University of Westminster

The University of Westminster has launched a £5m fundraising campaign to restore a historic cinema that was venue for the UK’s first ever public display of moving pictures in 1896.

The campaign has already received a £1m donation by the MBI Al Jaber Foundation to transform the cinema which is currently used as a lecture theatre at the university.

Under new plans, the venue will become a working cinema once again, showcasing student work and experimental film from around the world.

The new cinema will also double-up as a modern lecture theatre to host a new public lecture programme, and the marble entrance hall will be transformed into a venue for art and cultural exhibitions.

To find out more about campaign visit www.birthplaceofcinema.com.

Simon – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Courtauld Institute of Art

International students in London can now develop their understanding of art history with a short course at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

The Institute’s evening lecture series Showcasing Art History investigates a range of fundamental art historical themes. The coming spring term explores the perennial problems of ‘influence’, ‘tradition’ and ‘innovation’, while the summer term focuses on the world-renowned Courtauld Gallery collections, including iconic works by Manet, Cézanne and Renoir.

The Summer School (2010) features 34 week-long courses and gives you the chance to engage intensively with works of art from classical antiquity to the present day. Inspiring lectures from specialist art historians are complemented by visits to London’s museums and galleries, offering a unique insight into the world of art history.

Visit the Courtauld short course website for more information.

Simon – www.studylondon.ac.uk

School children in Africa

According to the UN, more than 60 million children go to school hungry every day worldwide. To help combat the problem, Imperial College London has launched a new project to help local farmers in sub-Saharan Africa provide healthy school meals for local children.

The project will help governments to run school meal programmes using locally-sourced food, providing regular orders and a reliable income for local farmers. The project will also conduct a series of studies to analyse the cost and impact of the school meal programmes.

Supported by a $12 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project aims to ensure a reliable and fair market for local farmers’ products in countries such as Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Kenya.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Helen with a sample of Vegetex

University of East London (UEL) research student, Helen Bailey, was on site to inspect the first road built using Vegetex, an inventive and environmentally-friendly material she created to build roads.

Helen’s innovative idea replaces up to 20 percent of the bitumen content in road surfaces with vegetable oil, a common ingredient used to cook the nation’s chips.

Using chip fat is a great way to recycle, reducing the CO2 emissions that result from creating bitumen while also reducing the need for the landfills used to dispose waste oil.

In recognition of her ground-breaking achievements, Helen was recently presented with the prestigious Fiona and Nicholas Hawley Award for Environmental Engineering by The Worshipful Company of Engineers.

The Vegetex project has also been shortlisted for an Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Innovation Award.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

LSE staff at the National Recycling Awards

The London School of Economics (LSE) has won a Recycling Achievement Award at the National Recycling Awards for its ‘complete and comprehensive approach’ to recycling.

The School’s recycling rate has increased from 76 to 88 percent in the last year thanks to measures such as a food composting service and communal recycling stations for staff and students.

In the past year, the School’s New Academic Building has recycled 128 tonnes of waste. A further 36 tonnes of waste has been turned into energy, saving 71 tonnes of CO2 and more than 1,100 trees.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

London Business School

The 2009 FT ranking of Executive-MBA programmes (EMBAs) lists more courses taught in London in the top 10 than any other city in the world.

The Trium programme, a joint degree between the London School of Economics, HEC Paris and New York University’s Stern School of Business, has climbed one place to second best in the world.

Two programmes from London Business School are in the top 10. Its Executive MBA with Columbia Business School in New York is at number three while its stand alone EMBA is at number eight.

Joining them in the top 10 at number four is University of Chicago Booth’s EMBA which is taught on its London campus as well as in Chicago and Singapore.

The FT’s EMBA ranking measures career progression and research undertaken within each business school as well as the salary increase that graduates report three years after graduation. The fact that more top programmes are based in London demonstrates London’s continued strength as a business education centre.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

University College London

University College London (UCL) has recently announced a partnership with Yale University to improve the human condition through translational medicine.

Translational medicine aims to improve patient treatments using molecular and cellular discoveries. This research focussed approach aims to increase the speed at which discoveries made in the laboratory are turned into remedies that can be used to treat patients.

Initial research will focus on cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurosciences but will also expand into other areas of basic research, including cancer biology, neuroscience and women’s health.

UCL was recently ranked fourth in The Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings, and Yale ranked third.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Cherie Blair with students (source: UEL)

The University of East London’s (UEL) new Sir John Cass School of Education was recently opened by Cherie Blair QC, a leading barrister and campaigner for equality and human rights.

The School of Education is one of London’s foremost centres for teacher training and will become a unique community resource for children and schools around London.

Accommodating almost 2,500 students, the School’s range of impressive facilities include:

• Research and specially equipped teaching areas
• A music, dance and drama studio
• ICT and science laboratories
• An art, design & textiles studio

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Imperial College London

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered an unusual kind of meteorite in the Western Australian desert and have uncovered where in the Solar System it came from using a new camera network.

Meteorites are the only surviving physical record of the formation of our Solar System. By analysing meteorites, researchers can learn valuable information about the conditions that existed when the Solar System was being formed.

However, information about where individual meteorites originated, and how they were moving around the Solar System prior to falling to Earth, is available for only a dozen of around 1100 documented meteorite falls over the past two hundred years.

The new meteorite, which is about the size of cricket ball, is the first to be retrieved since researchers from Imperial set up their cameras to track meteorites falling in Australia. They hope that their new desert network could yield many more findings.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

King’s College London

King’s College London has been awarded a grant of $1,680,500 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to fund Peace and Security Fellowships at the African Leadership Centre (ALC).

The ALC equips young Africans with the skills and knowledge to become leading analysts and policymakers on peace, security and development in Africa. It was first established in 2008 by King’s in partnership with Kenyatta University in Kenya.

The Carnegie grant will enable 21 young African scholars to complete Master’s courses in ‘Conflict, Security and Development’, or ‘International Peace and Security’ at King’s starting in 2010.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk