Bangor International November 2014

BANGOR INTERNATIONAL November 2014

Bangor’s Law School hosts Lord Chief Justice, the head of Judiciary in England and Wales On Friday October 10th, the Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, Sir John Thomas was joined by the President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, for the Annual Legal Wales Conference which took place at Bangor University’s Law School.

Over 150 academics, lawyers and judges attended the Conference to debate issues of the day, in particular, Law Reform and Wales, the role of the Supreme Court in the UK Constitutional Settlement, the Wales Bill 2014 and also recent developments in key areas such as Family law.

Rt.Hon the Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

President of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger

New State-of-the-Art Moot Court opened by Lord Chief Justice at Bangor University A state-of-the-art Moot Court facility was officially opened at Bangor University by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, on Thursday 9th October.

The facility which is set to further underpin Bangor’s position as a leading example of a UK university Law School that places employability and student skills development at the core of its LLB Law Degree curriculum.

L-R: Prof. Dermot Cahill, Head of the School of Law, The Lord Chief Justice and Stephen Clear of Bangor Law School

Speaking at the formal opening ceremony, Lord Thomas praised the achievements of Bangor Law School in the ten years since it was first established in 2004. He stressed the critical importance of students gaining advocacy and mooting skills as a way of preparing for a career in the legal profession, and was highly complementary of the successes achieved by Bangor students in recent national and international advocacy and mooting competitions.

In this issue of our newsletter... u

2014 Scholarship Winners

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Bangor Professor Wins Prestigious Award

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Research News www.bangor.ac.uk/international

Research News Prestigious award recognizes a

lifetime's work for Bangor University Professor John Witcombe

Petri Suuronen, FAO, Rome

Catch sorting in Thailand

The problem with global research is that it is...well...global A Bangor research group in Ocean Sciences have been awarded £13k as part of a collaboration and training exercise with colleagues in Chile, Argentina, South Africa and Namibia, and possibly southeast Asia. Professor Michel Kaiser and Dr. Kathryn Hughes are leading a project funded by the ICES Science Fund to map the distribution of fishing effort from countries that do not have the required resources to process and analyse raw fishing effort data, but who do have data.

Without knowledge-exchange platforms such as the project described here, important and high quality spatio-temporal data may never be put to most beneficial use in terms of supporting effective management.

The ultimate goal is to map the statistical distribution of fishing effort along shelf sea areas of the aforementioned countries. A global map of fishing effort will be created using fishing effort data from these countries combined with other national data sets that have already been analysed. The project is a rare opportunity to share knowledge between scientific communities; the results may increase shelf sea protection and improve governance in marine science and policy. The results will advance scientific understanding of marine ecosystems, particularly fishing/habitat interactions, and may help provide the basis for sound scientific advice, founded on evidence based science.

Prof.John Witcombe (2nd from left) during a visit to Senegal Prof. John Witcombe, Professorial Fellow in the School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, has been selected as Development Agriculturalist of the Year for 2014 by the Tropical Agriculture Association (TAA).

John’s award, the TAA’s most prestigious, recognised a lifetime’s work in agriculture for development, and particularly his contribution to participatory plant breeding.

John’s work has benefitted agriculture throughout the tropics and has had a genuine, positive impact upon society. His novel strategies to breed crop varieties, which include working directly with resource-poor farmers, resulted in the first modern varieties to be widely grown in poorer, marginal areas of South Asia.

John’s two Ashoka rice varieties have better yield, drought tolerance, and higher grain quality and market price than existing local varieties. By 2012 they were grown by more than a million households in Eastern India, providing vital food security in drought years and increasing household food self-sufficiency from six to nine months. Farmers also like the superior grain quality and yield of his GM-6 maize which has improved livelihoods for 300,000 of the poorest farm households in Gujarat, and has been grown on a cumulative area of 2 M ha.

Dr Phil Hollington, a colleague in the School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, said:

“John is a very worthy winner, and this is great recognition for the work carried out in and from Bangor over many years”.

The TAA is a professional association of individuals and corporate bodies concerned with the role of agriculture for development throughout the world, bringing together individuals and organisations from both developed and less developed countries to enable them to contribute to international policies and actions aimed at reducing poverty and improving livelihoods. Tropical and sub-tropical environments are home to billions of people and face many challenges with respect to supporting these populations through agriculture.

Bangor’s International Students on National Radio

Research News

Bangor University to assist training future soil scientists

L-R: Peter Jingcheng Xu, Chandrie Cook, Jamie Owen & Recep Gorgulu A number of our international students were invited to speak with Welsh broadcaster and journalist Jamie Owen for his radio programme ‘Jamie Owen’s Wales’ on one of Wales’ two national BBC radio stations, Radio Wales.

In ‘Jamie Owen’s Wales’, the popular and well-known presenter travels around the country getting a taste of the character of different towns and villages through the people he meets.

Jamie was delighted to meet with Peter Jingcheng Xu from China, a PhD Candidate, Recep Gorgulu from Turkey who is studying at the University’s School of Sport, Health & Exercise Science and Chandrie Cook from the USA, who is also studying Sport Science, all international students drawn to study at Bangor by the University’s excellent international reputation.

The three students provided listeners with a sample of Bangor’s international flavour and shared their experiences of studying at the University.

The large percentage of international students studying at Bangor University make an interesting multi-cultural contribution to the local community, so the programme was keen to reflect this during their visit to the city.

One of the reflections Chandrie provided was that: “In some countries people are very friendly when you walk into a store, but you’re not sure if it’s genuine, when people are nice to you in wales it’s because they really mean it!”

Bangor Law School tops the tables In the most recent National Student Survey, Bangor Law School was ranked as the no.1 law school in Wales and joint 5th in the whole of the United Kingdom for overall student satisfaction. One aspect the students are particularly happy with is teaching: in the ‘staff are good at explaining things’ category, Bangor scored a phenomenal 100% satisfaction rating from its three-year LLB students, making it the top law school throughout the UK for this So, it’s official: Bangor University has some of the most satisfied graduating law students not only in Wales, but also across the UK!

Bangor University is to play a crucial role in training scientists of the future who will improve our understanding of soils, which are key to tackling many of today’s global challenges, including food, water and energy security.

This funding has been awarded to the Soils Training and Research Studentships (STARS) consortium, of which Bangor University is a co-leader with Lancaster University.

Other members of the consortium are Cranfield and Nottingham universities, The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Rothamsted Research, the British Geological Survey and the James Hutton Institute.

This £2.3m programme, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), aims to create a new generation of highly-skilled soil scientists who understand the soil ecosystem from both environmental and biological viewpoints.

The programme will provide funding for a minimum of eight studentships each year for three years, giving the researchers access to expertise, equipment and training that will help them deal with the problems the sustainable agriculture industry faces as it learns how to protect itself against environmental change.

Meet some of our International Scholarship Winners for 2014...

Below are a few of our international scholarship winners for 2014, the scholarships were awarded from Santander, Chevening, British Council GREAT Scholarship, as well as full tuition fee waiver scholarships from Bangor University.

Diane Roberts, Santander’s Branch Manager at Bangor University (pictured centre) presented the Santander Scholarship Award to: Maria Clara Duque Ramirez from Colombia, studying for an MSc in Medical Molecular Biology with Genetics Hernan Diazgranados from Colombia, studying for an MSc in International Management.

The Santander Scholarship is for ÂŁ5,000 and it was also awarded to Elisenda Oliver Oliva and Nicolas Rincon both from Spain.

The winner of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship was Yosuke Fukushima from Japan. Presenting Yosuke with his award was Professor Oliver Turnbull, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning at Bangor University.

The Chevening scholarships are awarded to outstanding scholars with leadership potential and includes the full tuition fee of the students chosen course at Bangor.

For more information on Chevening Scholarships: www.bangor.ac.uk/international/future/chevening _scholarship

Marine Source Heat Pump Wins an Award

Three ‘Full Tuition Fee’ Scholarships were awarded by Bangor University to: Bryn Sitiewicz from Environmental Forestry

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Trang Nguyen from Vietnam, studying for an MBA in Finance Narissa Wongratana from Thailand, studying for an MSc in Applied Behaviour Analysis

Plas Newydd, a National Trust property on Anglesey has won an energy efficiency award after unveiling the largest ever marine source heat pump earlier this year.

The 300kW pump at Plas Newydd utilises the tidal currents of the Menai Strait to provide all the power needed to heat the Welsh mansion. Built in the 18th Century, the property was formerly the National Trust’s biggest oil consumer – using up to 138,000 litres of oil annually at a cost of around £70,000.

L-R: Trang Nguyen, Bryn Sitiewicz, Narissa Wongratana & Alan Edwards, Head of International Student Services at Bangor University

Professor Oliver Turnbull, Pro-Vice Chancellor at Bangor University presented the British Council GREAT Scholarships to: Deepika Kumaran and Yash Gupta, both from India The British Council GREAT Scholarship was also awarded to Venkata Thulasiram and Johnson Ambrose also from India.

In May, the Trust unveiled the ground-breaking project, the first of five schemes to be completed in a £3.5million pilot phase of its Renewable Energy Investment Programme.

It has now been named Commercial Project of the Year in the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Awards at London’s Kensington Roof Gardens. The Plas Newydd marine source heat pump pumps a small amount of sea water from the Menai Strait through a network of pipes to and from a heat exchanger on the shore, and then up 30 metres of cliff face to the mansion’s boiler house.

Other key partners in the project have included SEACAMS, led by the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University, and 100 per cent renewable electricity supplier Good Energy which launched the Renewable Energy Investment Programme with the National Trust last year.

www.bangor.ac.uk/international

Country Representatives Bing Li

Ali Khan

Maggie Parke

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388207 Email: b.li@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388874 Email: a.khan@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388416 Email: maggie.parke@bangor.ac.uk

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Bangladesh India Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

Argentina Brazil Canada Chile

Sarah Jones-Morris

Noor Al-Zubaidi

Michael Rogerson

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 388843 Email: s.jones-morris@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 382879 Email: n.al-zubaidi@bangor.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1248 382879 Email: m.rogerson@bangor.ac.uk

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Responsible for:

Brunei Russia Indonesia Singapore Kazakhstan Thailand Malaysia Sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon

Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Libya

European Union Countries

Mainland China Hong Kong Japan Vietnam

South Korea Taiwan Philippines

Oman Saudi Arabia Turkey UAE Qatar

Colombia Mexico USA

International students in the UK

Upcoming Visits for 2014 We shall be visiting the following countries between November and December 2014: Bahrain China Indonesia Kuwait

Meet Ali Khan...

Bangor University’s new International Officer for South Asia...

Malaysia Nigeria Thailand UAE

Please do contact us if you would like one of our international officers to visit your school or if you need any advice.

www.facebook.com/BangorUniversity/International W: www.bangor.ac.uk/international E: international@bangor.ac.uk

Ali Khan has recently joined the International Recruitment team and is responsible for the South Asian market. He was previously employed at University of the Highlands and Island in Scotland and has over seven years experience of international student recruitment and admission in the HE and FE sector.