Departmental news

Third year trainee medic George Webster has won a highly sought-after one-year placement as BMJ editorial scholar commencing at the end of this summer.

From Wednesday 31 July – Friday 2 August 2024, Warwick Law School hosted the 26th Annual Conference of the International Association for Critical Realism (IACR) 2024.

The Ripple Effect Conference, curated by Warwick alumna and University Council member, Yewande Akinola, took place at The University of Warwick recently. The event offered valuable insights from industry experts and inspiring women in engineering, technology, innovation and business.

At the event the audience heard key insights from Dr Mel Loveridge, Associate Professor at WMG and Jacqui Murray, South Wales Regional Director for High Value Manufacturing Catapult, who took part in a panel discussion with Innovate UK.

Dr Mel Loveridge said, “I felt privileged to participate in the recent Ripple Effect Conference, mainly (but not exclusively) aimed at women in engineering and technology. The gathering and programme was an inspiring creation and very impactful in its endeavour. The delegates were from very multi-disciplinary areas across engineering and technology, which represented great networking possibilities. The conference provided very powerful environments and events; from expert talks, panels, workshops and roundtable discussions. Such events are like ‘nectar’ for innovators.

“Indeed, one meaning of The Ripple Effect abstract metaphor is ‘the continuing and spreading results of an event or action - which seems a very apt name for such an event, with such an inspiring collective of demonstrated innovators and changemakers.”

There was also a keynote address from Dr A-Marie I., co-founder of Stemettes, a social enterprise which encourages women and non-binary people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths. Nav Sawhney, founder of The Washing Machine Project, also attended the conference and discussed an initiative which aims at reducing the burden of hand washing clothes for women and girls worldwide, allowing them more time for rest, work, and education.

Jacqui Murray said, “Being part of something as inspiring as the Ripple Effect Conference, alongside women such as WMG’s Dr Mel Loveridge and Innovate UK’s Emily Knott, who has changed the way Innovate UK funds women entrepreneurs and some of their award-winning Women in Innovation, was a privilege and not something to miss! I even brought along my 14-year-old daughter Evelyn.

“From finding your own truth in feedback you have been given, to supporting other women around us in their careers - all the way through to how one of the entrepreneurs juggled the demands of the aerospace industry as well as chocolate manufacturers, discussions were full of lived experience and flavour! It provided food for thought on the need for more women to join non-exec and executive boards, and how we should be able to leverage any part of our journeys that have been made harder in our lives – after all we have learnt more!”

As part of the event, there was also guided tours of WMG’s International Manufacturing Centre led by the Technical Services team.

If you would like to find out more about WMG's women in engineering visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/about/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/

We are delighted to share that Professor Jane Bryan has been honoured in the 2024 National Teaching Fellowships, announced by Advance HE, for her exceptional contributions to enhancing student learning experiences.

Congratulations to our PhD student Ummul Fayiza Puthiya Peedikayil who has recently been honoured with the G. N. Pillai Award for her new book Islamic Feminism.

WMG at the University of Warwick, Innovate UK (IUK) and advanced recycler of plastics Mura Technology are to continue their collaboration on sustainability with a new IUK funded, two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP).

WMG will develop operational sustainability models for Mura’s Hydro-PRT advanced plastic recycling technology to identify opportunities for further improvements to the already sector-leading environmental performance of the process. Mura has already identified an annual carbon emissions saving of 40,000 tonnes at the first Hydro-PRT site in Wilton, Teesside, due to commence operations in 2024.

Mura Technology is an advanced recycler of waste plastics, producing fossil-equivalent oils from post-use, mixed, multi-layered flexible and rigid plastics for the petrochemicals industry to create virgin-grade plastics, such as for use in food packaging. Mura's patented, innovative next generation processing technology, Hydro-PRT, produces high quality chemicals and oils with sector-leading sustainability attributes, creating a low carbon and circular model for a range of stakeholders working with polymers.

The company's first commercial scale plant, at Wilton, Teesside, will become the world's largest advanced recycling plant when it commences operations later this year, with two further plants being built under licence with partners in South Korea and Japan, expected to come online by the end of 2024. Driven by increasing regulation on plastic waste, Mura has a global growth ambition for more than 1.5 million tonnes of recycling capacity in operation or development by 2032.

WMG will create a modelling platform that will operationalise sustainability at all future Mura project sites, including Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), to demonstrate transparently how Hydro-PRT meets environmental requirements. The platform will be used to educate and inform stakeholders including global regulators, policy makers and the plastics value chain on the low carbon potential of
Hydro-PRT.

The KTP is the continuation of the IUK Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging research partnership, where Reader of Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing at WMG, University of Warwick, Dr Stuart Coles successfully developed and published Life Cycle Analysis models, independent of Mura, for the Hydro-PRT process and the UK waste plastic recycling ecosystem. Dr Coles will also be the academic lead on this project.

Simon Broome Innovation Manager at WMG, University of Warwick, who co-wrote the application for the project, said: “I was blown away by the potential of this project to transform the process for recycling contaminated waste plastic. The team are highly committed and have already demonstrated impressive growth on their journey to make real sustainability gains in this important material sector.”

Mura’s Head of Sustainability and R&D, Dr Geoff Brighty, said: “Continuing the collaboration with WMG is critically important to bring this new science into our core business operation. Hydro-PRT has sector leading sustainability credentials, but every prospective site will be unique, influenced by the local energy grid, plant configurations as well as its material supply chain. The KTP project models will inform options appraisals and decision making, ensuring sustainability is at the heart of our global growth programme.”

For more information on developing a Knowledge Transfer Partnership application with WMG, contact wmgsme@warwick.ac.uk

For more information on WMG’s research in Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing visit: Sustainable Materials and Manufacturing Group (warwick.ac.uk)

Dr Samuel Seddon has recently published his paper in Physical Review B titled 'Ferroelastic control of magnetic domain structure: Direct imaging by magnetic force microscopy.'Link opens in a new window

Expert comment, from Dr Ben Silverstone, Workforce Transformation, Skills and Policy Lead at WMG, University of Warwick, on the establishment of Skills England

“WMG welcomes the formal announcement on the establishment of Skills England. A combined approach from the Government, education providers and employers is, without a doubt, the best way of ensuring that the skills system is fit for purpose. The decision to appoint a non-governmental chair should also be applauded and will ensure the needs of industry and the workforce are placed before policy pressures. 

“To make the most of this opportunity we encourage the Government to consider the following key issues:

• Everyone, regardless of age; background or employment status, must have the best opportunities in terms of education - this is critical to the future prosperity of our society
• There must be an equal, if not greater, focus on upskilling and reskilling those already in employment
• We must learn from the Apprenticeship Trailblazer model, and focus on the skill enablers of our economy rather than the narrow interests of a traditional sectoral led approach
• Finally, we strongly urge Government to ensure the balance between a nationally conceived strategy, a regional contextualisation and high-quality local delivery is not lost.”