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ACTION 2011: Sustainability is Launched
An exciting cross-faculty competition designed to engage Newcastle University researchers with the ideas of enterprise and sustainability has recently been launched.
ACTION 2011: Sustainability is an opportunity for postgraduate research students and research staff to explore a sustainability challenge of their choice and compete for a prize of £10,000. The prize will be used by the recipients to aid their development as entrepreneurial researchers, so increasing the impact of their research.
Professor Suzanne Cholerton, Newcastle University’s recently appointed PVC for teaching and learning, formally opened a well-attended launch event on 17 February that brought together staff and research students from across the University.
The project ties in with this year’s societal challenge theme of sustainability which can be captured in the following four words: ‘Enough, For All, Forever’. Professor Paul Younger, Director of the Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability, encouraged researchers to think about applying their ingenuity to solving problems with commercial applications. He talked about the traditional view of a unidirectional transfer of knowledge being just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ and that ACTION 2011 provides researchers with a chance to explore the rest of the iceberg and push your knowledge and wisdom (not just your ‘widget’).
Prof Max Robinson, Entrepreneur in Residence, described how the transferable skills that we have as academics fit well into business. He discussed that carrying out research is turning money into knowledge but innovation is needed to turn knowledge into money and hoped that ACTION 2011 will help move us along this line
ACTION 2011: Sustainability is spearheaded by Dr Bryn Jones, Postgraduate Dean in the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering (the organising team consisting of Gail de Blaquière, Elizabeth Scanlon and Katie Wray). Dr Jones described how the programme is designed to enhance individuals as researchers rather that detract from their current project and concluded with details of what will happen over the next few months and how to get involved.
Postgraduate research students and research staff will work in teams, within a framework of support, to develop a prototype, video, model or other visual solution to be judged at a showcase event in November.
ACTION 2011: Sustainability benefits from EPSRC funding for training in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. EPSRC are supporting the project and EPSRC funded researchers are especially encouraged to take part.
Last modified: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:49:10 BST
