The year that has seen the opening
of the Scottish and Welsh national assemblies has also witnessed the setting
up of the English Regional Development Agencies to promote economic development
and social and physical regeneration. Central Government
policy is giving progressively greater weight to the regional role of
higher education too, and this University will be part of the new Higher
Education Regional Development Association for the South West.
It already plays an
important role in the region. In its sheer physical presence the
University has a profound influence on the City of Bristol and the South
West.
In addition,
24% of its graduates who go into permanent employment remain in the region.
The University is a major source of sports facilities and cultural events
and hosts a wide range of open lectures, conferences and exhibitions.
Members of the University contribute to many local organisations, official
and voluntary.
Currently 16% of the University�s
undergraduates come from the South West. As part of the University�s strategy
to widen participation it aims to double the intake from local state schools
over the next two years. The following items give a small selection of
the many recent initiatives to forge even closer links with the region.
Six steps
to fame: one step to heaven
Six steps to fame - one step
to heaven was a mini-musical based on the hopes and aspirations of
young people living in an area where obstacles to success are legion.
It was written by the actors themselves and facilitated by students. The
performance took place before a large and enthusiastic audience drawn
from the local community in Knowle West, a district of Bristol hampered
by high levels of social exclusion. The actors were members of the Eagle
Centre, the only youth club on the estate.
For third-year students in the Drama
Department this was the culmination of their half-year course on Democratising
Performance. Run by Baz Kershaw, Professor of Drama, the course draws
on an international movement to reinforce democracy through the arts and
includes training in facilitating and organising workshops, as well as
study of the democratic potential of theatre. At the Eagle Centre in Knowle
West and also at the YMCA Youth Club in nearby Totterdown, students led
interactive workshops to develop drama and theatre skills, and aimed to
extend the creative vocabulary of the young people, exploring such issues
as sexism, racism and family life in the community. Out of the workshops
grew Six steps to fame and, at Totterdown, An evening of Forum Theatre.
Phil Cotgreave, the Manager of Youth
Services for South Bristol, was especially impressed by the performance,
and both youth clubs are anxious for a return visit next year. The students,
fully supported by the Drama Department and their Professor, developed
professional relationships with youth service workers and creative partnerships
with the young people. They were assessed at the end of the course on
the basis of written academic work, the culminating performances, and
a critical review by each student of his or her own contribution. The
effect of the project on the young people and their communities is impossible
to assess at this stage, but there are plans to extend it in the near
future.
Improving
standards of care in surgery
Who judges the success of an operation? The surgeon and the General Practitioner
are aware of the outcome, but what of the patient? In a new project Martin
Birchall, Consultant Senior Lecturer in Otolaryngology (ENT), is organising
focus groups of patients recovering from head and neck cancer, and their
carers. Their experience and interpretation of �success� of treatment
will be used alongside the judgement of the doctors to determine measurable
standards for the process of cancer care, with a meaningful patient and
carer viewpoint.
A further three-year study, using
regional audit data, is examining �pathways of care�. The research team
is plotting the route of patients with head and neck cancer through various
forms of treatment, in and out of hospitals in the region. The information
will be fed back to clinical teams and will result in more efficient care
and, it is hoped, improved quality of life for the patients. In fact,
the results will be useful across a wide range of cancers in due course.
Both projects are funded by the NHS
South & West Regional Research and Development Organisation and show that,
in Martin Birchall�s words, �the University Division of Otolaryngology
continues to be the main focus for quality improvement in head and neck
cancer care in the South and West Region.�
Bristol leads
regional training for engineers
Market surveys in the South West showed a need for professional development
courses for graduate engineers. These courses should provide a combination
of management, engineering and technology training and be presented close
to the industries in which the graduates worked. Raymond Hale, who runs
the successful Aerospace Integrated Graduate Development Scheme, brought
together a consortium of ten institutions to bid for funding for such
a programme.
Now all the universities in the South
West, plus one higher education college, are acting together to provide
training for graduate engineers working in the regional industries. This
imaginative scheme, entitled Competitive product engineering, is co-ordinated
by Bristol and directed by John Wood in the Faculty of Engineering. Five
main partners (Bournemouth, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth and the University
of the West of England, Bristol) will award degrees and provide modules,
and five associated partners (the Universities of Bath and Portsmouth,
Cheltenham & Gloucester College of HE, the Open University and the Royal
Military College of Science) will supply modules. The delegates (as the
students are known) will undertake part-time study and project work towards
a Masters Degree. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
is providing funding towards the start-up costs of this scheme which starts
in 2000.
Telecoms
Centre
Toshiba
Corporation, the major Japanese electronic and multimedia company,
set up a new telecommunications research centre in Bristol in August
1998. The Telecommunications Research Laboratory is headed by Joe
McGeehan, Professor of Communications Engineering, who will divide
his time between the Laboratory and the University. Bristol was selected
as the site for the new Laboratory because of the presence of the
University, well known as a centre of excellence for research in mobile
communications technology. |
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Professor
Joe McGeehan with
Dr Tsutomu Sugawara, Deputy Managing Director of Toshiba Telecommunications
Research Laboratory
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The new research laboratory will
undertake advanced research in the next generation of digital cellular
phone formats and wireless access technologies. The technology being developed
for third-generation mobile �phones will enable them to do anything a
fixed line can do, such as sending video images and enabling online shopping.
Toshiba has agreed to invest �1 million
in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering to support
a Chair and Lectureship and provide funds for collaborative research projects
between Toshiba and the University.
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