Behaviours of Concern at Special Schools: Sharing Experiences

Hayley Trower and Hayley Crawford (WMS) & Gemma Nicholls (Calthorpe Academy)

We are partnering to create new opportunities for teachers and researchers to engage with each other through Research into Practice teacher training and a focus group conversation, so that children with an intellectual disability and their families and carers and can benefit from high quality impactful research, teaching, and care.

Floating: artistic impressions of coordination and communication in aquatic microbial worlds

Orkun Soyer and Sarah Duxbury (School of Life Sciences) & Claudette Bryanston (STAMP Theatre and Media Productions)

This project will organise development workshops between scientists and artists to scope an installation with wrap around art-based activities on the research findings of the Warwick Life Sciences team working with Cyanobacteria. In these workshops, we will engage artists and performers covering a diverse set of media, including video, animation, dance, paint, and poetry, to discuss around key scientific themes emerging from our research. These themes include coordinated and emergent behaviour of filamentous multi-cellular cyanobacteria resulting in formation of micro- and macro-structures, interaction of cyanobacteria and different bacteria in these structured ecosystems, and the roles of these structures in environmental carbon fixation and oxygen production. The interactive workshops, will bring together scientists and artists to exchange and develop ideas for a programme of activities that will form the basis of a larger project bid. The outcomes of this project are to have prototype model of the proposed ideas and the submission of a funding proposal to engage with the public in communicating cutting edge science through the arts at different festival and outdoor venues.

Memory Lane Café

Kate Owen, Lucas Snow and Rebecca Briggs (WMS) & Helen Jones (Sydni Centre)

Our goal for the project is to create a safe and welcoming space for older adults with memory loss in our community who may be isolated and lonely. Older adults have been some of the most impacted as a result of lockdown restrictions, shielding and closure of community groups. People with dementia or memory loss can be especially vulnerable. As medical students, we recognise that it can be hard for people with memory loss to get out into the community, leading to more isolation and reduction in health and wellbeing. We also understand the importance of social connection for health.

​Our café aims to address loneliness and provide a place for meaningful social connection but there are other benefits to it as well: peer support is an important aspect, and the café is a space where everyone has memory loss or understands the challenges of it and people can get advice and support from their shared experiences.  

​It is also helping to improve health outcomes for people with dementia and the cognitive stimulation gained from attending a group, meeting people, chatting, and engaging in our activities is important for delaying progression of the disease. 

​The social prescribing aspect to the project is also important. Social prescribing is now recognised as being valuable to the NHS, helping to improve patient health outcomes through non-clinical support in the community. 

Importantly, thanks to the funding we have received, our sessions can be free for our visitors. With the ongoing cost of living crisis and pensioner poverty, being able to get out of the house and go to a café without having to worry about the cost implications is something we know is really valued by the community we are building. In the winter this will be especially important as we will be a ‘warm hub’ when many older people cannot afford to heat their homes.

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Monumental Visions: Speculative Futures Through Art

Becca Randle (Warwick Arts Centre) & Last Mafuba (Inini Initiative)

Collaborating with the Inini Initiative, Warwick Arts Centre are embarking on an impactful project that empowers migrants and refugees to explore Afrofuturism through art. Over six months, a series of five workshops will be led by an experienced artist utilizing speculative futures to explore possible realities.

These sessions will delve into Afrofuturism, drawing inspiration from both Inini members and the artists featured in the upcoming Phantom Sculpture Exhibition at the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre.

The project will culminate in a display at Warwick Arts Centre showcasing the creations of participants, offering insights into their experiences and aspirations. Additionally, the project will offer participants the option to refine their designs through computer aided design (CAD) workshops, in partnership with the computer science department and guidance from Dr Emrah Atasoy, whose research interests include speculative fiction, utopia, dystopia and critical dystopia and who is available to discuss concepts with the successful artist.

Refugee and migrant health awareness and promotion

James Heath (WMS) & Tiphaine Roux (Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre)

Warwick Medical School branch of Student Action for Refugees is a student led society with a strong commitment to improving and raising awareness of refugee and migrant health. Through regular social and informative events, we spread awareness in the student community of the importance of fighting for the health rights of refugees and migrants, especially in our local community.

We work directly with refugee centres in the community to provide a variety of teaching sessions including basic first aid, women’s health and more. We are establishing a fully funded sports club available for all interested refugee participants, providing an escape in which they can participate in sporting activities at the university of Warwick, providing physical and emotional wellbeing through sport. We believe that refugees and migrants deserve equal health and wellbeing and we strive to support them to access this.

The Warwick Design Thinking Award "Lesson in a Box" & CPD

Bo Kelestyn (WBS) & Kimberley Wyatt (Warwick School)

Bo Kelestyn has been working in collaboration with Warwick School, co-leading the design, assessment and embedding of the Warwick Design Thinking Award. The award is a course that will allow pupils to learn design skills as part of a future-ready curriculum.

Bo believes design thinking is a key skill for young people to develop, and this collaboration will be a step further towards integrating this skill into curriculums nationwide.

Learnings from this partnership will be shared with schools and teachers across the UK in order to offer them the opportunity to diversify their curriculum and embed design thinking into their work.

Warwick Education Studies and Warwickshire Schools/Education Services

Sally Blakeman and Mark Pulsford (Education Studies) & Julia Kelly (Warwickshire County Council)

This partnership seeks to build a long-term relationship that benefits local schools and Warwick's Education Studies Department.

The long-term aim for this project is to have created a legacy of positive benefit for all students, staff, pupils and teachers involved. A series of events and opportunities will be held such as volunteering fairs to develop Education Studies students' skills, as well as visits to schools to build their experience interacting with pupils.

This project includes a range of research collaborations between Education Studies academics and Warwickshire Schools.

South Warwickshire Silver Denarii Coin Hoard Project

Paul Grigsby and Campbell Orchard (Classics & Ancient History) & Sara Wear (Warwickshire Museum)

Paul and Campbell are continuing a project first funded by the Collaboration and Co-Production Fund in 2021/2022. Working in partnership with Warwickshire Museum's Market Hall Museum, the aim of the project is to showcase two Roman coin hoards and bring out their multi-layered stories to the public. The coins are being catalogued and digitised with the aim of creating an online exhibition, the published information then forming the base and model for future collaborative public-facing research projects. We are hoping the project will bring public attention to these unique and fascinating artefacts.

Widening access for adult learners

Kerry Dobbins, Nalita James and Christina Osborne (Academic Development Centre; Education Studies) & Adult and Community Learning, Warwickshire County Council)

We are partnering to build a relationship that will lead to the creation of provision to support progression to HE for Adult Community Learners. Ultimately, we are hoping to widen access to HE for adult learners and support the University’s aspiration to provide lifelong learning opportunities to the local community. We hope that a lasting impact of this project will be a continuing partnership from which we can be dynamic and responsive to supporting the needs and aspirations of adult learners.

Youth Support Programme (YSP): A Transnational Partnership for Developing 21st Century Skills

Asima Iqbal and Freeha Azmat (WMG) & Naima Qureshi (University of Education, Pakistan)

Through a transnational collaboration, this project aims to offer a comprehensive skill development programme for local unemployed youth community in Lahore, Pakistan. The holistic short-term programme will equip the unemployed youth and graduates with transferable skills, functional and digital competencies, and global citizenship skills aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The project will develop individuals who can contribute effectively to a global world by applying their transferrable, digital, and global citizenship skills. The project is envisioned to have its impact at three levels: youth development, community development and social development. The proposed programme will be delivered in a hybrid manner while using innovative and participatory, inquiry-based pedagogical approaches.

Inclusive Pathways: Bridging the Gap for Disability Inclusion in Transport Research and Policy

Miss Shravani Sharma (WMG), Dr Roger Woodman, Dr Mark Elliott

Our project addresses the underrepresentation of disabled people in transportation research and policy. Making up 22% of the UK population, people with disabilities are often overlooked due to a focus on physical impairments in current research. Our approach involves direct engagement with organisations in the UK to promote inclusivity, strengthen relationships, and contribute to more equitable and inclusive policies and products in the field of transportation.