Rewarding research

21 June 2006

It wasn’t just students that gained awards at NEWI last month. Some of NEWI’s lecturers have been awarded funding to either undertake research projects or to complete an existing research project. The lecturers had to submit detailed applications to apply for the funding and eighteen were then chosen and granted their funding by Professor Michael Scott at an award ceremony last month.

Seven of the lecturers won Excellence Awards; Daryl Griffiths, Kathy Edmonds, Hilary Fabian, Graham Williams, Mike Wright, Jenny Coe, Dr Jackie Forsyth and Dr Gyozo Molnar. This award requires them to produce a research paper which is published in a reference journal. Topics that have been chosen include communicating research, creative approaches to teaching, assessment strategies and teaching students with disabilities. Three lecturers were also awarded Teaching Fellowships; Ros Harrison, Denise Oram and Colin Heron. These lecturers have been granted a secondment study for research degrees.

Fellowships to support research activity were awarded to Colin Heslop, Colin Hill, Dr Hu and John McGinn and Colette Bleakley was awarded the Institutional fellowship. John Whitehouse and Sue Liggett were awarded the Harris Manchester Fellowships which enables them to undertake research at Harris Manchester College, part of the University of Oxford. Both of these lecturers will be undertaking research degrees. John Whitehouse is researching how language is used in approaches to literary text using the modern readings of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Sue Liggett is studying psychological resonance in contemporary art.

Research has a close relationship to teaching at NEWI and is used to further academic expertise and to influence course developments. Professor Michael Scott sees the award of this funding as key to the development of NEWI. “All the applications were superb which made it very difficult to choose winners of the scholarships and fellowships. I’m very proud of the expertise we have at NEWI and the support and enthusiasm our lecturers provide to the students; this is key to driving forward students’ ambitions.”