UEB 12 January 2015

• UEB welcomed Professor Nora de Leeuw, Pro Vice-Chancellor for International and Europe, to her first Board meeting.
• UEB received a business case for the establishment of a National Software Academy to be based in Newport. This built on an earlier paper that went before UEB on 30 June 2014 and saw the approval of a pilot year for the Software Academy funded jointly by Cardiff University and the Welsh Government. The pilot year involves current students from the School of Computer Science and Informatics undertaking their year in industry in Newport as a way of trialling the development of industry links. Initial feedback from the participating students has been extremely positive. The Academy opens up a number of opportunities for the University, including the possibility of creating stronger links to local, national and international software companies. The outcome of UEB discussions will be announced shortly.

UEB received the following regular reports

• Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s Monthly Report
• PVC Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Monthly Report. This highlighted the College’s performance in the REF and the appointment of two Associate Deans in the College. It also offered an update on the Beijing Normal-Cardiff University partnership. A formal launch date for the partnership is provisionally scheduled for May 2015 in either London or Cardiff as part of the UK-China People to People Dialogue.
• PVC Research, Innovation and Engagement Monthly Report on Engagement Activities. This referenced the success of the internal launch of the Flagship Engagement Projects on 15th December, which saw 150 staff and students attending. Statistics relating to public events have been submitted as part of the annual return to the HEBCI survey for HEFCE. Cardiff-run events reached more than 260,000 attendees and 413 academic days were spent on planning/delivering activities.
• PVC Research, Innovation and Engagement Monthly Report Monthly Report on Research and Innovation. The Leverhulme Trust has invited bids for Leverhulme Research Centres. Each Centre will be funded for up to £10 million over ten years, conducting “innovative research of the highest intellectual and academic ambition”. The closing date for the outline applications is 16 April 2015 and an internal process is underway to identify the University’s chosen topic.
• Director of Communications and Marketing Monthly Report. The major activity was communicating the REF 2014 results. As well as extensive media coverage, the REF pages and news stories on the web attracted over 58,000 page views on 18 December. The launch of the research magazine, Challenge Cardiff, was also referenced. A web item on celebrating Cardiff’s New Year Honours has been posted, including the fact that Professor Teresa Rees, School of Social Sciences and Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor, was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.