On 8 September Westminster academics, professional services colleagues, senior managers, and the University’s Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Peter Bonfield came together to hold the inaugural Teaching and Research Day to inspire the University community to enhance student experience through the power of research.
Committed to the University becoming a leading institution in bringing research and education together, participants shared and discussed best-practice Westminster projects and processes already leading the way in this area.
The focus on accessibility to research and education underpinned all the sessions during the day including a presentation about the expectations, challenges and opportunities around digital accessibility, bringing all participants up to speed about what leading the way looks like. Lively discussions followed on how research can enhance education, and how education can improve access to research, marrying the two together to help students meet their full potential and make a positive impact in the world.
Organised by Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research Professor Andrew Linn and Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Critical Theory Dr Matthew Charles, the Teaching and Research Day gave an opportunity to academics across all three colleges of the University to share recent research projects which benefit student experience at the University and across the UK.
Key topics included equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), student well-being and mental health, digital accessibility, sustainability, employability, interdisciplinarity, academic confidence and motivation, just to name but a few.
Using digital innovations to support the ‘nexus’ of education and research was also a common theme throughout the day. Attendees heard, for example, about the collaboration between academics and students to create a virtual reality (VR) experience where students can wear headsets and experience potentially anxiety-inducing university situations before facing them in real life, helping achieve equity with their less anxious peers. Another research project has set out to design cost-effective, easy-to-produce tactile touch pads which can be used in lectures by those who are visually impaired, helping them to get a better understanding of the curriculum.
One of the key highlights of the event was a presentation from Westminster students about their involvement in the Gene Editors of the Future Project, a student innovation community funded by the Quintin Hogg Trust. The project provides Life Sciences students from undergraduates to PhD-level with the necessary skills in genome engineering using the Nobel prize-winning CRISPR technology. Students get to hear from guest speakers on genome engineering, explore research questions and take part in research in a genome engineering laboratory. The students have been overwhelmingly positive about the project and were passionate about the benefits participation has given them.
The project is an example of hands-on research at Westminster and demonstrates how research-active academics can use their skills to make research engaging and interesting for students, in turn making it accessible to all and therefore promoting greater diversity within research communities within the University and beyond.
Hailing the Teaching and Research Day a great success in inspiring each other about the power of research in education, it was announced that the event will become an annual occurrence.
Professor Andrew Linn said: "One of the key commitments in our new strategy for research and knowledge exchange, Making a Difference, is to work at the interface of the student experience and our research endeavour so that we ‘become a leading institution in the understanding and modelling of the nexus of research and education in a modern university’. There are wonderful opportunities for us to bring our whole academic community together to make a difference for our communities and the world.”
Research and Knowledge Exchange is a key objective in the University’s Being Westminster 2022-2029 Strategy, and the University takes pride in its commitment to maximising its positive impact on societies in the UK and around the world in its priority areas of Diversity and Inclusion; Health Innovation and Wellbeing; Sustainable Cities and the Urban Environment; and Arts, Communication and Culture.
Indeed, as a university with a history of making a difference through education and public engagement, Westminster has won recognition for making a difference in the world through research in the most recent 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
Learn more about Research at the University of Westminster.
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