RISE May-June 2009 - University of Salford

RISE! Research Innovation and Internationalisation News
FOLLOWING IN
DANTE’s FOOTSTEPS
INTERNATIONAL
RESEARCH WEEK
On the 26th January, BuHu (The Research Institute for the
Built & Human Environment), SoBE (The School of Built
Environment SoBE), and SCRI (the EPSRC funded Salford
Centre for Research & Innovation) joined forces to launch the
International Research Week at the Lowry in Salford Quays.
This unique event brought together academic partners from leading
Universities (Reading, Loughborough, TU, Delft and Middle East
Technical University), along with other key players from the industry, to
enhance and promote current research within the built
environment community.
The full week event comprised of:
> The industry day – Sustainable Delivery of Housing
(26th January 2009)
> International Research Symposium (27-28th January 2009)
> 9th International Postgraduate Research Conference
(29-30th January 2009)
The conference included over 250 registered candidates, over 120
accepted papers, rich presentations, panel discussions, and interactive
workshops. The University of Salford was honoured by the presence of
the Salford Mayor and the Lord Mayor of Manchester at the IPGRC
dinner. The event was brought to a close with a prize award ceremony
for best papers, sponsored by BuHu, SCRI, CIOB, Construct IT and
Emerald Publishers. One of the highlights of the ceremony, was the
‘BuHu BRANDON AWARD’ to honour the contribution of Professor
Peter Brandon to the Built Environment. The IRW09 also acknowledged
the generous contribution of £2000 from the CIOB to sponsor this
event, and congratulated them for the 175 year anniversary of great
achievements.
If you would like further information on the event please contact
Vian at: v.ahmed@salford.ac.uk
University of Salford academic, Gillian Ania, has been invited to speak at
an International Conference at the University of Cambridge in October
2009, on representations and conceptions of the apocalypse in
medieval and contemporary Italy. Her paper will discuss
fin-de-millennium writers who are following in the steps of Dante,
Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Manzoni and Leopardi, writers who all used
apocalyptic motifs to comment on, and condemn their society. Gillian
was also involved recently in the inaugural meeting of Mosaici, at the
University of Edinburgh. Mosaici is a new electronic Journal of Italian
poetry, hosted by the University of St Andrews, and Gillian, who
published her first collection of poems (Moments of Being) in 2005, will
have joint responsibility for directing the Creative writing section of the
journal. Gillian has been offered the role of Visiting Professor (spring of
2010) at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, to teach a
module on Creative writing, and to organize, with colleagues, a series
of public interviews with Italian writers. This will form part of her
research on European Writers and Writing.
For more information on Gillian’s work please contact her at:
g.ania@salford.ac.uk
DEHEMS: Domestic
Energy Consumerism &
Behaviour Change
The University of Salford is a major partner in the EU FP7
funded project, Digital Environmental Home Energy
Management System (DEHEMS).
The aim of the project is to develop cutting edge technology for
monitoring and assessing domestic energy usage, so that ultimately
individuals are encouraged to change their behaviour towards
conserving energy. Households across Europe will participate in this
project, including the city councils of Manchester, Birmingham and
Bristol. The homes, known as the Living Labs, will be installed with the
DEHEMS system that will monitor appliance-level energy usage, detect
energy usage patterns, and display real-time energy usage (and
wastage) information.
As energy is a source for increasing CO 2 emission, it is hoped that the
DEHEMS project will provide the means and opportunity for individuals
to take active responsibility in conserving energy. Dr David Kreps from
the Salford Business School leads the project team at Salford, which
includes Dr Vasughi Sundramoorthy, Professor Grahame Cooper,
Dr Haifa Takruri-Rizk and Professor Nigel Linge from the School
of Computing.
For more information on this project please contact David at:
d.g.kreps@salford.ac.uk or visit the project website at:
http://www.dehems.eu
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