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Criminologist Dr Louise Grove was part of the team to collate the initial report and, alongside Loughborough Professor Ken Pease OBE, she has been commissioned as a consultant to English Heritage to produce guidelines to help lower these latest figures.

“Crimes to heritage assets are not excessive when compared to wider British Crime Survey figures, which tells us criminals see the opportunity for crime; they don’t see the damage to heritage,” explained Dr Grove.

“But if a church roof is stolen or a war memorial damaged it has a wider community impact than a domestic crime, and costs to replace stolen architecture and fittings are typically very high, so it’s important we help put a stop to it.   

“There are lessons we can learn from existing crime prevention knowledge and there is clearly a role for education to play. I hope our guidelines, which are still being developed, will add to the good work already carried out by organisations such as English Heritage and will play an important role in reducing crime against these sites.”

The report The extent of crime and anti-social behaviour facing designated heritage assets was compiled by Newcastle and Loughborough Universities and the Council for British Archaeology. It can be found on the English Heritage website.


Inaugural Lecture.

The Systematics of Social Interaction

Professor Elizabeth Stokoe,

Everything we do in our daily lives is accomplished through social interaction: in the initiation, maintenance and negotiation of our personal and public relationships; in domestic and institutional settings. Contrary to the presumed ‘messiness’ of talk, researchers have shown that social interaction is highly organised in systematic ways.

Actions like questions, offers, assessments, or compliments are organised in ways that have important implications for understanding everything from complaining about a neighbour and assessing a classroom task, to saying no to offers of help and flirting with a potential new partner.    

In this lecture, Professor Stokoe will present findings about the systematics of social interaction from her own work, drawing on audio and video-recordings from settings including student tutorials, romantic dating, police interrogations, and neighbour dispute mediation.

She will show how she has developed these findings into practical applications in the world of communication skills training. Finally, she will argue that applications grounded in social interactional work can address ‘the impact agenda’ in higher education without compromising epistemic and academic integrity.

For a video recording of this lecture please click here.


You may be interested in our report on Living on a Low Income In Later Life which was published by Age UK this week: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/living-on-a-low-income-in-later-life/ (this link also includes videos of four people talking about how they manage their money).

The BBC News (Education and Family section) highlighted the report on their homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16681617
With further coverage published via The Independent: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/campaign/living-on-a-low-income-in-later-life/

Full report available to download: http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/For-professionals/Research/Living_on_a_low_income_full_report.pdf?dtrk=true

The University press release can be found here.


‘Daniel Chernilo was interviewed in a national newspaper on the publication of his new book in Chile’. Click here for the article.


Two studies led by Donald Hirsch, CRSP has recently been published.  
An update on the poverty figures for the UK were published by the Campaign to End Child Poverty yesterday.  Figures, official press release and the report (A Child Poverty Map of the UK) are available on http://endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/poverty-in-your-area
University press release: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/publicity/news-releases/2012/02_Child-Poverty.html
This work received widespread coverage with links available here.

In addition a new report ‘Priced Out: The new inflation and its impact on living standards’ has also been published by The Resolution Foundation and is available to download here.

This work got prominent coverage in the Mail, the Mirror and the Sun.


Richard Bean, who graduated in Social Psychology in 1978, received the Evening Standard 2011 Theatre Award for his two recent plays, The Heretic (premiered at the Royal Court Theatre) and One Man, Two Guvnors (at the National Theatre). The Guardian described One Man, Two Guvnors as “one of the funniest productions in the National’s history”.  His first play, Of Rats and Men, put on in 1996 was set in a psychology lab! See: http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/bean-richard.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bean.


Loughborough to lead international identity management study
Professor Liesbet van Zoonen of Loughborough University and a team of colleagues from Dundee, Essex and Northumbria universities have received a £1.36m grant to examine taboos and desires around future technologies of ‘identity management’.
 
The three-year IMPRINTS project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). An additional grant has been awarded by the Department of Homeland Security in America to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to simultaneously conduct the study in the US.

For the FULL version of this Press Release please click here.


Lower incomes and rising inflation means this country is facing the biggest squeeze on living standards since the 1920s. Loughborough University's Donald Hirsch gives us his views on the groups being hit hardest. Listen to the interview here.


The Minimum Income Standard and the research done by CRSP and Donald Hirsch has been included in an article by the Guardian - to view the article click here and for the BBC radio interviews click here approximate times shown:

World Tonight - (forward to 0.38)

Radio 5Live - (forward to 2.06.00)


Dr Frederick Attenborough was recently interviewed for an article in the Independent on men's lifestyle magazines by the jounalist Rhodri Marsden . To view the article click here.


Professor Harriet Ward was interviewed for BBC's "Panorama" programme and will be availiable here: Panorama: Baby P - In His Mother's Words, BBC One, Monday, 13 December at 2030GMT and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer.

Link to news item.


PROFESSOR RUTH LISTER APPOINTED HONORARY PRESIDENT OF CHILD POVERTY ACTION GROUP

CPAG Media Release
8th December 2010

Professor Ruth Lister appointed Honorary President of Child Poverty Action Group
Child Poverty Action Group has today at its Annual General Meeting announced the appointment of Professor Ruth Lister as the Honorary President of the Group.
Following the death of Professor Peter Townsend in 2009, the position of President has remained unfilled until today partly as a matter of respect.
Professor Ruth Lister is a former Director of Child Poverty Action Group, Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University and will soon be introduced to the House of Lords.

The Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, Alison Garnham, said: "We want to support the high profile Child Poverty Action Group has achieved in its history through an association with a person of the highest standards who has a natural association with our objectives. Clearly we had to find the right calibre of person and there is no one better suited than Ruth Lister.
"Ruth not only has an outstanding reputation as an academic but also has a strong connection with Child Poverty Action Group having worked for us from 1971 to 1987, including a very successful 8 years as Director.
"As an eminent and widely respected social policy academic, Ruth has written extensively and influentially about poverty, gender perspectives on poverty and what citizenship means to our poorest families. Her personal commitment to ending child poverty is longstanding and second to none. I am personally delighted she is taking the position of President of Child Poverty Action Group and know I can speak for all our staff when I say it is a tremendous privilege."


Professor Ruth Lister - mentioned in the New Zealand Herald see this link.


Professor Ruth Lister has been awarded a peerage in the most recent list of honours.  Baroness Lister was awarded a CBE in 1999 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2009.  She will use her enormous knowledge in the areas of poverty, inequality and gender to influence social and political policy. 


"Young carers in the news - new BBC survey shows prevalence of young caring among secondary school age children is much higher than indicated in Census Data. There are now estimated to be around 700,000 young carers in the UK."

Click here for the link.


Daniel Chernilo - has published a column at a major Chilean newspaper on the relationships between Chile and Bolivia. Click here for the link, and for the full article Click here.


Liz Stokoe and Loathe thy Neighbour? Become less territorial. From the Independent. Click here for the full article.


Emeritus Professor Ruth Lister was recently interviewed on national ABC radio in Australia for a programme called Life Matters and also on a local radio station in Adelaide. Click here for a link to the programme.

Ruth is also mentioned in a letter to the Guardian Oct 30th. Click here for the letter, and in an article for the Financial Times. Click here for the link.


Awards and Grants:

James Stanyer and John Downey have been awarded the prize for the best article in the European Journal of Communication in 2010. The article is the first to use fuzzy sets in comparative media analysis.


Professor Elizabeth Stokoe Becomes the First to be Awarded New Psychology Prize

Elizabeth Stokoe has become the first person to be awarded the BPS Social Psychology Section's Mid-Career Award, given to recognise the distinguished achievements and contributions of social psychologists who are in the 'mid' of their career.

The award citation reads: "The BPS Social Psychology Section Committee has voted to give this first award to you as a recognition of your significant contribution to social psychology so far.  We would like to invite you to give the Mid-Career Award Lecture at the Section's Annual Conference 2011 which will take place between 7-9 September 2011 in Cambridge.  We will then present the award formally to you."

The Department of Social Sciences is delighted to congratulate Professor Stokoe on a new and prestigious award, which is a well-deserved recognition of her outstanding and internationally-established work.


The Social Sciences Department is delighted to announce a new £2.7 million international project funded by the EPSRC: IMPRINTS: Identity Management: Public Responses to IdeNtity Technologies and Services.

The consortium project which will be directed by Professor Liesbet Van-Zoonen will commence in September 2011 for a period of 3 years.  Co-investigators include the University of Dundee, University of Essex, Northumbria University and Durham University.  Partners are the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle, USA.

The project has been created in continuous interaction with representatives of different stakeholders from US and UK government and security services that expect to benefit directly from this research.

Our overall question is: What will influence UK and US publics to engage and/or disengage with identity management practices, services and technologies of the future?

The project proceeds in three phases: in the first we will establish which future scenarios of identity management are available in popular culture, science fiction, security studies, intelligence reports and commercial trends.  In the second phase we will discuss these scenarios with audiences through various qualitative and quantitative methods, and in the third phase we will develop these results into a grid of taboos and desires of identity management that will produce usable instruments for policy makers, intelligence officers, civic activists and commercial developers.

If you would like to be added to a mailing list to receive updates about the project please contact s.walker@lboro.ac.uk


Professor Elizabeth Stokoe has been awarded a £48K grant within the ESRC’s ‘follow-on’ fund for knowledge transfer and impact activities. The project is entitled “Mediating and policing community disputes: Developing new methods for role-play communication skills training” and will run for a year from February 2011.


James Stanyer, David Deacon, John Downey, Dominc Wring

Addressing stigma and discrimination towards drug users: A Media Analysis - An examination of newspaper coverage of drug users and drug use in the UK

12K the UK Drugs Policy Commission, August 2010 to October 2010


MEDIA OF REMEMBERING (2010)
 
Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering have received a three year research grant of £106,810 from the Leverhulme Trust to investigate how photography and music, as processes of recording and retrieval which appeal to two distinct senses of perception, act as vehicles of memory in everyday contexts. Using in-depth interviews, the project attends to the various ways in which the technologies are used by people of different genders, ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds in articulating relationships between the past, present and future. The empirical data is used to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between individual memory and its social and cultural contexts, bringing the personal and collective dimensions of remembering into view of one another. Nicola Allett has recently joined Emily and Michael as Research Associate on this project, and together they are currently beginning the process of interviewing and archival research. Emily and Michael, along with David Deacon, also recently gave papers as members of a panel on Texts, Technologies and Temporalities at an international conference on Time in Culture at Tartu University, Estonia. They were joined by Dr Anna Reading of London South Bank University.


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