Keynote speakers from IGD, the University of Leeds and Marks & Spencer offer insights into the impact of food waste and future solutions.

Professor Chris Megone: "Pre-empting an ethical backlash" Dr Jon Fistein: "Me and my (digital) shadow" Baroness Onora O'Neill: "Data ethics and the ethics of communication"

Lizzie Glennon, a student studying for a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology, talks about how Leeds has benefited her work and research into Alzheimer's disease.

Spreading the Word in student education through cross-institutional and collaborative partnership Getting out and about has its challenges as well as its benefits. As a geographer I am wholly bought into the benefits of travel. This session provides an opportunity to reflect briefly on the benefits of migration, and dynamics of delivering change with a focus in three areas. First Plymouth, a University with students in over 30 HE, FE and private provider partners nationally and internationally, provides interesting challenges for student education quality and enhancement, and many opportunities for collaboration. Creating a University-wide Research Institute addressing HE pedagogy for Plymouth was and remains the fun part of my role. It provides a really valuable platform for cross-institutional and collaborative partnerships. One of the interesting tasks is effectively engaging academics and professional services staff for whom HE pedagogy is their full-time research interest, alongside those who are fascinated by and evolve practice in their disciplines, sometimes alongside their own discipline-based research. For some individuals this focus leads to REF-standard publications, for others the outcomes are practice enhancements. The REF, particularly Unit 25 Education, is an effective enabler, where the discipline and faculty boundaries can disappear. Finally I talk about how I see the TEF presenting a series of opportunities. There are real synergies in the consideration of students as researchers and ways in which they can be effective researchers within the discipline and involved in pedagogic research, changing the student experience. Professor Pauline Kneale, Plymouth University

A look at the sustainability work happening across the University of Leeds campus, July 2014.

Piers Sellers 2018 Prize winner Professor Mark New, director, ACDI, University of Cape Town, delivers a talk on the Cape Town water crisis at University of Leeds, Monday 19 March 2018 ABSTRACT: Cape Town has been in the news over the last few months because of its water crisis. A multi-year “drought” has progressively depleted reservoirs in the water resource system that supplies the city, nearby towns and agriculture. After the 2017 rainfall season, it became clear that – under current patterns of water use – the water resource system would fail before the start of 2018 rainfall season, and the term “Day Zero” was coined – the day at which the reservoirs would have no more extractable water. In this talk, I’ll discuss the physical nature of the drought, and the possible influence of climate change on drought risk, assessing whether the last three years are indeed the “new normal” the City is talking about. I’ll then discuss the supply-side and demand-side interventions the City instigated to postpone day zero, and the effect these had. I’ll also talk about the impacts of decisions about water allocation to agricultural sector and their potential longer term economic impacts. Finally, I’ll comment on how a political crisis within the City executive, and poor management of within the national Department of Water and Sanitation, led to a weakened governance setting that most likely exacerbated the severity of the impact of the drought.

How are lecturers adapting their teaching practice when using the redesigned lecture theatres? What is the response so far from students? Experienced lecturers from the School of Music share their stories. This is an edit from a presentation delivered at the University of Leeds SEC/Digifest 2017 Conference. Presenters from the School of Music: Dr Karen Burland, Dr David Ireland Three traditional-tiered lecture theatres were redesigned in the summer of 2016 to provide enhanced teaching and learning opportunities for staff and students. Roger Stevens Lecture Theatre 8, Mechanical Engineering Lecture Theatre B and Worsley Dental Lecture Theatre have been reconfigured with the latest in digital technology, seating, sound and lighting to improve collaboration and promote active learning. It is anticipated that the majority of students will enjoy attending more interactive lectures in these redesigned learning environments but what benefits are they really experiencing and how do we know? What have been the initial responses by students in the last few months? What have been the challenges for lecturers and students and what solutions have been put in place to overcome these?

Undergraduate students from across the School of English discuss their experiences of studying at Leeds.

Serge Holenn discusses studying for his MA in Health Management, Planning and Policy at the School of the Medicine.

Around a third of students intend to start their own business. Our Spark team will support and encourage you from initial idea to start up and beyond.

The first Equality and Social Justice lecture was delivered by Professor Tom Shakespeare on 9th November 2017. A world-leading expert in disability studies, medical sociology and the social and ethical dimensions of genetics, Professor Shakespeare has been highly influential in contributing towards the disabled people’s movement in the UK and internationally. Beyond this, Professor Shakespeare has had longstanding involvement in improving public understandings of disability, as well as the policies, institutions and practices that shape its experience. The title of Professor Shakespeare’s lecture was: “Levers of success; understanding the achievements of African people with disabilities”. Drawing on data from over 100 in-depth interviews with disabled people across rural and urban settings, Professor Shakespeare explored the category and experience of disability across four developing countries in Africa. Professor Shakespeare argued that the barriers facing and opportunities of disabled people in developing contexts could only be effectively understood if questions concerning culture, religion, resilience and structural expectation are fully incorporated into mainstream debates and social action surrounding disability and development. Professor Shakespeare also highlighted the need to re-think the relationship between relative inequality and disability at a global level in light of the structural and institutional conditions faced within developing countries.

By analyzing the Net Generation’s motivation to use the digital technology and identifying the activities that are involved in the process we can pinpoint the essential characteristics that guide the best practice for integrating the digital tools and resources in teaching and learning. Those tools are generally characterized by one or more of the following attributes: • adaptive to individual preferences • providing opportunities for collaboration and sharing • offering sense of community • profiling individuals according to their contributions • maintaining stealth user assessment and giving ranking • community recognition and individual motivation • activity tracking and reporting on demand Supplementing our teaching with digital tools in a way that lacks to any of those attributes will only result in offering variety of materials format and activities without getting out of the traditional classroom box. This presentation will showcase a mobile friendly web application that provides teachers and students with a platform for hosting structured and collaborative activities to practice reading and listening of media Arabic web content. The application implements the SAMR model higher levels of modification and redefinition. Both the application and activities try as much as possible to create a small learning community with collaboration, sharing and ranking functions. The presentation will showcase a live demo of the application as well as an overview of other related implementations and projects.

Gabriel Simon discusses studying for his MSc in Restorative Dentistry at the School of the Medicine.

Our students explain why they chose to study Education at the University of Leeds.

Saika Kauser discusses studying for her MSc in Medical Imaging at the School of the Medicine.