NEW HEAD OF INSTITUTE: From 1st August 2010
The University’s Management Board, chaired by the Vice Chancellor Professor David Greenaway, has formally approved the proposal that Professor Kevin Browne takes over from Professor Tom Cox CBE as Head of Institute from 1st August 2010. Professor Browne will hold this post for an initial period of 4 years. Professor Cox remains Head of Institute until the end of this current year and then will step down completing 11 years of service in that post.
Professor Browne joined the Institute at the beginning of this year from the University of Liverpool; previously he was at the University of Birmingham. He is Professor of Forensic Psychology and Child Health and a chartered forensic psychologist. He has the vision and energy to take the Institute to new heights but the challenge will be daunting given the current financial situation and the pressures on universities world wide. We wish him every success and hope that all will support him going forward.
Despite rumours to the contrary (see below), Professor Cox will remain a fully engaged senior member of the University and of the Institute through to retirement and then hopefully beyond. His focus will be research and his agenda will probably be on re establishing the WHO Centre for Organisational Health & Development (see below) within the Institute but as a cross Faculty collaboration and then more generally promoting collaboration in research within the social sciences and beyond.
As Professor Cox steps down in favour of Professor Browne, the nature of this blog will necessarily change. It will still seek to enthusiastically promote the Institute and its postgraduate courses and research, but its focus will necessarily narrow to those aspects of the Institute’s work and the Faculties activities which involve the former. He hopes that it will remain informative and continue to attract a high level of hits. It is a case, at the moment, of keep watching this space.
Professor Tom Cox CBE
MISINFORMATION
Many people have written to me asking why am I retiring so early and the answer is “I am not retiring“. I am not sure where this rumour originated but it is not true. Possibly people cannot understand why I am standing down as Director of the Institute if I am not retiring. I am standing down because it is an appropriate time to do so and for others to take over the challenge of managing it through what will be difficult times. By standing down as Director, I will be gifted more freedom to set up new projects and to indulge my research. And there will be plenty of time in which to do this ~ years in fact.
Professor Tom Cox CBE
TEACHING QUALITY:
Student Evaluation of the Institute’s Teaching
The Institute aspires to many different goals but nothing is more impoortant to it than the quality of the postgraduate education that it offers. This must be an important issue for students deciding whether or not to trust their future to its courses. To ensure that its schools offer quality in their teaching, at all levels, the University regularly asks its students to evaluate the quality of the teaching that they receive. Last year’s figures (2008 2009) are now available. Over 60,000 evaluations were received from its students against five different aspects of teaching quality: 1. The teacher was an able communicator, 2. The teacher retains my interest, 3. The teacher was approachable, 4. Sessions were paced appropriately, and 5. Overall, the teacher assisted my learning. A five point scale was used (1 through 5). The lower the score the more favourable the students’ assessment of teaching quality.
The University, overall, received good mean scores across all five aspects of teaching quality which is excellent. However, the Institute’s mean scores were as good if not better than the overall University means (1.5 to 1.8). This is also excellent.
CHANGE HAPPENS:
“I have devoted the last 15 years of my life to being a Head of School in the University of Nottingham. During this time, I had the dream of the Institute, made it real and managed it successfully for 10 years. Last year, the Institute moved into its present accommodation in International House, as an international postgraduate research school, with 6 Chairs, 19 other academic staff and 10 administrative staff and many many researchers and postgraduate students. This is a far cry from the 3 of us who started out on this journey in 1999 in a handful of ‘borrowed’ offices in the Business School with just over 20 postgraduates.
Nobody can go on for ever as Head of School and the key to stepping down is to know when to hand over the reigns. Earlier this year, I wondered whether the time had come to hand over to someone with fresh ideas. I discussed this with the Unversity. There were several different ways forward but the one that emerged over the summer was this one: the more immediate of the options.
I shall stand down at the end of this academic session (31st July 2010) and then take a sabbatical year during which I hope to re establish the Centre for Organisational Health and Development. I also anticipate making a contribution to the wider University. Standing down now gives me time to do new things before retirement in 2013.
I thank everybody sincerely for their contributions to the Institute over the years that they have been here. I always wanted those who worked in the Institute to be part of a winning family and I hope that this spirit will continue under its new leadership. I will continue to work hard for the Institute’s success and hope that all others will do so as well.”
Professor Tom Cox CBE
COURSE CLOSED DOWN?
Sadly, the current economic situation is affecting some universities more than others and courses are being closed down especially in subject areas that are not popular with the more purist among senior academics and university managers. Sadly, this is has hit professional courses in areas such as health and safety and occupational health: areas in which the Institute excels. Staff at the Institute feel that they owe a professional duty of care to those whose development and career aspirations are being damaged in this way. If you have suddenly had your postgraduate course cancelled from under you, please contact us and ask whether we can help you. Our courses are both good and secure and we may have something which will rescue you now. For health and safety and occupational health, please consider our MSc Workplace Health. For other areas please explore this blog or, better still, go to the Institute’s website. You can contact: tom.cox@nottingham.ac.uk
LATE STUDY OPPORTUNITIES:
The Institute has bucked the national trend and recruited more postgraduate students than it had targeted in three areas: workplace health, health psychology and clinical neuropsychology. It has met its expectations in occupational psychology and for its professional doctorate in clinical psychology. However, there are still opportunities for would be students to study with us at the Institute in Nottingham and, also, at our department on the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. The Institute has several courses which accept January intakes, most particulaly MSc Management Psychology, and students can join its PhD programme at any time during the year. Late entry may be possible for our part time and blended learnng courses. Those who may have not decided or who have not raised funds in time for the traditional September entry, please contact us and discuss how you can join us now. Better late than never.
SOMETHING OLD: SOMETHING NEW
A return to glory:
There is a proposal to re establish the Centre for Organizational Health & Development within the Institute to provide a platform for its research in three key areas: occupational health psychology and policy, health and safety management and organizational development and healthiness.
The Centre was the fore runner to the Institute in the then Department of Psychology and was designated a Collaborating Centre in Occupational Health by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the early 1990s and was one of the institutions first involved in the Topic Centre programme of the European Agency for Safety & Health at Work (EAOSH) (Bilbao). The connections with both the WHO and EAOSH were transferred to the Institute when it was founded in January 1999 and have been successfully maintained since then.
The re established Centre would be run by Professor Tom Cox CBE and his colleagues in occupational health psychology and in organisational psychology. Negotiations are on going and expressions of interest in supporting this development or otherwise being associated with it are welcome: to tom.cox@nottinham.ac.uk
MSc WORKPLACE HEALTH:
The third intake to the MSc Workplace Health has successfully begun its course of postgraduate and professional study. Designed for flexible access, using blended learning technology, the course seeks to put the ‘health’ into health and safety management within the framework of the likely future development of the overall area. It is designed for those with a working involvement in occupational health and health and safety: policy, practice and management. There are now over 30 students registered on this course from a variety of relevant backgrounds and from a variety of different private and public sector organisations.
The next intake to this course will be in September 2010. Scholarships and reductions based on professional memberships are available. Further information from hannah.collinge@nottingham.ac.uk or jonathan.houdmont@nottingham.ac.uk ~ Accept only the very best and that is here. Do not accept pale imitations elsewhere.
UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM: A WINNER:
The research monies that English universities will receive following their performances in the Research Assessment Exercise2008 has been revealed this week with the announcement by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) of its funding allocations for 2009-10. The biggest gain in total recurrent research funding, which includes quality-related (QR) cash as its major component, has been made by the University of Nottingham. Nottingham receives an extra £9.7 million compared with the previous year, the biggest rise seen by any university and the equivalent of a 23.6 per cent increase in recurrent research funding. Most of its competitors did not perform as well, overall, and several took cuts in their research funding. The QR research funding is part of the overall financial settlement for universities. Again Nottingham did well. Of the 140 plus institutions funded by the UK government, 87 were awarded above-inflation total funding and of those the major winners included Nottingham which received one of the biggest overall increases of 9.6%.
INSTITUTE & RAE 2008:
The results of the Government’s Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) were announced on 18th December 2008. In terms of research power (Research Fortnightly), the University of Nottingham’s research was ranked 7th in the UK – a significant improvement on the last such exercise in 2001, where it was ranked 14th. The Institute’s research output was submitted for assessment with the Nottingham University Business School. Virtually all of their research output (95%) was recognised as at the international level, with 70% rated as ‘internationally excellent’ or ‘world-leading’- ranking them 6th amongst their 89 competitors in the UK.
