Latest news with #UniversityofCumbria
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Cumbrian medical school receives gift to support future doctors
A medical school has received a gift designed to support the next generation of Cumbrian doctors. The Pears Cumbria School of Medicine (PCSM), based at the University of Cumbria, has received funding from the Angela Pattman Scholarship Trust, administered by the Genesis Research Trust, founded by Lord Robert Winston. The scholarship will help remove financial barriers for students hoping to pursue a career in medicine. Lord Robert Winston and students at St John Henry Newman (Image: Supplied) During a recent visit to the school, Lord Winston took part in a campus tour and a session with students and university leaders. Professor Julie Mennell, vice chancellor at the University of Cumbria, said: "We are honoured to welcome Lord Robert Winston to the University of Cumbria and very grateful for the generous gift to support aspiring doctors training in and for Cumbria, serving patients and our communities now and in the future. "His visit has been inspirational and offers an opportunity for young people in Carlisle to engage with one of the UK's most distinguished scientists and communicators. "Lord Winston's insight will leave a lasting impression, reminding us all of the vital role science plays in shaping our future." Lord Winston in the maternity room at UoC (Image: Supplied) During the visit, Lord Winston met students from St John Henry Newman Catholic School in Carlisle and spoke about science, and the value of medical education. The school's involvement was arranged by Hello Future, a University of Cumbria-led partnership of 16 education and skills organisations from Cumbria and Lancashire that supports 11 to 18-year-olds with information about higher education and career pathways. The new bursary scheme is designed to offer opportunities to students who may otherwise struggle to access the profession. The PCSM is a collaboration between the University of Cumbria and Imperial College London. Lord Winston, professor of science and society and emeritus professor of fertility studies at Imperial College London, is widely recognised for his pioneering work in fertility treatment, including advances in IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. He is also known for his broadcasting career on BBC programmes such as Your Life in Their Hands and The Human Body. A spokesperson for the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine said: "This generous gift supporting PCSM bursaries represents an important step in fostering inclusivity in medical education, opening doors for students who may otherwise face challenges in accessing the profession. "PCSM are very grateful to Lord Winston and the Angela Pattman Scholarship Trust for their support and for the significant impact this offering will make on the futures of our medical students." Lord Winston also toured the university's medical and science facilities during his visit. The school aims to train doctors who will go on to serve communities across Cumbria and the North West, with a focus on meeting the specific healthcare needs of the region. It is part of a broader effort to address the shortage of medical professionals in underserved and rural areas. The University of Cumbria has described the scholarship as an 'important step' towards making medical careers more accessible.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
University of Cumbria degree show 2025 opens
The University of Cumbria is opening its doors this week and invites visitors to enjoy the work of its final year creative and media arts students. The university's Institute of Education, Arts and Society is inviting people to its undergraduate degree show 2025 - Made in Carlisle – taking place on its Brampton Road campus in Carlisle, where studio spaces have been transformed into exhibition galleries that are free and open to visitors. The exhibition showcases the work of this year's 70 final year students from across a range of subjects including Film and Television, Fine Art, Games Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography and Wildlife Media. READ MORE: Reform UK to win majority of seats in Cumbria says polls | News and Star Dr Ruth Harrison-Palmer, Dean of the Institute of Education, Arts and Society, said: 'We're so pleased to share our students' work publicly and celebrate their success as they progress. "The annual Degree Show is both a celebration of students and their work, and a critical point in their professional careers."
Business Mayor
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
How Dalefoot is saving the earth with clever composts and peat bog restoration
Whether they are producing Dalefoot, an organic peat-free compost brand much favoured by gardeners, restoring ravaged peat bogs to carbon capturing glory or raising rare breed ewes, spreading good is second nature to entrepreneurs and Chelsea Flower Show gold medal winning icons Jane Barker and Simon Bland. With a compost formula that's a slow release nutrient mix of harvested, potassium-rich bracken, hydrating wool fleece and herbal booster comfrey, there's no need for additional fertilisers and this operation is now part of a unique group business model the couple have developed. Underpinned by the environmental science expertise of Barker, a University of Cumbria professor, and Bland's as a seventh-generation Cumbrian hill farmer, from its Penrith site the company makes and despatches a wide range of compost blends. These cover most gardening needs from sowing seeds and growing veg to clay busting best seller Lakeland Gold. Sales are direct to consumers and through retailers, garden centres and nurseries while folk in the Falklands are also fans. Harvesting bracken makes good use of a 'highly invasive plant that has a negative impact on sensitive habitats', says Barker while composted wool offers an alternative use for a commodity that once powered the British carpet industry and 'helps the threatened culture of hill farming', Bland explains. Coupled with fully-traceable Dalefoot is their Barker & Bland venture. One of the UK's most experienced peatland restorers with 45,000 hectares revived to date, the business reverses the damage caused by extraction, over grazing and climate change through its partnerships with environmental heavyweights such as Natural England, NatureScot, the RSPB and wildlife trusts. Read More Co-operative Bank goes to Coventry in £780m takeover Healthy peatlands can store 20 times more carbon than trees and 'restore the bog from within the bog is our ethos. We hold a patent for an innovative method of bare peat restoration, the most carbon emitting part of a degrading bog, so instead of carbon release into the atmosphere there is carbon storage,' declares Barker. Their work planting sphagnum moss on fragile landscapes such as blanket bogs in Scotland and the north of England is painstaking and complex. 'We shun carbon hungry helicopters and use our own specifically designed and fabricated machinery,' says Barker. 'Engineering specialist equipment lighter than a human footprint is needed because surfaces are so delicate.' A £2.1 million group turnover is forecast for 2026/27 and a lighter pellet format compost is in the pipeline. 'This will save on plastic and transport costs,' explains Bland and he and Barker consider a move into river restoration. Future proofing is now a top priority as the business works with the RSPB to deliver bog restoration across all fronts. 'Biodiversity, water quality, flood management, not just carbon but deep-rooted change not sticking plaster,' spells out Barker whose top compost-buying tip is to avoid those containing low nutrient coir. READ SOURCE
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- The Guardian
Poetry in motion: walking the new Wordsworth Way in the Lake District
'Come forth into the light of things,' implored William Wordsworth in his 1798 poem The Tables Turned, extolling the virtues of a good old-fashioned walk in nature. Treading through his homeland of the Lake District more than two centuries later, on a radiant early spring day, sunbeams casting through the bare branches to anoint the daffodils, it's a compelling edict. As a founding father of England's Romantic poetry movement, Wordsworth's legacy is synonymous with the rolling, rugged landscapes of the Lakes. He and his contemporaries Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were collectively known as the 'Lake Poets', and to gaze on the region's deep, still waters and scrabble across its fells is to understand the source of his artistic inspiration, centuries on. That, at least, is the aim of a new walking route dedicated to the literary giant's life and work. The Wordsworth Way – which was unveiled on 7 April to celebrate the poet's 255th birthday – threads strands of pre-existing footpaths together to form a signposted 14-mile trail stretching from the shores of Ullswater to the tourist town of Ambleside. It's a region that Gordon Lightburn, Chair of Friends of the Ullswater Way, which delivered the project with partners including Wordsworth Grasmere and the University of Cumbria, refers to as 'the cradle of the Romantic literature movement'. The route contemplates the former poet laureate's 'plain living and high thinking' philosophy by connecting places linked to his verses and his personal history, as well as those of his friends and family. 'The idea is to get people experiencing the Lakes the way the Romantics did, by slowing down, noticing the details in the landscape, and reflecting on nature,' says Jade Cookson, a University of Cumbria alumnus who wrote a guidebook on the new route. 'It's about seeing the world through Wordsworth's eyes and understanding why this place meant so much to him.' The Wordsworth Way can be enjoyed as a 14-mile point-to-point walk, or a more leisurely 21-mile route involving three other circular walks, with convenient public transport links at either end. The walk itself offers a mix of bracing fell walking around Grisedale Tarn, and civilised strolling through the village of Grasmere to provide a sweeping overview of the poet's life and influence, while paintings and pencil sketches featured in the guide bring to life the views as they would have looked in Wordsworth's day. Kicking things off, walk one is an 8.3-mile yomp from Glenridding village up towards Grisedale Tarn and the craggy horizons of Helvellyn. Considering the poet's formative years, it takes in poignant sites such as the Brothers Parting Stone, a memorial immortalising a goodbye between Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and his brother John, who would go on to die at sea. The indistinct-looking weather-beaten rock, which is signalled by a metal plaque, bears an inscription from Wordsworth's poem In Memory of My Brother, in which he probes his grief. Its exposed location high on the fells, surrounded by nothing but grass, rocks and rolling hills, hints at the loneliness the words depict. Today I'm picking up the route at the start of walk two in Grasmere, where the adult Wordsworth and his brood lived for almost 15 years. A contemplative pause at the family graves, which lie in the churchyard of the historic St Oswald's, in the shade of a series of yew trees planted by the poet, offers a sense of his community-mindedness. I'm distracted, though, by the heady scent of Cumbrian rum butter drifting through the moss-covered headstones: the school house that Wordsworth's children attended is now home to the oldest gingerbread shop in the UK, Sarah Nelson's Grasmere Gingerbread. I stock up on the crumbly, chewy biscuits for my trek under the midday sun over the flat fields towards the commanding Sour Milk Ghyll waterfall, a favourite spot of William and Dorothy. I tackle the steep climb to a solitary lookout bench at Greenhead Gill, whose 'tumultuous brook' and 'upright path' is immortalised in Wordsworth's lyrical poem Michael. Pausing for breath at the bench at the edge of the slope, I'm surprised at how dramatic the drop is, but the peaceful valley seems mostly unchanged since the day he wrote: 'The mountains have all opened out themselves / And made a hidden valley of their own.' Continuing on, I pick up walk three at Wordsworth's former home of Dove Cottage on the edge of the village, which has been preserved, along with its charming fellside garden, as an ode to his daily life with Dorothy alongside his growing family. It is well worth a pit stop, as is the adjacent museum offering detailed context of his creative life. From here, I take the path that rises gently to meet a historic and occasionally scrabbly coffin route offering serene views over a tranquil-looking Rydal Water, which ends at Rydal Mount, another house rented by Wordsworth. This section of the route focuses on family, leading me to discover the hushed enclave of John's Grove, where William and Dorothy would remember their brother, and later to Dora's Field, a daffodil-covered patch of land that Wordsworth bought to remember his eldest daughter, whom he outlived. From there, I continue on to walk four, which examines the impact of his legacy by exploring the homes and lives of additional literary figures connected to Wordsworth and the Lakes. It weaves on easy footpaths to Ambleside, taking in houses formerly occupied by Thomas De Quincey and Harriet Martineau, and concludes at the site of the famous 'Wordsworth steps' at what used to be the residence of his relative Dorothy Harrison, and is now part of the University of Cumbria's Ambleside campus. Dorothy Wordsworth often takes centre stage on this walk, her words appearing frequently in Jade Cookson's guidebook to bring anecdotes and places to life. As the reader approaches the Sour Milk Ghyll waterfall, for example, a passage from Dorothy's diary recalls 'the valley of its winter yellow, but the bed of the brook still in some places almost shaded with leaves'; while a stop at the Rectory, another Wordsworth residence en route, relates to excerpts from a tragic letter that Dorothy wrote to Thomas De Quincey to describe the death of William's young daughter Catherine, which occurred during the family's time at the house. 'Part of doing this is to try to give her a little bit more recognition as well; the recognition that she deserves,' says Lightburn. He asserts boldly: 'Her prose is far better than William's, and her poetry is just as good.' Cookson was also keen to highlight her role in the Wordsworth story: 'His huge body of work was a team effort,' she says. 'His sister, Dorothy, and wife, Mary, played a big role in shaping his work.' It's hard not to wonder what Wordsworth, who was steadfastly opposed to tourism in the area, would have made of the Lake District today, with its luxury hotels and traffic constantly snaking between Windermere and Ambleside. 'He'd probably have mixed feelings,' says Cookson. 'He'd likely object to the crowds and infrastructure, but might appreciate efforts to conserve the landscape.' That said, as the Wordsworth Way proves, opportunities to turn off the beaten path and take a more meditative direction still abound. For more information, see The Wordsworth Way: A Literary Walking Guide Between Glenridding and Ambleside by Jade Cookson is available from Verey Books and Catstycam for £7.50.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Cumbrian women leading the way in robotics
Women in Cumbria are leading the way in one of the most advanced technology sectors in the world. The Cumbria Robotics Cluster, powered by the Industrial Solutions Hub (iSH) in Cleator Moor, is a group of businesses focused on developing robotic solutions for the nuclear industry and other challenging environments. To mark International Women's Day 2025, key figures in the industry have shared their passion for robotics. Jill Stewart, research professor in systems modelling and optimisation at the University of Cumbria (Image: Supplied) Jill Stewart, a research professor in systems modelling and optimisation at the University of Cumbria, became interested in robotics during her undergraduate degree in mechatronics. She said: "I create computer representations of complex systems to study their behaviour and interactions and ultimately find the best solution to a problem. "My undergraduate degree sparked a lifelong interest in how machines can be designed to do useful things. "I'm really inspired by recent developments in AI that have opened a new world of possibilities for robots to take on difficult and dangerous jobs so that people can do interesting and important work." Amanda Smith, UAV programme lead at Sellafield Ltd (Image: Supplied) Amanda Smith, the UAV programme lead at Sellafield Ltd, said robotics is an exciting sector to work in. She said: "I have worked at Sellafield for 26 years and have developed skills in various areas including radiometrics, E&I craftsperson and work management. "The UAV role was a wildcard career move for me knowing nothing about drones, but one I'm pleased I took the chance on. "I've developed the UAV capability over the last six years and am proud to deliver benefits from using robotics both on the Sellafield site and across the NDA estate. "It's great to see the use of new technologies to keep people away from harm and to overcome difficult engineering challenges, some of which have been long-standing issues. "It's exciting to see what we can do with robotics today and what is to come from the continually evolving options." Kayleigh Daniels, head of development at React Engineering (Image: Supplied) Kayleigh Daniels, head of development at React Engineering, specialists in nuclear decommissioning based in Cleator Moor, said: "What really attracted me to the sector was the complexity and unique nature of the problems. "Some of the challenges really are pushing beyond the forefront of current science and technology and the advancements in these areas create an evolving picture; making finding the best solutions exciting and ever-changing. "I'm still a passionate pragmatist, however robotics and technology give us smarter and safer ways to solve intractable problems." The Cumbria Robotics Cluster was launched by iSH in 2024 with the aim of bringing together organisations with a shared vision to collaborate and elevate Cumbria as a global centre of excellence in robotics engineering and problem-solving. iSH programme director Miranda Kirschel, who received an MBE for services to equal opportunities in the nuclear industry, said: "Cumbria's capability in robotics - one of the most rapidly advancing sectors in the world, is renowned. "Women are leading the way in key roles in a number of our cluster member companies; it's fantastic to be able to show the next generation that robotics is a genuine career pathway for them and to inspire future advanced engineers."
