News Archive: March 2016

EU project to support water industry in Wales and Ireland

A £2.5m EU-backed project to improve the long-term sustainability of water supply in Wales and Ireland has been announced by Finance and Government Business Minister, Jane Hutt.

Publication date: 31 March 2016

Student Nursing Times Award Shortlists Two Bangor University students

Bangor University’s School of Healthcare Sciences is delighted that two students, Abigail Sinnett and Francesca Elner, have been shortlisted in the 2016 Student Nursing Times Awards . Abigail is one of nine student midwives from across the United Kingdom in the Student Midwife of the Year Category. Francesca is one of ten student nurses from across the United Kingdom in the Student Nurse of the Year: Adult Category.

Publication date: 31 March 2016

Student art competition winner inspired by cancer research hope

A budding artist from Ysgol David Hughes School has won a local art competition after being inspired by the work of some of Wales’ top cancer researchers. Annabelle Blight, from Llandefgan created the award winning design as part of the annual Bangor Science Festival’s Photography, Art and Poetry Competition.

Publication date: 30 March 2016

Safety=Design: Saving thousands of lives and millions of pounds

A project launched in collaboration with Bangor University has the potential of saving thousands of lives by simplifying the way symptoms are identified by healthcare staff and patients.

Publication date: 30 March 2016

Five things you need to know about the Radovan Karadžić case

Yvonne McDermott , Senior Lecturer in Law at Bangor University wrote this 'explainer' article for The Conversation prior to the recent International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia judgment. Read the original article . The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is issuing its judgment in the case of Radovan Karadžić, arguably its most high-profile accused since the trial of Slobodan Milošević, which ended in 2005. Here’s all you need to know about this landmark decision.

Publication date: 30 March 2016

Bangor University student and staff selected for the European Weightlifting Championships 2016

A Bangor University student and a staff member have been selected to represent GB in the upcoming European Weightlifting Championships that will be held in Førde, Norway from April 10-16.

Publication date: 29 March 2016

Six from Bangor University appointed Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leaders

Six health and social care researchers at Bangor University have been appointed Health and Care Research Wales Senior Research Leaders by Health Care Research Wales.

Publication date: 25 March 2016

MP praises pioneering Food Bank research

Local MP Hywel Williams praised pioneering research at Bangor University following a recent (21 March 2016) one-day Local Stakeholders’ Conference: Mapping Food Poverty , which exchanged information and opinion on the current rise in food bank use. A research project by Bangor University Social Sciences PhD student David Beck, shared at the Conference (Hyperlink to full story) revealed that Wales now has 157 foodbanks which support people at risk of not being able to feed themselves and their families (data collected July 2015) compared to 16 in 1998.

Publication date: 23 March 2016

Bangor University subjects make the grade in world table

Newly published analysis of the 2016 edition of the influential QS World University Rankings , which saw Bangor University soar 60 places to 411th position worldwide, now provides further information on rankings for different subject areas among the world’s best universities.

Publication date: 23 March 2016

2016 Bangor Science Festival Success

This year’s Hidden Worlds Exhibition was the biggest ever with over 800 people visiting Bangor University’s Brambell Building on Saturday 12 th March between 10am and 4pm for Bangor Science Festival’ s flagship event.

Publication date: 23 March 2016

Bangor Researcher joint winner of the BBC NewsHACK award

Dewi Bryn Jones from the Language Technologies Unit at Canolfan Bedwyr was one of the winners of the Audience Facing award at the BBC’s #newsHack: Language Technology , together with BBC Cymru Fyw, BBC Connected Studio, and BBC Digital in London on the 15 and 16 March 2016. The challenge at the event organised by the BBC News Labs was how to help improve journalism in a multilingual environment in order to take advantage of news and information in other languages, and read content in a number of different languages.

Publication date: 22 March 2016

High Street Challenge for Enterprising Students

The increasing need to transform the customer experience of the high street set the scene for Enterprise by Design 2016. The competition, which has a prize fund of £5,000, brings individuals from diverse academic disciplines within Bangor University to work together as teams to solve a real world design brief provided by a local commercial partner; this year Bangor City Council.

Publication date: 21 March 2016

Success for Bangor students at NUS Wales Elections

Two Bangor University students have been elected President and Deputy President respectively at the National Union of Students Wales’ annual conference in Cardiff recently. Fflur Elin, currently Bangor Students’ Union President, was elected President of NUS Wales for the forthcoming year and will be supported in the role by Carmen Smith as Deputy President.

Publication date: 21 March 2016

Lessons in bilingualism: what can Corsica learn from Wales?

A Corsican student is currently visiting the School of Social Sciences on an internship to learn about bilingualism in Wales. Petru Filippi, who is enrolled in a Masters degree program in the University of Corsica, will be spending four months in Bangor under the supervision of Dr Cynog Prys, Lecturer in Sociology and an expert in language planning in Wales.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

OPSWISE – Improving the care of older people

A study led by Bangor University has provided a fresh insight into how health services for older people are carried out.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

New resources for Welsh communication infrastructure

During 2015-16, the Language Technologies Unit team, based at Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University, developed new resources to enable communication in Welsh with computers and digital devices. This is a technology which is becoming increasingly prevalent as the human voice is used more and more for question and answer systems on mobile phones and tablets, and voice control for such things as television sets, robots and dictation systems. If Welsh cannot be used in these environments, then the language will be excluded from the digital world and Welsh speakers will have no choice but to speak English with these devices.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

Bangor University student Film on RTS Television Awards shortlist

Good luck to School of Creative Studies and Media graduate Andrew Pritchard! Today (18 March) Andy, from Groeslon, near Caernarfon, finds out if his shortlisted film Snowdonia: open all year is to be successful in the Wales round of the RTS Student Television Awards.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

Life for the Cherokee and the history of the Trail of Tears

In a three-part series on S4C, Professor Jerry Hunter travels to America to learn more about the history of Welshman Evan Jones and the Cherokee community of today. Evan Jones a'r Cherokee starts on Wednesday, 23 March.

Publication date: 18 March 2016

Sports science students come to Bangor to learn the latest

Sports science students from across the UK will be visiting Bangor University this week (22-23 March) to share their knowledge and hear from leading experts in the field at the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences annual Student Conference .

Publication date: 18 March 2016

Bangor University’s satisfied students

Bangor University continues to rise in popularity among its students. The University again retains its place at 14th in the UK and is second in Wales in a new university experience survey (T imes Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2016 ).

Publication date: 17 March 2016

How will interacting with robots affect us? £1.5m ERC Grant

Robots and other types of artificial agents, such as avatars, are set to become increasingly commonplace in the near future - we’ll interact with them in workplaces, public spaces, and our own homes, as well as in education, health and care settings. Technologists have worked hard to develop useful machines to perform complex tasks in social settings, such as lifting patients from hospital beds, providing companionship for individuals with depression or dementia, or teaching children algebra.. But do we know whether long-term interactions with such robots might have any effect on us?

Publication date: 17 March 2016

Bangor University celebrates WWF’s Earth Hour 2016

Bangor University is joining the global celebration for our brilliant planet by supporting WWF’s Earth Hour – a spectacular and symbolic lights out event that focuses the world’s attention on our planet, and the need to protect it.

Publication date: 16 March 2016

Bench to Bedside and Beyond

Bangor University officially launched its innovative new institute on Thursday (25th February) to widespread acclaim. The Bangor Institute for Health and Medical Research (BIHMR) will sustain and extend Bangor’s already excellent record in health and medical research, bringing together renowned academics in a broad range of fields.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

How a farm boy from Wales gave the world pi

One of the most important numbers in maths might today be named after the Greek letter π or “pi”, but the convention of representing it this way actually doesn’t come from Greece at all. It comes from the pen of an 18th century farmer’s son and largely self-taught mathematician from the small island of Anglesey in Wales. The Welsh Government has even renamed Pi Day (on March 14 or 3/14, which matches the first three digits of pi, 3.14) as “ Pi Day Cymru ”.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

Social Science research improves quality of life and care for people with dementia

Research by Bangor University, which was carried out in several care homes in north Wales, is featured in a booklet launched in the House of Commons on Tuesday 15 March. The latest issue of the Campaign for Social Science’s ‘Making the Case for the Social Sciences’ briefings focuses on a number of research projects on dementia at universities in the UK.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

Welsh Food Banks on the increase

Wales now has 157 foodbanks which support people at risk of not being able to feed themselves and their families (data collected July 2015) compared to 16 in 1998. These new statistics come from a research project by Bangor University Social Sciences PhD student David Beck.

Publication date: 14 March 2016

Bangor University receives seven nominations for Whatuni Awards

Bangor University has been nominated for seven prestigious Whatuni Student Choice Awards for 2016, including one for overall University of the Year.

Publication date: 11 March 2016

Bangor University among Europe’s best universities

Bangor University is one of the best universities in Europe according to a table published today (10 March 2016) by the Times Higher Education magazine. With Cardiff University the only Welsh higher education institution appearing above Bangor University in the table, which places Bangor in the 151-160 group, this is further confirmation of Bangor University’s growing international stature.

Publication date: 10 March 2016

Community impact study

Community impact study

Publication date: 10 March 2016

Ruby Wax takes a look at Mental Health Day art project

University Mental Health Day 2016 took place on campuses across the UK on Thursday 3rd of March.

Publication date: 10 March 2016

Zebrafish and humans have new biomedical friend in the spotted gar

Th e genome of a slowly evolving fish, the spotted gar, is so much like both zebrafish and humans that it can be used as a bridge species that could open a pathway to important advancements in biomedical research focused on human diseases.

Publication date: 9 March 2016

Bangor University and the Welsh Football Trust team up to create more playing opportunities

Thanks to support from British University and Colleges Sport (BUCS) and Sport Wales, Bangor University and the Welsh Football Trust are launching an existing new initiative.

Publication date: 9 March 2016

Bangor University Alumna inaugurated as a Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol Fellow

A Bangor University Alumna was awarded an Honorary Fellowship at the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol ’s Annual Congregation recently. The Fellowships were awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions to Welsh-medium Higher Education and the work of the Coleg generally.

Publication date: 8 March 2016

A musical celebration of International Women’s Day

Bangor University’s School of Music and the Bangor Music Festival will be helping to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March with the broadcast on BBC Radio 3 of a concert of orchestral music by five female Welsh composers. One of the composers featured is Mared Emlyn, from Eglwysbach in the Conwy Valley, who completed a PhD in Music at Bangor University two years ago. Her piece, Porthor, was inspired by the beach of that name on the Llŷn Peninsula. Known in English as ‘Whistling Sands’, the beach is famous for the singing sound produced by walking on its sands.

Publication date: 7 March 2016

Ethiopian ‘Church Forests’ are a crucial resource deserving of world heritage status

Nearly all of the natural forest cover has been lost in the highlands of Ethiopia, except for small areas of sacred forest surrounding the many individual churches of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church. The first study to assess the conservation value of these forests has shown that the Ethiopian ‘church forests’, as they are known, play a crucial role in the protection of many species in this global biodiversity hotspot. Although these forests are managed individually, together they form an important network of habitats spread right over the vast area of the central and northern highlands of Ethiopia.

Publication date: 7 March 2016

Materials by Design approaches to inform graphene fabrication

The Laboratory for Matter Dynamics led by E.M. Campo has developed a promising approach to inform graphene fabrication. Under HPC Wales-Fujitsu and US- European Office of Aerospace Research and Development funding, the Campo group are combining experimental and theoretical synchrotron spectroscopies towards optimized graphene electronic devices. The new generation of devices will enable faster, smaller, and flexible electronics whose range of applications spans from smart textiles to hand-held devices.

Publication date: 7 March 2016

Welsh Weightlifting Senior Championships comes to Bangor

Bangor University Sport Centre, Canolfan Brailsford will be hosting the Welsh Weightlifting Senior Championships event on 12 March 2016.

Publication date: 4 March 2016

Love Your Clothes Set ‘one tonne’ Clothing Challenge for People of Bangor

Love Your Clothes and Bangor University’s Sustainability Lab and Students’ Union are challenging university students, staff and Bangor’s wider community to donate one tonne of unwanted clothes for local charities as part of ‘Love Your Clothes Bangor’ – a series of events running from 11 - 16 March in the Deiniol Shopping Centre that aim to highlight the environmental impacts of clothing.

Publication date: 3 March 2016

Prize for best ‘Yarn’ awarded to Bangor University student Maisie

The UK Higher Education International Unit-sponsored prize for the best ‘Yarn’ was awarded to Bangor University student, Maisie Prior.

Publication date: 3 March 2016

Come and see what’s on offer at the Bangor University Postgraduate Open Day

Bangor University will be holding a Postgraduate Open Day on Wednesday 16 th March. Doors will open at midday and visitors are welcome to take part in some or all of the activities planned for the day. As well as an exhibition-style event with all the University’s academic Schools and relevant service departments present, visitors can attend a short session relating to postgraduate study and funding issues, visit individual academic Schools/Colleges for a more in-depth look at their specific area of interest and the related facilities, and have the opportunity to take a look at some of the accommodation available to postgraduate students.

Publication date: 2 March 2016

Getting Welsh GPs to act more quickly on cancer symptoms

A research project at Bangor University will look at early cancer diagnosis - a priority area for the Welsh Government, as late presentation of cancer is thought to significantly contribute to the relatively poor survival of Welsh cancer patients compared to the rest of the UK. The award had been made to Professor Richard Neal from the University's North Wales Centre for Primary Care Research , himself a practicing G.P and a world-leader in the field of early cancer diagnosis.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Dementia: “illness” label may lower mood

North Walians have taken part in research which has just been published and indicates that people who perceive dementia symptoms as an illness feel more negative than those who see it as an inevitable part of getting older.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Dr Edward Jones meets with Welsh politicians

Over the last month, Dr Edward Jones has had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the main political parties in Wales to discuss economic, social and cultural issues of concern to the local area and country as a whole.

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Why scrapping the €500 note may not help counter terrorism

The president of the European Central Bank has said that the bank is considering scrapping the €500 note as the big bill is being increasingly seen as “as an instrument for illegal activities”, according to ECB president, Mario Draghi. But there is little proof that scrapping the €500 note will improve chances of clamping down on nefarious transactions. An article by Bernardo Batiz-Lazo , Professor of Business History and Bank Management , Bangor University and Marybeth Rouse , Bangor University was originally published on The Conversation . Read the original article .

Publication date: 1 March 2016

Archive of the month

Publication date: 1 March 2016