Additional local housing has little effect on local housing markets

A new study has shown that new house building has little discernible and consistent impact on local house price patterns.

BBQ on the Plaza

Summer has arrived and to celebrate LSE Catering will be hosting a pop up BBQ and Milkshake Bar on the Plaza this Thursday from midday-3pm.

Ridhi Malik

Master's student Ridhi cannot live without books, her laptop and coffee, and has recently been chosen to speak to events in London and Berlin.

The new South Asia Centre (SAC) at LSE started work on Monday 1 June, and will be located within the Institute of Global Affairs.

It marks a step-change in the School's engagement with the region, with which it has had a relationship nearly since the start of LSE itself. The SAC will provide focus for LSE expertise on South Asia and will highlight academic research and public engagements of more than 70 academics, post docs and graduate students whose interests relate to the region, bring LSE expertise to engage with South Asia issues, and be focal point for the students who come from South Asia to study at LSE.

Class Teacher Awards are nominated by academic departments in recognition of the special contribution made by graduate teaching assistants, teaching fellows and guest teachers to their work. This year’s winners across all departments are listed below.

The School’s Teaching Special sent to all students and staff this week inadvertently included the names of last year’s winners rather than this year’s, so we apologise for this error. To view the full newsletter online, click here.

• Accounting: Rodney Brown, Nadine De-Gannes
• Anthropology: Clara Miranda Sheild-Johansson, Anna Tuckett, Martyn Wemyss
• Economic History: Flora Macher, Brian Varian
• Economics: Clare Balboni, Svetlana Chekmasova, Alexia Delfino, Thomas Drechsel, Jason Garred, Reka Juhasz, William Matcham, Stephan Maurer, Ana McDowall, Clement Minaudier, Niclas Moneke, Frank Pisch, Federico Rossi, Francesco Sannino, Luke Taylor
• Finance: James Clark, Alex Clymo, Alex Koriath, Paula Lopes, Luana Zaccaria
• Gender Institute: Jacob Breslow, Emma Spruce
• Geography and Environment: Alice Evans, Ashley Gorst, Ganga Shreedhar
• Government: Erifylli Bertsou, Moritz Schmoll, Maria Werdine-Norris, Gregor Wolkenstein
• International Development: Hazel Gray, Anna Macdonald, Silvia Masiero
• International History: Sarah Ashraf, Sajjansing Gohel, Cornelius Heere, Andrea Mason, Stuart Minson, Lauren Young
• Language Centre: Natasha Bershadski, Roser Martinez-Sanchez
• Law: Cressida Auckland, Anthony Jones, Manuel Penades-Fons, Simon Witney
• LSE100: Mark Hill, Natasha Marhia, Chris Parkes, Daniel Strieff
• Mathematics: Elisabeth Grieger, Matthew Jenssen, Philip Johnson, Tony Whelan, Georgios Zouros
• Management: Ahmad Abu-Khazneh, Rebecca Campbell, Enrico Rossi
• Media and Communications: Sally Broughton-Micova
• Methodology: Kevin Corti, Jack Cunliffe
• Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method: Simon Beard, Alexandru Marcoci, James Nguyen, Nicolas Wuethrich
• Social Policy: Diana Quirmbach, Bert Provan, Liz Bailey
• Social Psychology: Satkeen Azizzadeh, Apurv Chauhan, Imara Rolston
• Sociology: Manmit Bhambra, Richard Seymour, Paul Thornbury
• Statistics: Anastasia Kakou, Milt Mavrakakis, Jose Pina-Sanchez
   

LSE Faith and Leadership students meet HRH the Prince of Wales

LSE students who completed the pilot of the Faith and Leadership Programme were presented with their certificates by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales at a ceremony at Clarence House on Thursday 28 May.

The programme offers an extra-curricular certificate to students of any or no faith background, which combines religious literacy with leadership development.

The students were accompanied by LSE Director Craig Calhoun and the Chaplain, the Revd Dr James Walters, who created the programme. The Bishop of London, who was also present, described the programme as “a model of university engagement with religion in the 21st Century.”

A film about LSE Faith and Leadership can be viewed here.
 

Professors Craig Calhoun (pictured), Director of LSE, and Tariq Madood, University of Bristol, discussed the changing nature of religion in Britain and the challenges for Higher Education at an event on Tuesday 9 June at LSE.

The discussion drew upon the complementary essays both have written on religion for the Leadership Foundation's Stimulus Paper series, entitled Religion in Britain: challenges for Higher Education.

The authors have brought together their social sciences expertise to examine the issues around the place of religion in contemporary society and what that might mean for universities. There is a particular emphasis on leaders, particularly those who provide the intellectual and academic leadership.

In his essay, Religion, the public sphere and higher education, Professor Calhoun explores how religious public issues intersect with life in universities. What are the challenges from dealing with dissent to supporting students' personal growth? Do universities help the public understand religion better? And how do university leaders, who may or may not be religious, foster incorporate religious diversity into inclusive intellectual communities? More
 

LSE achieves internationally recognised energy management standard

On Monday 1 June, LSE achieved ISO 50001 certification, an internationally recognised standard of energy management, following a recent external audit. LSE is one of only a handful of universities to achieve the standard.

This will help the School meet our carbon targets and reduce costs, by putting systems in place to continually improve our energy performance. Examples of this include designing the Centre Buildings redevelopment to stringent energy standards, enhancing heating and cooling control systems to boost energy-efficiency whilst improving comfort, and installing low-energy lighting and other equipment.

Julian Robinson, Director of Estates, thanked staff for their hard work over the last year in getting everything into place to make this achievement possible.
 

Healthy eating, regular exercise and blood pressure and cholesterol control are among the most effective ways of managing the early stages of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

These are the findings of a review undertaken by researchers from LSE, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and US National Institutes of Health, published in Nature Reviews Nephrology.

A new study has shown that new house building has little discernible and consistent impact on local house price patterns.

The report by LSE London, entitled Understanding the Local Impact of New Residential Development, was jointly commissioned by Barratt Developments, the largest house builder in the UK, and the NHBC Foundation, and addressed the question of whether a new development will always reduce prices or reduce the rate of increase in prices in the immediately surrounding area.

China’s greenhouse gas emissions could peak more than five years earlier than expected, helping to avoid dangerous climate change, according to a new paper published by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at LSE.

The authors of the paper, Fergus Green and Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, find that, although President Xi Jinping has agreed publicly to reduce emissions by 2030, China’s emissions will likely begin to decline by 2025.

The paper states: “Analysing trends in the key emitting sectors, we conclude that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to peak as late as 2030 - the upper limit set by President Xi Jinping in November 2014 - and are much more likely to peak by 2025. They could peak even earlier than that.”

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 Pauline Barrieu (pictured), Professor in Statistics, discusses modelling and new trends in the financial markets. More
 

Did you know? The Queen, who celebrates her official birthday this Saturday, opened the New Academic Building in 2008.

But both her mother and daughter had visited LSE before her. LSE photo archives record HM the Queen Mother’s first visit in 1960. Her granddaughter Princess Anne’s first visit to LSE came in 1986.

See how much - or how little - royal visits have changed through the years from 1960 in pictures at the LSE History trivia series.

Summer has arrived and to celebrate LSE Catering will be hosting their pop up BBQ and Milkshake Bar on the Plaza this Thursday.

For £4.50 you can enjoy a delicious beef or vegetarian burger with cheese and then add your choice of sauce/salad.

For the next two weeks the Fourth Floor Restaurant is trialling an early breakfast service that opens at 9am until 11am.

The School is currently in the process of launching a new reprographics service which will provide cost effective, efficient printing options. The new service will also aim to better integrate with technology and support the School’s sustainability objectives.

We are now in the evaluation stage and are testing some new printer models in the Library and Copy Shop. The aim of the pilot is to test the durability of the new models, and we'd like to invite students to use the new printers whilst our team evaluates the machines.

For the next couple of months, there will be a temporary reduction in printing costs for colour and duplex printing on the new machines only:

• Black and White duplex - 4p per page
• Colour - 20p per page

To take advantage of this discount, for black and white duplex printing all you have to do is select the print queue PRINTQKonica from the computers located within the copy shop area on the ground floor of the Library.

For colour printing, please select the print queue Printqlibrarycolour which will print to the Canon printer located on the lower ground floor.

This pilot is part of the Reprographics Project, if you have any questions or need assistance using the new printers please contact the IT Help Desk:

• it.helpdesk@lse.ac.uk, 020 7955 6728, Library first floor (in person)
   

Can you get more out of your research?

Learn the skills which will help you communicate your research innovatively and effectively with LSE Shout!

LSE Shout! is back for a second year. Set in the beautiful surroundings of Cumberland Lodge, LSE Shout! offers a free series of interdisciplinary workshops designed to provide researchers with the skills that will enable them to engage people more effectively with their research through innovative communication channels.

Targeted at PhD students and early career researchers, the workshops are taught by a variety of industry practitioners from the fields of public speaking, filmmaking, and graphic design.

This year's LSE Shout! will take place from Friday 19 to Sunday 21 June. Applications are now open - you can apply via the applications page.

Please email shout@lse.ac.uk with any queries and find out more information on the website.
 

Will you be returning to LSE for 2015-16? Do you want to help new students settle into life at LSE?

Residential Services are looking for 20 confident, approachable and knowledgeable LSE students to act as Residences Ambassadors.

Your role will be to reach out to LSE students living in University of London Intercollegiate and certain LSE halls and connect them with the wider LSE network of students and events during September and October 2015.

For more information, visit LSE Careers Hub and search for:

Position Name - Residences Ambassadors
Position Ref - ResAmbassador2015
Position ID - 275763
 

The RATS project to replace the IT system which manages teaching timetables and room bookings is progressing well and the School is on track to migrate to the new system at the start of the 2015-16 academic year.

The implementation of the "core" timetabling and central room booking system was completed in January. This system is used by the Timetabling team to manage all the courses and their requirements at LSE, and the team are currently inputting the data for the 2015-16 academic year.

The next stage of the project is the implementation of the calendaring tool, which will enable the timetables to be "pushed out" to your own online calendars such as Outlook or on your smart phones, meaning that you will have easy access to and up to date information about your timetables.

A number of students have already volunteered to test the system before it’s launched - arrangements for this will be sent out in June. This involvement will help us to test the new system from the perspective of a real user, and ensure not only that the system works but also that the user experience is a good one.

Need a nursery?

Do you have young children (three months to five years) and need a nursery near the School?

If so, please take the very short survey at surveymonkey.com/s/Y9JBLN2. We are particularly keen to hear from staff and students who could use the LSE Nursery but don’t.
 

To mark the end of the Sabbatical Officers’ year at the Student's Union, LSE Arts and the LSESU have teamed up to present a special edition of the monthly online gallery.

Each Sabbatical Officer have chosen their favourite pictures from the last year. Check it out online.

Computer Tip of the Week - Excel good practice

Audits of Excel spreadsheets often reveal alarming numbers of errors. Many of these can be avoided by implementing simple good practice. Here are three crucial tips:

1. Never type a number into a formula; use a cell reference instead. (For example, to calculate two per cent inflation, do NOT type two per cent into your formula. Instead, type the label ‘inflation rate’ into a cell, and two per cent into the adjacent cell. Then include the latter cell in your formula.)

• Spread sheets should be ‘transparent’, displaying all assumptions and values incorporated into calculations.
• Numbers may change; cell contents can be changed more easily than numbers hidden in formulas, which are easily overlooked.
• Errors in typing numbers into formulas are less likely to be spotted than if displayed on the worksheet.

2. Put all constants and assumptions at the top of the sheet, clearly labelled and separated from the main dataset.

• This makes worksheets instantly easier to understand.

3. Avoid typing cell references into a formula. Instead, click on the cell to enter its cell reference in a formula.

• Clicking is much less prone to error than typing a cell reference.

London Cycle Challenge

LSE is participating in 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 the School.
 

Would you like to earn £30 and learn about your body composition? Researchers at UCL are looking for women of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan ancestry between the ages of 20-28 to take part in a research study looking at relationships between muscle and fat tissues in the body, and links between body composition and metabolic health.

The commitment to the study is only one half day (approx. four and half hours including a break for food and drink, or split into two shorter sessions over two days at your convenience). The study takes place at the UCL Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. We will provide food on the day, as well as reimburse any travel expenses.

If you're interested, contact Meghan Shirley at meghan.shirley.13@ucl.ac.uk for more information, or text/call 07923 691733.

Forthcoming LSE events include....

Disinflation and Deflation: where? why? and what's next?
On: Wednesday 17 June at 6.30pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor Kristin Forbes (pictured)

After Your Death
On: Thursday 18 June at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Sam Scheffler

Don't miss out - ticket release reminder

Above the Parapet - Women in Public Life
On: Tuesday 23 June
Speaker: Julia Gillard (pictured)
Ticket release date: Monday 15 June
 

EU Foreign Policy: the view from Bulgaria

On: Tuesday 16 June from 5.30-6.30pm in the Alumni Theatre, New Academic Building

HE Mr Daniel Mitov (pictured), Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Bulgaria, will speak at this LSEE event.

On: Thursday 25 June from 6.45-8.15pm on Saw Swee Hock's sixth floor
Speakers: Dr Ute Stephaen, co-author of the paper inspiring this panel; Dr Susan Liautaud, Founder and Managing Director of Susan Liautaud and Associates Limited; and Dentaa Amoateng, an award-winning British-Ghanaian entrepreneur.

This panel discussion, hosted by LSE Entrepreneurship, is inspired by recent research showing some women social entrepreneurs paying themselves as much as 29 per cent less than their male counterparts. Is this culturally determined because they undervalue themselves, or is this wise business practice and based on lifestyles choices?

Panellists will discuss how women entrepreneurs decide the value of their work. The purpose is to provoke thought, stimulate debate, and encourage women to think about self-valuation and the potential impact of society and culture on their commercial decisions.