• LSE Enterprise makes £1.98 million for LSE

LSE Enterprise handed over its largest ever cheque to the School this week, thanks to all the academics who worked with them last year.

• Watch it live....

Watch the LSE Director's Dialogue with Paul Volcker, chair of president Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, live on the LSE website on Thursday 13 May.

• Sarah Bailey

Sarah works in both the SDU and the Student Services Centre and was once mistaken for a Chinese gentleman by one of the GPs at St Philips.

• Election Night webcast

This evening, LSE will be webcasting its Election Night event, so staff keen to get expert political analysis as the night unfolds can watch LSE academics discuss exit polls and early results at www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/LSEElectionNight2010.aspx

Panellists include LSE Director Howard Davies, Tony Travers, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Professor Michael Cox, Professor Simon Hix and Dr Sara Hagemann. The webcast starts at 9.15pm and will go through to 1am.
 

• LSE Enterprise makes £1.98 million for LSE

Thanks to the 200 academics from all over LSE who worked with us last year, LSE Enterprise was able to hand over its largest ever cheque, £1.98 million, to the School this week.

LSE Enterprise is a subsidiary of LSE, returning all its profits to the School and supplementing academic salaries by almost £3 million in the 2008-9 financial year.

Projects in 2009 took place in 16 countries, with over 150 organisations. To name just a few, colleagues got involved in:

• Teaching economics for foreign policy to Foreign Office staff
• Running a ten-week course for Basque government students on European economic and political issues
• Training policy makers from the Vietnamese Government in globalisation and public sector reform
• Producing reports for the British Academy on how humanities and social science research can be better used by decision makers
• Providing expertise on carbon market regulation
• Producing the Development and Transition Newsletter for the UNDP
• Undertaking research on IT efficiency

• LSE welcomes....

The Centre for the Study of Human Rights is delighted to welcome its new director, Professor Chetan Bhatt.

Chetan Bhatt is professor of sociology with a strong background in human rights and social justice. His research interests include the religious right and religious conflict, nationalism, and racism. Current projects include work on the sociology of religious paramilitia groups.

• From London to Paris

Tom Billins, fees administrator at Sidney Webb House hall of residence, is taking part in a London to Paris bike ride on 7-11 July in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.

In the past year, Tom has taken up cycling and bought a new bike to use for his 14 mile commute to and from work. He has been on a number of long cycle rides in the country so when he saw the advert for this challenge, he had to take it on.

Macmillan Cancer Support improves the lives of people affected by cancer. They provide practical, medical and financial support and push for better cancer care. They train nurses and support staff to look after those afflicted by the disease and do a superb job. For Tom, this charity is particularly important as they looked after his terminally ill grandmother while she had cancer.

• CEP Election Analysis booklet

The Centre for Economic Performance has produced a 130 page booklet which analyses the key policy issues surrounding the general election.

It draws on research from both CEP and other expert sources. We hope it will help people to vote wisely, having considered some of the best and most impartial evidence available.

The booklet is large but can be downloaded from our website at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download
/CEP_ElectionAnalysis_2010.pdf Analysis of individual topics can also be downloaded from http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/news/year.asp?yyyy=2010#2068
 

• Goodbye from LSE

We are very sad to announce the death of former LSE staff member, Professor A S Douglas, who died on Thursday 29 April.

Professor Douglas was professor of computational methods and one of the founders of the Information Systems Group at LSE. He was an important figure in early computing in the UK and an expert in computational crystallography.

Our thoughts are with Professor Douglas' family and friends.

• LSE-Columbia University funded exchange of teaching faculty

In May 2009, LSE and Columbia University launched a teaching exchange scheme which is now in its second year. These short-term exchanges would occur between (full-time) teaching staff in complementary departments at the respective institutions.

Faculty participating in an exchange are expected to undertake a teaching commitment that enables substantial engagement with undergraduate and/or graduate students at the host institution and that meets a need in the host department. Visits will normally be for a full term at the host institution.

LSE staff visiting Columbia will be funded by LSE up to a level of £5,000 to support travel, accommodation and other essential extra expenses in New York. Please note that neither institution will fund relief cover for teaching staff absent under this scheme.

The deadline for applications for the 2010-11 session is Wednesday 14 July. Please click here for further information on the scheme including application procedures.
 

• Showcasing the Global Polio Eradication Initiative

LSE postgraduate student, Esha Chhabra, invites you to a photographic exhibit showcasing the Global Polio Eradication Initiative - a global health campaign uniting Rotary International, Gates Foundation, UNICEF, WHO, and the CDC.

As part of the campaign, Esha travelled to India in February 2010 to help vaccinate children against polio and it is Esha's photos that are going to be on display.

The exhibition will run from 1-31 May at the Citigroup Centre, 25 Canada Square, London E14 5LB. There will also be a special reception on Thursday 13 May at 6.30-9.30pm, hosted by Esha and Nawaz Imam, the coordinator of the exhibit.

If you plan on viewing the exhibit during May and/or will be attending the reception, please RSVP to Esha at ec2440@gmail.com or Nawaz at
nawaz.imam@citi.com
 

• CARA grants from refugee academics

The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) is offering grants to support refugee academics to move towards gaining employment in the UK that is relevant to their skills and experience.

The 'Scholars at Risk' scheme, which is run from the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE, works closely with CARA and are already supporting academics whose lives or work were being threatened in their home countries.

LSE staff members may want to pass these details on to academics who they know may benefit from the grant. For more information, visit www.academic-refugees.org/refugee-academic-grants.asp

• Research opportunities

• RPDD Research e-Briefing

• Latest opportunities from LSE Enterprise

LSE Enterprise offers you the opportunity to undertake private teaching and consultancy work under the LSE brand. We help with bidding, contracts and other project administration, enabling you to focus on the work itself. To see the latest opportunities click here.

If you would like us to look out for consulting opportunities in your field, email your CV and summary of interests to Rebecca Limer at r.limer@lse.ac.uk

• Green Impact Awards and Celebration of Sustainability at LSE: residences sustainability champions and sustainable future consulting

Friday 21 May, 12.30-1.30pm, Shaw Library, Old Building

Teams of staff across the School have been taking part in the Green Impact environmental accreditation scheme, greening work practices and creating positive changes in behaviour. This award ceremony acknowledges their achievements in year one of the project.

The event also acknowledges LSE students who have contributed their time and initiatives to sustainability projects as members of the Residences Sustainability Champions network and of the Sustainable Future Consulting Group.

• Transitional Justice in the 21st Century

On: Monday 10 May at 6.30-8pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speakers: Natasa Kandic, executive director of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, Professor Ruti Teitel (pictured), Ernst C Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at the New York Law School, and David Tolbert, president of the International Centre for Transitional Justice

• Screening of Hard Rain

Tuesday 18 May, 12.30-1.30pm, New Theatre, East Building

On 20 July 1969, lost in the Sahara desert, Mark Edwards was rescued by a Tuareg nomad who took him to his people and sat him down outside a tiny hut. He turned an old radio cassette player on and Bob Dylan sang A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

Armstrong and Aldrin have just landed on the moon. Dylan is piling image upon image and Mark gets the idea to illustrate each line of the song. Hard Rain is the result. Photographs from around the world illustrate Bob Dylan’s prophetic song, setting the scene for a moving and unforgettable exploration of the state of our world at this critical time.

• Evolutionary Psychology in the Round

Monday 24 May, 3.30pm, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor Robin Dunbar, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford

Evolutionary Psychology has long consisted of two camps that don’t see eye-to-eye. One, with its roots in psychology, has tended to focus on the universals of cognition, while the other, with its roots in behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology, has had its focus on behavioural flexibility and variety.

Professor Dunbar will argue that these are just two sides of the same coin, and that, properly speaking, evolutionary theory really functions as an overarching framework theory that allows the many different sub-disciplines that fall under the general rubric of psychology to be integrated in such a way as they can talk to each other.

This lecture forms part of the CPNSS 20th Anniversary Celebrations and is the first of three public lectures under the general theme of Philosophy in Psychology. Other lectures include:

• Cognitive Science and the Mereological Fallacy
  Monday 7 June, 3.30pm, Wolfson Theatre, NAB
  Speaker: Peter Hacker, Oxford

• Problems in the Logic of Personality Studies
  Monday 21 June, 3.30pm, Wolfson Theatre, NAB
  Speaker: James Lamiell, Georgetown

All of these lectures will be followed by a reception. Space is limited so please RSVP, specifying which lectures you wish to attend, as soon as possible to philcent@lse.ac.uk. More
 

• Community Energy Saving

LSE Housing and Communities and the National Communities Resource Centre invite you to a one day workshop on Community Energy Saving.

This workshop will include presentations from government bodies, major regional and local bodies, as well as non-profit organisations and community representatives working in this field. It will offer insights into the potential opportunities community energy saving brings, whilst addressing some of the challenges in this area.

The cost is £75 per delegate with discounts for second and subsequent delegates from the same organisation. Reduced rates are available for representatives of non-profit organisations, community-based and environmental groups, tenants and individuals working in this area.

Nicole wants to hear from you!

Do you have some news, an achievement, or an aspect of LSE life that you would like to share? If so, then I would love to hear from you, contact me at n.gallivan@lse.ac.uk or on ext 7582.

The next edition of Staff News is on Thursday 13 May. Articles for this should be emailed to me by Tuesday 11 May. Staff News is emailed every Thursday during term time and fortnightly during the holidays.