Student exhibits at the National Portrait Gallery
For the first time ever a portrait by a Loughborough University School of Art and Design (LUSAD) student was selected to go on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Benjamin Cohen, a second year Fine Art
student, entered his work into the gallery’s BP
Portrait Award, an annual competition aimed
at encouraging artists to focus upon and
develop the theme of portraiture in their work.
The competition is open to everyone aged 18 and over and with a substantial first prize of £25,000 it has been the launch pad for the careers of a number of successful portrait artists. Recent winners and their commissions include Stuart Pearson Wright (2001) who painted J.K. Rowling, Catherine Goodman (2002) who painted Dame Cicely Saunders and Charlotte Harris (2003) who painted Dame Vivien Duffield.
The competition is judged on an anonymous basis from original paintings and an exhibition is then created from a selection of the entries. Benjamin’s portrait was one of the entries selected to form part of the competition exhibition, which appeared at the National Portrait Gallery from 12 Juneto 14 September 2008.
The oil on canvas work, entitled ‘John’, is 2m by 1.4m in size. It is of a Loughborough man who works in a bookshop in the town. Benjamin met him whilst out trawling the streets looking for an inspiring subject to paint. Speaking about his selection to appear at the National Portrait Gallery, he said: “For such a young artist to be given the opportunity to exhibit in one of the most prestigious art galleries in the world was totally astonishing. The National Portrait Gallery have kick started my career as an artist and I wish to thank them.”
Loughborough awarded First Class ‘green’ degree
Loughborough University has been ranked fifth, and awarded a First Class degree for its solid environmental performance, in the People and Planet Green League 2008.
The University rose a staggering 28 places in this year’s league table
of 121 universities, providing a clear demonstration of Loughborough’s
burgeoning position as one of the country’s leading higher education
institutions for environmental awareness and activity.
The Green League looks at both universities’ commitment to environmental management and at their performance. It takes into consideration nine indicators, including the number of full-time environment staff employed, the percentage of waste recycled and water consumption per head.
Overall Loughborough scored 47.5 points out of a total of 60, gaining ‘gold stars’ in four categories – environmental policy, environmental staff, Fairtrade university status and recycled waste.
“Loughborough began to embrace the sustainability agenda long ago – for instance we were one of, if not the first university in the country to begin using a hundred percent ‘green’ power back in 2002,” said Andrew Burgess, Director of Estates Services at the University.
“Our ‘green’ commitment has gone from strength to strength and this latest league table ranking consolidates our position as a leader in the field.”
The University runs a number of initiatives to make the campus more environmentally friendly. One scheme targets the University’s halls of residence, in a bid to help them reduce their carbon footprint.
The Energy League pits halls against each other to see which one can reduce their energy consumption and their carbon footprint by the most. This year the hall students reduced their carbon footprint by 110 tonnes of CO2, which equates to a financial saving of £15,000.
The League was introduced in 2006 and is run jointly by Imago Services (the University’s hall management operation), Estates Services and the Students’ Union.
This year the halls also embarked on another scheme called Bottles for Bounty – every month the halls’ bottle crates were weighed and for each kilo recycled they received five pence from Imago Services towards their RAG charity donation. This year the halls recycled a total of two tonnes of glass.
The University’s success in the People and Planet Green League also follows Loughborough Students’ Union’s (LSU) 7th place ranking in the Sunday Times Green List 2008, which listed the ‘greenest’ organisations in the UK. LSU was also named winner of the award for the best small company with low environmental impact.
Loughborough secures further top rankings in national league tables
Loughborough University has secured a number of top rankings in national league tables.
In The Good University Guide, published for the first time in association with The Independent newspaper, Loughborough is ranked third for student satisfaction – below only Cambridge and St Andrews.
Overall Loughborough is in 13th position in the guide, placing it firmly among the UK’s academic elite. In the individual subject tables the University is ranked in the top ten in 14 of the tables.
Loughborough was also confirmed as the best university in the UK for sport by The independent newspaper in its Sport and Recreation table, part of The Complete University Guide. The table is based on BUSA (British University Sports Association) rankings, and also rates other factors such as sports facility provision.
In The Guardian Loughborough is ranked as one of the top ten universities in the UK. It is in tenth position out of 117 institutions in the overall league table, and in the individual subject tables it is ranked in the top ten in nine of the tables.
The Times provided further confirmation of Loughborough’s position as one of the UK’s top-ranked universities, as it retained its 12th place ranking, out of 113 institutions, in this year’s Times Good University Guide. In the individual subject tables the University is ranked in the top ten in 18 of the tables, and is rated number one in Building, Sport, and Librarianship and Information Management.
Loughborough’s teacher training has also been rated among the best in the UK, in the Good Teacher Training Guide 2008-09. The University was ranked ninth out of 73 higher education institutions in the league table, which is published by the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham.
Next generation sprint spikes could be key to medal winning success
Next generation sprint spikes, tailored to meet the exact needs of elite athletes and boost their performance, have been developed by Loughborough University.
Sprint times for top athletes have increasingly narrow margins. This was
highlighted in the 2004 Athens Olympics, where the men’s 100m gold medal
winning time was 9.85 seconds – just 0.01 of a second faster than the athlete in
second place. Therefore anything which can give a sprinter the leading edge can
make the difference between medals won and lost. By customising the sole units
of sprint spikes to match the characteristics of individual athletes, researchers
at Loughborough have been able to maximise the performance of elite runners –
doubling the amount of mechanical energy they generated at the ankle in a sprint
related task.
The research team, based in the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, used a rapid manufacturing process – selective laser sintering – to create the personalised outsoles, altering the stiffness to suit the specific requirements of elite sprinters. Selective Laser Sintering uses laser energy to sinter small particles of plastic to create precise, complex 3D components, doing away with the need for expensive moulds and tooling. This enabled the researchers to easily change the properties of the footwear to match the needs of the individual athletes. As a result their full explosive power could be harnessed – a critical factor for both sprinters and jumpers.
“Sole units of varying stiffness were attached to standard sprint spike uppers and mechanical tests were carried out in order to quantify stiffness,” explains Loughborough’s Dan Toon, who conducted the research.
“A series of sprint related tasks were performed by elite athletes in sprint shoes of differing stiffness and a barefoot equivalent control shoe. Three-dimensional motion data and force data were collected for each trial in order to quantify performance.”
The research found that the dynamics of the ankle and foot are influenced by the mechanical properties of footwear. Furthermore, performance was individually maximised within the stiffness range, highlighting the importance of personalised footwear.
Dan added: “Appropriate prescription of longitudinal bending stiffness in sprint spikes to a particular individual approximately doubled the amount of mechanical energy an athlete generated at the ankle in a sprint related task.”
The three-year study was performed as part of a wider five year, £2 million project funded by the University’s Innovative Manufacturing and Construction Research Centre (IMCRC). This multi-disciplinary centre undertakes leadingedge research to boost competition in the UK’s manufacturing and construction industries and is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The project was also supported by a number of industry partners from the USA and Europe, including global athletic company New Balance. Led by Dr Neil Hopkinson, the research is a collaboration between the University’s world leading Rapid Manufacturing Research Group, Sports Technology Institute and Design Ergonomics Research Group.
Campaign provides clean drinking water for Indian villagers
A campaign to raise money from the sale of bottled water on the University campus to provide clean drinking water for a remote Indian village has been a major success.
imago, the University’s in-house catering provider and events and conference organiser, launched its ‘Raindrops for life’
campaign across the Loughborough campus in 2007. The campaign, in partnership with the University’s Water, Engineering
and Development Centre (WEDC) and the National Forest Spring Water Company Ltd, saw profits from the sale of imago’s
‘Fuel’ branded water ploughed into the ‘Chaidipura Rural Water Supply and Hygiene Promotion Project’.
Led by voluntary organisation Vasudha Vikas Sansthan (VVS), the project was set up to provide clean water and improved sanitation for the village
of Chaidipura. Situated at the foothills of the Vindhyachal Valley, the village is home to around 220 people. Its main source of drinking water is a
hand pump, which runs dry in the summer, and
the alternative is a stream located 2km away
from the village forcing women and children to
walk long distances several times a day to collect
water. Disease is also a major issue in the village
as no water is treated before drinking and water
storage containers are not covered. This is made
worse by the absence of toilet facilities and a poor
understanding of the importance of personal hygiene. 
Thanks to the ‘Raindrops for life’ campaign conditions in Chaidipura have been vastly improved.
Four rain water collection tanks have been constructed, which provide clean drinking water for up to 30 families and the village school. A sanitation and hygiene education programme has also been completed and representatives of Chaidipura have received training in how to maintain the tanks.
University launches eating disorders research centre
Loughborough University has launched a new research centre to help tackle eating disorders and childhood obesity. LUCRED (Loughborough University Centre for Research into Eating Disorders) is one of the largest research centres in its field.
Led by Dr Caroline Meyer, who has been conducting
research into eating disorders for the last 15 years,
LUCRED has 11 full-time academics and researchers.
The team has well established links with colleagues at
the NHS eating disorders services at Leicester General
Hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital,
Birmingham and the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and
is working closely with these organisations.
Speaking about the launch of LUCRED Dr Meyer said: “The creation of LUCRED is formal recognition of the extensive academic expertise at Loughborough University in the area of eating disorders, obesity, appetite and childhood eating behaviours.
Our global partnerships will enable us to make a real difference to how these conditions are understood and treated.”
Professor Bob Palmer, Consultant Psychiatrist and Head of the Leicester Eating Disorders Service, said: “The creation of LUCRED has opened up opportunities for fruitful collaborations between clinicians and academics that is both unusual and important. I, for one, am excited by the possibilities.”
Dr Newman Leung, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Head of the Birmingham and Solihull Outpatient Eating Disorder Service, added: “As a clinician in the field of eating disorders, I find working with LUCRED exciting. It provides me with the opportunity to discuss research ideas with a group of expert researchers. Furthermore, the range of high-quality research outputs from the Loughborough group investigating the development and maintenance of eating disorders has significantly informed my clinical practice.”
The LUCRED team currently focus on: compulsive exercise in eating disorders; childhood obesity and childhood eating problems; sub-clinical eating disorders; and mealtime protocols for the management of eating disorders.
