It provides an international platform for scientists and engineers working with composites and nanocomposites focusing on the advancement of materials, their applications and their design, composition, structure, interface, and properties through to modelling and simulation.
Conference for Undergraduate Women and Non-Binary Physicists 2025
We are excited to announce the 2025 Conference for Undergraduate Women and Non-binary Physicists will be hosted by the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick on the outskirts of Coventry.
West Midland Growth Company Spotlights Medherent
Learn how the region's strengths in polymer research and innovation have been crucial to Warwick Spinout Medherant's development of cutting-edge transdermal drug delivery solutions.
Genome wide analysis revealed conserved domains involved in the effector discrimination of bacterial type VI secretion system
Type VI secretion systems (T6SS) inject protein effectors directly into the cytoplasm of target cells. The T6SS is important for activities as diverse as bacterial pathogenicity, symbiosis, and inter-bacterial competition. Nevertheless, questions remain as to how the so many diverse toxins can be selected for injection by the T6SS. This study presents a searchable online database of all examples of a specific critical component of all T6SS, VgrG. This protein is a “spike” that allows the system to puncture host membranes and deliver the effector. An additional “adapter” protein is required to link the effector to the VgrG. Our database allowed us to determine six domain families encoded within vgrG loci important in the selection process. This work should facilitate other researchers in the field to better understand what effector proteins they use and how they are selected by the T6SS. Read the paper here.Link opens in a new window
Warwick alumnus Dr Maurizio Bussolo returns to campus to speak about his work at the World Bank
Warwick Economics alumnus Dr Maurizio Bussolo (PhD, 1997) returned to campus on 17th October at the invitation of Professor Sonia Bhalotra.
Now Deputy Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank in Washington DC, Dr Bussolo gave a lecture as part of the Institute for Advanced Studies InReach10x lunchtime seminar series.
In his presentation Dr Bussolo shared key findings from the latest regional economic update for South Asia. These authoritative World Bank reports are published twice a year and combine an overview of macro development trends and growth outlook in each region with a closer look at a specific theme.
The South Asia October 2024 report, Women, Jobs, and Growth, looks at the participation of women in the labour force in South Asian countries. Dr Bussolo explained that South Asia is already the region with the fastest growing economies, but if the untapped potential of women workers could be released, then even more growth could be achieved:-
- raising female labour force participation rates to those of men could increase per capita income by as much as one-half.
- structural changes accompanying development, such as urbanization, tertiarization and opening to trade, create opportunities for work for women in South Asia as shown by the lower wage gaps (vis-à-vis men) for women working in cities, or in the services sector, or in export-oriented industries.
- a common thread among these demand-side opportunities for increased female participation is the higher degree of competition. Firms facing a more competitive economic environment are less discriminatory towards female workers. However, the take up of these opportunities is constrained by several supply-side barriers: women are burdened by household and care tasks, face obstacles in their mobility, and face more insecurity than men.
- measures to further accelerate job creation (through more urbanization, and especially more opening up to trade, another key untapped potential for the region), as well as interventions to remove obstacles to women working and equalize gender rights would be effective if combined with a shift in social norms toward more acceptance of women’s engagement in the economy.
Dr Bussolo said that social norms are not immutable, they are indeed malleable and highlighted the shifts observed in Europe and the USA after World War Two, when women entered the workforce against conservative opposition. Even after the end of the war their participation remained high and was crucial to boosting growth. South Asia could achieve the same shifts, probably even faster.
The research underpinning the report highlighted that the literature on social norms has greatly advanced and we are now able to measure social norms in a much more precise way. Dr Bussolo explained that, for example, recent measurement exercises, undertaken as background research for the report, show that there is a large gap between what individuals believe is the appropriate behaviour in a certain social context, for example whether a women should accept a job for pay outside the house, and what individuals believe society believes about the same behaviour. This gap whereby personal beliefs are always less conservative than social expectations, provides a clear opportunity for change. Correcting this misperception of societal views – which are a key obstacle for women’s participation – and thus making them less restrictive can provide a boost to women’s economic engagement.
Lively discussion after the presentation had to be brought to an end by the need to free up the seminar room, but Dr Bussolo kindly stayed to meet current students and continue the conversation.
Reflecting briefly on the experience of returning to campus after twenty years, Dr Bussolo said that the university had changed a lot, but he was pleased to see that International House, where he had stayed as a postgraduate student, was still a popular hall of residence.
Dr Bussolo also visited the Economics Department where, during his PhD years, he was a tutorial fellow and taught many classes to economics students. He was particularly impressed by the excellence of current PhD students and hopes to remain in touch with some of them. One of the highlights of his visit was getting a pint and bangers and mash at the local Varsity pub with students and faculty. He is sure he will repeat this experience in the future.
Reflecting on the visit, Professor Bhalotra said she was pleased to see a large and innovative programme of research on women’s participation in the economy being led by Maurizio at the World Bank. She lauded the experimental research being done alongside scrutiny of large and often new data sets.
Sonia’s own research has contributed to our understanding of the manner in which social norms, markets, politics, law, technology, and trade influence son preference in fertility, violence against women, gender wage gaps in the labour market and the under-representation of women in leadership.
Record success for Warwick Economics at the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024
We are very proud to announce that five Warwick Economics finalists from 2023 and 2024 are recipients of the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024 in the category of Business and Economics. Five students were highly commended, and one became the overall winner of the Business and Economics category.
The Global Winner in the Business and Economics category is a former BSc Economics with Study Abroad student, Beverley Cheah who has been recognised for her work "Clustering of Green Jobs and Wage Growth in the US: A Spatial Analysis Approach", with dissertation supervision received from Dr Eman Abdulla. Following her graduation Beverley works now as AI Strategy Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Here is what Beverley said about her achievement:
"I am honoured to represent Warwick as the Global Winner in the Business and Economics category for the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024. The experience of applying theoretical models to solve real-world problems has been immensely rewarding, and the problem-solving, research and coding skills I have developed while working on the dissertation have been invaluable to my personal and career development. I would like to thank Dr Eman Abdulla for her guidance and support, without whom this dissertation would not have been made possible."
The Global Undergraduate Awards is an international academic awards programme that recognises originality, innovation, and excellence at the undergraduate level. Entrants can submit their work in one of 25 categories, which represent a broad range of academic disciplines. There were over 2000 submissions from 343 institutions in 2023.
The best 10% of work is shortlisted as Highly Commended, and the top submission in each category is deemed the Global Winner.
In addition to having the Global Winner, four of our Warwick Economics finalists were Highly Commended, making it 5 out of 12 students in the category of Business & Economics being from the Department of Economics at Warwick, a record success rate for Warwick Economics. We approached the highly commended graduates for comment:
“To have received recognition on such a large scale for this piece of work is astounding and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Eman Abdulla for her support and guidance throughout.
Menopause remains a largely taboo topic in the workplace, while the effects of menopause on a woman’s working life lack clarity and consistency. Through my dissertation I aimed to empirically test ‘The Effect of Menopause on the Extensive and Intensive Margins of Female Labour Supply’.
A priority of this research was to raise awareness and inspire further research to gain a greater understanding of the economic implications of menopause for women who are at their peak earning potential.”
“I am thrilled to announce that my paper, "The Impact of Universal Secondary Education on Female Wealth in Uganda," has been recognised in the Top 12 Business & Economics papers in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2024.
This achievement follows the awarding of the Rohan Modasia Prize, from the University of Warwick, for academic papers deemed to provide an enterprising approach to alleviate poverty. To receive both accolades is the realisation of a dream!
I would like to thank Bhaskar Chakravorty, my academic supervisor; Jeremy Smith, my Head of Department of Economics; and Cláudia Rei, my Personal Tutor, for their support and guidance throughout the writing of this paper.”
Rowan’s paper can be found here.
Here is what Eve said about her success:
“From completing my dissertation, I really developed my analytical skills, both quantitative and qualitative. I learned how to effectively interpret quantitative data and connect it to real-world social and economic concepts which I found particularly insightful.
Eman’s guidance was fantastic throughout. She helped me to think creatively and come up with an area of research that had little coverage but important implications. Eman always made time to ensure she answered my questions, particularly when it was getting close to key deadlines for the course.”
Here is Viswarajan’s comment about his achievement:
"My supervisor, Dr Jose Corpuz, and the RAE Module Leaders were instrumental in my journey, providing exceptional guidance and support. Their encouragement empowered me to produce my best work. Most importantly, this module significantly boosted my self-confidence, which I now see as one of my most valuable achievements."
We congratulate all award recipients and wish they further successes.
We also congratulate Dr Eman Abdulla, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Warwick who supervised undergraduate dissertations (as part of the final year module Research in Applied Economics) of three of the students mentioned above, including the global winner. She also revealed to us that in her 5 years at Warwick, this is the second time that a student she supervised won the Global Award, and the third time in which her students were highly commended.
All five recipients of the awards have been invited to attend this year’s Global Undergraduate Summit which will be held on 10-13 November in Dublin, Ireland.
Related links
Undergraduate Global Awards 2024 - Global Winners
Undergraduate Global Awards 2024 - Highly Commended
Economics Graduates' Success in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2021
Warwick economists lead the world in the Global Undergraduate Awards 2022
Submissions to The Global Undergraduate Awards 2025
If you are a student who will graduate in 2025, The Global Undergraduate Awards Programme will be accepting submissions soon. For more information and eligibility criteria, please visit: The Global Undergraduate Awards website.