Queens birthday honours for LSE
Congratulations to Dr Hong Lu of LSE's Confucius Institute, who has been awarded an OBE for her efforts promoting China UK relations.

Can we talk?
Find out more about the mediation scheme at LSE which aims to help employees improve and develop working relationships without the use of formal procedures.

Laura Stewart

Laura, LSE Careers, completed the London Marathon this year, has been trying out open water swimming, and is climbing Kilimanjaro this summer.

 Research

 LSE in pictures

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 LSE people

LSE would like to congratulate all staff, former staff and alumni recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2015, including Dr Hong Lu from LSE's Confucius Institute for Business London (CIBL),  who has received an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her contributions to the Chinese community and for her efforts in promoting China UK relations.

Mike Redmayne, Professor of Law at LSE, has died at the age of 47.

He started his career at the University of Manchester in 1993, moving to Brunel in 1997 and then, in 1999, to LSE, where he taught until only a few weeks before his death.

Mike’s contribution to academic life was impeccable, his service to LSE exemplary. He sat on various Departmental and School committees and was awarded the 2008 Departmental teaching prize in recognition of his consistently high scores in student surveys and his exceptional contribution to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.

Customer First Re-accreditation for LSE Catering

LSE Catering is delighted to announce that they were successful in their re-assessment for Customer First last week.
 

The assessor was impressed with the overall performance in all three assessment areas Customer Relations, Market Awareness and People.

Well done to everyone involved.
 

New Gearty Grilling online

A new Gearty Grilling video, part of the series of short video debates between Conor Gearty, director of the IPA and professor of human rights law, and leading researchers at LSE, is now online.

This week Judy Wajcman (pictured), the Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology, discusses the impact of digital technology on our lives. More
 

Bridging research and policy: the potential economic impact of cash transfer policies in developing countries

Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of International Development, Stephanie Levy, is the guest editor for a Special Issue of a UNDP journal entitled ‘Policy in Focus’.

In this flagship publication of the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth in Brazil, leading authors and practitioners discuss how cash transfers can impact the local economy when implemented in a developing country. The journal reviews research results obtained from various methodologies including randomised control trials, village economy models, and general equilibrium analysis, applied on small-scale programmes to larger-scale policies in Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia.

Aiming to bridge high quality research and policy, this accessible publication presents some of the main research findings to date in this topic and underlines their policy implications. It gathers contributions from well-known academic researchers such as Professors Martin Ravallion, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Alain de Janvry, and John Hoddinott, as well as experienced practitioners who have conducted fieldwork for charities such as Oxfam and Save the Children.

By reviewing empirical methodologies and findings, this publication intends to stimulate a better-informed debate between economists and policymakers on the potential economic impact of social transfers. More
 

Launched in March 2015, LSE power aims to connect women across LSE and is one of four staff networks supported by the Equality and Diversity team.

Liz Griffith, a Senior Marketing and Communications Officer in the Department of Management, recently joined other LSE Power women for an afternoon of networking with Sue Tonks. Liz gives us her insight in to how it all went…

"I think LSE POWER is a fantastic initiative to bring professional women from across LSE together, and I was keen to attend the event to meet like-minded people and broaden my contacts within the School. The opportunity to learn and improve my professional networking skills was also very valuable, as these types of skills are essential for career progression.

"The sessions from Sue Tonks were dynamic and engaging, with a humorous twist throughout! Sue addressed some of the common difficulties we all face when attending professional networking events, and one of the most useful takeaways for me was her advice on how to join and leave different conversations at an event - including how to leave a conversation tactfully, without making the other person feel “dumped”!

"This has been particularly useful as I run various events as part of my role at LSE and have already found the tips and advice from the session very useful in the past week since the session took place. When I need to move around a room full of guests and spend a small amount of time talking to each one, I can now use Sue’s techniques to move between conversations more easily and tactfully.

"I think the topic of networking is a great one for LSE POWER to have run for professional women.  Good networking skills will be essential for my future career development. In addition, looking at the bigger picture for LSE as an institution, I believe that investing in staff’s professional skills with sessions like this is key to retaining and developing employee talent within the School. In particular, if the School has the aim of bringing more women into leadership roles, it is essential to capitalise on the pool of existing female talent, and facilitate professional development with the necessary training and skills (including networking skills) to provide a stepping stone into those senior roles." 

Did you know? One thing the LSE Refectory did indisputably well in the 1960s was produce rock cakes. LSE alum Tom Emmerson (now Professor Emeritus at Iowa State University) shares his LSE memory at the LSE History blog.

Ron Moody 1924-2015

The actor Ron Moody, an LSE alumnus who was famous for playing Fagin in the musical film Oliver!, has died at the age of 91.

Ron spent the Second World War in the RAF before coming to LSE to study: "I went to the London School of Economics to study sociology and psychology on a serviceman's grant.

"While there, I got dragged into taking part in a student revue and ended up writing, and appearing in, a few sketches. In short, I got the stage bug."

Reception for Simeon Underwood

Message from Professor Paul Kelly, Pro-Director for Teaching and Learning.

I would like to invite staff to a drinks reception to mark the retirement of the Academic Registrar and Director of Academic Services, Simeon Underwood (pictured).

Simeon has served LSE for over a decade and during this time has had the pleasure of meeting a large number of School staff, all of whom I know will want to take the opportunity to extend their warm wishes on Simeon’s retirement.

Can we talk?

In 2013-14, LSE made a commitment to provide a mediation scheme for employees in order to improve and develop working relationships without the use of formal procedures.

The School has eight in-house mediators, drawn from a variety of backgrounds and roles across the School, who have successfully completed nationally accredited training.

You can find out more by viewing the following clips, which show:

• The benefits of mediation

• An introduction to mediation

• Process and feedback

Or visit the Mediation web page.
 

LSE is a member of the Employers for Carers on a trial basis.

The membership includes password access for all staff to the members’ resources on the Employers for Carers website. This provides a full range of online practical resources including model policies, good practice examples and case studies, information on key workplace issues including FAQs and top tips, the business case and policy briefings.

LSE is seeking nominations for an Honorary Fellowship of the School. 

The criteria are as follows: The LSE Court may elect as an Honorary Fellow any individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the School, over the course of a number of years, beyond that which might reasonably be expected.

Honorary Fellowship nominees are expected to have a direct link with LSE either as a member of the School, or as someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the School.

This is an early notification since the deadline for nominations for consideration in Michaelmas Term 2015/16 is Friday 4 September 2015. Full details, and a nomination form, can be found here.

LSE is a member of the Employers for Carers on a trial basis.

The membership includes password access for all staff to the members’ resources on the Employers for Carers website. This provides a full range of online practical resources including model policies, good practice examples and case studies, information on key workplace issues including FAQs and top tips, the business case and policy briefings.

Spectrum (LSE’s network for LGBT+ staff and friends) ) is holding a summer social for LGBT+ staff and their friends on Tuesday 23 June from 5.30pm at Ye Old White Horse (St. Clement’s Lane, LSE).

Please do come along for an informal catch-up. Both existing and new members are very welcome, so please feel free to forward an invitation to anyone you think may like to come along and join the fun!

LSE Vacations has secured preferential rates for tours and experiences around London and are keen to pass on those savings to members of staff.

As a result, they have privately hired out the popular BB Bakery Bus Tour for Thursday 23 July at 6pm and are able to offer it to members of staff at £38 per person. This represents a saving of between £7-£20 on the usual price of tickets.

During the tour, the BB Baker Bus will drive around Central London, taking in some of the City’s best sights while its passengers indulge in a fabulous BB Afternoon tea. More on the trip can be found on the BB Bakery website.

To book, you can either visit the Residential Services Office and pay in person or alternatively you can call 0207 955 7676 and book with one of their Sales Advisors. Please feel free to invite family and friends.

London Cycle Challenge

With two weeks to go until the deadline, there is still time to sign up to the London Cycle Challenge; a fun, free competition to encourage everyone to experience first-hand the joys and benefits of riding a bike.

London organisations will compete against each other to see who can get the most staff to ride a bike between Monday 8 and Sunday 28 June.

The Challenge is about participation rather than who can cycle the most miles, with prizes on offer to participants. Register now to start logging your miles for LSE. LSE is currently sixth place and anyone interested but needing some inspiration for a ride, Ian Harvey in Information Management and Technology would be happy to help. Ian can be contacted on ext 6146 or I.Harvey@lse.ac.uk
 

Did you know LSE Email now supports messages up to 25MB in size? As long as the message does not exceed 25MB in total, staff can send individual or multiple large files. But check that your intended recipients are able to accept large files.

If your file is larger than 25MB there are a couple of things to remember when sharing big files via an external online storage service such as Dropbox.

1. The service may own your data and documents
Always read the terms and conditions as some services claim ownership of everything they host.

2. Always backup
If this is the only place where your data is stored you run the risk of losing it completely if the service is shut down or compromised.

3. You may be breaking research funders’ requirements
Some funding bodies require you to store research data in certain ways; always check!

For more information about using online storage services, see the Dropbox Guidelines or contact imt.infosec@lse.ac.uk for advice on storing your data safely.

One bedroom, one living room, one bathroom flat, on the top floor of a family house in mid-Kensington, is available to rent from August.

Very convenient for transport links (Central/Circle/District) and within walking distance of Gloucester Road (Piccadilly), shops and restaurants. Available for (below market) rent from August.

For more information, photographs or viewing, please email maxlieven1990@gmail.com or emmassmith@gmail.com.

Flat in Gants Hill available to rent

One bedroom, furnished flat situated very close to Gants Hill Station (Central Line) currently available for rent.

The flat is a part of a new build, serviced block of apartments and has been recently decorated. It is one minute walking distance from the tube station and within walking distance to Ilford station for National Rail.

Close to local shops and neighbouring with the historic Valentines Park.

For more information, pictures or to arrange the viewing, please email k.selmoun@lse.ac.uk.

This week's picture features.....

Have you missed me? The Penguin and Baby Tembo sculptures will be back to their original homes once the new Centre Building is finished, but this may not be until 2019! Estates is working with the LSESU to find suitable temporary locations until then.

For more images like this, visit the Photography Unit.

Paying people incentives to make healthy choices only works in the long term if they are paid to NOT do something

Monetary incentives to encourage people to live healthier lifestyles only work in the longer term when they are designed to stop negative behaviour, rather than promote positive choices, suggests new research from LSE.

A paper published in Social Science and Medicine describes the results of a laboratory experiment where participants were invited to watch a series of videos while eating as many jelly beans as they liked. Partway through, incentives were introduced to encourage some participants to eat the sweets and for some participants to not eat the sweets for the duration of the next five minute video. For the purpose of comparison, another group of participants watched the video without an incentive. The experiment was then repeated two days later, when none of the participants received incentives.

sweetsOnly the incentive to not eat sweets was found to still have an effect two days later. Participants who had been previously offered a £3 incentive to not eat any jelly beans ate significantly less sweets than the participants who had not receive a monetary incentive.

Being a parent – before and after a split

Dads who are actively involved in bringing up their young children are more likely in the event of a split from their partner to keep in regular contact with their child, according to new research by Professor Lucinda Platt from the Department of Social Policy.

She and her co-author, Dr Tina Haux from the University of Kent, also found that mothers who separate from their child’s father have a poorer view of their abilities as a parent than those who stay in their relationship.

These are just two of the key findings from a Nuffield Foundation research project on parenting.

Professor Platt and Dr Tina Haux wanted to see if dads who are close to their child when they are very young are likely to see their son or daughter more in the event of a separation. They also looked at what other pre-separation factors were at play in the amount of contact after a split, such as the length of time since separation and the age of the child.

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LSE is hosting a Sir Arthur Lewis Centenary Event on Monday 22 June at 6.30 in the Old Theatre, Old Building with high profile academics Professor Sir Paul Collier and Professor Dani Rodrik.

2015 marks the centenary of the birth of the LSE’s Nobel Prize winning economist, William Arthur Lewis (pictured). Sir Arthur Lewis (1915-1991) was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics for “pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries”. This event will see Rodrik and Collier reflect on some important themes on the subject of “Understanding Economic Development” and their relation to Lewis’s earlier work.

Other forthcoming events at LSE include:

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On until Saturday 11 July in the Atrium Gallery, Old Building (Mon-Fri 10am-8pm; Sat 12-5pm)

This exhibition, in association with LSE Arts, showcases the most stimulating and challenging responses to Theatrum Mundi’s 2015 ideas competition 'Designing the Urban Commons'.

On: Monday 22 June from 6.30-8pm in room NAB.2.04, New Academic Building
Speakers: Ulrike Hauer (pictured), Team Leader for Political Process, European Commission Support Group for Ukraine; Serhiy Leshchenko, Ukrainian journalist and MP; and Andrew Wilson, Senior Policy Fellow, ECFR.

With the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in the Donbas, the EU needs more than ever to understand what Ukrainians themselves think about their future. Too much of the debate and the diplomacy in the current crisis has been conducted without Ukraine. What role should the EU assume in the Ukraine crisis and with what means?

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Elites and Urban dynamics: new perspectives

A one-day seminar at LSE on Wednesday 22 July, funded by the ESRC Alpha Territory project, in association with the LSE International Inequalities Institute, organised by Rowland Atkinson (University of Sheffield), Roger Burrows (Goldsmiths) and Mike Savage (LSE).

For more information, see the seminar programme (PDF), and to request a place, email Clara Lyons at c.lyons@lse.ac.uk.
 

Podcasts of public lectures and events

Is the American Century Over?
Speaker: Professor Joseph S Nye
Recorded: Tuesday 9 June 2015, approx. 68 minutes

Misbehaving: the making of behavioural economics
Speaker: Professor Richard Thaler
Recorded: Tuesday 9 June 2015, approx. 72 minutes
 
Rhetoric and Reality: from Magna Carta to human rights today
Speakers: Shami Chakrabarti, Professor Francesca Klug
Recorded: Wednesday 10 June 2015, approx. 86 minutes 

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Funding Seminar

Thursday 25 June, 12-1pm
The JSPS will visit LSE to give a seminar about the variety of funding opportunities they have for LSE researchers to collaborate with researchers in Japan. The session will be presented by the JSPS’ senior directors from London office and hosted by the LSE Research Division. JSPS offers individual fellowships up to professorial level, funding for group level projects and institutional level collaborations to build international networks.

The JSPS is Japan’s leading funding agency and is largely funded through annual subsidies from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology (MEXT). Established in 1932, JSPS promotes the advancement of academic research in all disciplines from social sciences and humanities to natural sciences and engineering. For more information and to book, please visit here or send an email to a.s.kurt-dickson@lse.ac.uk.
 

Thursday 9 July, 9.30am-4.30pm
Facilitated by: Prof John Wakeford (Missenden Centre)

Bidding for research funds is becoming increasingly competitive and professional; this workshop will help you understand how to start developing a research idea into a funding application, engage with collaborators and identify potential funders. In this full day programme participants will get individual and group feedback on an idea or draft proposal. You are invited to provide a draft or previously unsuccessful bid for discussion in confidence. This will be returned to you at the end of the workshop with colleagues’ suggestions.

Managing Collaborative Research Projects

Tuesday 23 June at 2.30-4pm in NAB 1.07

Do you want to find out more about collaborative projects? This session will explore both the promise and pitfalls of collaborative research projects. Jon Deer of the Research Division will present on collaborative agreements and other forms of contractual arrangements that you need to know even at the design stage of your grant applications, which will be followed by a panel discussion of two LSE academics who have managed collaborative research projects.

Speakers scheduled include:

• Dr Panos Kanavos (Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy)
• Dr Ernestina Coast (Associate Professor, Department of Social Policy

The panellists have managed large collaborative research projects funded by the European Commission and/or the UK Research Councils. Join us to hear about their varying experiences and to learn tips that will help you manage your own research projects. Please book your place from here
 

Below are some of the vacancies currently being advertised:

• Research Officer, CEP Community Programme, Centre for Economic Performance
• Administrative Assistant (internal applicants only), LSE London
• Analyst Programmer, Information Management and Technology
• CEP/CVER Research Economist or Research Assistant, Centre for Economic Performance
• Central Reservations Manager (internal applicants only), Residential and Catering Services Division
• Centre Manager, Centre for the Study of Human Rights, Sociology
• Co-ordinating Language Teacher (Mandarin Chinese), Language Centre
• Coordinating Language Teacher (EAP), Language Centre
• Department Manager (Strategy and Resources), Law
• Deputy Director, Centre for Women, Peace and Security (internal applicants only), Institute of Global Affairs
• Faith Centre Coordinator, Teaching and Learning Centre
• Financial Planning and Analysis Manager, Finance Division
• Graduate Administrator, Geography and Environment
• Graduate Admissions, Communications and Customer Service Manager (June 2015), ARD: Graduate Admissions
• HR Administrator (Visas), Human Resources
• HR Analyst, HR Specialists
• Head of Digital Scholarship and Innovation, Library: Resources and Innovation
• Head of Purchasing (internal only), Finance Division
• IGC Policy Communications Manager, International Growth CEntre
• LSE Fellow in EU Politics, European Institute
• LSE Fellow in Health Economics (two positions), Social Policy
• LSE Fellow in Health Policy, Social Policy
• LSE Fellow in International Political Economy, International Relations
• LSE Fellow in Local Economic Development, Geography and Environment
• LSE Fellow in Population, Health and Social Epidemiology, Social Policy
• LSE Fellow in Public Policy and Administration, Government
• LSE Fellow, Gender Institute
• LSE Fellows in Accounting, Accounting
• Office Manager (internal only), LSE Finance
• Office Manager/HR Information Officer, LSE Advancement
• Programme Coordinator, Management
• Programme Coordinator (MSc Management and Exchanges), Management
• Research Officer (0.4FTE), Centre for Analysis of Time Series
• Research Officer (Environment and Development), Grantham Research Institute
• Reservations Supervisor, Residential and Catering Services Division
• Senior HR Analyst, HR Specialists
• Senior Library Assistant, Procurement and Access, Library: Collections Services