The University of Suffolk showcased its nationally-significant programme of research projects for the first time at a special conference in Ipswich this week, hosting the platform with academics from across the country.
Together for Transformation: Research for a Changing World brought together more than 80 speakers on Wednesday, 24 May at the Waterfront campus, with experts across the University’s research institutes sharing insights into their work alongside peers from other universities.
Researchers in areas such as culture and heritage, education, health and wellbeing, social justice, sustainability and business and management talked about key projects such as the impact of traffic-related air pollution on primary school children, challenging harmful attitudes to sexual harassment, making sustainable plastics from bacteria and tackling the postcode lottery of music education.
The transformational research projects also included a look at professional ethics in policing, led by Dr Mark Manning, Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Justice and Crime who is applying his past work as an officer to emerging issues in policing.
Dr Manning’s research assesses whether ethical conduct is regarded as a sufficiently important pillar in the profession and whether police forces would benefit from being more reflective upon their own processes and behaviours, particularly in light of a number of recent missed red flags in high profile cases.
Dr Manning said: “Ethics should be at the core of policing to support communities and victims of crime, especially as in many situations, police officers use significant discretion when making on the spot decisions.
“The ethics of police work feature insufficiently in professional policing practice, and I discussed the notion of practice within police recruitment training and development, and how this could help to redress this shortcoming.”
Another key research project is around the use of Ripple Effects Mapping to analyse the outcomes of the North East Essex Neighbourhood Programme – a scheme to help people improve their health and wellbeing by bringing together collaborative work between the local voluntary sector, communities, leaders, borough and district councils and health and social care organisations.
Working with the University of Essex and Anglia Ruskin University, the University of Suffolk is using Ripple Effects Mapping as a tool to chart both the intended and unintended outcomes for the neighbourhood programme and how these are rippling into wider outcomes.
It is just one stream of work in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing which also includes the impacts of the menopause, co-production in care and use of medical scanners in diagnosing strokes.
Professor Valerie Gladwell, Director of the University’s Institute of Health and Wellbeing said: “We are doing high-quality research, creating useful and useable evidence and really putting Suffolk and North East Essex at the forefront of research in health and wellbeing.”
The University of Suffolk academics were joined by experts at other Higher Education institutions, including Durham University, Loughborough University, and Sheffield Hallam University, as well as inviting international speakers from organisations such as the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Pakistan and Sport Ireland.
Keynote speakers for the event included Professor Anne Bamford OBE, formerly the Strategic Director of Education and Skills for the City of London who has been internationally recognised for her work in education and visual communication, as well as Ofsted’s deputy director for cross-remit education policy, Anna Trethewey, and former Suffolk Constabulary Chief Constable Gareth Wilson.
Professor Emma Bond, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at the University of Suffolk, said: “Since gaining our independence as a university in 2016, we have developed a highly impactful research agenda which is transforming lives regionally, nationally and internationally. Our research success is testament to the strategic investment the University of Suffolk has made in the last few years and to the wealth of knowledge, expertise and passion that our academics have for their work. As Pro Vice-Chancellor Research I am tremendously proud of our vibrant research culture and this event evidences our superb achievements in research to date.
“Police ethics, narratives around sexual harassment, music education and the menopause provide just a flavour of the themes our work is exploring, and by hosting this event we are able to add the expertise of our brilliant academic colleagues to inform new research directions nationally.”
For the full line-up of speakers at the event visit: Together for Transformation Conference 2023 | University of Suffolk (uos.ac.uk)
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