Research Software Engineering Workshops
These are the courses we are offering for this term, they are aimed at PhD students and Researchers/Academics.
Research Software Training – Michaelmas term
The latest Research Software Engineering groups training courses for the Michaelmas term are now available for booking. This term’s courses are:Introduction to the Linux Command LineVersion Control with GitPlotting and Programming in PythonIntermediate Git: Sharing and collaborating with GitHub
Robin Long
Condensed Matter Postgraduate Lectures
Condensed Matter Postgraduate Lectures will run every Monday of term time beginning on Monday 10th October. Although aimed primarily at postgraduates in experimental or theoretical condensed matter, anyone is welcome to attend including staff members and students from other subject areas. The topic of the course changes every 5 weeks.
The series begins with “Noise and Multiscale Dynamics” by Aneta Stefanovska 2-4pm on Monday 10th October in FASS Meeting Room 2, room A009 (this is in the same building as the Margaret Fell lecture theatre, the new one next to chemistry). In subsequent weeks, the lectures will be in C36 Physics.
Ed McCann
STFC Impact Acceleration Account September 2022 Call
Upcoming STFC IAA call. Deadline for the call is the 9th October 2022. If you would like to discuss the call further please contact Martin Gilmore in the first instance (m.gilmore@lancaster.ac.uk) or colleagues in the Partnerships and Business Engagement Team m.entwistle@lancaster.ac.uk or n.karlsen-davies@lancaster.ac.uk
You may be aware that since 2015, FST has been successful in securing annually awarded funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) to run an ‘Impact Acceleration Account’ (IAA).
The STFC IAA should be used to support knowledge exchange activities for work funded through STFC’s core science programme, supporting academics to take their ideas towards impact, through activities not currently supported by other STFC funding programmes. The objectives of the fund are as follows:-
- Strengthening knowledge exchange between academic and industrial stakeholders
- Supporting proof of concept projects derived from STFC research, which could result in further funding
- Supporting new, innovative, and imaginative approaches to KE and Impact
- Supporting activities that enable impact to be achieved in an effective and timely manner, including secondments and people exchange
- Support impact emerging from a body of research undertaken over a significant period of time.
- Building and support for strategic partnerships for multi-disciplinary impact.
This year we have been awarded £70k to fund impact-generating activities at the University of Lancaster. This funding will conclude the STFC Impact Acceleration Account one-year funding programme. Unfortunately, LU was unsuccessful in securing STFC funding via the Joint UKRI call, so this will be last tranche of STFC IAA funding until at least 2025
We would like to invite colleagues working on STFC funded research to bring forward expressions of interest for funds to support activities aligned to the objectives above.
Projects/activities will need to be completed by March 31st 2023; funds can pay for a range of costs which will generate impact and support collaborative activities (researcher time, travel expenses, consumables, industry events, secondments etc.)
Call to Action:-
If you would like to register your interest or discuss the opportunity further please email Martin Gilmore in the first instance (m.gilmore@lancaster.ac.uk) or colleagues in the Partnerships and Business Engagement Team m.entwistle@lancaster.ac.uk; n.karlsen-davies@lancaster.ac.uk
Otherwise, please submit an EOI by the 9th of October to Martin Gilmore m.gilmore@lancaster.ac.uk.
The EOI should be brief and no more than 1 page, comprising
- a short project title,
- high level summary of your project, including proposed delivery via a project plan/Gannt chart, with key dates,
- planned expenditure,
- any external partners,
- possible impact.
Philip Simpson
Missing Professor
I hope my email finds you well. I have a personal request to ask your advice on. My friend’s dad is a professor of physics at Warwick University, and he has gone missing in Chile whilst conducting research. She is, understandably, terrified. I said I’d do whatever I could to try and help her find him, so I was wondering would there be any scope at all for putting something out to the staff within the department to see if people can share his information across the field to try and bring him back safely. There may well be people within the Astro research groups who know him personally, and I am aware that he knows the VC quite well. His daughter is also an alumna of Lancaster University, so there is a particular vested interest within the University to help where we can.
We are currently coordinating with Warwick University to produce a comms plan centrally, but any distribution of the situation on people’s personal social media accounts would be appreciated.
News articles, for verification:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-62995965
Thanks ever so much,
Ellen Greyling
Free supply of sanitary products
“As a result of a request being made via the physics department suggestion box, we are trialling the free supply of sanitary products in 1 of our toilets near the Physics Atrium, A38. A notice has been put on the toilet door to denote which toilet contains the sanitary products.”
Georgina Edwards
Bottle carriers for chemicals
If you have any 2.5 litre (chemical) bottle carriers in your lab, please return them to Physics Stores.
Steve and Grainne
PhD travel fund
I am delighted to let you know that the PhD travel fund will continue for this financial year (01.08.22 – 31.07.23). This fund is to help support travel and collaborations for students which will benefit their studies and can be used for conferences, national and international meetings. Any students wanting to use this fund to contribute towards the costs of attending such meetings must apply for it by emailing Roger Jones and Philip Simpson with a brief statement on how these funds will be used, the benefits it will provide for their PhD and the estimated costs. Funds are awarded on a competitive basis and costs should be reasonable and will be made available subject to demand. We also expect that some of the funds needed will be drawn from an another source (eg. RTSG budget).
This fund will be released in tranches to allow for it to be fairly distributed to students throughout the year. Therefore please only apply for the fund at present if the travel will be undertaken below the 31st December 2022.
If you have any questions about this please email Philip Simpson (py-deptofficer@lancaster.ac.uk)
Philip Simpson
Institute of Physics Communicators and Outreach Conference
The IOP Communicators and Outreach Conference is a totally free conference for the sharing of best practice being held at the IOP HQ building in London and live streamed online on the 17th of November 2022. The conference is physics focused but not physics limited and you don’t need to be an IOP member to attend.
The theme for the meeting is ‘Reaching Out, Catching Up’ and we encourage contributors to consider submitting work which focuses along the lines of reaching out to historically underserved communities and helping balancing the inequities across science communication and science more broadly especially in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. For this reason we’re also delighted to announce our keynote speaker as Dr Jessica Wade.
Space is limited at the event but we want to make as much room as possible for people to share their fantastic work. There is space for people to present short talks, posters, a limited number of workshops and a small exhibition area for stalls. The submission deadline is the 25th of September.
You can register for the event at this link:
https://iop.eventsair.com/iop-communicators-and-outreach-conference/registration-not-live
You can submit an abstract (for talks, poster, workshop, and more) here:
https://iop.eventsair.com/iop-communicators-and-outreach-conference/abstract-submission
Got a question or want to submit something a bit out there? Contact:
James.Lees@physics.org
Georgina Edwards
Power & Business Continuity
Winter is coming ….time for Business Continuity As we approach the new term and see colder weather on the horizon now is the time to review your business continuity plans. There has been no suggestion of power cuts like the winter discontent of 1979 but if that did happen, what could you do to minimise damage to your research?
Updated or new plans will be welcomed by Rupert Prudom our BC champion.
If you need a copy of the most recent plan for your area – please contact Rupert
Shonah Ion & Rupert Prudom
Meetings on Sharepoint
“All faculty and departmental meetings are now in the Physics SharePoint calendar which can be found on the Physics Sharepoint pages at: https://livelancsac.sharepoint.com/sites/Physics2.”
Georgina Edwards