The View - Autumn / Winter 2013 by Loughborough University

Autumn/Winter 2013

Loughborough University

Loughborough University To subscribe free to The View or request extra copies call +44 (0)1509 222224 or email publicrelations@lboro.ac.uk For more information about Loughborough University visit www.lboro.ac.uk An electronic version of The View can be downloaded from www.lboro.ac.uk/theview The View is published by the Public Relations Office, Hazlerigg, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU

the research & enterprise view P4-5

Analysing your Emotions

T: +44 (0)1509 222224 E: publicrelations@lboro.ac.uk www.lboro.ac.uk/publicrelations

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Rising to the challenge of climate control

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faith, freedom and the power of innovation

Editor: Judy Wing T: +44 (0)1509 228697 E: J.L.Wing@lboro.ac.uk

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Paralympic pioneers a universal credit

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A driving force for change

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Photography: Andrew Weekes T: +44 (0)7836 566295 and Design and Print Services

the campus view building a healthy legacy

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Educate the educators

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rag named best in country

cover story

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NEW Richard III 3D printed skull presented to Guildhall exhibition

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paralympic pioneers Behind the scenes, a specialist team of Loughborough sport scientists has been conducting pioneering research to further the understanding of the biomechanics and physiology of disabled athletes and identify the marginal gains that make the difference on the world stage.

Loughborough to play key role in the ‘industrial revolution’ for regenerative medicine

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England squad selects Loughborough as Rugby League World Cup 2013 base Ellie Simmonds to relocate to Loughborough Sprinter James breaks through the 10 second barrier

LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY DPS 55885 2013 ©

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the sports view P34

Loughborough cricketers help England to regain the Ashes

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Major milestone for Loughborough’s London campus

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A n a ly s i n g

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The research team, led by Professor Tom Jackson, has developed a new computer program that can analyse up to 2,000 tweets a second to extract from each tweet a direct expression of one of eight basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, shame and confusion (based and extended from Ekman’s basic emotions). Using complex software the EMOTIVE program can, through Twitter, geographically map the emotional mood of the nation and its reaction to big events. From high profile crimes to welfare reforms, the system can follow a specific event as it trends on Twitter and reveal how people are feeling about it. The program can also analyse how the public mood changes over time following subsequent incidents or interventions. There are many applications for the new system, from use by the police to track potential criminal behaviour or threats to public safety, to guiding national policy on the best way to react to major incidents.

#emotions

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This ability to monitor how the public mood changes over time is particularly useful if assessing what interventions are most successful in calming civil unrest or concern.

“Following the murder of solider Lee Rigby in Woolwich there was an outpouring of sadness and disgust through Twitter,” Professor Jackson explains. “Across the country people expressed their emotions at this “Twitter is a very concise platform unprovoked attack, through which users with some using the express how they feel “Through the computer incident to incite about a particular event, program we have created racial hatred against be that a criminal act, a new Government policy we can collate these Muslims. Professor Jackson says that public postings through social media have enabled us to track very accurately how and what people are feeling.

or even a change in the weather,” he explains.

It is amazing what can be expressed in just 140 characters. From the mundane to the controversial, for more than 500 million people across the world Twitter is the communication tool of choice. But what can we learn from these bursts of information? With over 340 million tweets a day is it possible to extract data from such a large source? Academics at Loughborough University’s new Centre for Information Management say yes.

Dr Ann O’Brien was part of the research team that created the ontology for emotions used by EMOTIVE. She adds: “The ontology we created takes the eight emotions and gives them a rich linguistic context so that we can chart the strength of emotions expressed in ordinary language and also in slang. For any incident we can view how reactions grow and diminish over time.”

Researcher Dr Martin Sykora adds: “Our program and the entire natural language parsing engine were optimised for big data, so that a fifth of all tweets coming through Twitter every second can potentially be processed on a single, average machine. This copes with virtually all UK based Tweets, and adding further machines to the process can scale the analysis further.” So what next? The research team has already secured further funding, which will enable them to develop another prototype system that can automatically detect events, analyse emotions and extract more summary details of importance from the social-media sphere. They are also hoping to explore the possibility of predicting personality profiles from the natural language used on Twitter and similar social streams.

The EMOTIVE project was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

expressions of feelings in real time, map them geographically and track how they develop.”

“Through the computer program we have created we can collate these expressions of feelings in real time, map them geographically and track how they develop.”

“Two days after his murder his family appealed for calm, stating that their son would not have wanted his name to be used as an excuse to carry out attacks against others. This appeal had an almost immediate effect, leading to an outpour of positive sentiment.” EMOTIVE has been extensively tested and evaluated, achieving an F-measure – a measure commonly used to evaluate the performance of these types of systems – of 0.96, the best that has been reported for such a task. And although currently the system is only being used to analyse tweets in the UK it can easily be scaled up to monitor tweets globally, of which there are 10,000 a second.

Professor Tom Jackson and Dr Martin Sykora

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challenge

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elting polar ice caps and extreme weather events are just two examples of the effects of climate change quoted by scientists. Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are to blame they argue and we must reduce emissions of these gases if we are to stand a chance of addressing this issue. With legally binding carbon reduction targets now in place in the UK, the need to respond has never been greater. Improving the energy efficiency in existing homes is one way to make a significant contribution. A team of experts led by Loughborough have been working to identify the challenges and investigate technology that can assist the country to meet its national carbon reduction targets and help address the global problem of climate change.

the research & enterprise view

Pictured from the left are research team members Saim Memon, Becky Mallaband, Keyur Vadodaria, Professor Dennis Loveday, Professor Phil Eames and Vicky Haines

Project CALEBRE (Consumer Appealing Low Energy technologies for Building REtrofitting) has been a five year project co-ordinated by Dennis Loveday, Professor of Building Physics in the School of Civil and Building Engineering. The project focused on the challenges presented by ‘hard to heat, hard to treat’ properties. These are predominantly the 8.3 million solid wall houses which make up 34% of UK housing stock. “From the outset, the approach was to put householders’ perspectives and their lifestyles at the heart of our thinking around the technical developments and investigations that we undertook that could ultimately lead to refurbishment solutions that appeal to customers.” Professor Loveday explains. “We investigated a suite of techniques and technologies spanning the current, medium and longer term informed by householder perspectives and supported where appropriate by business case modelling. The methods we employed included laboratory investigations, field trials and modelling, together with use engagement techniques.” The CALEBRE project focused on three key areas – reducing heat demand, the efficient supply of heat and householder behaviour – with separate teams from six universities working on nine distinct but related projects across these areas. Researchers at Loughborough led projects which focused on householders’ appetite for improvement and their tolerance for change, on energy efficiency refurbishments and the technology of vacuum glazing. Loughborough academics were also a key part of the team looking at airtightness improvements and ventilation systems in domestic refurbishment.

the research & enterprise view

Householder attitudes To investigate attitudes, barriers and motivators to refurbishment the Loughborough team, led by Vicky Haines, Head of User Centred Design Research Group, carried out semi-structured interviews of households in owner occupied ‘hard to treat’ solid wall houses in the East Midlands. The aim was to uncover their reasons for carrying out past home improvements with a view to understanding the barriers and the motivations towards future refurbishments. The data highlighted a range of interrelated and sometimes rather intangible barriers to making home improvements to older properties. The primary barriers are information and awareness, hassle and cost. Findings indicated that people’s motivation to carry out refurbishment was not so much the need to save energy bur rather the desire to improve comfort and the need to repair.

Commenting on her research Vicky said: “We found that refurbishing people’s homes in an acceptable way is a complex process. Householders present a range of social and technical barriers to easy retrofit. By taking these into consideration it is possible to better design retrofit policies and practices that appeal to householders and align with their lifestyles.”

Vacuum glazing Window energy performance is seen as crucial for improving the energy performance of buildings. It is estimated that up to 90 million tonnes of CO2 emissions could be saved annually by 2020 if all Europe’s buildings were fitted with double-glazed insulating glass. This saving could be significantly increased if a higher performance glazing system was widely available. Vacuum glazing is such a system and leading the Project CALEBRE investigations in this area was Loughborough’s

Phil Eames, Professor of Renewable Energy and Director of the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST). The work was undertaken with Dr Trevor Hyde from the University of Ulster.

“With the introduction of the Government’s Green Deal for promoting large-scale domestic energy efficiency refurbishment the substantial work of Project CALEBRE is extremely timely.”

A range of vacuum glazings were fabricated using different techniques. They were extensively tested under laboratory conditions to assess thermal performance and durability. They were then installed in a test house where they were assessed again. They were tested a third time having been removed from the house. A range of edge seal materials and processes were also investigated and trialled.

“Our research has shown that high performance vacuum glazing has the potential to greatly reduce heat loss through the building envelope with a consequential reduction in carbon emissions,” says Professor Eames. “Further investigations are however required if commercialisation on a large scale is to be realised and we need to assess the attitude of planners and other statutory bodies to the wide scale deployment of this technology,” he adds.

Airtightness Existing homes in the UK have varying levels of airtightness. Improving it is important as leakage of air is a significant source of heat loss from homes. The Project CALEBRE team – Mark Gillott from Nottingham and Loughborough’s Professor Loveday and Keyur Vadodaria – sought to investigate how easy or challenging it is to achieve good airtightness when refurbishing a house. They measured the airtightness of a test house completely unrefurbished. They then carried out five successive stages of

refurbishment including conventional measures such as double glazing and then more advanced techniques such as the installation of a whole house mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system. Professor Loveday explains their findings: “Each set of applied retrofit measures contributed to an improvement in airtightness but with variable success. We found it is possible to refurbish a house for energy efficiency and it is possible to achieve high levels of airtightness through attention to detail and quality of workmanship. Energy saving can be achieved from properly installed modern mechanical ventilation and heat recovery systems.”

Members of the Loughborough team also contributed to work looking at the impact on energy and carbon savings of the order of retrofit of domestic energy efficiency measures. Overall the Project CALEBRE team have generated many academic papers and this work is ongoing. They have contributed significantly to the growing body of knowledge that can support the UK Government and industry in achieving reduced energy demand by the UK housing stock. The team is undertaking additional research on the projects already initiated and they aim to bring to commercial success some of the technologies investigated. Professor Loveday concludes: “With the introduction of the Government’s Green Deal for promoting large-scale domestic energy efficiency refurbishment the substantial work of Project CALEBRE is extremely timely.”

Project CALEBRE was an E.ON/ Research Councils UK funded research project undertaken by a team of six leading UK universities and led by Loughborough. The full Loughborough team comprised Professor Dennis Loveday, Professor Phil Eames, Dr Vicky Haines, Keyur Vadodaria, Becky Mallaband and Saim Memon. The other CALEBRE project partners were the Universities of Oxford, Warwick, Ulster, Nottingham and Heriot Watt University. Further information about all the CALEBRE research projects is available at www.calebre.org.uk

the research & enterprise view

faith, freedom and the power of innovation Back in 2007 Professor Colin Garner offered Andy Williams a research position in the University’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, with the open remit to come up with new ideas to improve the internal combustion engine. ndy, who had just finished a PhD in diesel exhaust after-treatment, repaid that faith in spades by inventing turbodischarging, which won the Intellectual Property category at the 2013 Enterprise Awards, and is now protected by a family of patents, including a granted GB patent and a host of published international patents.

Moreover, an invention which in principle can be used in any engine, from cars to lorries to ships to stationary power generation, has not only attracted interest from vehicle manufacturers but is being backed by AltEnergis, a London-based technology company, to help bring it to market. Not surprisingly, Dr Williams, now a lecturer in energy systems at Loughborough, is delighted that six years of hard work is starting to bear fruit. And he says that is all down to the faith shown in him in by Colin Garner, Professor of Applied Thermodynamics in the School. “I was put in a very privileged position when I finished my PhD here under the supervision of Professor Garner,” said Dr Williams.

the research & enterprise view

“He offered me a research associate post where he gave me the freedom to come up with some new ideas. He said be innovative and see what potential research areas we can come up with in terms of engine efficiency. “It was a very unusual position to be in and this is one of the concepts that came out of it. As far as we are aware the concept has not existed before 2007. I am very proud of it. I thought about it quite a lot as to what enabled that sort of innovation and I’m convinced it was the freedom and time to do it.” Professor Garner said Dr Williams had proved to be a superb innovator, adding: “Andy, characteristically, exceeded our high expectations and produced some truly outstanding innovations that have attracted widespread interest and significant external funding from both Government and industry. “Turbo-discharging is one such example that is a radically new approach to improving engine performance and efficiency. I am delighted that Andy now has a permanent academic position in our School and is leading many funded projects that he originated. He is a superb academic leader, collaborator, communicator and innovator.”

the research & enterprise

o what exactly is a turbo- discharger? Well, most people will have heard of turbochargers, which are now commonplace on car engines, and the two are similar but also complete opposites.

For while a turbo-charger pushes compressed air into an engine, leading to increased efficiency, a turbo-discharger sucks air out, with the same result. It’s a bit like putting a vacuum cleaner onto the engine exhaust, and by sucking out the burnt exhaust gases the pressure in the cylinders is reduced, as is the energy the engine must use to exhaust the burnt gases. Less energy used to move the gases through the engine means more energy out of the crankshaft, and therefore a more efficient engine, with more mpg, reduced CO2 emissions and better torque – provided the energy used to discharge does not require more fuel to be burnt. The turbo-discharger, which can be attached to both old and new engines, sits in the exhaust manifold with the exhaust gases driving a turbine, which in turn drives a compressor which sucks out the gases. The energy used is, therefore, energy contained in the exhaust gases which would otherwise have been wasted. “We are using the piston and the engine itself to recover energy from the exhaust gases,” says Dr Williams. “The idea is that you are tapping into free energy in a similar way to a turbo-charger.” A turbo-discharger can lead to an improvement of between 0.45 mpg and 2.7 mpg for a family car, lower CO2 emissions, and is expected to save the owner between £50 and £100 a year. While the turbo-discharger can be used in the automotive industry Dr Williams believes the stationary engine market will be the first to look at making use of it because savings are bigger on larger engines. And that market is huge, as many organisations like hospitals, factories, and supermarkets use stationary engines for power generation, either as back-up in case of power-cuts or as a substitute for the National Grid.

the research & enterprise view

Loughborough University, for example, has three Combined Heat and Power (CHP) engines and the smallest is a 32 litre engine, which is a monster compared to the average car engine of say 1.6 litres. In such situations the cost of a turbodischarger could be recouped in the first year of its 10 year life.

“The first market that will take it on, we think, will be the larger engines.”

Dr Williams said: “The benefit for a car, depending on your engine speed and torque, is about one to five per cent fuel economy.

Funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Technology Strategy Board, and the Royal Academy of Engineering, led to an 18 month feasibility project experimentally investigating and demonstrating turbo-discharging on a small automotive petrol engine in the engine test cells at Loughborough University. The commercialisation of the invention has been supported by the University’s Enterprise Office, which has been instrumental in obtaining the relevant patents and securing the license deal with AltEnergis.

“When you look at the annual savings in the automotive sector they are not that big. We very much see the power generation sector, where they burn much more fuel, as a first adopter. “The electricity sector is diversifying in terms of where its energy comes from. As part of the mix they are looking at distributed power generation where small engines produce both electricity and heat, and sometimes cooling as well. “So rather than generating a load of heat in a big power station somewhere far away, converting it into electricity and wasting the rest of the heat, they can make use of that heat locally. “On campus we now have three combined heat and power systems. From a layman’s perspective they are quite large engines. We are used to a couple of litre engines in our vehicles, and that one is 32, which is one of the smallest we would typically use. “And that supplies most of the air conditioning and heating and a significant amount of electricity for several of the University’s buildings. “They run at full power for a significant part of the day, so instead of a few hundred pounds of potential savings over a year, we are talking about thousands of pounds of potential savings.

Dr Williams, who has been helped by two PhD students, Alan Baker and Ramkumar Vijayakumar, spent a year doing calculations and simulations before contacting engine manufacturers.

Dr Williams said: “We carried on talking with industry and in the last few months we have signed an agreement to work with AltEnergis.

Dr Andy Williams (right) and PhD researcher Ramkumar Vijayakumar

He said: “There has been a lot of interest, a lot of people have said keep us up to date. Cost is always going to be the deciding factor. But imagine there is a weighing scale, the direction we are going in is always going to be towards adopting the technology.

“If we can show it working in practice on a real engine there will be indisputable evidence to say it does work and hopefully then get it into production.”

“I don’t foresee the cost of emitting CO2 reducing in the future, it’s likely to increase. The cost of the technology and the manufacturing process is unlikely to increase because it’s established, so if the fiscal benefits increase because the cost of C02 is rising, those scales are going to tip towards adopting the technology. It’s more a matter of when it becomes attractive to the automotive industry.”

Dr Williams says it has cost more than £0.5million to get this far and more investment will be needed before it comes to market.

Dr Williams says it can take years to get an invention from the drawing board into an engine but is hopeful of seeing his invention take off.

But he is encouraged by the level of interest shown by manufacturers.

“If you look at technologies that make it on to engines and trace back their roots they tend to have about a 60-80 year history.”

“So together with them we are now going from a research demonstrator on an automotive engine to a demonstrator on a larger engine, which is what the large engine industry want.

Jokingly he added: “Hopefully, we will get this on an engine and get some benefit from it before I retire.”

“When you look at the annual savings in the automotive sector they are not that big. We very much see the power generation sector, where they burn much more fuel, as a first adopter.”

the research & enterprise view

Thanks to London 2012, the profile of Paralympic sport has been raised beyond recognition, and Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s athletes have achieved unparalleled success. Behind the scenes, a specialist team of Loughborough sport scientists has been conducting pioneering research to further the understanding of the biomechanics and physiology of disabled athletes and identify the marginal gains that make the difference on the world stage.

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the research & enterprise view

the research & enterprise

Since 2005, the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport (PHC) in the University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences has spearheaded research in disability sport that has seen it become a leader in the field. Funded by the Peter Harrison Foundation, the Centre boasts a critical mass of specialist academics that is unmatched worldwide. The Centre’s strengths not only lie in its work with elite wheelchair athletes, but also in its research programme which spans the full spectrum from health and rehabilitation, and physical activity through to Paralympic sport. The PHC is made up of a core group of researchers and postgraduate students working across three key strands – sport science, psychosocial health and well-being, and performance health – with colleagues from other UK universities and overseas academics contributing to the research programme and enhancing the Centre’s international reputation. The Centre is working closely with both the British Paralympic Association (BPA) and English Institute of Sport (EIS) and members of the Centre are increasingly working with other organisations, such as ASPIRE, to further knowledge of disability sport, physical activity and the general health and well-being of people with a disability.

GB wheelchair rugby athlete Kylie Grimes also took part in testing at the Centre

the research & enterprise view

The list of sports they work with is on the increase too – wheelchair tennis, paratriathlon, sledge hockey, alpine skiing and goalball are just some of the sports the PHC has worked with in the last year, and new work is on the horizon with disability cricket.

Most recently, the Centre has signed an agreement with Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby (GBWR) and has appointed Research Associate Tom Paulson to work with the team as they aim for a podium spot at the Rio Paralympics. Tom will work closely with the players to explore their training then work with colleagues at the PHC to design a systematic research programme to give the team its best chance of medal success. Dr Vicky Tolfrey, the Centre’s Director, explains: “Whilst wheelchair rugby has had access to some form of sports science advice, they’ve never had an embedded physiologist, or the kind of resource we can offer here at the PHC. “So when Tom is asked questions by the Head Coach or a problem from the team medic that needs addressing, he has a team of experts in sport science and wheelchair sport to call on. In the past, we’ve been an 'add-on' to help solve a problem and we’ve only had a limited opportunity to collect the data. But by having a scientist who can see and be in the environment – like a fly-on-the-wall – we can systematically plan solutions to the problems and hopefully plan a strategy in advance. The research is being driven through the sport, with our knowledge assisting, so it’s a better package we’re offering wheelchair rugby. “And because we’re embedded in the sport, we can use a more crossdisciplinary approach where we’re working with the relevant practitioners (such as physiotherapists and doctors) to address the problem as a whole.” In addition to this work, the PHC has embarked on another exciting project with the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation (IWRF) to understand playing demands of the sport. A joint project between Loughborough, UK Sport, McLaren Applied Technologies and the University of Nottingham has led to the development of a new indoor tracking system which means players’ on-court movements can be accurately tracked for the very first time.

The system provides valuable feedback on distances covered, speeds reached, the number of high intensity bursts and time spent in certain speed zones, as well as player positioning. The data can be used to understand what players of different classifications achieve during competition, and to plan more specific training programmes to help maximise performance and minimise risk of injury. PHC staff have collected live player tracking data at this summer’s IWRF European and Americas Championships. The findings will be analysed, and are a vital component in helping the GB team move up from fourth position in the world rankings as well as furthering the sports knowledge. “If we can understand the demands of the sport we can help design more individualised training programmes,” explains Dr Tolfrey. “And if we understand where improvements can be made, we can put a training strategy in place to enhance performance.” Whilst many of the established sport science practices can be applied to disability sport, the researchers face some unique challenges when it comes to applying that knowledge. For example, athletes with spinal cord injuries have a reduced sweating capacity, which means they cannot control their body temperature as well as non-disabled athletes during play. The team is currently working on a project to identify appropriate cooling strategies with a focus on helping athletes at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. Dr Tolfrey adds: “Without an effective sweating response, these athletes experience a continual rise in core temperature during exercise, putting them at a heightened risk of heat illness. We are working with the sport to determine appropriate cooling strategies that could be applied to reduce this risk whilst ensuring performancei s not affected.”

GB triathlete Phil Hogg underwent testing at the Peter Harrison Centre

“If we understand where improvements can be made, we can put a training strategy in place to enhance performance.” The PHC also aims to apply its knowledge from elite sport to rehabilitation by ensuring significant research findings are translated into practical outputs and guidelines to help inform disability and medical practitioners in sport and rehabilitation centres. A programme funded by the Coca-Cola Active Healthy Living Grant has enabled researchers in the PHC to develop a series of online and printed resources, as well as an educational toolkit, to cover all tiers of the sporting spectrum from rehabilitation to elite performance. The inclusion of the PHC within the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine – East Midlands (NCSEM), a £10million Government-funded Olympic legacy project that will be physically housed at Loughborough, will be a key driver in helping disseminate its research. “We have a great presence at Paralympic level that’s attracting a keen interest from sports, the BPA and the International Paralympic Committee, but we also need to establish our presence more at a rehabilitation level,” says Dr Tolfrey. “This is already happening through Dr Brett Smith's work, and is now firmly a part of the PHC's strategy with the introduction of the performance health arm to our research work led by Dr Lettie Bishop. “We’re working with researchers at the rehabilitation end, and we’re finding common interests. Moving to the NCSEM will increase our visibility in the clinical sector and will enable more of our research to inform rehabilitation practices.”

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a universal credit? R

eform of welfare provision in the UK is firmly in the national spotlight. The changes being made today by the current Coalition Government are the latest chapter in the long history of the welfare state. A glance through that history demonstrates the profound influence that philanthropists and social researchers have had on shaping the way the state supports the poor and vulnerable. The work of figures like Joseph Rowntree and Charles Booth provided a stimulus to the pioneering legislation introduced by David Lloyd George and the Liberals in the early 20th Century.

the research & enterprise view

the research & enterprise

oday research continues to add to the debate and influence policy development. Leading the way are academics including Donald Hirsch from Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP), whose study on Universal Credit offers the first detailed look at how the new system will impact on families’ ability to make ends meet. The legacy of Rowntree remains important too, as The View found out. “The Centre for Research in Social Policy is an independent research centre based in the Department of Social Sciences. It was established in 1983 and specialises in applied research and policy analysis on issues around poverty and the living standards of low income households,” explains Donald. “I joined in 2008 having spent much of my career analysing social policy as a journalist, with the OECD and as a consultant,” he adds. Donald’s work as a consultant helped establish a focus for much of the current work of CRSP and it is here that the name Rowntree emerges again. “At CRSP I have directed a major series of studies on a Minimum Income Standard that I initiated as an advisor to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). They are providing the funding for our work and their vision and commitment to it is invaluable – they fund us not just to carry out our research but also to analyse and disseminate its results and to support its application in policy and practice.

Donald Hirsch

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“Our research on the Minimum Income Standard is a mix of qualitative and quantitative work. The qualitative side examines what items people need to live – to achieve an acceptable standard of living. We work with members of the public recruited in a random way. They discuss what people in their demographic group need. Having identified the goods and services that would go into a minimum budget we then find out how much these goods and services would cost. Next, we work out what people would need to earn or get from the benefits system to reach that minimum acceptable standard of living. This opens the way to quantitative analysis of people’s actual incomes relative to this benchmark,” Donald explains.

Major studies have been carried out every two years since 2008. Inflation updates are carried out every other year. “These updates are important in the current context because life has changed a great deal for people economically in the last few years and we want to know how people are responding in terms of what their expectations are, how the minimum standard should be defined and how this relates to both earnings and the benefit system.” The 2012 report revealed that there is a growing gulf between expectations of the living standard everyone should be able to afford and their ability to earn enough to achieve it. About a quarter of households in the UK fall short of the income required to reach an adequate standard of living and increases in costs intensify the everyday struggle to make ends meet. This context of what an adequate standard of living is provides an important starting point for the CRSP work on Universal Credit. “The whole benefit system is being reformed under the current administration,” outlines Donald. “Universal Credit is a single payment the Government has introduced which is designed to integrate the way in which working age people on low incomes get support. It gives a single payment in a straight forward way, which is reduced when people work or work more. “There has been a great deal of discussion about winners and losers under the new system. But we feel there is a missing part of the analysis and that is whether work in combination with the benefits system gives people what they need. Our research helps evaluate that.” The research, published in July, assessed how Universal Credit affected take home pay once childcare costs were taken into account and considered whether the Universal Credit system meets its central aim of making work pay and whether it enables low earning families to reach a minimum acceptable living standard. It looked at a number of different household types and how their income changes by working more hours on the minimum wage. They included a couple with two young children, a lone parent with two young children and those without children.

“One of the main ways people can enhance their income is to work longer hours. But Universal Credit decreases after a certain level and it appears that level is not at an adequate point that will allow them to cover their basic needs as defined by our work on minimum standards,” comments Donald. “Childcare costs are critical in all of this. Working longer hours often requires extra childcare provision, the costs of which have risen. As a result families with children who work full time could find themselves with less disposable cash than those who work part time under Universal Credit. There is an ‘hours trap’ faced by families in the current system.”

our method. The methodology can also be applied effectively in ways which we had not originally anticipated. We have done projects looking at the Minimum Income Standards in remote rural areas for example and we are talking to organisations about assessing the additional costs disabilities may bring to a family. There is a great deal more that can be done and we look forward to having an impact on policy debate and, we hope, decisions that affect people’s lives in the years ahead.”

Donald points out that CRSP is not a lobby group but acknowledges that its funders and others use the evidence base provided by CRSP research to seek to influence key decision makers and policy direction. “There is some evidence that this is being successful. The Government has drawn back from a decision to make a cut in childcare allowances under Universal Credit and there is even a proposal to increase support for some families receiving Universal Credit from 70% to 85% of their childcare costs. More directly, we have an influence on what thousands of workers are paid – our results are used to set the national Living Wage outside London, which has been taken up by an increasing number of employers, including Loughborough University itself.” Whilst Donald has led on CRSP’s work on the Minimum Income Standard and Universal Credit he is quick to pay tribute to the rest of the CRSP team and the work they do on this and other research projects. “I was attracted to Loughborough and CRSP because of its long and distinguished history. I have a splendid team who are highly skilled researchers. It is a great pleasure to work with them,” he adds. Going forward Donald anticipates that there will be a continuing demand for the research expertise of CRSP. “There is certainly a need to monitor what happens to the Minimum Income Standard as society changes. There is also considerable scope to expand the principles of our research internationally, and teams in five other countries including France and Japan have already been applying

“There has been a great deal of discussion about winners and losers under the new system. But we feel there is a missing part of the analysis and that is whether work in combination with the benefits system gives people what they need. Our research helps evaluate that.”

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Simon H o w r oy d

Professor Rob Th r i n g

Ashley F ly

AAA dddrrriiivvviiinnnggg fffooorrrccceee

ffoorr cha channggee Surviving the demise of oil is a global challenge. In a world that is ruled by this precious finite resource what is being done to ensure we have alternative, reliable and trusted technologies in place to keep the wheels turning?

Amy CamPbell

mike Wh i t e l e y

At Loughborough University the next generation of engineers are tackling this challenge head on. 22

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the research & enterprise

Amy Campbell

A driving force

S i m o n H o w r oy d

f o r cha n g e The Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering is home to the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) in Hydrogen Fuel Cells and their Applications. The £5 million DTC is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and has bases at Loughborough and the Universities of Birmingham and Nottingham. It is committed to nurturing graduates that can push forward the development of fuel cells and have the skills industry want and need. The DTC at Loughborough was established in 2009 and is currently home to eight PhD students. It is led by Professor Rob Thring. “Fuel cells are incredibly important for two key reasons,” Professor Thring explains. “Firstly they offer a viable alternative to petrol and diesel engines – which are dependent on a finite resource that the world relies heavily on, and secondly they are, on the whole, nonpolluting. But to ensure their continued development and adoption by society you need to have skilled engineers who are continually developing and pushing the boundaries of this technology. “The objective of the DTC has always been to graduate PhD students in the field of hydrogen fuel cells and their applications who are industry ready,” Professor Thring adds. “To achieve this objective the DTC was established with close collaborative links with industry, and indeed some of these industry partners sponsor the work of our PhD students.” To discover more about the research being carried out at the DTC Judy Wing went to meet some of the team:

Wha t i s a f u e l c eciltylfro?m an

rate electri d Fuel cells gene hich oxygen an al reaction in w veral se e ar e electrochemic er Th . ater bine to form w sed hydrogen com t they are all ba bu ll ce el fu of s o pe ty tw nt of re ts is diffe cons l design which ode. th ca e tiv si around a centra po ode and a an e tiv ga that ne te a ly uid electro electrodes, by a solid or liq d o te tw ra e pa th n se e These ar les betwee charged partic lly n te ca of tri is ec , el um es carri platin talyst, such as s. electrodes. A ca of the electrode ns tio ac re e th up d ee at used to sp el cells is th n benefits of fu One of the mai ide into ox di rbon they emit no ca e. er ph os the atm 24

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Amy originally graduated from Loughborough in 2005 with a degree in International Business. She then returned to the School of Civil and Building Engineering to complete a Masters in Sustainable Transport before joining the DTC, where her research is looking at why people continue to reject zero emissions cars.

Simon completed his undergraduate degree, focusing on controlled engineering for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), at Loughborough’s Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering in 2011.

M i k e Wh i t e l e y It is Mike’s commitment to eco-friendly living that led him to apply to be part of the DTC. After completing an undergraduate degree and a Masters in climate change and sustainable development, his interest in environmentally friendly technologies – and in particular fuel cells – was ignited. “There are three hurdles which prevent fuel cells at this point in time from being adopted,” Mike explains. “Firstly they are quite expensive to produce, secondly lack of infrastructure – for people to use fuel cell powered vehicles you need fuel cell refuelling centres – and finally reliability. My area of research is in modelling the degradation and lifetime reliability of fuel cells. “Transport is the UK’s second biggest polluter, accounting for almost 25% of the country’s C02 emissions. But if you want people to ditch the trusted internal combustion engine and replace it with a greener fuel cell powered vehicle, you have to demonstrate their reliability. A general requirement is that a fuel cell would need to last over 150,000 miles or 5,000 hours of operation, which is the same as your average internal combustion engine. This is still not, on the whole, being achieved and therefore reliability needs to be improved to make fuel cells a viable alternative. I am trying to improve the reliability by testing fuel cells, investigating technical failures, understanding why they have occurred and attempting to prevent them from going wrong in the future.”

He jumped at the chance to be part of the DTC and continue his research into UAVs, focusing on the role fuel cells could play in their future use and development. “Fuel cells were very new to me when I embarked on this PhD,” Simon explains. “But I knew I had the knowledge and ability to demonstrate their potential for use in UAVs. “At present there isn’t a large demand for UAVs – outside the military – because their fly time is restricted by the battery power you can equip them with. Traditional batteries are heavy, which means you can only place so many within a UAV and keep it airborne. What I am hoping to demonstrate is that through adopting fuel cells – which although still heavy can offer a much greater flight time – into UAV design we can expand their use in the civilian world. Applications for fuel cell powered UAVs could be far ranging, from postal delivery and media use to large scale search and rescue operations.” Simon has created a demonstrator UAV, powered by fuel cells, to illustrate the potential of harnessing this emerging technology.

A s h l e y F ly Ashley also completed his undergraduate degree at Loughborough’s Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. His area of research is focused on methods to keep fuel cell powered engines in vehicles cool.

“Clearly society’s reliance on the conventional car cannot go on indefinitely, natural resources are finite,” Amy says. “But there are a lot of obstacles that need to be overcome to get people to consider the alternatives. Not only is this a technological issue but it is also about consumer behaviour, which is the area I am interested in. “Zero emissions vehicles exist at present but people still aren’t buying them. I want to understand why those who have the means to purchase a zero emissions vehicle are not doing so.”

“Fuel cells that we put into vehicles work at a much lower temperature than the internal combustion engine, so to keep them cool and reject the heat produced through operation you need much larger radiators,” Ashley says. “Everything is a compromise in engineering, having a larger radiator is more costly, it has a negative impact on the aerodynamics of a vehicle so it is less fuel efficient and then there is aesthetics. No one is going to adopt a new type of vehicle unless it is equal or better than those already available. The system I am working on includes evaporating water, then claiming some of this water back to keep the fuel cell powered engine cool.” Ashley has been working on a simulation of this concept, and has also built a test rig to enable him to validate his findings and demonstrate the cooling system in action. Once this stage is complete he will then look at perfecting and modifying the design further. “At the end of my PhD I want to be able to say that this system will solve the problem,” he adds.

Amy has completed her data collection, which involved a survey of 400 people based in Birmingham. This was to establish how attitudes and perceptions in relation to both conventional and zero emissions vehicles are influencing the non-adoption of greener alternatives, and where opportunities might exist for converting rejection into adoption. “Vehicle manufacturers are making these cars and they want people to buy them,” she adds. “We need to know what it is that is stopping people from adopting these new vehicles and if these barriers can be overcome. Can consumer attitudes be changed through better marketing? Is it simply a case of raising people’s awareness of the benefits of these new vehicles? I am hoping to find the answers.” the research the research & enterprise & enterprise view

Building

a healthy

legacy

Professor Mark Lewis visits the site of the new National Centre

A new centre is under construction in the heart of the Loughborough campus that will help deliver a lasting health legacy from the 2012 London Olympic Games. The National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine - East Midlands was kick-started in January 2012 by the announcement of a £10million investment from the Department of Health, and is one of three national centres (the others are in Sheffield and London) tasked with improving the nation’s health and preventing the onset of disease. The East Midlands Centre is a joint initiative between Loughborough University, the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester, Nottingham University NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust. Housed at Loughborough, it will bring together the region’s experts in sport and exercise medicine to achieve a varied brief across disease prevention, chronic disease, sports injuries and musculoskeletal health, mental health and well-being and performance health. The building has been designed to promote collaboration between academics and practitioners, who will see patients in one of its many consultancy rooms or specialist spaces. Where analysis of blood or tissue samples are required, they can be processed and analysed in the neighbouring Clyde Williams Building.

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“We know exercise has an important role to play in improving the health of the nation, through the prevention of the development of many common diseases, and our job within the National Centre is to provide the evidence base for that. Our research will ultimately inform the content of public health messaging, and a key part of our role will be ensuring the correct messages are disseminated.

pecialist equipment including an MRI scanner and a CAREN (Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment) – an interactive balance system that can be used to train, evaluate and rehabilitate – will all be fitted and will be used by a range of academics within the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. This close-coupling of doctors, researchers and specialist equipment on one site is central to helping accelerate the translation of research findings into patient care and front line practice. Professor Mark Lewis, Dean of the University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences is leading the project for Loughborough. He explains: “The National Centre will bring patients onto the University campus en masse for the very first time. It has been packed with features to enable our academics to conduct more research on site, from specialist scanners and machines, to consulting rooms with two-way mirrors and purpose-built laboratories.

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“We will also contribute to the ’exercise is medicine’ agenda – helping those with diseases such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and osteoarthritis alleviate their symptoms through exercise and enjoy a better quality of life. “At the other end of the spectrum, we will undertake research into injury prevention and will work with those with an injury on their rehabilitation. “For Loughborough, housing this Centre is a real coup. We’re expanding our sport science knowledge into medicine and the implication for the University is huge; we will have a medical facility on our campus which interrelates and benefits from the very best research in exercise science.” The Centre was recently boosted with news that it will benefit from some of the £7.4 million grant awarded to Loughborough by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) through its Catalyst Fund. Part of the funding will help support the initiation stage of the Centre, and some will be used to buy specialist equipment including the MRI scanner. It will also fund a team of translational scientists and a marketing specialist to disseminate and deploy research findings into the healthcare community, to achieve a rapid rise in understanding of the potential of sport and exercise medicine for patients.

Away from the Centre, the funding will help the University build new collaborative and sustainable research capacity in sport and exercise medicine across its engineering, technology and sport science disciplines. It will be used for key new appointments including senior academic posts in rehabilitative medicine, healthcare technologies and regenerative medicine, and a series of new PhD posts for clinicians. It will ultimately strengthen Loughborough’s position as a leader in sports and exercise medicine research.

Artist’s impressions of how the new centre will look

Pro Vice Chancellor (Research) Professor Myra Nimmo, whose team completed the HEFCE bid, and who in her previous role as Dean of the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences was a major player in bringing the National Centre to Loughborough, says: “This funding will benefit directly the East Midlands Centre through our existing partnership, and will reach wider patient groups through the national network. “It will enhance our ability at Loughborough to draw on expertise within our strong engineering and technology disciplines, and use it in our sport and health research, which will ultimately lead to new approaches to patient care, disease management and prevention. I am delighted to see this project develop under the leadership of Professor Mark Lewis.” The National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine – East Midlands is due for completion in 2014.

“For Loughborough, housing this Centre is a real coup. We’re expanding our sport science knowledge into medicine and the implication for the University is huge; we will have a medical facility on our campus which interrelates and benefits from the very best research in exercise science.”

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Project seeks to educate the educators about engineering for the developing world

those teaching them also have a good understanding.

Engineering has a crucial role to play in improving the quality of life for millions of people across the globe, from providing clean drinking water to improving access to education.

“There are hundreds of engineering lecturers across the UK, teaching everything from product design to civil engineering, but very few of these have any experience of the developing world. To ensure this information can cascade down to the student community we need to educate the lecturers.”

niversity academics are part of a unique European-wide project to teach the next generation of engineers about the needs of people living in the developing world.

But despite thousands of students graduating with degrees in engineering each year, few leave university with an understanding of the needs and challenges faced by the developing world.

During the course of the two-year project new teaching materials for lecturers will be created that help integrate engineering for the developing world into the curricula. Short training courses will also be offered and a network for relevant academic staff created. Academics from institutions in Italy and Spain will be developing the same for their respective countries. Charities Practical Action and Engineers without Borders are also partners in the project, which is supported by the Higher Education Academy. All are keen to see a growing interest in graduate engineers wanting to use their skills to support the developing world.

This new project is hoping to address this issue by providing better training and resources for engineering lecturers. Dr Rhoda Trimingham from the Loughborough Design School is leading the UK’s part in the study, along with lecturer Brian Reed from the University’s Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC). She explains: “If we want our students to have a better understanding of how their skills could benefit the developing world, we need to ensure

Dr Trimingham added: “Charities and the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in these countries support this project because they recognise there is a real need to encourage new talent into the sector. To do this we need to inspire them and offer them opportunities to get involved whilst they are still at university.” The €662,330 ‘Global Dimension of Engineering Education (GDEE): Cross cutting development into technology studies’ project is funded by the European Commission.

Major milestone for Loughborough’s London campus Earlier this year iCITY signed its deal with the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), marking a major milestone in the establishment of Loughborough University in London. The deal secures the long-term future of the former Press and Broadcast Centres on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which will be home to Loughborough University in London.

Professor Russell Harris hands over the new skull to Senior Curator Laura Hadland.

New Richard III 3D printed skull presented to Guildhall exhibition A

new and incredibly detailed 3D printed replica of King Richard III’s skull has been loaned by Loughborough University to the Leicester Guildhall exhibition, which charts the discovery of his remains in the city. Experts from Loughborough’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering were invited to make a replica of the King’s skeleton by the University of Leicester, who led the search for the lost monarch. Loughborough transformed scan data into a 3D computer model and laser sintering – a technique that uses a high power laser to fuse small particles of materials into a mass that has a threedimensional shape – was then used to create a physical replica of the skull.

RAG named the best in the country

The first version created by the Loughborough team was on display at the Leicester City Council’s exhibition – ‘Richard III: Leicester’s Search for a King’ – at The Guildhall since February and was one of the key exhibits.

Loughborough Students’ Union RAG (Raise and Give) society has been named the best in the country.

Since this time the team have continued their work on replicating the King’s skull, and using more in depth data and refined production techniques they have been able to create a stunning new copy. The updated skull is vastly more detailed, illustrating even more clearly the injuries sustained by Richard III in his final moments, and is now on display at The Guildhall exhibition.

They beat off competition from universities across the UK to win RAG of the Year at the National RAG Awards. Over the past year, Loughborough RAG has raised a total of £1,080,724 which

the campus view

will now be donated to local and national charities. Loughborough RAG Chair Paul Nanson is grateful to all those who volunteered. He said: “It’s absolutely amazing. It has made all of our hard work throughout the year worth it. “It also shows that what we do doesn’t affect just the students but affects everyone throughout the UK. We are really proud of it.”

Professor Russell Harris – head of the University’s Additive Manufacturing Research Group – is leading Loughborough’s involvement in the project. He said: “We are absolutely delighted with the new skull. It is incredibly more detailed than the previous version, and will be invaluable for future studies.”

The new skull (left) next to the original version.

Laura Hadland, Senior Curator for the Leicester Arts and Museums Service said: “85,000 people have visited the Guildhall exhibition so far and many of them have commented on how much the 3D skull model adds to their understanding of the battle trauma that the King suffered. We are hopeful that this higher resolution model will take this understanding even further.” Professor Harris and his team are continuing their work to create a complete copy of Richard III’s full skeleton, which it is hoped will form part of the permanent visitor’s centre being created in Leicester, due to open next year.

The new campus will offer a range of full- and part-time postgraduate and executive courses for UK and overseas students. Teaching and research disciplines confirmed to date include business and management, media and communications, digital technologies and sport. As part of the wider project, iCITY will design a world-leading hub for the creative and digital industries, promoting collaboration and innovation between academic institutions, start-up businesses and established global companies.

Pictured from the left, Professor Mike Caine, Dean of Loughborough University in London, and Vice Chancellor Professor Robert Allison discuss the plans for the new campus with Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Loughborough University Vice Chancellor Professor Robert Allison said: “We would like to congratulate both the LLDC and iCITY on the signing. We are delighted to be part of the vision for Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and are looking forward to establishing Loughborough University in London.”

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “iCITY is the final jewel in the crown of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and as a world class digital hub that will employ thousands of people I’m delighted to welcome them on board.”

Gavin Poole, CEO of iCITY, said: “We are delighted that iCITY has reached this milestone and that the future of the former Press and Broadcast Centres is secure. This billion pound investment provides significant jobs, training and education opportunities and is central to the ongoing regeneration of East London. “iCITY is at the heart of the economic and social legacy from London 2012. It will provide much needed infrastructure, commercial space and capacity for the digital and creative industries, the UK’s fastest growing sectors of the economy, as well as much needed studio space in London. These buildings present an incredible opportunity to the creative and media sector enjoying unrivalled connectivity and power.”

Dennis Hone, Chief Executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation, added: “We said we’d transform wasteland in east London into one of Europe’s largest parks filled with award-winning sports venues that people will love, and we delivered. We said from the very beginning there would be no white elephants on the Park – and we’ve kept our promise. Now, by securing high quality tenants in the technology and education sectors, we will be providing thousands of jobs – and we remain firmly on track to deliver a meaningful physical and social legacy for Londoners.” Further information about Loughborough University in London is available from www.lboro.ac.uk/london

Loughborough to play key role in the ‘industrial revolution’ for regenerative medicine T

hree UK Research Councils are to invest £25million in research and equipment to support the development of regenerative medicine therapies for a range of applications, including Parkinson’s disease, cardiovascular disease, wound and musculoskeletal repair, eye disorders and deafness. Loughborough will be one of three universities that will set up a new £4.5million ‘Hub’ for pluripotent stem cell research as part of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform (UKRMP), funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC). The Hub will work with the other strands of the UKRMP to tackle some of the critical challenges in developing new regenerative treatments from discoveries made in the lab.

A further £20million of capital funding from the MRC will provide state-of-the-art facilities and equipment to support the work of the UKRMP and the wider regenerative medicine research community. At present, experimental regenerative therapies involve the use of relatively small numbers of cells, usually prepared by laboratory researchers. To be able to treat the thousands of patients who could benefit from regenerative medicine, scientists ultimately need to be able to scale-up these efforts to reliably and repeatedly manufacture thousands of millions of cells under uniform and controlled conditions. The aim of the Hub is to lay the initial foundations for scaling up the production of cell-based therapies from a ‘cottage industry’ to an industrial scale. It will develop a set of protocols for manufacturing cell therapies that meet the requirements of doctors, regulators and industry and tackle key challenges.

Initially they will focus on two disease areas – Parkinson’s disease and deafness – where efforts to develop cell therapies are already well underway. The researchers will work closely with commercial companies from the start to ensure that the procedures they develop are commercially viable. The Hub will be led by the Universities of Sheffield, Loughborough and Cambridge and builds on existing capabilities within MRC and EPSRC Centres and the UK Stem Cell Bank. It will also collaborate with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Babraham Institute and will complement the work of the existing UKRMP research Hubs.

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England squad selects Loughborough as Rugby League World Cup 2013 base The Rugby Football League has announced that the England squad will be based at Loughborough University in the build-up to and during Rugby League World Cup 2013. The England team will arrive in Loughborough in mid-October to commence their preparations for the tournament that will bring together the top 14 rugby league teams in the world to compete over five weeks in venues across England, Wales, Ireland and France. England have been frequent visitors to the University since their first preparation camp back in October 2010. Speaking of the initial decision to make Loughborough their preparation base, Steve McNamara, England Head Coach, said:

“We also wanted to take the players out their comfort zone away from normal environments. Plus in the past we have been a bit nomadic, so we wanted to create our own identity here.” Kevin Sinfield, the England Rugby League Captain added: “There’s a familiarity with us coming to Loughborough now. Over the last two and half years we have built and improved a lot having this as our base. “To be in this sort of environment where everybody here is trying to learn, improve or better themselves, we fit in great because that’s what we are trying to do.

“The (Burleigh Court) hotel is fantastic and they really look after us. The facilities here “We chose Loughborough for a number of are as good as you can get anywhere and reasons. Firstly we were looking for an elite really suit what we need.” sporting environment, which Loughborough fits the bill.

“It is hugely significant to have a team like England Rugby League here preparing for the biggest matches of their lives.”

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For the University the announcement builds on the momentum from hosting Team GB last year prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games. Peter Keen, Director of Sport at Loughborough University, said: “It is hugely significant to have a team like England Rugby League here preparing for the biggest matches of their lives. “For me, it validates everything that we are about and stand for. It confirms that we have what you need to operate at the highest level in sport, that we are able to put together the kind of environment, package and support that makes sense for them, given the choices they have, to come and prepare here. “For us it is also that opportunity to learn, to study and to interact with sport practice at the very highest level. It’s that classic win win.” Rugby League World Cup 2013 starts on 26th October with a clash against fierce rivals England and Australia at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The final will be played at Old Trafford, Manchester on 30th November. Further information, including ticket details, can be found on the Rugby League World Cup 2013 website at:

England Rugby League Captain Kevin Sinfield trains at Loughborough University

www.rlwc2013.com/world_cup

the sports view

Loughborough cricketers help England to regain the Ashes

ngland’s women cricketers have regained the Ashes after a comprehensive series of performances against Australia.

Ellie Simmonds to relocate to Loughborough Ellie Simmonds and her long-standing coach Billy Pye have announced that the 18 year old swimming star will relocate her training base to the University.

The team, which included a number of players with Loughborough connections, won the first ever multi-format Ashes series by an emphatic margin of 12 points to four.

Ellie will be relocating to Loughborough following the IPC World Swimming Championships, where she secured a hat-trick of gold medals in the S6 category 100m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle and 200m Individual Medley.

After drawing the Test Match and losing the first One Day International (ODI), England were 4-2 down in the series, and left the home side needing to win four of the last five matches to be sure of regaining the Ashes.

The move will provide Ellie with the opportunity to utilise the world-class facilities available in Loughborough, while allowing her to return to the close proximity of her family home, which is located in the Midlands.

But the team went on a tremendous five match unbeaten run, winning the two remaining ODI’s and completing a clean sweep of all three T20 matches. Current Loughborough Sport Scholar Natalie Sciver made her Ashes debut in the second ODI, scoring 26 not out to help England to a 51-run victory, and level the series 4-4.

James Dasaolu

In the second T20 match former Loughborough student Lydia Greenway hit 80 runs to set up another victory for England, and to take the series score to 10-4, the required number of points to regain the Ashes.

PA images

Natalie kept her place in the team for the rest of the series, and finished with a batting average of 100, after being given ‘out’ only once in her five innings.

Sprinter James breaks through the 10 second barrier

Cricketer Natalie Sciver in action

In the final T20 match Natalie Sciver again played a key role in the middle order, scoring 37 not out off 44 balls, plus claiming the wicket of Australia batter Jess Cameron, to help England claim victory. The Loughborough contingent who played their part in the success included current Sport Scholar Anya Shrubsole, former coach Katherine Brunt, and graduates Laura Marsh, Tammy Beaumont and Arran Brindle.

Sprinter and former student, James Dasaolu, has become only the fourth British man to run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres. Ellie Simmonds

Ellie’s new coach at Loughborough will be Steve Bayley, while Pye, who has guided the Paralympic star since her relocation to Swansea six years ago, will continue to work with her while she is away at competitions and on training camps.

PA images

“The last six years with Billy have been absolutely incredible and I can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done for me,” said the four-time Paralympic gold medallist. “I'm hugely lucky to have had him supporting me all these years and I'm extremely grateful for his support in assisting my move to Loughborough.

James ran a fantastic time of 9.91 seconds to set the second quickest time ever run by a Briton at the British Athletics Championships and World trials held in Birmingham. His time has only been bettered domestically by Linford Christie, who holds the British record with a time of 9.87 seconds set in 1993. James, who is based at the British Athletics National Performance Centre on campus, initially moved to Loughborough in 2008. His recent progression and development has been credited to a new training programme managed by British Athletics’ Sprints Coach Steve Fudge at the Performance Centre.

“Loughborough’s obviously an incredible campus, with an unrivalled sporting heritage that will provide me with an exciting new challenge and an opportunity to push myself even further.

Speaking after the race James Dasaolu said: “It was an incredible feeling to post the 9.91 time and it makes it even more special for it to have come in front of the British public.

“It’s great that I can remain involved with Billy and I look forward to being able to work with him at camps and competitions.”

“It’s been on the cards for a while now. I have been running well under the guidance of my coach Steve Fudge and going into this week I felt that it could be the weekend that I go sub-10.”

Steve Bayley, Simmonds’ new Head Coach, said: “The fact that Ellie has chosen Loughborough as her new training base demonstrates how our swimming programme continues to attract some of the biggest names in the sport.

Later in the season James once again ran under 10 seconds, recording a time of 9.97 seconds in the 100 metre semi-finals at the 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow.

“I know that we will give Ellie a warm welcome when she joins our programme. Also for me personally I am relishing the opportunity to work with Ellie and be her new coach for the next stage of her career.” 34

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