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RESEARCH ANDENTERPRISEA Teesside University Magazine Issue 8

Research and Enterprise 2

Welcome

At Teesside, working with business is at the veryheart of our mission. From teaching andresearch, through to innovation and workforcedevelopment, the needs of business play animportant part in informing everything we do.Indeed, the nature and strength of ourpartnerships with business and industry wererecently given a strong endorsement by SirRichard Brook, Director of the Leverhulme Trust,at the launch of the University’s five newResearch Institutes.

These five Institutes form the backbone of our new research strategy which is aimed atmaximising the impact of our research byfocusing on key areas of strength. Sir Richardspoke very positively about both our approachand our achievements, emphasising thattalented researchers whose work benefitssociety deserve to be supported wherever theyare working – a welcome recognition of thetalent and commitment of researchers inuniversities like Teesside.

Gaining national recognition for our researchand business engagement activity is not onlyimportant to us but also to the whole region. Thestories in this issue of Research and Enterpriseshowcase that recognition and demonstratehow we are building on this work to deliverlasting benefits for our partners.

Amongst the many examples is the work ofour Centre for Design in the Digital Economy indeveloping a new, leading-edge environment forcommerce through the creation of a virtual cityon the 3D web. The North East IndustrialSymbiosis Network is assisting regionalbusinesses to make massive cuts in CO2

emissions, and our computing experts are

helping autistic children struggling tocommunicate. These are just three examples of how our research and knowledge transferactivity is delivering real value to society and ourregional economy. We’re also growing ourportfolio of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships– enabling academic expertise, graduatetalent and industrial and commercialknow-how to be brought together tocreate innovative products and processesto enhance business performance and thebottom line.

In DigitalCity, the regeneration initiativewe jointly lead with Middlesbrough Council,we’re bringing together business, researchstaff, graduates and creative students todevelop new digital business opportunities,and we look forward to our 100th new digitalcompany in spring 2010.

We at Teesside are committed to being theleading business-facing university, deliveringour mission of ‘providing opportunities,promoting enterprise and delivering excellence’and it is heartening and reassuring to know thatour approach to working with business is soclearly reflected in government and CBI policystatements on higher education. It’s an excitingagenda, and we look forward to some excitingtimes working with you!

Professor Graham HendersonVice-Chancellor and Chief Executive

It was a tremendous honour for me recently to accept the Times HigherEducation award of University of the Year on behalf of Teesside University –a hugely welcome endorsement of our business engagement strategy. Whentaken alongside the second award that we won for Outstanding EmployerEngagement, this stands as a true testament to the excellent spirit ofpartnership that exists between the University and business in the region.


Inspiring success

ContentsTackling a matter of life and death 4Creating new worlds online 6Double honours for Teesside 8Transferring knowledge 10Helping the region through the recession 12Emotional tree 14EPICC welcome 16The poverty trap 16Town Hall lessons for Parliament 17The BNP’s quest for legitimacy 18Do all foreign faces look alike? 20Business Leaders of Tomorrow 21

Welcome to the new research institutes 22Supporting talent wherever it is! 24Historical steel jackpot 26Management drama 28Would you trust the male pill? 31Shaping the landscape 32The benefit of Digital City 34Mirror image of fitness 38Meet the inventor … 39Intelligent role playing 40Environment Special 42Taking the bait 46

RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE was produced by Teesside University’s Marketing & Student Recruitment Department for the Department of Academic Enterprise.

EDITOR NIC MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHY JUDY HUME DESIGN CHRIS LOFTHOUSE

To find out more about the stories featured email [email protected] or telephone 01642342018. If you want to discover how your business organisation can work with theUniversity, contact the Centre for Enterprise on 01642 384577 or email [email protected].


Tackling a matter of

Helping to save those lives was the drivingmotivation of a team of UK experts whotravelled to Tanzania in Africa, one of theblackspots for skeletal fluorosis.

Among them was dietician Dr Vida Zohoori,pictured, a senior lecturer in Teesside University’sHealth & Social Care Institute, who has devoted hercareer to research into the effects of fluoride on thehuman body.

She said, ‘In the UK, almost 12% of thepopulation receive fluoridated water, either naturallyor artificially added to the tap water supply, at a level of one part per million. Water fluoridation is the most effective means of preventing tooth decay inchildren. However, if children ingest too muchfluoride (from multiple sources including toothpaste)when their teeth are developing, particularly in thecritical period up to the age of six years, they mayrisk developing mottled enamel (white spotted,yellow or brown stained teeth). In the UK, this ismainly a cosmetic issue.

‘But, in countries like Tanzania where fluorideoccurs naturally in groundwater at a level of up to34 parts per million and there is deficiency incalcium and vitamin D, excess fluoride can causeskeletal fluorosis. It really is a serious issue in thosecountries and children who contract it never livelong.’

The condition, which causes severe damage tobones and joints, is prevalent in 25 countries and isseen by the United Nations as a serious threat tochildren’s health.

Such concerns prompted the Royal Society tofund a visit to Tanzania by a joint team fromTeesside and Newcastle to investigate ways ofreducing the impact of the fluoride.

Alongside Dr Zohoori on the team were threeNewcastle University experts, Dr Ann MacGuire, asenior clinical lecturer in child dental health, DrRichard Walker, a consultant physician at NorthTyneside General Hospital and Paul Sallis, a seniorlecturer in environmental engineering.

During the trip to the Kilimanjaro area, the teaminterviewed members of various tribes as well aslocal officials. The team’s observations included theneed to improve filtering of water supplies, toencourage mothers to breastfeed longer to givetheir children natural protection and to improvecontrol of a tenderiser used by tribespeople in thecooking of meat.

Dr Zohoori said, ‘We hope that the suggestionswe made will be of use and that we can help reducethe effects of skeletal fluorosis in the area. However,with all these things it depends on money.’

In her UK-based research Dr Zohoori has beenexamining the impact of fluoride on children inareas where it is added to tap water – Newcastleamong them – as well as the effects of its absencein areas such as Middlesbrough.

Dr Zohoori, who joined Teesside University in2007, said, ‘Fifty-four per cent of children inMiddlesbrough have dental decay by the time theyare five years old. One of the reasons could be lackof good oral hygiene, but we also believe that it ispartly down to lack of fluoride in the water. The big

In the United Kingdom, the presence of fluoride in tap water has always been a controversial issue –but never a matter of life and death. However, that is not the case in many countries across the world,where it is linked to a bone condition which claims the lives of many young children. JOHN DEAN reports.

life anddeath


argument in favour of adding fluoride to tap water isthat it reduces dental decay. However, there hasbeen very little research into the effects of fluorideexposure and retention on children in the UK.’

To improve our understanding of fluorideexposure in children, Dr Zohoori has carried out arange of research projects over recent years. Oneof the most recent analyses the tests used tomeasure levels of fluoride in children’s diets. DrZohoori is overseeing the work of PhD studentNarges Omid, also in the Health & Social CareInstitute, who is assessing the two main methods oftesting fluoride levels in children.

One method, widely used in the UK, involvesparents keeping a food diary, and the secondmethod, used in the United States, is based onproviding duplicate portions of each meal.

Narges said, ‘I have set out to compare bothmethods, something which has not been donebefore. I hope at the end of the project to be able to

recommend which is more effective with children. Iwill be looking at issues including effectiveness andthe ease of use for parents.’

She has approached Newcastle schools to see ifthey will allow their children to be involved in theproject.

Narges said, ‘Children take in fluoride from avariety of sources. For instance, it can be part of thewater used in the food processing industry incertain areas.

‘It has been established since 1945 that the rightamount of fluoride means less dental decay inyoung children but, as with any nutrient, too muchcan have detrimental effects. Too much fluoride cancause damage to the enamel on children‘s teeth,for example. I hope to learn more about the level offluoride in children’s dietary intake in my research.

‘I hope my research findings will help to informpolicy and practice on children’s fluoride intake’,she says.

IN THE UK,ALMOST 12%OF THEPOPULATIONRECEIVEFLUORIDATEDWATER, EITHERNATURALLY ORARTIFICIALLY


A huge new expo space is being built in the NorthEast. Its 1,600 hectares will house the NorthernDesign Centre and attract commercial exhibitorsfrom all over the world. You haven't heard about it?That's because it is being built online. DAVIDWILLIAMS investigates.

Imagine being one of the firstsettlers in a virgin land. This iswhat it is like now in the virtualworld. The new technology ofthe 3D internet is allowingworkable, photo-realisticlocations to be built online forthe first time. What's more, thecommercial applications of thisand other new technologiesmean that these spaces will be more than playgrounds forsocial networking or games.These new locations will beplaces of business. Like theirreal-world counterparts, they will be used by people to gathertogether to share information, to exhibit their products, and tomake money.

Professor Brian Wilson runs theCentre for Design in the DigitalEconomy (D-lab) at TeessideUniversity, and his research group is one of a small number of teamsthroughout the world that havesecured access to the newtechnology and are using it to build one of these virgin spaces.

‘With this new technology, you cancreate photo-realistic buildings andcity-like environments which you canmove around in a way that feels andlooks naturalistic’, he says. 'If youwanted to, you could re-create anexisting city such as London inmillimetric detail. Our team is doingsomething different, however. We arebuilding a space dedicated tocommercial applications, one that willentice organisations to interact anddo business on the web in acompletely new way. We are callingthis space the Xpo.'

Until now only two types of onlineimmersive environments haveexisted. They are social networkingspaces and gaming spaces, andneither of them is designed for doingbusiness. What Professor Wilson's

onlineteam is doing with the Xpo is tocreate a third kind of immersiveenvironment: one that serves theneeds of commerce.

‘We are now in the transitionbetween Second Life, whichrepresents the previous generation of3D online technology, and the nextgeneration’, explains ProfessorWilson. 'Certainly, corporations had apresence in Second Life, but theywere using it as an R&D opportunityto assess the potential of onlinespace. We shouldn't forget, however,that Second Life was always a socialnetworking tool.

'We call what we are doingimmersive commerce. If you havepeople scattered throughout theworld and want to gather themtogether for a team meeting todiscuss a set of plans laid out on atable, you can do that in your officebuilding in the Xpo. If you want tolaunch a product or hold aconference, the Xpo can support10,000 ‘avatar’ virtual delegates at thesame time. To achieve this, we need a different technical structure for i-commerce than you have for socialnetworking or games.

Creating new worlds


‘A recent piece of research we didwith a product called Metamoleshowed that commercial applicationsare growing faster than socialnetworking and games applications.The Xpo aims to catch this wave ofdevelopment and set the qualitystandard for the use of technicalinfrastructure in i-commerceenvironments.'

The first organisation to settle in thisnew space is the Northern DesignCentre, which has taken a ten-hectareplot at the heart of the Xpo (andwhich, in 2011, will also have a real-world counterpart in Gateshead’sBaltic Business Quarter). Currentlyknown as the NDC District, this spaceaims to become a virtual creativequarter for the North East, offering abase for 76 design ventures andSMEs to locate themselves and dobusiness on the 3D web.

‘We need to ensure North Eastcompanies have the knowledge, skilland operational presence to exploitnew forms of online commerce andbecome competitive pioneers of avirtual-3D online businessenvironment’, says Ben Strutt, One

North East design senior specialist.'This pilot project will provide a newchannel of communication thatenables businesses in the designsector to increase collaboration andknowledge transfer opportunities,develop connections with newmarkets, and acquire market insightfor product and service innovation.'

Funding for the NDC District comesfrom the EU – £515,000 from theEuropean Regional DevelopmentFund Competitiveness Programme2007-13, which is managed locally byOne North East – and £565,000 fromTeesside University.

But the NDC District is only thebeginning of what is possible.Professor Wilson and his team are in

THE FUTURE OF THE 3D WEB LIES INBUILDING WHATARE CALLEDSUPER-CITIES

the process of developing a businessplan with the aim of marketing theXpo as the place to promote andexhibit your products on the 3Dinternet.

'As soon as people see thepotential of the 3D web, they will wantto be part of it,' he says. 'So thespaces that are being built today willvery quickly become globally relevant.We want the Xpo to be the must-usedestination for digital marketers andcorporations on the 3D web. It will bethe place to come for anyone whowants to exhibit, to migrate theirexisting products on to the 3D web orto launch a new product virtually. Andin that sense it will make the Xpo aglobal destination.'


The two awards were presented to Professor GrahamHenderson, the University’sVice-Chancellor, at a glitzygathering of higher educationleaders in London’s GrosvenorHouse Hotel in October 2009.

The twin accolade for Teesside waslargely based on the University’ssupport for employers and employeesin the region. Professor Hendersonbelieves the awards will helptransform perceptions of both theUniversity and Middlesbrough.

Award judge Dianne Willcocks,Vice-Chancellor of York St JohnUniversity, told the ceremony thatTeesside won the University of theYear title for its ‘outstanding regionaleconomic strategy and strongfinancial performance’, and went onto praise the University for its ‘historyof working with communities andbusinesses that makes it the publicbenefactor par excellence, and truly awell-merited winner’.

Times Higher Education Editor AnnMroz said, ‘Teesside is a fantasticexample of an institution that has putitself firmly at the heart of itscommunity, embracing with zeal itsmission of working with bothindividuals and businesses to helpthem achieve their full potential. Withan ambitious 16-point plan it hashelped to create and sustain jobs inthe midst of a recession.

‘The University has been a beaconof hope in the region’s economicgloom. It also set a fine fiscal exampleby turning in a strong financialperformance of its own. Teesside is avery worthy winner of this year’s topaccolade’, she said.

The Outstanding EmployerEngagement award was presented toTeesside University for its BusinessSchool’s pioneering partnership withthe North East Chamber ofCommerce (NECC) which has seenboth partners working closelytogether to design and develop a newbusiness-friendly Foundation Degreein Leadership and Management.

Mr James Ramsbotham, theNECC’s Chief Executive, was a guestof the University at the Times HigherEducation awards. He said, ‘It is agreat accolade and I’m reallydelighted that the Foundation Degreehas received this national recognition.From the NECC’s perspective,working with Teesside University hasbeen fabulous. They reallyunderstand businesses and businessneeds and are always willing to beflexible. It couldn’t be a betterpartnership.’

Graham Henderson said, ‘This isthe first time the Times HigherEducation University of the YearAward has gone to a modernuniversity, and there is a tremendousbuzz around the campus.

‘I think it is fantastic that we havealso won the Outstanding Employer

Engagement award for ourinnovative work with the NECC. It’s atestament to the excellent spirit ofpartnership that governs our businessrelationships in the region, and welook forward to working together withmore companies and organisations inthe coming year to bring real benefitto the North East.’

The University Business SchoolDean, Alastair Thomson, said,‘Providing employer-focused,demand-led programmes has beenat the heart of our work for severalyears, and we’re very proud of theFoundation Degree in Leadership andManagement. We developed theprogramme with the NECC to meetthe real needs of employers in theregion.’

Incubation champion Teesside University was chosen asthe country’s Business IncubationChampion at the UK BusinessIncubation (UKBI) annual conferencein Bristol last year. The award wasmade for its pioneering graduateenterprise initiative which has seenover 180 graduate companieslaunched on campus, creating 271new jobs.

The prestigious award recognisesthe University's dedicated team whoprovide a supportive environment forbusiness start-ups during the earlystages of their development.

There were fireworks over the Tees Valley after Teesside University was named University of the Yearrecently. It also picked up the Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiative prize at the Times HigherEducation magazine’s awards night – one of the most prestigious dates in the higher education calendar.

Double honoursfor Teesside

THE UNIVERSITYHAS A HISTORYOF WORKINGWITHCOMMUNITIESAND BUSINESSESTHAT MAKES ITTHE PUBLICBENEFACTOR PAREXCELLENCE

>THE UNIVERSITY FOR BUSINESS


If a company wants to make a fundamentalimprovement or change, it usually has two options– invest in permanent staff or call in consultants.

There is, however, a third, very cost-effective option – andthat is to make use of university knowledge and expertise.Teesside University offers a range of flexible solutions.

There are three main schemes available:

> Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs)support strategic projects that can lastbetween two to three years

> Collaboration Innovation Partnerships(CIPs) address more tactical issues andlast six to nine months

> Shorter KTPs can last between ten and 40weeks, and are aimed at organisations thatare new to working with universities.

All three partnerships have a similarformat. A recent graduate or researchstudent is recruited to implement theproject at the company, overseen bya senior academic expert at theuniversity. In the North East, thesepartnerships are part-funded bybodies like One North East, theTechnology Strategy Board and theresearch councils.

Laura Woods, Director of AcademicEnterprise at Teesside University,says, ‘Knowledge transfer schemescan offer an ideal way ofimplementing major businesschanges without breaking the bank.And they’ve been shown to have ahugely positive effect on the bottomline.’

Professor Nash Dawood, Directorof the University’s Centre forConstruction Innovation & Researchis a firm supporter of the academicpartnerships with business andindustry.

He specialises in creatingcomputer modelling tools whichrehearse a construction process‘virtually’ – identifying hot spots beforesite operations begin, and potentiallysaving businesses tens of thousandsof pounds caused by unexpectedproblems.

One of his latest KTPs is withspecialist sub-contractor DeepdaleSolutions Ltd. They design andmanufacture curtain-wall glazing,which is then installed on site.Professor Dawood says ‘The morethe company can integrate design,procurement and production with

construction site operations, the more efficient the process becomes.However, unforseen delays can causeadditional costs, as when precedingtrades fail to complete their part of thework on time.

By creating a model whichintegrates their production with on-site processes, we can help thempredict the impact of these and otherdelays and so give them an edgeover their competitors.’

Another KTP is with RyderArchitecture. With staff based inNewcastle, London, Liverpool andGlasgow, the company iscommissioned to design and delivereducation, healthcare, commercial,residential, masterplanning andinterior design projects. It has anaward-winning reputation, largelygained through its devotion to designquality and technical innovation.

First contact was made whenProfessor Cliff Hardcastle, TeessideUniversity’s Deputy Vice-Chancellorfor Research and Enterprise, invitedRyder’s MD Mark Thompson andArchitectural Director, Peter Barker, toMiddlesbrough to meet ProfessorDawood’s research group, and findout more about their innovative workwith 4D/5D computer modelling forthe construction industry.

Mr Barker said, ‘We’re greatadvocates of innovation and wereimpressed by what we saw ofTeesside’s virtual construction andinnovation work. We’ve had goodexperience of a KTP before and hadno hesitation in setting one up with

TransferringknowledgeUniversity resources and knowledge can help local companies to improve their business performance,as NIC MITCHELL and DAVID WILLIAMS find out.



Professor Dawood and his teamproviding we could get a good KTPassociate; and that’s what we havegot with Nahim Iqbal.’ The graduatemoved from Hertfordshire to begin histwo-year KTP attachment with Ryderin September, and is now lookingforward to doing his PhD underProfessor Dawood’s supervison.

Mr Barker said Ryder wanted toimprove early-stage designprocesses to help clients make moreinformed decisions about buildingprojects and prevent costly mistakes.‘The KTP will enable us to developsophisticated analysis tools that allow

for an environmental impact analysisduring the early design stage’, saidMr Barker.

‘We are already using a 3D tool fordesign but are currently unable to linkthis system with our partners. Whatwe’re looking for is an interactivemodel which is automatically updatedwhen any partner makes a processchange in areas like design,scheduling or cost. This will allow theproject team to assess and rehearsethe impact of design changes on thebuild schedule and the cost of theproject.’

Mr Barker says KTPs are a ‘win-win’for the academic and the businesspartner and the graduate.

‘The University and associate getreal-life business experience and wecan draw on the latest academicknowledge and expertise.’

Nahim said, ‘The KTP has given methe opportunity not only to contributeto the success of the partnershipbetween Ryder Architecture andTeesside University, but also to gainnew knowledge and skills which willopen doors for my future careerprospects.’

CIPsCIPs provide tactical solutions.For example, when Tyneside-based Bay Plastics realised theywere missing an opportunity toreach new markets and managetheir communications, they werehelped through a CIP.

Barry Hebbron, a senior lecturerspecialising in web optimisation andweb engineering at TeessideUniversity, was called in. Hesuggested the company develop andimplement a full web-optimisationplan, including re-designing sitearchitecture and content to improvesearch engine listings and the use ofa web-analytics tool to measure andunderstand user behaviour. Agraduate implemented the plan andtraffic to the site has now doubled,while sales are heading in the samedirection.

‘Working with Barry hasundoubtedly added value to ourbusiness’, said the company’smanaging director, Mick Currell. ‘Hisknowledge and expertise have alsoguided us to many other strategicdecisions relating to investment in thisarea which we would have founddifficult on our own. I am delightedwith the results so far.’

To find about more about KTPs and CIPs with Teesside University, email [email protected] or ring 01642 384407.

>From left to right, Peter Barker, NahimAqbal and Professor Nash Dawood.


When Lord Mandelson unveiled what was billed as ‘the biggest shake-up ofuniversities for decades’ in November, much of the media focus was onissues such as student rights and higher fees.

Helping the region through the recession

However, the BusinessSecretary’s ten-yearmodernisation agenda alsohighlighted the need for highereducation to work more closelywith industry in designingcourses and funding them. Thisis precisely the area which ledTeesside University to win theTimes Higher EducationOutstanding EmployerEngagement Initiative Award forits Business School’s pioneeringFoundation Degree inLeadership and Management –designed and delivered with theNorth East Chamber ofCommerce (NECC).

The government’s higher educationframework for the next ten years fits inwell with Teesside’s 16-point actionplan to help businesses andindividuals through the recession.

Reacting to the governmentstrategy, which appears to have widecross-party support, Teesside’s Vice-Chancellor Professor GrahamHenderson said, ‘We welcome LordMandelson’s reaffirmation of thecritical role that universities play insecuring the country’s economicrecovery and long-term prosperity. Itis a role that Teesside University isextensively engaged in and we lookforward to working with ministers toachieve our shared objectives.’

Alastair Thomson, Dean of theUniversity’s Business School which

runs the Foundation Degree with theNECC, as well as a newly launchedsimilar programme with PD Ports,also welcomes the opportunity towork with employers. He said, ‘Wealready work extensively with a varietyof local businesses and this approachis consistent with our mission.Partners like the port and NorthYorkshire County Council see us asvery much part of their business,helping them to improve and developto better meet the needs of theirbusiness and their customers.’

He believes that winning theOutstanding Employer EngagementInitiative Award doesn’t just highlightthe high standard of the BusinessSchool’s work with the NECC, butalso offers a model for employer anduniversity engagement to others. ‘Thepartnership has been recognised asthe best in the country’, he says.

Laura Woods, Director of AcademicEnterprise, pictured, is a key player indriving forward the employerengagement agenda at Teesside. Shealso points to other activities whichare making the University one ofBritain’s leading business-focusedhigher education institutions.

‘We’re developing our businessfocus to help companies through therecession and delivering measures tohelp businesses and individuals withpartner colleges in the Tees Valleythrough our OneDoor campaign.

‘Actions include helping businessreduce the costs of professional

courses and innovation projects. A good example is Bay Plastics, anorth-eastern plastics company withwhom we’ve worked – exploitinginteractive web technologies to createa high-profile online presence.

‘We helped the company obtainspecial funding to develop an onlinesales tracking and marketing system,designed to produce better targetingof marketing investment.

‘Through our workforcedevelopment strategy we’re workingwith a wide range of companies todeliver the professional skills andqualifications they need to staycompetitive. Companies we’recurrently working with include theMarine Design Centre, FaradayTraining, PD Ports, Kirkwood Media,Cablecom Training, Marlow Foodsand Northumbrian Water, and we’redeveloping new products forcompanies in the digital media sector,some of whom have been affectedquite harshly by the economicclimate.

‘Our partnership with Business andEnterprise North East is hugelyimportant. It has enabled us to helpcompanies such as NETA Training inStockton, where we are deliveringtraining in the workplace.’

For more information about workingwith Teesside University, pleasecontact the Department ofAcademic Enterprise: T: 01642384580, E: [email protected],www.tees.ac.uk/business


WE’REDEVELOPINGOUR BUSINESSFOCUS TOHELPCOMPANIESTHROUGH THERECESSION


16-point plan to help business

1 Halving the time it takes us to pay bills – with weeklypayments of all authorised invoices.

2 Delivering Future Management masterclasses to giveemployers new skills in managing through therecession.

3 Bringing forward £2.2m of work on Universitybuildings.

4 Starting work on the construction of a new dentaltechnology training and sports therapy centre,creating 150 building trade jobs.

5 Accelerating plans for a second campus base toprovide courses in Darlington, bringing highereducation to the west of the Tees Valley.

6 Appointing a team of business account managers todevelop relationships with business and promote abusinesslike culture.

7 Introducing subsidised training packages withemployers and FE colleges to help workforcedevelopment.

8 Providing low-cost business start-up incubation unitson campus to graduates and others launching newenterprises and bringing jobs to Middlesbrough.

9 Supporting the flagship DigitalCity initiative to keephigh-tech jobs and companies in the region.

10 Offering funded graduate internships in regionalcompanies and organisations.

11 Stepping up Knowledge Transfer Partnerships andproviding financial support for shorter initiatives, tohelp firms introduce new ideas.

12 Providing generous bursaries worth £2,400 forpostgraduate students.

13 Delivering free taster sessions to help people withcareer changes and developing new skills.

14 Introducing special initiatives to support the processindustry, including a conversion programme forapprentices and a new Science to Business Hubsupported by the European Union.

15 Providing bursaries in partnership with One NorthEast for displaced workers in the electronics,process and engineering sectors to takepostgraduate courses.

16 Providing careers advice to graduates and managersfacing or experiencing redundancy.

The 16 points are:

>Vice-Chancellor, Professor GrahamHenderson, pictured, in the port of Tees


It's a work that fuses art, science and theaesthetic appreciation of the viewer. The e-Tree, or emotional tree, was developed byProfessor Marc Cavazza's Intelligent VirtualEnvironments Group from a brief created byinternationally renowned virtual artist MauriceBenayoun. The e-Tree is projected virtuallyinto the world and it grows and develops onthe computer screen, thriving or withering,turning green or fading to purple accordingto the attention shown to it.

'If you have a positive attitude, the tree will blossom;if you are doing nothing, or something that itperceives as negative, the tree will fade’, explainsProfessor Cavazza. 'Once the viewers see it has alife of its own, this impacts on their emotionalattitude which then changes the behaviour of thetree. This is how the loop is closed.

'The installation works on a multi-modal inputsystem. We are capturing the viewer's tone of voice– is it excited or flat and unimpressed? – some keywords he or she might use such as “fantastic”, andtheir motion – how many people are in the attentionzone and how much they gesticulate. We then havea theoretical model for fusing these modalities andso creating the growth and behaviour of the tree.’

Maurice Benayoun is one of only a handful ofpeople working internationally in this area.Benayoun's other works such as Frozen Feelingsand Emotional Vending Machine reveal hisfascination with concretising feelings and capturingthe aesthetic response of his audience.

'We used the technology to explore his interests,and he provided us with the opportunity to embedthe technology in what is a complete mediaexperience: an interactive artwork’, adds ProfessorCavazza. 'The fundamental scientific contribution isconcerned with how you capture something ascomplex as the emotional attitudes exhibited bypeople as they are undergoing an aesthetic

experience. There has already been a lot of workdone on detecting whether people are angry orhappy, for example, for call-centre interfaces. Whatis new is that we are capturing a wider range ofinputs and showing how it is possible to map thesignals from different sensors on to somethingwhich we could call a mathematical model ofemotion. This real-time analysis can then bereincorporated into the media to producesomething that is interactive and sensitive to user-feedback.

'In our research, we are very interested ininteractive, new-media applications which involveemotional responses. The e-Tree is a goodcompromise between sophisticated research andsomething which has some practical application,and it is a nice illustration of where our research isgoing now.'

Although the e-Tree did not itself contribute to thefinal result, Teesside’s School of Computing wasrated highly in the 2008 Research AssessmentExercise (RAE). The University's Computer Scienceand Informatics submission had 10% of its researchactivity classified as 'world-leading in terms oforiginality, significance and rigour', with over half theresearch being 'recognised internationally'. Theresult brings quality-related income from the HigherEducation Funding Council for England into thenewly established Digital Futures Institute.

One of the key research groups in the DigitalFutures Institute is the Intelligent VirtualEnvironments Group which is taking part in severalhigh-profile projects. The e-Tree was a result of thegroup's involvement in a major EU-funded researchproject – CALLAS (Conveying Affectiveness inLeading-edge Living Adaptive Systems). Theproject has brought in €593,000 of funding from theEuropean Commission Sixth FrameworkProgramme dedicated to exploring multi-modalaffective interfaces, and focusing particularly ondigital art and entertainment.

An emotionally responsive tree is the latest example of world-leading research from Teesside University’snew Digital Futures Institute. DAVID WILLIAMS investigates.

IN OURRESEARCH, WE ARE VERYINTERESTED ININTERACTIVE,NEW-MEDIAAPPLICATIONSWHICH INVOLVEEMOTIONALRESPONSES

EmotionalTREE


The Group is also the lead research group in the IRIS Network of Excellence. IRIS (IntegratingResearch in Interactive Storytelling) has allocatedTeesside €704,000 from the EuropeanCommission's Seventh Framework Programme.The Network will structure European research intothe way that new technologies and new media arebridging the gap between computer entertainmentand more traditional film and broadcastingindustries, particularly in the way they allow the userto influence the unfolding of the story.

Other collaborative funding includes a €700,000share of COMPANIONS, a project run by aconsortium of 11 international universities and fourindustrial partners. The consortium is examining thecreation of personal, persistent 'agents' or'Companions' who help their users through theirexperience of using digital media and the internet.The Companion will become, as the project aimstates, 'in a precise sense, part of the user'smemory on the web, essentially their memory ofthemselves and their life events. The originality hereis the use of conversation as a tool of reminiscencefor users who will already have much of their life'sdata in digital form, such as images, texts andvideos. The Companion is there to give that data anarrative form, a life story, for the benefit of the userand their successors.'

'The e-Tree is important to our other researchprojects because the mathematical model ofemotion it involves is something that can betransposed on to other types of application’, addsProfessor Cavazza. 'For example, we are beginningto explore the automatic and real-time editing andre-profiling of films around the emotional responseof the audience. This would allow the way theaudience reacts to the first part of the film toinfluence what they see in the second part.

>Research assistant Remi Tache with the computerisedEmotional Tree which grows and changes colouraccording to the viewer’s tone of voice

The poverty trapIn her research funded by the Joseph RowntreeFoundation, Dr Tracy Shildrick is challenging someof the popular myths surrounding poverty, such asthe belief that entire families are happy to live onbenefits. Here, she talks to HUW RICHARDS.

Three quarters of a million hits on the Google searchengine show that the concept of recurrent poverty is ofsignificant interest. The term exists in the margin betweenpersistent poverty and the short-term poverty of those whofall in and out of economic hardship as personalcircumstances change.

Tracy, a member of the Social Futures Institute, iscurrently undertaking research with colleagues on theissue. She has received funding from the Joseph RowntreeFoundation and says, ‘A lot of people move out of poverty,but only marginally, and then drop back later. Muchresearch is statistically based and if your income is as littleas £1 per week above the poverty line, officially you are outof poverty. But if you are only just above the line, you neverreally escape poverty and everything that goes with it.’

For her research she has interviewed 23 employers andother stakeholders in the Middlesbrough area, along with60 people who have been classified as recurrently poor.

Unemployment, both historically and currently high inthe area, is a major element in poverty. So, too, says DrShildrick, are low-quality jobs, ‘These are “poverty trap”jobs offering the minimum wage or little better in factories,shops or different types of care work. They often offer noprospects and can be difficult to hang on to.’

Many offer little financial advantage over unemploymentin return for unpleasant work, but Dr Shildrick found that,‘Overwhelmingly people talked of the advantages ofhaving a job, however poor it was. Its value is recognisedas being beyond the merely economic. They know aboutthe consequences of unemployment, the depression anddemoralisation that can set in if it is long-term.’

At the same time she has found no evidence of popularmyths. ‘I found no “cultures of joblessness”, with peoplewho have never been in the workforce, or entire familieswho exist on benefits. The real picture is much morecomplicated.’

Family circumstances can create problems for peopleon these margins. ‘They, or family members who dependupon them, may suffer from ill-health. There may beproblems with childcare which make it difficult for them tostay in work.’

Nor is the benefit system always the safety net that it issupposed to be. ‘The system is incredibly complicatedand it takes time, persistence and resilience to reconnectwith it if you drop out of the workforce. A lot of people findthemselves with little or no money while this is happening,totally dependent on family or friends.’

As with most tough and intractable social phenomena,there are few easy or obvious answers. But Dr Shildrickbelieves that employers have a part to play. ‘A way has tobe found of enabling people to stay in jobs and progress,rather than being in and out of dead-end work.’


Speaking at the official launch of theEnhancing Practice and InnovationCentre for Care (EPICC), ProfessorMullan said, ‘This Centre couldn’tcome at a more opportune time.History shows that in a time ofeconomic downturn, the impact is feltaround two years later by the publicsector. Following the last globalrecession, we saw some hospitalsdownsizing or closing wards and weneed to look at the quality andinnovation agenda to protect fromslash and burn. Centres such as thisare the key to unlocking innovation.’

Professor Paul Keane, Dean of theUniversity’s School of Health & SocialCare, said, ‘We want EPICC to be aninternational centre of excellence infacilitating and promoting practice

enhancement, innovation and patientsafety. Our students are theemployees of the future, and it isessential that they also understandthe importance of innovation inpractice through learning andteaching within their programmes.’

The new centre will be led by WadeTovey, the School's Assistant Dean(Enterprise, Knowledge Transfer andEmployer Engagement), picturedright, with Professor Mullan (centre)and Professor Keane, left, at thelaunch in November.

For more information [email protected] or phone EPICCAdministrator Maria Morrissey on01642 738063

A new centre at Teesside University set up to unlockinnovation in the health and social services hasbeen welcomed by Professor Aidan Mullan,Director of Nursing and Patient Safety with theNorth East Strategic Health Authority.

EPICCwelcome


After the furore over MPs’ expenses, Michael Macaulay tells HUW RICHARDS that Parliament couldlearn a thing or two about standards from local councils.

Town Hall lessons for ParliamentAs Parliament attempts to refashion itsprocedures for ensuring members’ integrity,and restore a battered reputation, it is likely itwill look to a closely related area of Britishpublic life, local government.

And, suggests Dr Michael Macaulay, theparliamentarians would be looking in the right place.One of his long-running research projects, fundedby Standards for England, has been to examineexamples of good standards practice by localauthorities.

At the height of the furore over MPs’ expenses inlate May, Dr Macaulay, Reader in Governance andPublic Ethics and a member of the University’sSocial Futures Institute, was among the invitedspeakers at a joint European-American conferencein Amsterdam focusing on issues of ethics andintegrity in public life.

He says, ‘The institutions set up to deal withproblems like this inevitably reflect the circumstancesthat led to their creation. Standards for England wasset up in the wake of scandals such as that ofDoncaster Council in the late 1990s.’

One option open to the government would be toextend the responsibilities of Standards for Englandto Parliament. Dr Macaulay says, ‘That might workwell, but my guess is that they’ll want a high-profileresponse and the creation of a distinct body to dealwith Parliament.’

He believes that Standards for England has beengood for integrity and transparency in localgovernment, particularly since it was transformedfrom a centralised all-purpose body into an overseersupervising the activities and investigations of localcommittees. ‘Since it was decentralised there hasbeen a much greater likelihood of complaints beinginvestigated – and local knowledge is oftenextremely useful.’

There are occasional problems. ‘Standardscommittees can become a target for localbusybodies. One council in Yorkshire has a group offour consistent complainants who send up to 100letters a day between them to the monitoring office.’

Overall, though, he believes there are seriouslessons to be learnt which are applicable toParliament. ‘One of the first is that you shouldn’t tryto do too much too soon. There’s an

understandable demand after a scandal that youshould oversee everything, and that can lead tobeing too hands-on.’

Any new body needs not only to understand whatit is doing, but to share that understanding withparliamentarians and the public. ‘There has to be aclear sense of values. Seven principles of public lifewere laid out as long ago as 1995, but I can’t thinkthere are many people now who can rememberwhat they are.’

That clarity also has to extend to precisepractices, avoiding the grey areas that developedon an ad hoc basis in Parliament. ‘You need a clearset of practices and a list of what is and is notallowed.’


The British National Party (BNP) did not doquite as well as they had hoped – and othersfeared – at this year’s European elections.The Greens beat them to fifth place in thepopular vote, and talk of gaining half a dozenseats proved premature.

Winning the first two seats in the EuropeanParliament was, though, historian Dr Nigel Copseypoints out, a significant breakthrough. He says, ‘TheBNP have for a long time pursued a “ladderstrategy”, working their way up from the bottom ofthe political structure – from parish council to districtor borough council to London Assembly and countycouncil, and now the European Parliament. It buildsup their claim to be a respectable, legitimate part ofthe political mainstream.’

No British academic has a deeper understandingof the BNP than Dr Copsey, Reader in ModernHistory, who with Leverhulme Research FellowGraham Macklin is in the process of editing avolume of studies of the Party for publishersRoutledge. This book, which came out of aninternational symposium at the University last year,builds on his earlier influential work ContemporaryBritish Fascism: The British National Party and theQuest for Legitimacy (2004), the first academicmonograph devoted to the BNP. This book hasrecently been expanded and revised as apaperback second edition.

For the BNP, the next rung on the ladder isrepresentation at Westminster. While the first-past-the-post electoral system makes this tough forsmaller parties, Dr Copsey says, ‘It certainly is notimpossible for them to win a Westminster seat,particular if the Labour vote collapses. It is possible

rather than probable, but if I were the Labour MP forBarking or Dagenham, or somewhere like Barnsleyor Rotherham, I would be worried.’

These are seats where the BNP has the mostvoter appeal, especially among those who feeldisillusioned and disenfranchised – white working-class communities who feel neglected by the NewLabour project. ‘My impression is that at theEuropean elections, disaffected Conservativestended to vote UKIP while the disaffected Labourvote was split, with the middle-class voterschoosing the Greens and the white working classgoing for the BNP.’

Aside from the greater profile that comes from thetwo victories, Dr Copsey believes that the results willstrengthen the position of party leader Nick Griffinand could bring an influx of new members. ‘Theyclaim to have had 65,000 enquiries during thecampaign and used a professional call centre.’

The BNP’s new prominence creates challengesfor a number of British institutions. Andrew Brons,one of the two new Euro MPs, was interviewed onRadio 4’s Today programme the morning after hewas elected, and the BBC caused a storm when itinvited the BNP leader on to Question Time.

But ignoring the BNP may not be the answer. Thisis a perilous tactic, says Dr Copsey. ‘It plays to theBNP argument that they are victims of a liberal eliteconspiracy to stop their ideas being heard.’ DrCopsey argues that the other parties have to thinklong and hard about how they meet the BNP threat.‘Simply labelling them as neo-Nazis does not work.’

The reason for this, Dr Copsey argues, is that themodern BNP is a much more sophisticatedoperation than the streetfighters of the 1970sNational Front. They have co-operated with other far

Teesside historian Nigel Copsey says the BNP are adopting Lib-Dem local campaigning methods in theirquest for legitimacy, and warns of the dangers of other parties refusing to acknowledge their existence.Here he talks to HUW RICHARDS.

LEGITIMACYThe BNP’s quest for


right groups in Europe, adopting ideas from French‘nouvelle droite’ thinkers and debating tactics.

The BNP now adopts local campaigningmethods with an echo of those used by the LiberalDemocrats. ‘They’ve focused on doorstep contactwith voters and running community clean-up teamswho clear litter and paint out graffiti, and whoseactivities get noted in the local press. Candidatestend to be locally based and known, so that votersthink, “I know him, he’s the builder or butcher”.’

That sets up, says Dr Copsey, what is called a‘cognitive dissonance’, a mismatch in the minds ofvoters between ideas outside the mainstream andapparently decent and reasonable people, oftenknown to them, who are are championing the BNP.

Where of course they differ profoundly from theLiberals is in the content of those ideas. The BNPmessage is much more subtle and sophisticatedthan the ‘white supremacism’ of the past. ‘Theargument now is not that one race is inherentlysuperior to another, but that they are different andthat it is multiculturalism that is racist, because itdenies what is specific to culture and races.’

Issues of wider concern, such as housing andunemployment, are discussed in a racialisedcontext. ‘The BNP have been helped here by thepoliticisation of race and immigration in the press –with hostile coverage first of asylum seekers then ofimmigrants from Eastern Europe – and thepandering of the political mainstream to theseviews. Talking of “British jobs for British workers”only helps to legitimize their arguments.’

So what should the established parties be doing?Dr Copsey says, ‘They have to start engaging inand winning the argument. That means engaging inparticular with traditional working-classcommunities, building up trust through a localpresence so that they no longer feel ignored. Theyhave to take on the BNP on the issues and exposethem not as fascists, but as people who have thewrong solutions to problems and are politicallynaïve across the board. Immigration has to bediscussed, but the argument has to bederacialised.’

IT PLAYS TOTHE BNPARGUMENTTHAT THEYARE VICTIMSOF A LIBERALELITECONSPIRACYTO STOP THEIRIDEAS BEINGHEARD.

Getty Images


>NEWS ROUND UP

‘Facial recognition is a hot topic andone that is important for bodies like thepolice and FBI and public security ingeneral.

With CCTV quality still pretty poor the localpolice rely on eye-witnesses when there is an incident – say a man attacked in a towncentre’, says Dr Kazuyo Nakabayashi.

‘If the victim and eye-witnesses just say it was a Japanese man, it doesn’t give thepolice much to work on for the pictureportrait’, says the senior Psychology lecturerand member of Teesside University’s SocialFutures Institute.

During her 12-month research projectfunded by the ESRC, she will be involved inexperiments in Japan and the UK to collate

behavioural and eye movement data.‘There appear to be some levels of

stereotyping, or cognitive shortcuts, when itcomes to facial recognition of people fromdifferent races, but we don’t have asatisfactory explanation for this.

‘The research will examine the perceptualand cognitive processes underlying cross-racial recognition.

Understanding more about thesemechanisms will have important theoreticaland practical implications, for example ineyewitness testimonies.’

The study will involve asking students fromdifferent races to look at oriental andCaucasian faces in photographs and onlineand will examine the ‘recognition keys’ theyuse – their eye movement, for example.

‘We will record eye movements whilepeople look at a set of white faces and a setof oriental faces to find out which parts of theface they look at and how much time theyspend on each feature.

‘After that they will be asked to identify the faces just presented from a larger set of faces.’

Dr Nakabayashi will be the principalinvestigator for the research team, whichincludes Toby Lloyd-Jones, Professor ofPsychology at Swansea University, AminaMemon, Professor of Psychology atUniversity of London Royal Holloway, andresearch fellow Natalie Butcher based atTeesside.

Why is it that we find it so much harder to recognise faces of other races than our own? That’s thequestion being tackled by Dr Kazuyo Nakabayashi, who has won a £80,000 grant from the Economicand Social Research Council (ESRC) to fund the project. Here she talks to NIC MITCHELL.

Do all foreign faces look alike?>Dr Kazuyo Nakabayashi from Teesside’s Social Futures Institute


Two of Teesside’s KnowledgeTransfer Partnership (KTP)Associates, Sara Zarei and AlexBrown, have won prestigiousBusiness Leader of TomorrowAwards.

Zara graduated with distinction fromTeesside’s MSc Computer-aidedEngineering and is currently doingher PhD while working as a KTPAssociate with Stanley Vickers inMiddlesbrough. She is pictured withher academic supervisor, Professor ofBiomechanics and Manufacturing,Farhad Nabhani, left, and David Ford,

Production Manager at StanleyVickers Ltd.

Alex Brown gained an MASustainable Product Design fromLoughborough University and isworking as a KTP Associate with SoloCup Europe in Huntington under thesupervision of Peter Reid, a SeniorLecturer in Product Design andEnterprise.

Earlier in the year, TeessideUniversity was graded ‘A’ forExcellent’ for its KTP with StocktonCasting Company and Teesside hastwice won Business Leader ofTomorrow Awards before: in 2006, for

Laura Bishop’s work with CountryValley Foods, Darlington, and a yearlater for MohammedShahnawazuddin’s KTP with MalcolmEngineering Company of Darlington.

KTPs are funded by the TechnologyStrategy Board and other governmentbodies. They help businesses toimprove their competitiveness andproductivity through better use ofknowledge, technology and skills.

The Business Leader of TomorrowAwards take place in March 2010.

Weather the stormThere was plenty of positivefeedback from the 19th annualFAIM (Flexible Automation andIntelligent Manufacturing)conference hosted by TeessideUniversity in July.

The three-day event, sponsored bythe Institute of Mechanical Engineers,brought industrialists and academicstogether from 37 countries to discussLean Manufacturing and Services.They shared their thoughts on theworld economic crisis and howbusinesses can weather the storm.

Professor Farhad Nabhani, pictured,FAIM conference Chair and Professorof Biomechanics and Manufacturingat Teesside University, said,‘Manufacturing today must adjust tothe current global recession and thedemanding markets facing both UKand international businesses, largeand small. The conference gavedelegates an unrivalled independentinsight into current best practices andstate of the art in manufacturing withassociated practices.’

Following the conference, ProfessorNabhani, front left, received scores of emails congratulating Teesside onorganising the event.

Professor Nabhani, said, ‘We had to beat off competition from HongKong and Dubhai to host the FAIMconference and were successfulbecause we had a good platform and because the University issurrounded by SMEs and is at theheart of the UK’s process industry. I am delighted the delegates enjoyedit and I am sure it has done ourreputation a lot of good.’

Business Leaders of Tomorrow

OneDoor open for business OneDoor offers a single access point for businesses and people to the University and collegenetwork in the Tees Valley. We can provide practical help with professional development,innovation, graduate placements and careers advice. And if you have been affected by therecession, you may also qualify for financial help. To find out more, look at www.onedoor.co.uk; email [email protected] or phone 0845 4630101.


Welcome to the newresearch institutes

Teesside University has launched five new research institutes to help it make greater impact by focusing on key areas ofstrength, as NIC MITCHELL finds out.

Teesside University’s new research strategy, basedaround five broad areas, was welcomed by SirRichard Brook, Director of The Leverhulme Trust,at the official launch of the new research institutesthis autumn.

In his keynote address, Sir Richard said he supported theconcept of concentrating research activities in areas wherethe University was building up its research strength andhad a pool of talented researchers.

Sir Richard said talented individuals and groups ofresearchers whose work benefits society deserve to besupported wherever they are working, adding that he wasdelighted to see Teesside University already benefitingfrom Leverhulme support.

His three rules of engagement for researchers seekingexternal funding were:

>know what you are good at>find the right support systems>remain creative

‘The formation of your research institutes is the rightapproach’, he said (See pages 24-25. for a full interviewwith Sir Richard.)

Professor Cliff Hardcastle, Deputy Vice-Chancellor(Research & Enterprise), said, ‘The five research institutesgive Teesside University the opportunity to create synergyand link our research activities with the regional economicstrategy and the nation as a whole’.

At the launch, Sir Richard and other guests watched ashowreel highlighting the impact Teesside researcherswere already making.

The event coincided with the publication of the University’sfirst Annual Research Report, which can be seen athttp://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/research/institutes.cfm.

Hard copies of the Research Report and DVD are availablefrom Chrystine Carroll, Graduate Research SchoolAdministrator, on 01642 384438 or [email protected].

>RESEARCH LAUNCH


> The Health and Social CareInstitute is led by Professor JanetShucksmith and its research isvery applied, with a strong focuson rehabilitation andunderstanding pain, posturalinstability and public health issues– particularly oral public health,maternal obesity and youngpeople's health problems. Workunder way includes Professor AlanBatterham’s investigation into theimpact of an aerobic exerciserehabilitation programme to helppatients recover after long periodsof inactivity in intensive care units(ICUs). At present, post-ICU care isvery limited and ProfessorBatterham’s team, which includesDr Gerard Danjoux, ConsultantAnaesthetist at James CookUniversity Hospital, and ProfessorDenis Martin, Head of the Centre ofRehabilitation Studies, hope theirpioneering work can influence andimprove NHS policy and practice.The project is funded by theResearch for Patient Benefitprogramme of the National Institutefor Health Research.

> The Digital Futures Institute’sCALLAS project. The researchteam led by the Institute’s DirectorProfessor Marc Cavazza is usinginteractive computer gamestechnology and emotional speechrecognition to create an ‘emotionaltree’ demonstrator. This generatesan on-screen response from the e-tree when it is spoken to in differentemotional tones. (See ‘Theemotional tree’ on pages 14-15)The research is being managed by Dr Steve Gilroy who has beenworking with a digital artist on thiscutting-edge work which issupported by an EU Frameworkgrant. The e-tree was featured onEuronews after being shown at ICT2008 in Lyon.

> The Technology Futures Instituteled by Professor Zulf Ali, is workingin fields such as advancedprocessing, nanotechnology andenergy. The focus includes helpingcompanies reduce the carbonfootprint and getting businesses touse other people's waste to helpprovide a more sustainable future.Professor Ali's Nano andMicrosystems Group is leading aconsortium of European partners in an EU Framework researchprogramme which is developing a point-of-care device to helpdoctors and ambulance crewsdiagnose deep vein thrombosis.

> The Institute of Design, Cultureand the Arts headed by ProfessorMatthew Rampley, has four mainresearch areas – history, creativearts, social and cultural identities,and new media. One of the mostintriguing research activities beingundertaken is Dr SimonMckeown’s 3D animated filmMotion Disabled. The film exhibitionis now touring the country andinvolved ten artists who havedifferent forms of disability. MotionDisabled challenges stereotypes ofnormality and asks where we wantscience to take us in the next 100years in terms of a common bodyimage. The research is funded bythe Wellcome Trust because of itsbioscience nature.

Both the showreel and DVD give a flavour of the work of the Institutes and include:

> The Social Futures Instituteunder the leadership of Dr BarbaraMcGuinness, is concentrating onsocial problem solving andresearch under way covers social,economic, political and businessperspectives. Activities range fromlooking at how digital technologycan help build stronger localcommunities to the evaluation ofgovernment initiatives such as SureStart. Research into youth issues isa major area for the Institute, andwork led by Professor TonyChapman is looking at how youngpeople excluded from schools canbe brought back into themainstream.

>The Institute directors, left to right,Dr Barbara McGuinness, ProfessorMarc Cavazza, Professor Zulf Ali,Professor Matthew Rampley andProfessor Janet Shucksmith


Supporting talent wherever it is!

The Director of The Leverhulme Trust brought apowerful message of support when he came toMiddlesbrough to help Teesside University launch its five new research institutes, as NIC MITCHELLfound out when he interviewed Sir Richard Brook.

>RESEARCH LAUNCH

Sir Richard said he didn’t wantto be seen as someone comingup from London to tell Teessideacademics what they should bedoing, when he agreed to attendthe official launch of theUniversity’s new researchinstitutes. Rather, he wanted todiscover what they themselvesfound to be important in theirown research world.

Talking to research-active staff andguests from industry and the region,Sir Richard reminded his audiencethat ‘today’s official keyword forresearchers was “impact” and thatministers have recognised that whenmoney is tight, it is fair to ask thatthere should be national and socialbenefits from the research theysupport’.

But he also pointed to three vitalattributes of the successful researcherwho wished to remain creative.

Sir Richard’s three attributes forsuccessful researchers:

> a capacity for hard work

> a readiness to welcomeany benefits of goodfortune by having an alert mind

> a single-mindeddetermination toresolve the researchproblem at hand bybecoming almost anintegral part of itsculture and dynamism


Sir Richard also urged academics not to distrustindustrialists – a clear reference to The Leverhulme Trust,which was set-up by William Hesketh Lever, the early 20th-century British industrialist and philanthropist who foundedLever Brothers, which later became Unilever.

Alliances were important, said Sir Richard. ‘And what’schanged in the last 10-20 years is the removal ofprejudices between the industrial and academic worlds;where barriers have come down it has been to the benefitof both.’

In our interview, Sir Richard explained that Lever hadsaid in his will that he wished to give resources forscholarships for research and education.

‘Lever's view was that individual talent is the criticalcontributor to communal well-being. So he thought if youcan give support to some highly talented person at theright moment, then there is chance for them to realise theirabilities and contribute to the well-being of the communitythroughout their career.

‘It is a system failure if someone is prevented fromcontributing because they just didn't have the chance to puttheir talents to use, and if the individual is on Teesside, thenthat’s great. You shouldn’t say, first, which institution is it.’

Sir Richard added, ‘You have gotsplendidly talented people here and ifthose people have a chance tocontribute in their own best way, thenthat’s great’.

Speaking directly about TeessideUniversity, he said, ‘Middlesbrough isundoubtedly a better place becauseyou have a university here, wherepeople are teaching, where they aredoing research and where they arethinking afresh, where new ideas canspring up. It enriches the surroundingcommunity, no question about that.So, if people are saying “Why shoulda modern university like Teesside besupported?” you can certainly givethem a direct and compelling answer.

‘You can never predict whereoutstanding talent will arise. That iswhy it is essential to recognise thepower of individual talent rather thanrelying on the picture of an institution.

‘The [Leverhulme] Trustees are delighted whensomeone comes with an intriguing idea and with thecompetence to research it. Only then may they ask, well,where are they from? So, it is the idea and the competencethat sells their bid for support.’

Sir Richard agreed that the work of Teesside forensicanthropologist Dr Tim Thompson, whose Leverhulme Trustsupported research into identifying dead bodies throughtattoos and body piercings – featured in the last Researchand Enterprise magazine – was an excellent example ofthe Trust supporting intriguing new work.

He also thought Teesside’s five new Institutes would helpto give the institution a higher profile and help to identifythe University’s research strengths. ‘After all, there are nowsome 150 universities. A profile becomes important. Youneed to know what you are good at. For outside agencies,it is quite helpful if an institution says “We have structuredour research contribution into the following categories”. Ithink the new broadly based research institutes make a lotof sense; these and the lively atmosphere here at Teessideare an excellent platform on which to enhance further a finereputation for research of quality and significance.’

YOU HAVE GOTSPLENDIDLYTALENTED PEOPLEHERE AND IFTHOSE PEOPLEHAVE A CHANCE TOCONTRIBUTE INTHEIR OWN BESTWAY, THEN THAT’SGREAT

<Sir Richard, left, meets someTeesside recipients of LeverhulmeTrust awards – Dr Robert Lee, DrNatasha Vall and Professor SimonHodgson.

Others supported by the Trustinclude Dr Tim Thompson and hisLeverhulme PhD student AlexStarkie; Dr Iain Spears, Dr NigelCopsey and Dr Graham Maitlin.


Doctoral students are supposed to make ‘a contribution to learning’ – in essence to find out somethingnew. Not so easy, writes HUW RICHARDS, in well-trodden fields like modern British history, where ittends to be a question of finding a niche between the findings of previous researchers. But sometimesyou can get lucky.

JACKPOTChristopher Massey, a first-year doctoralstudent from Eston, near Middlesbrough, hasfound himself a roomier niche than most inbreaking new ground with his study of steelnationalisation under the Labour Governmentof 1945-51. In fact, he looks to have hitseveral simultaneous historical jackpots.

The post-war Attlee administration is wellremembered and has been copiously studied, withrecent broad-ranging works by historians likeDominic Sandbrook and David Kynaston sustainingpopular recall of the era. Steel nationalisation was amajor issue, contributing to Labour’s ultimatedemise in 1951. Yet, says Christopher, ‘There hasbeen very little written about it. It gets a passingreference in most histories of the period and of thegovernment, but not much more.’

His research casts light on the debate about theboundaries between public and private ownershipwhich has been a significant theme in British politicsever since, and does so via the industry that has toa great extent defined the identity of the region inwhich he lives and studies. He says, ‘You can see itin the local reaction to the threat of closures and inthe Teesside Evening Gazette’s campaign to SaveOur Steel.’

He also has the advantage of any historian’sdream – a fresh, largely untouched archive ofpersonal papers from a key actor in the debate. Thefiles of Alfred Edwards, MP for Middlesbrough Eastfrom 1935 to 1950, were in the keeping of TeessideUniversity history lecturer, Dr Richard Lewis, whosupervised Christopher’s master’s thesis. ‘They hadhardly been touched and were uncatalogued, and Ihad free access to them. They’re now in theUniversity Library’, explains Massey.

Those papers illustrate an intriguing and unusualpolitical career. ‘Edwards had risen rapidly from theshop floor to become director then owner of a steelcompany. He appeared to be a fairly orthodoxLabour MP, but decided that he was opposed to thenationalisation of steel and began to speak againstit in public’, explained Christopher. ‘He fell out withhis local party, which prepared a dossier of hisspeeches and demanded that the NationalExecutive Committee expel him – and it did.Expulsions from the Labour Party have tended to beknown for being too left-wing – Edwards wasthrown out on the same day in 1948 as John Platt-Mills, a left-winger – but this is a case of beingthrown out for being to the right.’

Edwards’ subsequent career justifies thatdescription. ‘He sat as an Independent for a while,but it is as if his doubts about steel made himquestion everything else he’d previously acceptedand he became a critic of everything thegovernment did. There’s some evidence that hewas in touch with the Conservatives during thedebates over steel and eventually he took theConservative whip and stood as their candidate in1950. Labour were very determined to make surehe was beaten, bringing in the Pensions MinisterHilary Marquand, and he lost by 16,000 votes.’

That remarkable piece of local history illustrateswider themes. While nationalising steel was a

Historical steel


commitment in the election-winning 1945manifesto, it was not regarded as a priority in thesame way as coal and the railways were. ‘It wasn’tan essential service, or a shambles in the way thatthe railways and mines were. It was an industry witha decent record. Nationalising it was essentially anideological decision.’

Labour could, Christopher argues, havenationalised steel without any great difficulty if it haddone so amid the political euphoria that followedthe 1945 election. ‘They were on the crest of a waveand had enough support to do almost anythingthey wanted.’

That it waited shows that even the mostpurposeful governments tend to postpone thetrickier decisions. One reason was that thegovernment itself was not wholly convinced.Christopher shows that six Cabinet members led byhome secretary Herbert Morrison wanted to accepta compromise proposal in 1947 from thesteelowners that private ownership be retainedunder government direction. Only three, led byHealth Minister Aneurin Bevan, MP for the Welshsteel town Ebbw Vale, backed immediatenationalisation. The majority favoured a one-yearpostponement.

>Chris, pictured by the Redcar Steelworks. Inset shows Alfred Edwards

EDWARDS HADRISEN RAPIDLYFROM THESHOP FLOOR TO BECOMEDIRECTORTHEN OWNEROF A STEELCOMPANY

While nationalisation did go through, it was notcompleted until after the 1950 general election,which left Labour with a vastly reduced majority.One element in that reduction may have been avigorous campaign by Conservatives and theowners, with Edwards a significant voice, againststeel nationalisation. Christopher quotes pollingfigures showing that 60% of the public favoured themeasure in 1945, but only 23% by 1950.

Christopher says, ‘An opportunity may have beenmissed when the compromise was rejected in1947’. It was not, he points out, as if there was ahuge demand from steelworkers for a change ofownership. ‘There were street parties when themines were nationalised. Nobody seems to havetaken much notice when steel changed hands.’

Steel went on to be denationalised by theConservatives in the 1950s, taken back into publicownership by Labour under Harold Wilson, thenprivatised again in the late 1980s. Now much of it isin foreign ownership. Christopher Massey does notcondemn nationalisation as such, but does feel thatdelay and failure to find a lasting settlement in the1940s were harmful. ‘It certainly cannot have donethe steel industry any good to be treated in thisway’, he says.


One of the prime skills in management isunderstanding people, and how they mightreact in situations at work. The issues can becomplex and reactions take many forms.

But by recognising the issues, and steering thesituations and the people, managers can get theirdesired results while minimising complications andside-effects.

At Teesside University, staff with extensive theatreskills and experience have developed a series ofperformance masterclasses, called Leading Roles,for senior managers. It uses dramatised scenes toexplore and resolve situations in the workplace.

The first masterclasses are on conflict andsensitive issues, with another in preparation onWomen in Leadership and more to follow.

For example, the conflict session, ‘MovingHistory’, deals with problems which arise whenrelocating a bloc of staff into a new building,bringing communication, planning, emotional fall-out and resistance to change very much to the fore.

The workshop team acts out a couple of scenesfrom this situation. Participants engage in exercisesdesigned to enable them to analyse and discussthe issues, and then collectively offer advice andstrategies to the characters, who re-run the scenestaking account of the fresh input.

The elements of Leading Roles were first puttogether as a one-off series for use in the universityand college sector for the national programmes runby the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.They were designed to support staff preparing forstrategic leadership roles such as deans, associatedeans and service directors. They are now used in-house by Teesside University, and around thecountry.

The scenarios have been prepared with realisticsituations and character profiles. None of themdirectly copies a real-life event, but the relevance isso sharp that participants have come up to theteam afterwards and said, ‘Ah, I know you got thatfrom such-and-such university’. They didn’t, but itunderlines the authenticity of what they do.

Sharon Paterson, Assistant Dean for CurriculumDevelopment and Innovation in the School of Arts &Media, explains that the elements of themasterclasses are so flexible that they can beadapted for a range of contexts while addressingthe same core issues. There is enough commonground in management in different branches ofindustry, commerce and public services that, withappropriate preparation, Leading Rolesprogrammes can be tailor-made to suit any of them.

Sharon explained, ‘We really now want to expandthe work and offer programmes across the public

and private sectors. Each masterclass is a three-hour session and ideally involves about 20 people.

‘The participants get the opportunity to engagewith an inspirational, collaborative, live experience.They observe a scene that we as writers andperformers have developed – after advanceconsultation with the clients. Leaders then dissectthe performance and share their own experiencesand ideas, and consider how it might go differently.In this way they can reflect creatively on their ownleadership styles, and refresh and develop theirown skills.’

She points out that it goes much further thansimple role-play, where participants act out situationsfor themselves. She believes that by observing,analysing and discussing collectively, participantsadd real value to what they learn and absorb fromthe experience. And what’s more, it’s fun.

One of the key strengths of the Leading Rolesformat is that Sharon and her colleagues havecome into the academic sphere with many years’professional and practical experience in theatre,including writing, acting, design and facilitatinginteractive and educational performance work.

Leading Roles has grown both out of Sharon’sprevious work in professional theatre and out of heracademic research, where the focus is on differentforms of interactive theatre and the application ofparticipatory performance in different contexts.

Upcoming senior managers who face sensitive issues in dealingwith staff and work situations can get new insight from the dramateam in Teesside University’s School of Arts & Media, as KEITH SEACROFT finds out.

Management

DRAMA


‘There is a safety element in learning from fiction,by observing a performance’, says Sharon. ‘It allhas to be rooted in truth to have resonance for theparticipants, but it avoids taking someone’s ownactual experience and hauling it up in front ofeveryone else to be picked over.’

The sensitive issues masterclass, ‘CombinedEffort’, addresses issues such as collaborating withpeople with competing agendas, or where personalchemistry produces negative results, whichchallenge or threaten the desired outcome.

Alongside the broad management topics in themasterclasses, Leading Roles also offers practicalworkshops on presentation skills where dramatechniques can also prove useful. They canparticularly help speakers improve theireffectiveness in communicating with an audience,whether it is four or five people or a large roomful.Being able to worry less about that gives thepresenter more confidence overall.

Sharon says you do not have to be an actor to doit, but you can gain a few tips from stagecraft, suchas understanding more about breathing, pitch,speed, tone and other elements.

If enough managers sign up and take theopportunity to ‘to re-write the script’, they should allbe equipped to put on a better show at work.

Contacts for Leading Roles: Sharon [email protected] 01642 738143 or 07500120386

Scott WatsonBusiness Account Manager School of Arts and Media [email protected] 01642 738527

THERE IS ASAFETYELEMENT INLEARNINGFROM FICTION, BYOBSERVING APERFORMANCE


>RESEARCH ROUND UP

DVT researchcited by HEFCEA research project at TeessideUniversity into deep veinthrombosis (DVT) was cited as a good example of how publiccapital funding in higher educationis supporting the UK’s dominantposition in international researchin a report for the HigherEducation Funding Council forEngland (HEFCE).

The report followed an independentreview conducted by Technopolis.Teesside’s work was one of 35 case studies showing the importanceof the second round of thegovernment’s Science ResearchInvestment Fund (SRIF2).

The Technopolis report says newSRIF-funded facilities at Teesside,arranged through HEFCE, increasedits research capabilities and thrust theUniversity’s Technology FuturesInstitute to the forefront of an EUconsortium investigating newdiagnostic systems for DVT.

DVT is the most common cause ofunexpected death in developednations – and the research led byProfessor Zulf Ali, Director of theTechnology Futures Institute, involvesa consortium of European partners ina project supported by the EuropeanUnion’s Framework 6 Programme.

Professor Ali, said, ‘We used SRIF2along with funding from the then DTI,One North East and Europe todevelop a clean room facility. This hasallowed us to carry out research inminiaturised systems and winadditional European research fundingto support regional SMEs in thedevelopment of new products. Weare very conscious that our workshould bring economic benefit to theregion and improve quality of life, sowe are obviously delighted to berecognised in this report.’

The ‘Science 2 Business (S2B) Hub’ is an industry-ledpartnership managed byTeesside University which aimsto find innovative solutions for‘science-using’ SMEs in theNorth East.

Local businesses, such asspeciality chemicals sectorcompany Linchem, are alreadyseeing its benefits, said ProjectManager Roy Huzzard, with arecent S2B personal care andcosmetics event attracting localSMEs, larger multi-nationals andsupport agencies. Professor CliffHardcastle, Deputy Vice-Chancellorfor Research & Enterprise atTeesside University, opened theevent and said, ‘Our aim is to helpthe chemicals sector identify their

technology requirements and skillsgaps, and then source partnersfrom the universities, regionalcentres of excellence and researchestablishments to providesolutions’.

The S2B Hub is part-financed byEuropean Regional DevelopmentFund 2007–13 administered byOne North East, which is bringingover £250m into the North East tosupport innovation, enterprise andbusiness support. It aims to createand safeguard 28,000 new jobs,start 3,000 new businesses andincrease the region’s productivityby £1.1bn per annum.

For more information [email protected] or phone01642 738200.

Appliance of Science

A new science collaboration for the chemical industry is bridging thegap between research and the prototyping of products and services.

OUR AIM IS TO HELP THECHEMICALS SECTORIDENTIFY THEIRTECHNOLOGYREQUIREMENTS

Linchem’s Terence Cox flanked bythe University’s Professor ZulfiqurAli, Director of the S2B Hub (right)and Dr Nitin Seetohul.


A survey into attitudes towards the ‘male pill’ has cast doubt onwhether Northern men can be trusted to take it.

Her findings show that while men said theywould welcome it, women thought their partnerscould not be trusted to take the contraceptive pillregularly, leading to unplanned pregnancy.

‘There’s been some work into the male pill,mainly in the US and Australia’, said Judith. ‘Butnothing it seems has been done in the NorthEast, which is perceived to be a male-dominatedsociety.

‘Men in the North don’t go to the doctors veryoften and we wanted to see if that approach tohealth care would influence their attitudes to themale pill. Past research has shown a linkbetween health awareness and attitudestowards the male pill.

‘There were three findings to our research.Firstly, both men and women had a positiveattitude towards the male pill and thought it wasa good idea.

‘Secondly, women were more positive thanmen, but women didn’t trust men to rememberto take the pill every day. This means thatpharmaceutical companies need to look atdeveloping options such as a monthly injectionor an implant that could last three years.

‘And finally, men in a stable sexual relationshiphad a better opinion of the male pill than men incasual sexual relationships.’

Writing in the Journal of Family Planning andReproductive Health Care, Judith said, ‘Once themale pill is widely available, promotionalcampaigns could target not only men but alsotheir female partners, as women tend to comeinto contact with health services morefrequently’.Judith is currently working on her PhDdeveloping an electronic coping programmeto help women deal with bereavement.

Would you trustthe male pill?

Shanghai sights Computer experts from Teessideand Shanghai Universities havestarted a collaborative project toresearch imaging tools thatcould one day help doctors trainfor complicated surgeryprocedures.

The research aims to solve problemsfaced by augmented reality (AR)systems, which produce advancedvisualisation technologies by mergingreal and computer-generated imageryand aims to develop AR-basedmedical applications.

Dr Wen Tang, from Teesside’sDigital Futures Institute, said, ‘Theopportunities and applications foraugmented reality are vast and wehope that this collaboration will helpbring it out of the laboratory and intothe real world where it could be usedto instruct surgeons and simulate arange of training environments wherethe consequences of a mistake arehuge’.

The research has been funded bythe International ResearchCollaboration Funding Scheme fromthe Science and TechnologyCommission of Shanghai and theRegional Development Agency OneNorth East.

Dr Tang’s research group isworking with Yimin Chen, Professor inComputer Science and Director ofthe Multimedia Research Centre ofShanghai University, on the project.

Mark Jackson, BusinessDevelopment Director at KnowledgeHouse which supports North Eastuniversities, said, ‘It’s very satisfyingto have helped set up a partnershipas far-reaching as this’.

Judith Eberhardt, from Teesside University’s Social Futures Institute, pictured, led ateam that questioned 380 people in North East England about the male contraceptivepill, which is undergoing trials.


Historian Dr Rob Lee talks to HUW RICHARDS about how to read the signsprovided by buildings, their location and their relationship to other buildingsto get a feeling for the social dynamics of a place.

Seen through the eyes of Rob Lee, the landscapes of the North East cease to be acollection of inanimate objectsand instead become story-tellers about the past.

Dr Lee, a lecturer in the Historysection and a member of TeessideUniversity’s Institute of Design,Culture and the Arts, is fascinated bythe impact of land ownership duringthe 19th and early 20th centuries,particularly the influence of the great19th-century coal-owners on thenorth-east landscape.

Of particular interest to him is theHastings dynasty, originally fromNorfolk, who in the 1840s inheritedthe Seaton Delaval estate, itssubstantial coalholdings and its iconicHall, which the National Trust regardsas one of the supreme achievementsof the early 18th-century architect, SirJohn Vanbrugh.

Dr Lee says, ‘As a Norfolklandowner Lord Hastings had beenvery conscious of and resistant to thedevelopment of trade unionism andthe development of nonconformistreligion. When he moved to the NorthEast in the 1840s he found that thesethings were already establishedthere.’

That dislike of organised labour lefta permanent mark on one of the mostimportant Hastings enterprises in theNorth East. ‘There was already aharbour at Seaton, but the Hastingsinterest developed and extended itsfacilities so that they could control thetrade in their coal, rather than beingdependent on the keelies inNewcastle and Sunderland. LordLondonderry, another significantcoalowner of conservative views, didmuch the same at Seaham.’

Dr Lee sees the Hastings dynastyas essentially paternalistic. ‘They triedto recast Seaton Delaval in much thesame way as villages in rural Norfolk.’A strong element in this was providingdecent housing by the standards ofthe time. ‘Articles in the NewcastleWeekly Chronicle, a liberal paper, inthe 1870s commented on the highquality of the housing they providedfor mine workers.’

Those cottages no longer survive,replaced by council housing in the1920s and 1930s. But the Hastingsmark remains in local names. ‘TheMelton Constable Hotel in Seaton isnamed after the Hastings estate inNorfolk, while Astley, which was thefamily name of the Hastings dynasty,was attached to several thingsincluding the village school.’

The quid pro quo for decenthousing was that the recipients wereexpected to show their gratitude bytoeing the owner’s line on tradeunionism and religion. ‘PrimitiveMethodism was more or lesssynonymous with trade unionism, sothe more conservative landownerswere strongly resistant to allowing theconstruction of chapels on theirestates.’

Those attitudes had an impact onnorth-eastern communities that canbe seen to this day. ‘There are placeslike Castle Eden, which was closelycontrolled by the ruling family and stillhas the feel of a traditional estatevillage in parts. On the other hand youhave Chopwell, near Gateshead,which in the early 20th century wasknown as “Little Moscow” because ofthe strong Communist influence.There the Primitive chapel is right atthe heart of the community, close tothe central crossroads, while theAnglican church is on a hill on theway out of the village.’

SHAPING THE

landscape


STOP PRESSTeesside historians, in associationwith colleagues from DurhamUniversity, are to embark on a three-year joint research project that willanalyse the role of the churches inthe development of popularmonarchy between the coronationsof Queen Victoria in 1837 andQueen Elizabeth II in 1953.

The research will have a particularfocus on how royal events weremarked in the North East of Englandand the project, which has beendesigned by Dr Robert Lee fromTeesside University and Dr AndrzejOlechnowicz of Durham University, isbeing supported by a grant of£170,000 from The Leverhulme Trust.

Dr Lee says, ‘The specialsignificance of this region becameevident while I was working on mybook, The Church of England and theDurham Coalfield, 1810 – 1926(2007). I found that pre-existingpolitical tensions in the North Eastmade the relationship betweenreligion, monarchy and the variousparish communities deeply complex.By the end of the 19th century, theNorth East had a reputation for beingthe strongest area in the country forsecularism and republicanism. Therole of the churches in trying topromote the image of popularmonarchy, conducted in thisparticularly fraught and volatileatmosphere, will offer a key route to amuch wider understanding of theinteractions between monarchy,popular culture, religion and politics.’

> A postdoctoral researcher anda PhD studentship will examinemedia coverage of royal visits androyal celebrations in the Teessidearea during the period 1822 to2010 using newspaper, film andTV archive material.

THEY TRIED TO RECAST SEATONDELAVAL IN MUCH THE SAME WAYAS VILLAGES IN RURAL NORFOLK


Anyone who wants to understand the concept of DigitalCityshould ask Dominic Lusardi and Sam Harrison who set upAnimmersion four years ago. Here they tell their story to NIC MITCHELL.

The benefit of

There’s no shortage of entrepreneurial spirit onTeesside, where more and more graduates areturning their backs on the old career path of joining a big company and working their way upthe ladder.

Take Dominic Lusardi and Sam Harrison, for example.Both graduated with visualisation degrees in 2001 andnow run a thriving digital media company, AnimmersionUK Ltd.

After leaving University, Dominic worked for digitalcompanies in Newcastle and Harrogate, while Sam spenta few years as a senior developer with Teesside’s VirtualReality Centre – the forerunner of DigitalCity.

But the two friends, who first met on the degree course,were determined to set up their enterprise one day.

And DigitalCity, the joint initiative led by TeessideUniversity and Middlesbrough Council to develop a newdigital industry in the area, gave them the opportunity theyneeded.

Their first move came when Sam won a DigitalCityFellowship. This gave him the time and space to develop the Animmersion business concept withUniversity-supported mentors under a scheme backed by the European Union and One North East.

Then, four years ago, the pair took the plunge andformed Animmersion UK Ltd as a limited companyspecialising in digital media and technology, particularly3D animation. During its first 18 months, the fledgingcompany was based in one of Teesside’s on-campusbusiness incubation units.

Last year, they moved into the University’s prestigiousInstitute of Digital Innovation (IDI), renting space in the newPhoenix Building.

Now, with the business expanding, they have movedagain, this time into DigitalCity Business’s Boho Onebuilding – the development supported by MiddlesbroughCouncil and the regional development agency to helpattract a super-cluster of digital companies to the town.

‘We are a visualisation studio producing interactivedigital media content through the use of 3D computergraphics. This can be applied to education, training,marketing and promotion,’ said 31-year-old Dominic,originally from Leeds.

‘Our clients so far have ranged from Schneider Electricand Kinetic World Wide through to architects wanting tovisualise their new building concepts. One of our earlyclients was DigitalCity Business, who wanted to create a3D animation of their new Boho building.

‘We’ve done slightly more complicated interactivetraining guides for the University and under a joint-fundedproject with the University, we created an animated trainingpackage for student nurses before they go out onplacement.’

Sam added, ‘We’re now busy with Hartlepool Council,using our expertise in animation and interactive digitalmedia to help them prepare a planning tool to cope withthe one million visitors expected at the Tall Ships event overthree days in 2010. This is more than a marketing tool. Theprime function is to help the Council visually plan for theevent and plan how to handle the huge number of visitorsexpected.’

So how is the business doing, particularly during theworst recession in recent memory?

DIGITALCITY


‘Things have been picking up for the last six months. We did have a mini recession around Christmas 2008, butsince April we’ve being doing very well and have expandedto four people’, said Sam, 30, originally from Nottingham.

‘We’ve had great support from the University and the IDIis a fantastic place, but we’ve always seen Boho as wherewe would end up. It has great technical benefits such as a100mb high-speed internet connection and a render farmwhich we can use to output very high-quality animations’,he added.

‘We think we will benefit from being surrounded bycompanies working in parallel sectors in the digital mediaindustry. And it is time to fly the nest. We’re very proud of theUniversity, but it’s time for us to stand on our own two feet.’

So does that mean leaving Middlesbrough? ‘No –why should we? People around the region now thinkMiddlesbrough is the place to go for the digital revolution.

‘People used to wonder how a town like Middlesbroughcould be the place for high-quality digital media work, but I think the University and DigitalCity are proving thedoubters wrong’, said Sam.

‘After all we’re not trying to build a hardware factory, buta place that can support the latest ideas. The key to ourfuture is to grow the business at the right pace and tocontinue to work to create a Digital City right here inMiddlesbrough’, said Dominic.

Dr Jim TerKeurst, Director of the University’s Institute ofDigital Innovation and a key player in Teesside’s digitalrevolution, said, ‘Animmersion is a great small companythat shows how DigitalCity can help young entrepreneurs.Sam and Dominic were attracted to Middlesbrough byTeesside University, and with the help of DigitalCity are now making a real contribution to the Tees Valley and the region.’

ANIMMERSION ISA GREAT SMALLCOMPANY THATSHOWS HOWDIGITALCITY CANHELP YOUNGENTREPRENEURS


A TWO-WAY STREET

It has been an incredible time at the Instituteof Digital Innovation (IDI), with a newcompany launched almost every week sincethe summer.

Backed by a £5.9m funding boost from theEuropean Regional Development Fund, One NorthEast, and Teesside University, the IDI is TeessideUniversity’s major contribution to DigitalCity: theinitiative helping to create and support a new clusterof digital and creative industries in the Tees Valley.

Based in the University’s new £12m PhoenixBuilding, IDI Director Dr Jim TerKeurst, pictured,says, ‘We’re producing a new company at the rateof one a week at the moment and expect to launchour 100th new enterprise by the spring of 2010’.

The new companies include Rob Colling’sInternet Subtitling – very important for onlinetelevision and videos, where accessibility is a legalmandate.

There’s also Adam Green’s Assyria Games,specialising in iPhone games, and Haus Projects,which focuses on project and events managementfor interactive media.

‘Some of our DigitalCity Fellows are building trulyground-breaking digital projects that take thepotential of digital solutions into entirely new areas.A great example is Andrew Robinson’s GoldExtraction & Purification fellowship – the title tells

you what will happen, but the solution wouldn’t be possible without digital technology’, says DrTerKeurst. Another of the new wave digitalcompanies to come off the IDI production line thissummer was an exciting new science-basedcompany, Nano Agrochemicals.

Dr Terkeurst says there is no stopping Teesside’sdigital revolution. ‘We are seeing a step change inthe number of our DigitalCity Fellowships, whichprovide support and mentoring for prospectivedigital entrepreneurs. And the quality is simplyastounding.

‘I think things are taking off now becauseDigitalCity is so well recognised and the companieswe are helping to get off the ground encompass theentire range of digital technologies – fromnanotechnology to interactive events proceduresand games companies.’

Loday Gonpo, the IDI’s Creative Director, agrees,saying, ‘Our Fellowships create a conduciveenvironment for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, withthe support of mentoring from industry professionalsand financial grants to help innovators develop theirideas into new digital businesses.’

>DIGITALCITY

Fellows on the path to success

'It is easy to think that harnessing social media isjust about creating a Twitter account or a Facebookpage and then carrying on as normal’, says MarkEasby, a Teesside graduate who is now managingdirector of Stokesley-based Better Brand Agency.

‘But that’s missing the point! For marketing in the social-media space requires a new way of thinking. Unliketraditional marketing and PR you can't just push content at a social-media audience. As the name suggests it is“social”, a conversation space where people engage,ideas are shared and businesses can gain new insightsinto their audience.’

Astute organisations are harnessing this two-waychannel to support product development and gainvaluable feedback on their services, says Mark. He pointsto the way O2 is using Twitter to resolve customer service

issues in full view of its Twitter audience as a goodexample.

Mark worked for a creative business start-up while apostgraduate student at Teesside University. He thenbranched out and formed Better Brand Agency inSeptember 2008 to offer expertise across branding, digitaland social media. And despite the downturn, digital mediacommunication has continued to expand. ‘In some waysthe downturn is helping. Companies are investing in onlinecommunication because it helps to keep costs down andis better at targeting and measuring their marketingactivity’, he says.

Mark, who graduated with a BSc(Hons) MediaTechnology and MSc Multimedia Enterprise fromTeesside, was recently shortlisted for the If-We-Can-You-Can Challenge 2009 Award.


The mother and son enterprisehit on the idea of usingnanoparticles to protect cropswhile developing their businessplan with industry mentors atthe IDI.

Both were recent Teessidegraduates and they worked with the IDI for six months, masteringcomputerised design packages todevelop a new product range ofnanoparticle agrochemicals whichthey believe will prove more effectivein protecting crops in the future.

‘We are using nanotechnology todevelop products that can offerbetter crop protection from a widerange of pathogens and soilcontaminants, and can enhance the health and well-being of cropsthrough improved nutrient and tracemineral uptake.’

‘Working with the IDI has been ahuge benefit to the project and hasenabled us to design optimalsynthesis mechanisms that we

believe will significantly increase theactivity of these products and cutdown laboratory testing times andcosts’, explained Andrew, pictured.

The new company has grandplans, including working withresearchers in California, the stateresponsible for 40% of foodproduction in the United States.‘California is facing a series ofproblems, particularly watershortages, as it has huge farms andhas been using so many chemicalsto increase food production thatinsects are becoming resistant tonormal insecticides’, says Andrew,whose PhD at Teesside looked atsensors to detect DNA.

Dr Jim TerKeurst, Director of theIDI, believes that digital design isnow firmly at the heart of some ofthe best innovations. ‘Digital designis an approach to finding a solution.It's a philosophy, not an aestheticoutcome, and can be put to gooduse in all sorts of technologies andbusinesses’, he says.

>CASE STUDY

Developed by Andrew and Sylvia Dean, NanoAgrochemicals was nurtured through theDigitalCity Fellowship scheme before its launch as one of the latest enterprises to come out ofthe Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI).

FAMILY BUSINESS

Nano Agrochemicals is a


Watching your reflection as yourun on a treadmill can help yourperformance, particularly if youare just taking up running. But itmay have some drawbacks formore experienced athletes.

That’s the conclusion from a study by Daniel Eaves, Programme Leaderfor Sports Psychology at TeessideUniversity, and two colleagues, NicolaHodges, from the University of BritishColumbia, Canada, and MarkWilliams, from Liverpool John MooresUniversity.

Daniel, 29, pictured with a runner,led the research project. He said,‘What we see influences how we co-ordinate our limbs. When two peoplewalk or run alongside each other, theyare often drawn towards doing thesame thing at the same time. Theirstep patterns become spontaneouslysynchronised.

‘We wanted to look at the effectsthis may have on performance,specifically when people are runningin front of a mirror on a treadmill.’

The research sample was tenphysically fit males with an averageage of 22. They each took part inthree 20-minute treadmill runs,separated by a day’s rest betweeneach run.

Participants faced a different life-sized image of themselves whilerunning under each condition.

MIRRORIMAGE of fitness

Can looking in a mirror while running on atreadmill affect your sporting performance?STEPHEN LAING finds out.

The images included a normalmirror, a mirror where left and rightsides were reversed, and a staticimage.

Various performance factors were measured, such as oxygenconsumption, heart rate,biomechanical running patterns – howthe body moved – and reaction time.

Daniel said, ‘Our results showedthat seeing a dynamic mirror image ofyourself while running is lessenergetically demanding than seeinga static image. The reversed imageplaced more demands on therunners’ thought processes.

‘The majority of gyms in theWestern world have mirrors in front oftreadmills and our research suggestsmirrors help to stabilise yourmovement, allowing you to focus onrunning more smoothly.

‘However, looking at yourself in themirror can make your work rate lessenergetically demanding.

‘If you are just getting into runningthen mirrors may be ideal fordeveloping your style and performinga less demanding run. Experiencedrunners, however, who want to trainharder, may benefit from not lookingin the mirror.’

The results of the research werepublished in the highly regardedjournal Medicine & Science in Sports& Exercise.


Meet the Inventor…Iain SpearsShould anyone ever write a book on ‘101 Uses for a LightEmitting Diode,’ then the inventions of Iain Spears are likely toplay a prominent part. He has already used this electric lightsource, known as an LED, as a key component in his Red DotBox – a device for testing balance and so spotting earlysymptoms in a number of illnesses.

Now comes his RGBTracker, whichprojects images manipulated by theuser’s movement on to a screenand sounds reminiscent of a well-known games platform.

Dr Spears, Reader in Sports andExercise at Teesside University,says, ‘We did look at the possibilityof developing it for use with anexercise game, but there seemslittle point in trying to compete withNintendo’. Instead, he has chosen

to focus on the potential medicalbenefits of his system, an areain which it has a clear edgeover the Wii and its rivals.

Dr Spears says, ‘Althoughit’s easy to describe thesystem as being like the Wii,our technology is moresimilar to the new motion-sensing controller fromSony. We have devisedsoftware which canlook at a cameraimage, locate theLEDs and, by

triangulating in the sameway as a GPS system,work out how far awaythey are and at whatangle. Because the LEDsare in three differentcolours – red, green andblue – we know whichone is which and canproduce extremelyprecise results.’

One possible way ofusing it will be to strapthe LED strip to apatient’s hip or kneeand then track their

movements while wearing it. DrSpears says, ‘That would enableyou to follow the movements ofjoints, work out joint and muscleforces and calculate how musclesare operating.

‘Just as a mechanic needs to seeunder the bonnet of a car, the healthpractitioner needs to be able toconceptualise, visualise andquantify the internal workings of thebody when attempting to diagnoseinjury. We will be able to virtuallyremove the skin and look at how ourmuscles and bones are working byusing this technology.’

It will, Dr Spears believes, provepopular with physiotherapists,coaches and anyone with achingjoints and muscles. Just a singlecamera is needed to produce theimages, so it should not be tooexpensive a piece of equipment.

To take the work forward, DrSpears has obtained funding fromthe University’s scholarship fund forPhD student Pierre Lagadec to workon developing the device and, inparticular, testing the validity of themuscle force calculations.

Dr Spears is a member ofTeesside University’s Social FuturesInstitute and his work has beenaided by a multi-disciplinaryresearch team including Dr WenTang from the Digital FuturesInstitute, Dr John Dixon from theHealth and Social Care Institute andProfessor Farhad Nabhani, from theTechnology Futures Institute.

For more details contact:[email protected]


Intelligent

ALISON UTLEY reports on a new gaming system designed for autistic children.

So how does it work? The avatarsencourage users to play role-playinggames which may depict bullying, forexample, or coping with someonewho is ill. The avatars displayemotions and facial expressionswhich react according to how thechildren behave towards them.

Dr Zhang, pictured, said that while there have been numerouscomputerised training systemsdesigned to help autistic children,none have combined complex social behaviour with interactivity.

Many of the existing systems trainchildren to recognise emotion, sheexplained, but they do not simulateany sort of interaction so that whileplayers are taught to recogniseemotions, they do not learnappropriate responses to subtlesocial cues.

‘We have created an interactivechat room-like virtual environmentwith avatars’, she said. ‘The avatars,which are cartoon-like 3D characters,are capable of expressing emotionalstates such as happiness, anger, fear,sadness, surprise, and caring and

ROLEplaying

Autistic children often strugglewith communication, lacking theability to empathise with otherpeople and never developingthe kind of social skills which willenable them to interact easilywith others.

As such autism is a lifelongdevelopmental disability, andsufferers find it particularly difficult tounderstand facial cues or metaphor –expressions such as ‘you are reallycool’ or ‘you are what you eat’, forexample, tend to be taken literally andcause much confusion. Insensitivity toemotion is another common problem.

A variety of learning disabilitiestends to result and, although autismis not curable, research has shownthat its effects can be improveddramatically if children receive experttreatment when they are very young.

The special care and treatmentneeded is very costly, however, andoften not available. Currentalternatives are often unsatisfactorysince each autistic child has veryindividual requirements.

But new software being developedat Teesside University looks set tohelp autistic children learn aboutemotional expression and socialengagement using computer-basedrole-playing games.

‘A group of 24 autistic children fromDarlington, aged 11 to 14, have beentesting the software by playing gameswith “avatars” – animated computergames characters which use artificialintelligence to interact realistically withhumans. Often the children do notrealise that one of the avatars iscomputer generated, assuming theyare playing the computer game withanother child.’

‘Our prototype offers greatpossibility to help young peopleachieve their full potential in terms ofsocial and learning skills, which couldincrease their confidence and improvetheir self-esteem’, said Dr Li Zhang, a member of the Digital FuturesInstitute, and an expert in artificialintelligence who is leading the project.

Eventually the software could helpautistic children to integrate effectivelywith society and even to get into work.

threatening behaviours. And we havenatural language processing which ishighly sophisticated.’

The system tackles name-calling,which is a minefield for autisticchildren. In common sense, forexample, calling someone a babyanimal name like ‘kitten’ or ‘bunny’may indicate affection. Howevercalling someone by an adult animalname like ‘pig’ may convey an insult.The difference may be subtle butgetting it wrong can have veryunpleasant consequences! Similarlythe difference between referring tosomeone as ‘big’ compared to ‘fat’ isexplored.

‘Once they began to enjoy the role-play, it was really hard for them tostop the session’, Dr Zhang said. Andin feedback tests, the children gavean average score of 5.7 in a range of1 to 7 to indicate to what extent suchexperience would be useful for real-life situations. More work will becarried out, she added, to prove howuseful the work is to help autisticchildren learn emotional expression inverbal communication and bodylanguage.

The system will be furtherdeveloped, Dr Zhang said, to createmore sophisticated emotionalanimations and user avatars. ‘Webelieve that the work is a steppingstone into a much wider use of suchsystems by education and training ingeneral, providing 24/7 efficientpersonalised social skill andlanguage training – and offeringautomatic monitoring of progress.Globally such applications couldprovide tempting potential revenue forthe game industry.’

The study has been a collaborationbetween Teesside University andcommercial partner MellaniuM. TheNational Autistic Society was also aproject partner, and support wasprovided by Darlington Council andEducation Village (EV) which hasthree schools, one of which caters forspecial needs.


A QUESTION OF TASTE Strokes are a major cause ofsevere disability in the UK, andnew research is taking place atTeesside University into the roleof good nutrition in fighting theeffects of a ‘brain attack’.

A stroke is what happens when theblood supply to part of your brain iscut off. Without that blood supply –and the oxygen it carries – brain cellsare damaged and die.

It’s a condition on the increase, withfactors such as excessive alcoholconsumption, obesity, smoking,stress and sedentary lifestylesimplicated as contributory factors.

While strokes can kill, no twostrokes are the same and suffererscan be affected in many differentways. Some patients recover quicklywhile others may experience lastinghealth problems.

One less-understood consequenceof stroke which can hold up recoveryis malnutrition. There is somesuggestion that malnutrition mightoccur because taste and smellfunction can be damaged by astroke, but it is an under-researchedarea and little is known about howtaste dysfunction is linked to stroke.Dr Sharon Hamilton and her team atTeesside’s Health and Social CareInstitute have already undertaken apilot study looking at the feasibility ofdoing research to test taste and smellfunctions and dietary intake of anumber of stroke patients.

That study presented a challenge,she said, because it was difficult torecruit sufficient numbers of strokepatients who met the right criteria tobe included in the study. ‘It illustratesthe difficulties of reaching this “hardto recruit” population, but we havenow identified new strategies toovercome this problem.’

The aim of the research so far has been to test the feasibility of aprotocol to measure taste and smellfunction and dietary intake after astroke. Dr Hamilton says, ‘A largerstudy is now needed to gather thedata necessary to identify whethertaste and smell are affected bystroke. We hope a larger study willcontribute to our knowledge of thebroader consequences of stroke,and, ultimately, lead to improvementsin patient care and outcomes.’

EVENTUALLY THE SOFTWARE COULD HELP AUTISTIC CHILDREN TOINTEGRATE EFFECTIVELY WITH SOCIETY AND EVEN TO GET INTO WORK


>ENVIRONMENT SPECIAL

The pollution began one night in May 1999, when a newdischarge from abandonedironstone mine workings turnedthe beck a rust colour, raisingconcerns for Saltburn Gill NatureReserve, which is a Site ofSpecial Scientific Interestbecause of its ancient woodland.

Saltburn Gill flows into Skelton Beck,which in turn flows through thefamous Valley Gardens Park at theseaside town of Saltburn and on tothe beach. The discharge meansmore than 50 tonnes of dissolved ironflows into the North Sea every year.

Although it is not toxic, the highconcentration of iron smothers thestream bed to such an extent thatwildlife struggles to survive.

But now teamwork by experts atTeesside University, the EnvironmentAgency, Entec and the Coal Authority,may be close to solving the pollutionproblem.

Geoscientists from the University'sClean Environment ManagementCentre (CLEMANCE) have beenusing mining records to show howthe interconnected workings that ledto the pollution might also be used tocontrol it.

SeeingREDIt has been called the red river, its waters blighted by the legacy of ironstone mining. But better times couldbe ahead for the polluted Saltburn Gill which has blighted local wildlife. JOHN DEAN reports.

The CLEMANCE team, workingwith the community-led Saltburn GillAction Group and a number of otherorganizations, has identified a way ofpumping and treating the mine waterwhich seeps from the nearby oldironstone mine workings in EastCleveland.

The Environment Agency securedthe funding for the feasibility studyand pumping tests, which have nowbeen completed, and the CoalAuthority has also been helping,using expertise gained from treatingcoal mine water problems elsewhere.

The team’s next step is to getfurther funding to complete theirinvestigation and solve the problem.

Dr Richard Lord, CLEMANCE'sReader in EnvironmentalGeochemistry and Sustainability, said,‘During our investigation, we found anold mine shaft which had not beenclosed off and we wondered if wecould use it to pump the water out ofthe underground workings, ratherthan letting it come to the surfacenaturally in the Gill.

‘Through the use of CCTVcameras, we were able to check theshaft's condition. It was disappointingwhen we discovered that the shaft

was blocked off further down but thesurvey did get us thinking aboutpumping as a way of controlling thepollution.

‘Drilling a borehole to pump thewater from the underground workingswill allow it to be treated anddischarged back into the Beck. Thatway we could make sure that it doesnot leak out untreated close to theSaltburn Gill Nature Reserve. We arehopeful that we are nearing a solutionto this difficult problem at last.’

And the breakthrough could havewider implications. Dr Lord said,‘There are many becks and streams

across the country with similarproblems from old metal mines and ifthe solution works at Saltburn Gill, itcould be developed elsewhere. At themoment, many of them simply are notup to the standard which will berequired in 2015 by the EU WaterFramework Directive.’

Environment Agency officer DonMason said, ‘This latest developmentis exciting news and shows that byworking together as a partnership, wewill hopefully improve the waterquality in Saltburn so that the town'sbecks and woodland will beprotected for future generations.’


The Network has been designedto complement and build onexisting National IndustrialSymbiosis Programme (NISP)activity in the region and willhelp businesses cut CO2 by over250,000 tonnes by reducing theamount of waste going tolandfill. It also aims to assist 40businesses each year with directresearch and developmentsupport and consultancy, andcontribute towardsenvironmental cost savings andbusiness profitability.

The £1.2m project is being supportedfinancially by the European Union’sERDF Competitiveness Programme2007-13 with a matching £621,000contribution from the University.

Christine Parry, Industrial SymbiosisProject Manager at TeessideUniversity, said, ‘We want the Networkto influence and fuel a change inbusiness culture and bring aboutlong-term environmental and socialbenefits for regional sustainability.

‘We need to increase the capacityand will of SMEs and their workforcesto improve business performance byrecognising that waste is a useful rawmaterial and a resource to be utilised.There are numerous opportunities forcollaborative networking, sharingresources and access to technicalinformation, research and support forvirgin material savings betweencompanies’, she said.

The North East Industrial SymbiosisNetwork project will be deliveredacross the region from its base, theClean Environment ManagementCentre (CLEMANCE) at TeessideUniversity.

‘Our regular workshops willstimulate cross-sector engagement,business to business collaborationand technology transfer, and provide

Eco-friendly solutions to handling waste

Teesside University has launched the North East Industrial Symbiosis Network, a two-yearsustainability initiative to deliver eco-friendlysolutions to small and medium-sized businesses(SMEs) in areas such as tackling difficult wasteproblems.

SMEs with up-to-date guidance onlegislation, eco-innovation and bestpractice’, said Christine.

The project also seeks to createtwo new dedicated waste andrecycling businesses and encourageeco-friendly business practices byoffering site visits to the best wastemanagement and treatment facilitiesin the region.

One North East Head of Europeanand Skills Strategy, Lesley Calder,said, ‘Many businesses are underincreasing pressure to measure andreduce their carbon footprints andwaste is generally seen by businessas a negative issue, with significantcosts and legislative pressuresassociated with it.

‘European Union support for thisproject will improve businesses’understanding of resourcemanagement in all its forms andencourage them to implementstrategies to become more efficientand competitive. It will help overcometechnological barriers to resourceefficiency and identify new marketopportunities, as well as the obviousenvironmental benefits.’

The ERDF CompetitivenessProgramme 2007-13, managed byOne North East, is bringing over£250m into North East England, withan emphasis on enterprise andbusiness support and encouragingSMEs to develop, grow and innovate.

For further information pleasetelephone Christine Parry on 01642 342 409 or [email protected].

Research & Enterprise 44

Foodor Fuel?

>ENVIRONMENT SPECIAL

Scientists on Teesside are playing their part in helping to solve one of the most difficult problems facing the world today: generating power withoutaccelerating climate change or harming food production. JOHN DEAN reports.

Biofuels generated from wastes and crops, suchas corn and rapeseed, are seen by many as thegreen alternative to fossil fuels.

And while they may appear to be the perfect solutionbecause they are not net producers of harmfulenvironmental by-products, they create another problem.And that is they encourage farmers to grow energy cropsat the expense of badly needed food, particularly in poorercountries in the world.

Finding an answer to the ‘food-fuel conflict’ is at theheart of research led by Dr Komang Ralebitso-Senior,Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology in the TechnologyFutures Institute at Teesside University, pictured.

She is leading a team of six researchers looking atwhether biofuel production could use waste materials,such as domestic refuse and sewage sludge, instead ofenergy crops to generate biogas, which can then be useddirectly or to produce alternative energy sources such aselectricity.

Dr Ralebitso-Senior said, ‘We’re carrying out laboratoryinvestigations to optimise the production of biogas througha process known as anaerobic digestion. This usesnaturally occurring micro-organisms to break down wastein closed vessels’, she says.

Dr Ralebitso-Senior believes that, although anaerobicdigestion is an established process already being used bysome waste-to-energy companies, its full potential has notyet been realised in solving many of the problemsassociated with growing biofuel crops.

‘We can produce most biofuels using crops – but the bigissue is whether the land could be used for food instead.The loss of agricultural crops is a major issue.

‘We call this the food-fuel conflict as the economicreturns of growing crops for fuel are often higher and with

more farmers choosing this option, foodstuffs inevitablybecome more expensive.’

She says, ‘Using anaerobic digestion is an alternativemethod which has considerable potential, but we still donot understand a lot about how it works. That is what weare investigating in the laboratory, seeking ways in whichwe can optimise and, therefore, exploit the processeffectively.

‘This work has significant potential because it canproduce a biofuel which is truly sustainable. The refusefrom which the biogas is produced would have ended upin the ground, with possible damage to the environment,and also there will not be the need to grow crops whichtake food away from people.

‘The value of biofuels is their potential to be sustainable,providing a good balance between the environment, theeconomy and society. This is very exciting work’, she says.

So exciting is the potential of this research that theCentre for Process Innovation (CPI) based at Wilton issupporting the PhD programme associated with this work.

For Dr Ralebitso-Senior, this kind of external support iscrucial. ‘The next stage after the PhD is developing a newbioreactor type at pilot-scale but for the system to beviable, we need an even larger capacity. We’re looking at ittaking a number of years to go from laboratory to pilot toactual scale, with modifications and additional researchalong the way. The only way the project may be realisedsooner is if we can integrate findings from other researchteams in the region, then nationally and internationally.’

The work is the latest phase in a career which has seenDr Komang Ralebitso-Senior, an applied environmentalmolecular microbiologist, work all over the world, includingLesotho, South Africa, the Netherlands and Singapore.


Thinking greenFor chemical industry managers, sourcingraw materials at a time when they are beingurged to adopt more environmentally friendlymethods can be a major challenge.

However, a research project on Teesside has thepotential to come up with a solution.

The project will see Teesside University workingwith seven local companies and the North EastProcess Industry Cluster – the body representingsectors ranging from pharmaceuticals andpetrochemicals to biotechnology – and researchersat Newcastle and Surrey Universities.

Together they will examine ways of extractingchemicals from biomass, the organic substancebeing used now to generate electricity.

At the heart of the research lies biomass. This can be wood, grasses and other organicmaterials, such as solid municipal waste orindustrial waste, which when burnt in a powerstation can generate electricity without producingthe pollutants associated with fossil fuel, explainedTeesside University researcher Dr Maria Olea.

‘The biomass also contains chemicals which, if extracted, could be used in other industrialprocesses, reducing the need to locate rawmaterials from sources such as quarries andmines’, said Dr Olea, Reader in ChemicalEngineering and Catalysis in Teesside University’sTechnology Futures Institute.

Dr Olea will be one of the experts analysingmethods of extracting eight chemicals frombiomass. She says, ‘This work is of interest toindustry because companies can use thechemicals present in the biomass. What they needis to know the best methods of extracting them sothat they can be re-used, rather than being wasted.

‘We are looking at methods which will allow thechemicals to be removed on an industrial scale.’

The academics at Teesside and Newcastle willuse computer software to analyse differentindustrial routes from biomass to target chemicalsand then experts from Surrey University will build amodel based on the inputs from the other twoUniversities, so helping the project’s industrialpartners to select the best method of extraction.

Dr Olea said, ‘This is an interesting projectbecause it is environmentally friendly. Re-usingthese chemicals would make it completelysustainable.’

The government department Defra has providedpart of the funding for the 27-month project.


Last year the Environment Agency listedfishing as the most popular participant sportin the UK. And yet recreational fishing is anunder-researched activity, despite becominga significant cultural and tourist industry in itsown right.

More than 3m people describe themselves asregular anglers and around £2.75bn is spent onfishing annually in the UK industry alone, whichemploys about 20,000 people.

Dr Tom Mordue, Assistant Dean (Research) at Teesside University Business School, has beenmaking a special study of the fishing industry whichhe says reveals much about the complex intimacyof our relationship with the natural world.

The research, being published in the internationalacademic journal Current Issues in Tourism, showsthat while growing numbers of anglers are contentto explore rural England, many now go furtherafield. Dr Mordue found that within the last 30 yearsmany destinations across the globe havedeveloped leisure fishing industries, and a newgeneration of tour operators has emerged to offer abreadth of choice that was unimaginable a few

decades ago. Destinations like the US, Canada,Cuba, Chile, France, Spain, the British Isles,Slovenia, Russia and many more have developedsignificant fishing tourism over recent years.

So what drives the passion for fishing, who isdoing it, and what is its social significance?

Historically of course, fishing formed part of asubsistence economy in which fish were caught toeat by any method which was effective.

According to Dr Mordue, fishing as a leisurepursuit emerged with the ancient Egyptians andChinese nobility who turned subsistence fishing intoa sport for the privileged. In Europe, theRenaissance nobility continued the trend, refinedthe art and reserved the better streams for their useby excluding the masses. Thus, once fishing madethe transformation from work into leisure, the historyof its social division between elite and commonforms of fishing began.

English language research into the history ofangling is almost entirely about the history of fly andgame fishing he says, reflecting the power andinfluence of the upper classes who havetraditionally pursued these activities.

However, Dr Mordue points out that differenttypes of freshwater fishing have been devised inmore modern times, broadening the sport’s socialappeal.

Fly-fishing may be deemed upper-class andsophisticated, environmentally sound andtechnology-free or, to put it another way, natural, hesays.

Coarse fishing, on the other hand, is thought ofas the fishing of the masses. ‘Certainly there areelements of truth in this conception, but clearly thedifferences are not as substantial as fly fishermenwould have us believe’, Dr Mordue says.

His research does show however that fishing isstill predominantly a white male occupation, in theUK at least. Few women or people from black orminority ethnic groups take up the sport, and in theUK the rural landscapes and chalk streams of theSouth have tended to be dominant destinations insocial and cultural terms.

More recently the wilder landscapes of Britain’snorth country have been popularised as outdoorleisure playgrounds, encouraged by various media,not least TV dramas like Heartbeat and Monarch ofthe Glen. And it is obvious, says Dr Mordue, that the

There is more to fishing than catching fish as ALISON UTLEY discovers.

£2.7bnspent on fishing annually in the UK

TakingTHE BAIT


FLY-FISHING MAY BE DEEMED UPPER-CLASS AND SOPHISTICATED

passion for and the joy of fishing is felt through allsocial strata, even though access to different typesof fishing tends to be socially delineated – by cost ifnothing else.

Angling, he says, is a highly physical activity thatrelies on success in a space which can be fishedmany times, and where the experience is rarely, ifever, the same. ‘The promise of excitement is neverdiminished’, and so the passion for anglingcontinues to exert its grip on so many people’slives, he stresses.

The old axiom in angling, that there is much more to fishing than catching fish, holds as well inacademic research, Dr Mordue concludes. ‘It hintsat how angling is not only an important activity in itsown right but one that, if studied critically, revealsmuch about the complex intimacy of ourrelationship with the natural world, and the lengthswe are prepared to go to consume it, exploit it andconserve it.’

>Elizabeth, Duchessof York (1900 - 2002)during a fishing trip toTokaanu, New Zealand

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