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Our core mission at the University of Dundee is to transform lives, locally and globally, through the creation, sharing and application of knowledge.

We are doing that in all sorts of ways. The teaching we offer forms part of a student experience that is consistently rated among the best in the UK, and is producing graduates who are ready to help solve real-world problems and become future leaders in enterprise and industry.

We are carrying out research that has a real impact on people’s lives, here in Scotland and around the world. We are focused on shaping the future through innovative design, promoting the sustainable use of global resources, and improving social, physical and cultural wellbeing.

the bridge offers you a glimpse into the work being done by those who make up the Dundee community of staff, students and alumni – all taking Dundee to the world and bringing the world to Dundee.

welcome to the bridge – the magazine from the University of Dundee.

4 A welcome from Professor Pete Downes, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dundee

5 Dundee on the rise – Scotland’s best student experience, league tables success and leading the way in widening access

6 A city in transformation – Professor Paul Harris on the changing face of Dundee

9 Building on the UK’s best – Professor Mike Ferguson on the latest addition to Dundee’s life sciences research base

14 Professor Tim Newman describes an interdisciplinary future to challenge the world’s biggest challenges

17 Professor Niamh Nic Daeid and colleagues in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification are changing the face of forensic science

22 Celebrating alumni support

24 Welcome to Dundee Connect, join our alumni community around the world

34 A vision of the future with Professor Jason Swedlow at the Dundee Imaging Facility

36 Professor Ioan Fazey on the challenges the world faces in creating a sustainable future

39 Transforming lives – and healthcare – in Eritrea. How Dundee has helped rebuild a shattered health service in Africa

42 The best of 2015’s record breaking Art, Design & Architecture Degree Show

the bridge is produced by the Department of External Relations at the University of Dundee

Editors

Roddy Isles and Hilary McNally | University of Dundee press office

tel 01382 384021 email press@dundee.ac.uk

Design

Fiona Livingstone, Angela Dunphy, Kate Harper

Design • Print • Marketing | University of Dundee

Cover Image

Our stunning cover image

was taken by Shahbaz Majeed, award-winning

photographer, Dundee

alumnus and member of

staff in IT. You can read

more about Shahbaz in our

alumni section on page 32.

Visions from the deep – stunning images from under the waves with Professor Chris Rowland

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Welcome to the 2015 issue of The Bridge. This magazine reflects what I find every day in my role as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University, speaking to staff, students and alumni – that there is a truly inspiring range of work being done at Dundee that is having an impact on the way we live and how we tackle the problems of the present and the future.

Our core mission as a University is to transform lives, through the creation, sharing and application of knowledge. We are doing that in all sorts of ways, from the teaching we offer as part of a student experience that is consistently rated among the best in the UK, to the impact of our world-leading research.

I am constantly inspired speaking to our students. I am full of pride when I see the impact our alumni are having around the world. I see the richness of the teaching our staff are delivering and the innovation of research that is taking place here at Dundee, and know that our activity is helping drive social, cultural and economic change.

It is a vital thing to remember as we face the changes and challenges that surround us. We are ranked in the world’s top one per cent of universities. The University of Dundee is a place that is making a difference, from Scotland to Eritrea to the Solomon Islands, as you will read in the pages of this magazine.

Professor Pete Downes Principal and Vice-Chancellor

WELCOMEfrom the principal

ON THE

WORLD-LEADING research

RISEDUNDEE

University of Dundee

ST

The

in 2015

the BEST student experience in SCOTLAND

LEADING THE WAY in widening access to higher education for all

one of the WORLD’S TOP ‘young universities’

TOP-RANKED by international students

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THE 100 UNDER 50 The University of Dundee was named one of the world’s top 20 universities founded in the last 50 years by Times Higher Education. THE’s ‘100 Under 50’ rankings saw Dundee enter straight into the top 20, highest in Scotland and second in the UK. The University was also awarded a Gold Award for Citations, making it one of the top 10% of Universities in the world for a key measure of impact.

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE SURVEY Dundee was rated number one in Scotland for the sixth year in succession by the Times Higher Education (THE) Student Experience Survey 2015. Dundee was rated first in the UK for centralised/convenient facilities and cheap shop/bar/amenities, and second for good students’ union. It scored in the UK top ten in another five categories – good social life, community atmosphere, extra-curricular activities/societies, high quality facilities, and sports facilities.

DUNDEE REACHES TOP SPOT IN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT BAROMETER The University is ranked number one in Scotland and in the World’s Top 20 in the most recent International Student Barometer (ISB) Survey. Dundee came first in Scotland (7th in the UK and 19th in the whole ISB) for overall average satisfaction in the 2014 International Student Barometer, the largest annual survey of international students in the world.

CLIMBING THE LEAGUE TABLES The University was among the fastest risers in the 2016 Guardian University Rankings. With a host of subjects in the UK top ten – including Medicine (4th), Dentistry (7th), Mechanical Engineering (7th), Fashion & Textiles (7th) and Mathematics (8th) – our overall position was 38th, up from 47th.

The QS World University Rankings© by Subject placed Dundee among the world’s elite higher education institutions for Art & Design, Biological Sciences, Education, Medicine and Pharmacology, and English Language & Literature.

WIDENING ACCESS, LEADING THE WAY Figures issued by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on widening access to higher education for students from the most deprived sections of society showed Dundee making the biggest improvements in the country. The University reported particularly strong rises in entrants to highly competitive subjects such as Dentistry and Medicine.

REF PLACES DUNDEE AMONG UK LEADERS FOR RESEARCH The Research Excellence Framework 2014 – the main test of research quality in the UK – placed Dundee as the top University in the UK for Biological Sciences research. The University recorded an excellent result across the STEM – science, technology, engineering & maths – subjects and overall had 76 per cent of our research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally renowned’.

I don’t really know why, but something about Dundee has had an alluring attraction for me for nearly 30 years. Attracted back then by the international reputation enjoyed by Duncan of Jordanstone

College of Art & Design in television post-production and motion graphics, I applied for a lecturing post in the mid-1980s. Alas, I was turned down without even an interview, but I bear no grudge! Life has its sweet surprises, even if you do have to wait nearly three decades to realise them.

But in 1991 I was able to experience Dundee the city for the first time, when I took a job at the Dundee Institute of Technology, now of course, Abertay University, and in those days I had similar mixed feelings towards Dundee as to my own birthplace, Birmingham. Both were suffering from post-industrial decline, which had turned two once proud and world-leading cities into fragmented shadows of their former selves. Dare I say it, both were a little down at heel and suffering from poor self-esteem and profile. When I moved job to Edinburgh College of Art in 1994, I would often jokingly respond to colleagues’ questions about what were Dundee’s best aspects with the retort, “The A90, north or southbound, take your pick!”

Who, back then, would have thought Dundee’s current transformation into a thriving, aspirant, confident, new pretender on the world’s ‘great places to live’ stage possible? Some might scoff at that statement. But only confident, aspirational cities commit to £1 billion waterfront developments. Only cities that others truly believe in can attract a global brand like the V&A to the party.

If anyone’s still sceptical, they should take a walk or drive up to the Law and look down over the city. If you haven’t done so for a while, you might be just as surprised as I was when I took my family up recently. There in front of you lies a fertile field of fast-growing, inward investment. It’s actually great fun trying to name the new hotels and shiny buildings that certainly weren’t speckled around the still dominant Victorian landscape back in 1991. The evidence is now there for all to see - Dundee’s future economy is growing defiantly upwards from the ground.

The economist Allen Scott, in his 2006 paper Creative cities: Conceptual issues and policy questions, looks at the ‘new economies’ as he refers to post-industrial aggregations of people and businesses, by considering the change drivers and associated factors.

He says, “The peculiar forms of economic order that are in the ascendant today represent a marked shift away from the massified structures of production and the rigid labour markets that typified fordism.”

He explains that “numerous attempts have been made to characterise the essential features of this new economic order”, and presents his own characterisation in that “the leading edges of growth and innovation in the contemporary economy are made up of sectors such as the high-technology industries; neo-artisan manufacturing; business and financial services; cultural-products industries (including the media), and so on.” Surely, he is describing contemporary Dundee, with an economy intermingling life sciences and their associated technologies, financial services, the media, computer games, design companies and other cultural industries?

Current thinking about what makes a successful new economy is shunning notions of companies of scale in favour of diverse, collaborative landscapes of creative skills and innovation. Of course, no city would turn down investment from any company of scale, but the trick is not to become over reliant on them, as that can become a sustainability risk, as it proved in both Birmingham and Dundee. The issue then becomes one of attracting and retaining diverse and rich talent.

I suspect that a cynic would ask what Dundee has to offer in order to attract and retain talent from other cities? Clearly, the fact that the V&A will soon open its first building outside of London - here in Dundee - is not just an exemplar of a visionary partnership between the University of Dundee, the University of Abertay and Dundee City Council, it will also establish Dundee as both a destination for international cultural tourists, and as a recognised international centre for design.

Similarly, the awarding of the UNESCO City of Design status to the City of Dundee was the fruit of a similar partnership, and in joining an elite list of 16 cities that includes Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Berlin, Shanghai, Helsinki, Montréal and Beijing, Dundee is finally being recognised as a design beacon within the context of a rapidly growing, worldwide creative economy. The University will undoubtedly be able to exploit the partnership opportunities in research and teaching that such a renowned network offers, as well as international recruitment opportunities with regard to both students and staff that are enhanced by the presence of the V&A. Both of these initiatives are the result of dogged determination by groups of passionate people within the city, its universities and local cultural organisations.

The importance of the world’s creative economy is now becoming widely understood. According to recent data published by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in 2012 there were over 1.6 million people employed in the creative industries in Great Britain, with a further 870,000 employed in creative occupations in businesses outside the creative industries. The sector has an export value of £15.5 billion, outperforming the rest of the economy and generating an astonishing £70,000 every minute, or alternatively £71.4 million an hour!

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TRANSFORMATION OF A CITY | PAUL HARRIS

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In Scotland, over 65,000 people are employed in the creative industries, generating a turnover of nearly £6billion, with concentrations in architecture, design, heritage, the performing arts, writing and publishing, and software and electronic publishing, including nearly 3,000 people working in Dundee, who generate a total turnover of around £190 million to add to the region’s economy.

In its 2013 Creative Economy Report, UNESCO says that “between 2002 and 2011 the creative industries in developing countries grew annually by 12%, and that by 2011 world trade in creative goods and services was worth £410 billion.” The report goes on to say “the creative sector represented between 2% and 5% of most developing countries’ economies over this period and is becoming a serious driver for economic development.” So, further developing Scotland’s creative sector is not just a growing market opportunity, it is also an absolute necessity, or we may lose out, not just on growth, but on our current economic success.

Smaller cities like Dundee can benefit from this opportunity and take their share of this market. Bristol is an interesting case study. In 2004, just over a decade ago, Bristol was in the position that Dundee is today, with buoyant activity based around a few key companies and organisations. But Bristol is now a talent drain for London and other international creative economies. The city is now home to 1,350 creative businesses, currently employing around 9,000 people, making up 12% of all businesses in the city, including the multiple-Oscar-winning Aardman Animations, as well as the BBC’s Natural History Unit, Endemol West and many other independent film and production companies.

A large proportion of that creative population have previously worked for leading agencies in London, and have been attracted in by the quality of life offered by Bristol and South West England. Like Dundee, Bristol also enjoys a great resource of talent emerging from education, nurtured by the Universities of Bristol and the West of England and, similarly, a great coastal location and a wealth of local heritage. In 2004, their penny dropped, and Bristol and its partners realised the possible, true potential of the creative industries in South West England, and set out their ambitions for growth in a joint strategy document. The City of Bristol hasn’t looked back since!

So, how could Dundee take advantage of its new status as a UNESCO City of Design, exemplified by the imminent building of the V&A Dundee, and supported by the healthy, indigenous creative and cultural industry sectors within the region including art, literature, performance, comics, computer games, textiles, and wider design activities in biosciences and medicine that have impacted on the world, in order that we can become a bigger talent drain to other creative cities?

Just as success in this area isn’t something denied to smaller cities, then potential failure isn’t denied to larger, successful cities. In an article for Washington Monthly in 2002, Richard Florida pondered on the problems that Pittsburgh experienced in retaining talent, even though the city is recognised for its many successes. He said, “Pittsburgh’s economy continues to putter along in a middling flat-line pattern.

Both the core city and the surrounding metropolitan area lost population in the 2000 census. And those bright young university people keep leaving”.

Florida then cites a conversation with a young graduate who had been hired by a company in Austin, Texas. When challenged about moving to a job away from Pittsburgh he apparently replied, “It’s in Austin! There are lots of young people, and a tremendous amount to do: a thriving music scene, ethnic and cultural diversity, fabulous outdoor recreation, and great nightlife”. Florida goes on to explain that, although the graduate had received several good job offers in Pittsburgh, he said he felt the city lacked the lifestyle options, cultural diversity, and tolerant attitude that would make it attractive to him. The graduate summed up his feelings with the pithy comment, “how would I fit in here?”.

Even in such a successful city as Pittsburgh, the young graduate seemed unable to associate the city with the lifestyle he desired. He wasn’t looking for a company, not even a particular job. He was looking for a specific lifestyle.

This lifestyle is not lost on the growing international audience for cultural tourism. A thriving cultural scene can drive exponential growth in both tourism and inward investment. In many cities around the world such as Houston, Calgary, Toronto, Shanghai, Hong Kong and, of course, Austin, and in European cities such as Paris, Bilbao, Venice, London and Bristol, the notion of strong cultural tourism and a thriving wider economy are inseparable. A renowned cultural scene makes a place not only attractive to visit, but also to live, study and work in. Each of the cities mentioned, and many more around the world, have benefitted from this phenomenon.

In 2012, hotel occupancy in Austin ran at nearly 450,000 room nights. That’s $76.5 million dollars in beds alone, and $3.9 billion in total spend, supporting 38,000 jobs. There are several new hotels in the pipeline with two at over 1000 bedrooms each, but Portfolio.com also named Austin as the number one city in the world for young professionals to relocate to.

If Austin can achieve this, then so can Dundee with the impact of the waterfront, the V&A and our new UNESCO City of Design status, built on an already vibrant, creative and cultural heritage. We can harness these new opportunities to guarantee the successful lives of future Dundonians and grow the economy of an attractive multi-facetted, international city. I personally feel very privileged to be in Dundee and at the University of Dundee at this exciting and potentially limitless time of future discovery and growth.

The best bit about Dundee? The A90 north or south, the airport or the railway station: but this time, all city-bound! Because Dundee offers a stellar, exciting and fulfilling future for everyone.

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The Discovery Centre for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research

Dundee has been ranked the top University in the UK for biological sciences, an accolade that came in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the major assessment of research quality across the country. It is recognised around the world as an international centre of excellence in the life sciences. Now the University has added a major new facility, the £26 million state-of-the-art Discovery Centre for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research.

Here Professor Mike Ferguson, Director of the Discovery Centre, explains what the new Centre is, what it does and how it will build on the University’s world leading life sciences capability.The name Discovery Centre marks the fact that it sits in Dundee, known as The City of Discovery because of its connection to the ship that took Scott and his scientists to the Antarctic, and because this is a city of scientific and technological discovery and innovation. The Discovery Centre’s epithet for Translational and Interdisciplinary Research is a bit of a tongue twister but, nevertheless, also an accurate description of its intentions.

To unpack that a little bit, the work that goes on inside is translational, meaning that it moves blue skies basic science towards societal benefit, via open innovation, drug discovery and, when appropriate, commercialisation. The work is also interdisciplinary, meaning that it brings together biology with chemistry, physics, computer science and, through its LifeSpace gallery, with art.

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The product of these multiple disciplines is far more than the sum of its parts – and that is the future of research. There is no doubt that blue-skies, curiosity-driven research is the lifeblood of innovation. But, in the 21st Century, excellence in one’s given discipline must simply be a ‘given’. What distinguishes the very best research institutes is what they do over and above that core competency. Our aim in creating the Discovery Centre was to provide the facilities to do the translational and interdisciplinary activities necessary to both maintain our place at the top-table of international research institutes and to make sure our research has real and significant impact on the quality of people’s lives – through their health, the economy and the environment.

An attractive feature of the Discovery Centre is the “Street”, a light-filled atrium that is now the gateway to Life Sciences and a popular venue for University and public events. By creating the Street, and other networking spaces including the LifeSpace art-science gallery, the Discovery Centre aims to act as a crucible for the exchange of ideas between disciplines, and to engage scientists, artists and the public with exhibitions that stimulate contemporary debate. Indeed the building itself is a statement of that intent, being adorned by a major art-science collaboration led by Professor Elaine Shemilt, College of Art and Design, depicting the physical “Scales of Life” at which the scientists within the Life Sciences work.

From the lab to the computer and backThe Discovery Centre houses our new Division of Computational Biology, led by Professor Geoff Barton. Computational Biology, broadly speaking, is the application of computational methods and computer science to solve biological problems and it includes biophysicists, bioinformaticians, software developers and data analysts. This interdisciplinary group feeds off each other’s expertise and, at the same time, they sit at the heart of a huge Life Science experimental centre. It is the iteration between experimental data production, data analysis, theoretical prediction and further experimentation that is key to modern biology. It is very exciting to see talented scientists from disciplines like astrophysics, mathematics, computer science and software engineering joining the fray to crack both fundamental and applied problems in biology.

Professor Geoff Barton’s bioinformatics group develop powerful new computational methods to understand DNA, RNA and proteins, and their software and databases are downloaded and used by thousands of scientists world-wide. His team also helps manage, analyse and interpret the ever-increasing swathes of data produced by our experimentalists, be they cancer biologists, microbiologists or plant scientists, and to make predictions for, and help design, the next rounds of experiments.

Through Professor Tim Newman, and Drs Uli Zachariae, Rastko Sknepnek and Andrei Pisliakov. we have superb expertise in mathematical modelling and computer simulations to understand biology. For example, cells are surrounded by membranes that act like their skin, keeping their guts in and the outside world out, while

allowing them to take up nutrients and to communicate with each other. The Sknepnek, Pisliakov and Zachariae teams probe how biological membranes and their ion channels and pumps – essential for everything from germs to brains - really work. This fundamental knowledge and its predictions can be exploited in many ways, for example in combating antibiotic resistance, one of the major scientific battlefronts. Tim himself collaborates with experimental biologists to understand the emergent properties of cells and living systems, such as why it is that cells are so robust, how cells organise themselves and how cancers spread.

Another dimension of Computational Biology is The Open Microscopy Environment team of software engineers and imaging experts led by Professor Jason Swedlow.

The Open Microscopy Environment has been developing open, community-based data management systems for biological microscopy since 2000. Its file reader, called Bio-Formats, converts over 130 different proprietary file formats into a common open format, allowing them to be viewed by almost any third-party software. The Open Microscopy Environment data management software, OMERO, makes it easy to store, annotate, analyse, and share complex microscopy data.

Computational Biology is central to the future of Life Sciences, and investment in the Discovery Centre provides the space and environment for it to prosper and expand.

ProteomicsMost of our genes encode proteins and proteins do most of the work within cells, acting as the molecular machines that carry out essential functions such as converting food into energy, transporting molecules from one part of the cell to another and providing communication networks within and between cells. Collectively, the full set of proteins produced by an organism or cell is called its proteome.

The large-scale measurement and analysis of cell proteins, called quantitative proteomics, is now a central approach in molecular biology, and advancing the science of proteomics is one of the major goals of the Laboratory for Quantitative Proteomics housed in the Discovery Centre and led by Professor Angus Lamond.

In the past, scientists generally took a reductionist approach, analysing biological mechanisms by studying the role of either a single protein, or the interactions between just a few proteins. Angus’s group, by contrast, aim to understand how a cell responds to a stimuli at a global level, analysing the properties and interactions of many thousands of proteins in parallel. Looking for a convenient way of describing what is a very complicated science, Angus suggests that a good analogy is “…rather than looking under a street lamp for lost keys, our approach is to first floodlight the street and look everywhere”.

Mass spectrometry is the core technology used in quantitative proteomics and the Discovery Centre now houses one of the largest and most modern mass spectrometry facilities in the World. While Professor Lamond’s group pushes back the frontiers of proteomics,

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Doug Lamont’s team delivers the current state-of-the-art by offering a superb proteomics service to the experimental groups in the University and beyond.

Drug Discovery Academic researchers are continually discovering new biological processes that could be targets for new drugs. However, it is a long road from discovery to treatment and much opportunity is lost between innovation and exploitation, the so-called ‘valley of death’.

The Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), under the direction of Professor Paul Wyatt, was established in 2006. Since then, it has grown to a team of nearly 90 people with an annual turnover from international sources of over £6 million. Its flagship activities include programmes on:

• African sleeping sickness, visceral leishmaniasis and Chagas’ disease, which collectively kill more than 100,000 people each year. This work is performed with Wellcome Trust funding in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline in Tres Cantos, Spain. This fantastic programme of work is now delivering advanced drug compounds to enter what is known as ‘pre-clinical development’, the process of assessing toxicity and drug formulation ready for clinical trials in humans.

• Malaria, where the team recently developed a candidate drug that is now in pre-clinical development with the Medicines for Malaria Venture in Geneva, the international coordinating centre for malaria therapeutics. This major achievement has the potential to deliver real benefit for the millions of people infected with malaria each year. Malaria currently kills over 600,000 people each year, mostly children under-5.

• Tuberculosis, where the Drug Discovery Unit was asked by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust to establish a centre of excellence for ‘lead optimisation’, the refinement of compounds towards candidate drugs, for the international effort against this devastating, and increasingly drug-resistant, disease that still kills over a million people each year.

• Innovative Targets for unmet medical need. Here we focus on global non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, arthritis, genetic skin diseases and cystic fibrosis, with the aim of de-risking innovation to partner projects with the Pharmaceutical industry or to create spin-out companies. A recent example was the partnering of a collaborative project with Professor Irwin McLean on cystic fibrosis with the drug-giant Pfizer.

The new expanded facilities of the Drug Discovery Unit, with a management team of Paul Wyatt together with Professor Ian Gilbert and Drs David Gray, Kevin Read, Andrew Woodland and Julie Brady, not only incorporate the latest technology, but also ground-breaking laboratory design.

Candidate drug molecules that pass the Unit’s performance criteria are partnered with global drug development partnerships such as the Medicines for Malaria Venture or Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative or licensed out to pharmaceutical companies for further development.

The 90 dedicated scientists of the DDU represent the best talent from both academic and commercial research backgrounds, with more than 600 years of drug discovery experience between them. There is nothing quite like the Drug Discovery Unit in other UK universities, and it is the envy of many.

Designing Drugs and Phenotypic ScreeningThe medicinal informatics group, led by Professor Andrew Hopkins, based in the Discovery Centre, takes a multi-disciplinary approach to developing new methods for drug discovery. His team develops algorithms that draw on the power of “big data” to design drugs automatically. Based on this exciting technology, the group successfully spun-out the company exscientia in 2012, which is enjoying significant contracts from the pharmaceutical industry. Andrew was made 2015 BBSRC Commercial Innovator of the Year in recognition of these achievements. His team also uses biophysics to measure molecular interactions and conducts fragment-based screening, to identifying starting points for drug discovery.

Professor Hopkins is also Director of the Scottish Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA), that coordinates collaboration across Scottish University Life Sciences departments, and in this role he has created The UK National Phenotypic Screening Centre, a new initiative between the Universities of Dundee, Edinburgh, and Oxford with state-of-the-art facilities. Phenotypic screening looks for molecules that directly affect cell form or behavior (i.e., phenotype) in a desired way to prvide drug discovery start-points.

In addition, Andrew, together with Dr Phil Jones, is responsible the Scottish arm of the European Lead Factory, based at BioCity Scotland at Newhouse, a major partnership between European pharmaceutical companies and universities designed to improve the way industry and academics collaborate to discover potential new medicines.

In SummaryThe Discovery Centre adds to our world-leading life sciences capability in Dundee. It can be one of the drivers as we climb out of recession and look to a future where Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, the so-called STEM subjects, and the Arts play their full role in helping transform lives, here in Dundee and around the world.

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DUNDEE SERVES UP MORE CHOICE20 NEW RESTAURANTS OPEN IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS

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It’s no exaggeration to say that Dundee is enjoying something of a revolution in its choice of places to eat and drink. From award-winning fine dining to cosy tea rooms that link to the city’s cultural heritage, there have never been so many options to eat out.

During the past year there have been 20 new openings, both independent and part of a larger group, all offering those who visit Dundee the opportunity to find the perfect style of dining for any occasion and time of day.

Dundee has partnered with The List magazine to produce a new 2015 Food and Drink Guide to the city. This will be available in print form and to download online at www.dundee.com this summer.

The guide will focus on key areas in and around the city which are emerging as foody destinations. In advance of the new Food and Drink guide, here is an insight into 12 exciting new places in and around Dundee gaining a reputation for excellent quality and service.

Dundee, The City CentreDundee’s city centre, with its newly refurbished City Square is the focus of many activities throughout the year.

On the City Square itself is the Italian Grill. In the summer months diners can take advantage of the location in the square, eating alfresco far from the rush of traffic. Inside the open plan kitchen provides that welcome Mediterranean feel and produces pasta, pizzas fresh from a stone oven, grilled steaks and seafood, as well as many other Italian regional favourites.

For many years, Dundee lacked a truly authentic Chinese restaurant, despite the fact that the Chinese supermarket in Gellatly Street was so popular. That’s now the location of The Manchurian, a restaurant offering the typically wide Chinese menu as well as Dim Sum and some delicacies that cannot be found on more westernised menus.

The march of the young entrepreneurs continues as BrewDog, one of Scotland’s innovative beer brands opens a BrewDog Pub opposite the McManus Galleries, with craft beers from around the world the speciality, including a small batch lager “Smoked in History” inspired by the RRS Discovery Ship.

With a campaign last year to attract a Japanese restaurant to Dundee, Oshibori answered the call by opening at a site near the University of Dundee.

Take a seat for the beautifully presented dishes – perhaps the most photographed meals in the city.

Dundee, The WestportWestport has become a destination for superb food in relaxed surroundings. At the foot of the Westport is The West House, a bright and airy place to meet for a drink (and breakfast the day after) or to choose from the menu of pizzas, pastas, salads and sandwiches.

At the top of Westport is the D’Arcy Thompson Pub & Dining Room. A simple interior - lit by candlelight in the evenings - offers a place to have a relaxed drink at a window seat, or choose from a superb menu of casual modern dining with an emphasis on using local Scottish produce.

The Parlour Café, despite its relatively young age, has become something of an institution in Dundee – it even has its own cookbook.

Dundee, Exchange StreetWith its proximity to the £1bn Waterfront development, Exchange Street will prove to be a choice destination for diners visiting the city.

This the home to Castlehill, Dundee’s award-winning fine dining restaurant. With a young, imaginative team headed by owner Paul McMillan and Head Chef, Adam Newth, current Young Scottish Chef of the Year, it recently became the first independent restaurant in Dundee to receive two rosettes from the AA. It also carried off the award for Best Scottish Restaurant at the inaugural Food Awards Scotland this year. All for a restaurant that only opened in February of 2014.

T Ann Cake is one of Dundee’s quirkiest tearooms with a wonderfully eclectic interior and a blackboard offering ever-changing savoury and sweet goodies. It has been at the forefront of the multitude of new offerings for breakfast, lunch or simply coffee (or tea) and cake.

Exchange Street is also the home to the new Heart Space Whole Foods organic grocery store and juice counter, stocking local organic farm produce and artisan breads. From the same team that runs the successful Heart Space Yoga Studios in the city, this is a great new outlet for healthy food and drink.

Dundee, Broughty FerryThe picturesque town of Broughty Ferry (a short drive or bus ride away from Dundee city centre) is a delightful place to spend the afternoon or evening, combining your dining experiences with a pleasant seaside stroll.

The popular Sol Y Sombra Tapas Bar remains a favourite spot to enjoy authentic Spanish cuisine. Featuring a renovated Mediterranean interior style it has lost none of its old fishing tavern charm. The downstairs bar offers cocktails, live music and occasional salsa dancing classes.

Afternoon tea in Broughty Ferry remains a favourite local pastime and you’ll be spoilt for choice with a variety of independent tea shops and cafes from Gracie’s to Goodfellow & Steven bakery (a perfect spot to pick up the local delicacy, Dundee Cake).

On the edge of Broughty Ferry with fantastic views over the River Tay is a hidden gem by the name of Jessie’s Kitchen. Family owned and next to the family’s garden centre, the tea room, farm shop and nursery has won several awards including the Scottish Baking Awards. Jessie’s cakes are legendary but do leave enough room to try out the savoury dishes and fresh salads using seasonal home grown produce.

A seaside town like Broughty Ferry demands an ice cream parlour and you wont be disappointed with Visocchi’s – many say it’s the best ice cream in Scotland. Run by the Caira family since the 50’s, generations of local families have enjoyed Italian hospitality at its best at Visocchi’s. The informal restaurant also serves hearty Italian dishes and wood-fired pizzas.

For further information on Dundee, One City Many Discoveries please visit www.dundee.com @dundeecity www.dundee.com/facebook

TIM NEWMAN | PROFESSOR OF BIOPHYSICS | UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE

DUNDEE LEADS

OUR INTERDISCIPLINARY FUTURE

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INTERDISCIPLINARITY NEEDS TO `COME IN FROM THE COLD’, AND BE AT THE HEART OF ALL THAT WE DO IN UNIVERSITIES

TIM NEWMAN | PROFESSOR OF BIOPHYSICS | UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE

The big challenges remain.

Some humility is required to recognise the truth of this opening statement. Societies invest heavily in research and problem solving, and we have made tremendous progress on a range of fronts, such as information technology, human rights and fighting infectious diseases. But we must recognise that a significant number of big challenges remain unsolved. Mortality rates from cancer remain stubbornly high despite billions of pounds of cancer research funding annually; health inequalities remain stark despite a hugely

funded nationalised health service; countries are dragged through debilitating financial boom and bust cycles despite over two hundred years of economic studies. These are a few examples of how big challenges remain. There are many others of course, such as ceaseless war, uncontained population growth and global warming.

Many agencies, both in the public and private sectors, are committed to studying and solving these problems. In the front line are universities. Within these institutions of higher learning society gathers together some of the deepest thinkers and provides them with significant time and funding to investigate the big challenges, with the expectation that new insights will emerge and progress will be made to improve the general good.

Insights do emerge and progress is made, but the public could well argue that the pace is too slow. Why are cancer mortality rates so high after forty years of heavily funded research? Why do cities like Dundee suffer from such high rates of social inequality? Why over the past five years has Scotland, along with the rest of Europe, been trudging through a slow recovery from a massive economic recession?

Given these problems have received significant attention over many years, one could argue that three scenarios are possible:

1. these problems are ultimately unsolvable and part of the human condition

2. we are in fact going about solving these problems in the right way, but it will take centuries and society will need to be patient

3. the problems are solvable in decades rather than centuries, but our approaches are flawed.

Scenarios 1 and 2 are not particularly inspiring and will, anyway, be hard to gauge in our lifetime, so let us examine scenario 3. What in our approach could be limiting our ability to solve the big challenges? I would argue the answer is obvious: we generally assume that each challenge resides primarily in a single academic discipline, and attack that challenge through highly focused disciplinary inquiry.

Now, disciplinary approaches can be highly effective, and looking back over the past century one can identify many examples of fundamental disciplinary insight leading to major societal impact: physicists revealed the properties of semiconductors, from which followed the silicon chip; chemists employed nuclear decay of carbon 14 for radiocarbon dating; biomedical researchers developed highly effective antiviral treatments for HIV.

OUR INTERDISCIPLINARY FUTURE

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It is also crucial to recognise that interdisciplinary research is not new. Indeed, concurrent with these exemplars of disciplinary research breakthroughs, there were many equally important discoveries and innovations from interdisciplinary research: the structure of DNA was determined by James Watson and Francis Crick, a biologist and physicist respectively, and paved the way for molecular genetics; Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was developed by chemists, physicists and clinicians, and revolutionised medical imaging and early diagnosis of a wide range of diseases; keyhole surgery was developed through a combination of surgical innovation and biomedical engineering, and has led to significantly enhanced patient safety and recovery. In this last example, of course, Dundee was a leading player from the 1970s onwards through the work of Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri and his colleagues.

Despite so many inspiring examples of success from interdisciplinary work, the vast majority of research and training continues to be disciplinary in all of its aspects. Universities offer disciplinary degrees, taught by disciplinary experts, in disciplinary buildings. Research is carried out in disciplinary laboratories, funded by disciplinary agencies, and is published in disciplinary journals. Interdisciplinarity is not shunned, but neither is it embraced; it remains on the fringe of most academic activities.

Interdisciplinarity needs to ‘come in from the cold’, and be at the heart of all that we do in universities. The University of Dundee is leading the way in this major shift, and will continue to do so through our Transformation Agenda. Partly due to our modest size, our University has always enjoyed active cross-disciplinary collaborations, and is home to a growing catalogue of world-leading interdisciplinary research, connecting all of its disciplines.

There is an intense interdisciplinary nexus linking life sciences, medical research and the ‘physical sciences’. This was clear, for example, in the University’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) submission in General Engineering, which described collaborations between computational physicists and the Drug Discovery Unit, biomedical engineers and surgeons, and laser physicists and cell biologists. This submission was rated top in Scotland and 7th out of 63 submissions in the UK, and was highly rated for both the quality of scientific papers and also the societal impact of the research. Excellent parallel activities link biomathematics and computer science with the life sciences, and likewise these were scored very highly in the 2014 REF exercise. This wide range of interdisciplinary collaboration is particularly well funded through the Scottish Government, the European Commission and a range of Trusts.

Interdisciplinary research at the University of Dundee is not limited to science and engineering. Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design has links across campus, for example, to engineering, media studies and anatomy. A particularly high-profile programme is that of Prof Chris Rowland, who combines methods from film studies and ultrasound engineering to produce images of underwater shipwrecks, and his work is commissioned across the world by governments and marine industries (and can be read about elsewhere in this issue).

Examples of interdisciplinarity in the arts and social sciences abound at the University. Through the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience, researchers from geography link up with experts from a range of disciplines as diverse as business, engineering and nursing to understand and transform the sustainability of our communities. A recent extraordinary workshop In Memoriam, co-organised by Dundee academics in Anatomy and English, brought arts and sciences practitioners together under the auspices of the Royal Society to confront the often taboo theme of Death and Dying.

There is no doubt that the University of Dundee has world-class research in a broad swathe of interdisciplinary areas. There is also no doubt that much of this work has very high societal impact. This emphasises the often-overlooked point that, in fact, the two ‘I’s’ of Interdisciplinarity and Impact are really two sides of the same coin. To have impact in the 21st century is to make a difference on the big challenges, and as we have seen above, this requires an interdisciplinary approach.

The next and perhaps more important transformative step in the ‘two I’s’ agenda will be to bring these successes from the research world into the way we train our students. This happens already to some degree at the graduate level, but the profound shifts will occur once undergraduate training is freed from old-fashioned and increasingly ineffective disciplinary boundaries. A superb example of how Dundee leads in this unchartered territory is the world-winning success of the University of Dundee IGEM teams. IGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machines, and is a global competition involving hundreds of universities around the world, with finals hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (better known as MIT). Each university enters an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate students (mixing biology with maths, physics and computing) who have ten weeks to complete a genetic engineering research project that will solve a real-world problem. In each of the past two years, the Dundee team has won prizes at the world championships, which is an outstanding testament to the interdisciplinary leadership of both our undergraduates and their faculty mentors. I will close on that very positive note. The future is interdisciplinary and the University of Dundee is leading the way!

TO HAVE IMPACT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY IS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE ON THE BIG CHALLENGES … THIS REQUIRES AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH.’

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“Much of what forensic science delivers is not underpinned by robust science,” she says. “Sometimes it could be considered as little more than an educated guess.”

The potential consequences of this rather startling admission, she acknowledges, are great and troubling - wrongful convictions, miscarriages of justice and a loss of confidence by both the public and the judiciary in what science can achieve. All the more reason, she argues, to face up to realities, take on board the deficiencies and change the face of forensic science for the better. Together with CAHID colleague Professor Sue Black, Professor Nic Daeid organised two prestigious meetings at the Royal Society in London in February of this year. They brought together leading forensic scientists, researchers and

academics from across the world with top legal figures including the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lords Justice from the Supreme and Appeal courts and the Lord Chief Clerk and Lord Advocate of Scotland.

The result, she says, was a “paradigm shift.”

“Forensic science is a conservative and often parochial set of disciplines with too many silos in our thinking and practice.

“The Royal Society provided us with the resources and opportunity to bring our forensic science ecosystem together in the one place and at the one time. Most importantly it facilitated a conversation between the scientists and the judiciary outside of the court room, something that had not previously occurred at this level.

C H A N G I N G T H E F A C E O F

FORENSIC SCIENCE P R O F E S S O R N I A M H N I C D A E I D

It might be considered an act of bravery for a professor to declare their chosen field to be in a “state of crisis.” But for Professor Niamh Nic Daeid, recently appointed Director of Research at the University’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, her analysis of the current state of forensic science and its role in the justice system is simply a statement of fact and a rallying call to make significant change.

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“The first event held at the Royal Society was attended by over 200 practitioners, police, government officials, industrial representatives, academics and the judiciary.

“We were also funded to hold a second satellite meeting where we could explore more systematically and in greater depth the matters that were raised in the discussion meeting, generating a shared understanding and a pathway forward to potential solutions.”

The problems facing forensic science were articulated by the United States National Academy of Science in 2009. The report entitled Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, stated “The simple reality is that the interpretation of forensic evidence is not always based on scientific studies to determine its validity.”

This, it acknowledged, was a ”serious problem” and added that “although research has been done in some disciplines, there is a notable dearth of peer-reviewed published studies establishing the scientific basis and validity of many forensic methods.”

Finding ways of addressing these problems collaboratively was the driving force behind the Royal Society meeting.

“It is not about excluding evidence,” explains Professor Nic Daeid. “It is about us asking what do we need to do to make evidence admissible. DNA evidence, for example, has a very solid research base behind it. That is where the majority of research funding in forensic science has been spent. However, even with the resources behind it DNA evidence involving mixed profiles (contributions from more than one individual) is increasingly being challenged in courts and as recently as January 2015 was not admitted into a court in the United States.”

Forging ahead on unchartered waters is nothing new for Professor Nic Daeid or Professor Black. The latter has played a pioneering role in forensic anthropology including the development of disaster victim identification protocols, the use of Thiel embalming and the use of hand identification in paedophile cases.

Professor Nic Daeid, who was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has also achieved a number of notable firsts. The chemistry and maths graduate from the Dublin Institute of Technology and Trinity College Dublin was the first woman to be promoted to Reader in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at Strathclyde University, a position awarded on the basis of strengths in research. A few years later she became the first female Professor in the same department at Strathclyde.

When the Royal Society put out its annual call to fund a scientific discussion and satellite meeting, Professor Nic Daeid and Professor Black seized the opportunity for forensic science.

“We decided to put a submission together and prepared a most ambitious proposal gaining unprecedented support from our colleagues in many parts of the world and most critically from our most senior judicial colleagues. That they would listen to us and support us in our endeavour to bring together the scientists and the lawyers in open and frank discussion was just tremendous.”

It is not about excluding evidence, It is about us asking what do we need to do to make evidence admissible.

“

Professor Nic Daeid”

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With preparations for the Royal Society event under way Professor Nic Daeid further strengthened her professional links with Professor Black by moving her research team to Dundee and taking up the post of Professor of Forensic Science within the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.

Now based in the refurbished Fleming Laboratory the team is involved in operationally relevant research work related to fire investigation, drug chemistry, fingerprint enhancement, ballistics, tool marks and ink analysis.

Professor Nic Daeid, is enjoying being back in Dundee, the city where she was born and where her father, a chemist, secured his first academic appointment at the University.

“We moved back to Ireland when I was six months old but it feels like I have come full circle in some ways and I am very much enjoying being here. There is an atmosphere of openness and collaboration here which is very refreshing.”

Professor Nic Daeid, like many of her colleagues in CAHID, also undertakes casework and her previous

work has included high profile terrorist cases, fire scene investigation and the investigation of clandestine drugs. She and her CAHID colleagues are exploring ways of building on the work done at the Royal Society meeting.

“The proceedings from our Royal Society meeting will appear in a special issue of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions B in June,” she said, adding that the issue will be edited by herself and Professor Black.

Prof Nic Daeid is continuing to work with colleagues across the University to find opportunities for collaborative research across the disciplines. “We need to be progressive and proactive in bringing the best scientific research to the challenges facing forensic science while ensuring that the science is of the highest quality in order to be admissible in our court rooms. We also need to address the scientific deficiencies in what we currently do and jettison the disciplines where we cannot do this - there should be no sacred cows – our judicial system deserves the best that we can deliver after all.”

There is an atmosphere of

openness and collaboration

here which is very refreshing.“ ”

‘Identifying the dead’ MOOC launched. The University is offering students the chance to explore

the world of victim identification and use their new-found

knowledge and skills in a fictitious forensic case in a new

MOOC (Massive Open Online Learning Course.)

Identifying the Dead – Forensic Science and Human

Identification has been written by the award winning

team of experts at the Centre for Anatomy and Human

Identification in collaboration with celebrated crime writer

Val McDermid.

The course, which begins in September, is coordinated

and managed by Dr Helen Meadows in CAHID.

Built around a fictional character who has died, Identifying

the Dead explores the processes and methods used in

forensic human identification from search and recovery

to identification of the deceased.

“The idea is that those taking the course will use their

knowledge and skills to establish the biological identity

of the deceased,” explained Dr Meadows.

“This is a critical part for any criminal investigation as

it is extremely challenging to reach a prosecution for a

crime if the victim remains unknown. It is also extremely

important for families, so that the family member or friend

is returned for the purposes of decent burial and to start

the process of emotional closure.”

Dr Meadows added that once the participants on the

course submit their identification, they will be able

to download an exclusive short story written by Val

McDermid and see if their identity matches the character

in her story.

Pioneering data visualisation techniques developed by Professor Chris Rowland and team at the University of Dundee are letting us see what lies beneath the waves in a way never possible before.

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Chris and the team have now worked on wrecks all over the world and their services are increasingly in demand from the offshore oil, gas and renewable energy industries, who need to monitor the state of undersea pipelines, cables and wellheads.

“The data visualisation techniques turn raw data into very detailed images,” said Chris. “The methods we use are based on work from my PhD. When we started working with industry, we had to fend off the fairly sceptical reaction from surveyors and salvage engineers, who assumed we were only making pretty pictures.

“Our response to that has always been that we are producing the best possible picture of what is lying underwater. The aesthetic approach we take to visualisation enhances the data without undermining its integrity. It is a true representation of what is in the data provided by the scanners.

“The position we are now in suggests we are on the right track. Unfortunately one of the main areas of our work concerns disasters at sea, but we are able to provide insight into the state of each significant incident in a short space of time where other methods would put further lives at risk.

“The data is captured with scanners which map the positions and surfaces of structures. We can then use it to create a detailed image which is very accurate. In fact it would be difficult to take more accurate measurements with any other technique.”

This is becoming increasingly apparent in the offshore energy sector. Measurements taken by the team have provided engineers with crucial information on movement in connection points for oil and gas pipelines, which are subject to considerable pressures and can shift depending on whether they are in full use or not.

“We are seeing increasing demand too from the offshore wind power industry,” said Chris. “They need to monitor the condition of the anchoring devices and also the cables and connections which relay the power gathered by the wind turbines. If you have a field containing hundreds of turbines, monitoring their condition is a major task.

“We have been able to provide a technique that can see the scanned assets of an entire wind field processed and visualised in a single day. The accuracy of the visualisation means the engineers can make decisions with confidence.”

The commercial work is carried out through a spin-off company, ADUS DeepOcean, of which Chris is a founder alongside Martin Dean and Mark Lawrence.

ADUS DeepOcean specialises in high-resolution surveys of man-made structures that are totally or partially submerged. The company can undertake subsea surveys at any depth by using appropriate remote systems.

The stricken cruise ship Costa Concordia lay half-submerged in the waters off the west coast of Italy, a disaster site which had claimed the lives of more than 30 people. The wreck lay in an unsteady

position on a rocky underwater ledge, with any movement placing it in danger of sinking in to a deep trough.

To recover the wreck and move it away from shipping lanes and eventually to scrappage was going to require a massive effort. But before salvage engineers could even consider moving it they had to establish what condition the ship was in and whether there were any structural problems beneath the water line that could be hazardous.

One way of getting that information would be to send in a team of divers. This is by its very nature quite dangerous and time consuming, divers only being able to see around ten metres of the submerged structure at any time.

An alternative way of getting a picture of what lies beneath utilises data visualisation techniques developed by Professor Chris Rowland and team at the University of Dundee. They have become world leaders at capturing stunningly detailed underwater images, working with ADUS Deepocean, a spin out company from Dundee and St Andrews Universities. The team use sonar and laser scanners to produce complete 3D visualisations of the wreck and surrounding seabed, such as the stunning image of the Costa Concordia shown here.

we are producing the best possible picture of what is lying underwater

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In autumn 2004 we began our first alumni telephone fundraising campaign and were delighted by the generous support of our graduates. In the intervening decade we’ve employed more than 240 student callers who have talked with more than 20,000 alumni. Many of the 2,000 alumni who’ve plegded do so on a regular basis which means that we have processed an amazing 50,000 donations.

Collectively our alumni have given more than £810,000 which has had an impact in so many different areas of life at the University. Alumni generosity has provided bursaries to enable potential students to attend our DUAL Access Summer School and subsequently achieve their dream of a university place; it has helped to support internships in Social Work which in turn has had an impact on the life of children in Dundee; it has improved the library environment by providing group work pods and laptop lockers and supported a student-led book purchasing initiative. It has provided equipment to the Institute of Sport & Exercise (ISE) and to student sports clubs;

it has provided new musical instruments and helped refurbish others and it has also made a huge difference to those students who have experienced hardship, preventing them from abandoning their studies. Thank you so much for this wonderful support.

A 10th anniversary presents a great opportunity to take stock and decide what the future of our fundraising programme should be. Dundee has been transforming lives for nearly 50 years. You were transformed by your time at Dundee; join us in transforming the next generation by giving to our 50th anniversary scholarship appeal. This scholarship initiative will ensure every student at Dundee has the opportunity to fulfil their potential, regardless of their financial circumstances. We aim to build a fund that will support not just the students in 2017 but will help us provide funding for years to come. Please join your fellow alumni in giving to this important initiative – you will find a donation form on the back of the covering letter included with the magazine or you can donate securely online by going to www.dundee.ac.uk/alumni/scholarships. The last decade has shown how supportive our alumni can be - together you really can make a difference.

Celebrating

10 YEARSof

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Please return your completed form in the reply paid envelope enclosed with this magazine. Or by post to University of Dundee, Alumni & Development Office, 6th Floor Tower Building, Perth Road, Dundee DD1 4HN. Or email alumni@dundee.ac.uk. Register on-line and update your details at www.dundeeconnect.com. The University of Dundee is a Scottish Registered Charity, No. SC015096 (BR2015)

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Please tick as required, if you do not wish to receive such communications: by post by email by telephone and return this form to Alumni & Development Office, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, UK

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Welcome to the University of Dundee Graduates’ Association!

This summer’s graduation ceremonies will see a new group of graduates join the existing 60,000 strong University of Dundee Graduates’ Association community. Each student becomes a life member of the Association as soon as they graduate.

Formerly known as the Graduates’ Council, the Association has members spread throughout more than 150 countries across the world and aims to engage with and provide networking opportunities for alumni through events and regular communication. It also strives to work with the University in its objective to become Scotland’s leading university.

Plans are already under way to mark the University’s 50th anniversary in 2017 and the Association is keen to find out the views of its members in terms of how this milestone can best be celebrated.

New Convener Steven Blane, who graduated with an honours degree in Scots Law in 2005 and a Diploma in Legal Practice in 2008, is looking forward to a busy time ahead.

“We are currently working with the University to provide a programme of events for graduates in the coming months,” he said. “Looking further ahead we are starting our planning process for our involvement in the University’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 2017. We also have our annual general meeting and Discovery Lecture next April.”

Steven, a former President of the Dundee University Students’ Association, first became involved with the Graduates’ Council whilst studying for his Diploma in Legal Practice.

“I was first aware of the work of the Graduates Council during my time with DUSA,” he said. “Then when I was studying for my Diploma I received funding from the Graduates’ Council Fund to support a trip to Bangalore in India to represent the University and Scotland at an international client consultation competition.

“I was elected to the Business Committee at the AGM the following year. It was during this term that initial work started with colleagues which ultimately lead to the change to the Graduates’ Association. I was appointed Vice Convener in 2013 and became Convener this year.”

Steven added that the Graduates’ Association meets once a year at its AGM in the Spring to receive a report from the Principal on all matters affecting the University and to hear from the Association’s representatives on the University Court.

“In between times business is progressed by the Graduates’ Association Business Committee,” he explained.

“We want to engage with students from the moment they graduate and it is our pleasure to welcome everyone who is graduating this year. I’d like to say congratulations to the Class of 2015 and good luck in whatever the future holds. As an Association we are here for you throughout your future. We want to hear about your achievements and successes and also what we can do for you as an Association.”

Graduates can stay in touch through Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UoDGraduates) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/UoDGraduates)

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DundeeConnect celebrates its first birthday in 2015 and we are delighted how quickly the membership has grown – we now have over 2,700 members and below you can get a flavour of what’s been happening on the site .

Currently the School with the most members is Law followed by CEPMLP and Medicine and the most active graduation years are 2014 graduates followed by our new 2015 graduates and then by 2013 graduates.

We have added a new mentoring feature. If you are looking for a mentor then simply go to the Directory page and DundeeConnect will have a few suggestions for you. Or you can use the Directory to search by University of Dundee (degree, field of study and/or graduation year); Location (country, state and/or city); by Work (position, company and/or industry) or by how the mentor is willing to help. This same search facility can be used to find lost friends. We are working to make the Directory more useful by incorporating full class lists – we hope to have this complete by the end of the summer. Some of you have commented that we’ve lost the “Where are they now” feature of Dundee-Reunited.com. It is available on the your Profile page – it’s now called “Summary”.

A major new feature we are introducing is a mobile app for DundeeConnect.

Everything you currently do on the website you will be able to do on your phone or tablet. You can find out about events, find a job, even apply for it.

The new ‘Near me’ feature will enable you to find Dundee alumni that you may not be aware of who are nearby – making contact is simple – just click the Message link.

You can also post photos, send messages and so much more. We’ll let you know on DundeeConnect as soon as the app is available – so if you haven’t already done so then please go to www.DundeeConnect.com and join your fellow alumni. The more members we have the more useful the network becomes to everyone. Are your details up-to-date?

Please let us know if you’ve moved house or job. You can do this in your Profile on DundeeConnect or by completing the form on the next page and returning it to us.

Former Staff Members Club LaunchedFormer employees of the University are being invited to maintain their links to the institution with the launch of a new club.

The club for former members of staff has been established with a number of objectives in mind including providing former employees with the opportunity to act as ambassadors for the University and the City, to encourage social and professional interaction and keep people up to date with developments at the University.

The first AGM of the club will be held in September when a Constitution will be adopted and a management committee formally elected.

For more information about the club please email alumni@dundee.ac.uk

DundeeConnect – News and Upcoming Features

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DUSA appeal for Duke of Edinburgh Award supportDundee University Students’ Association (DUSA) is appealing for help in its bid to offer The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to students.

The Award Scheme is open to young people up to the age of 25 but is under-represented in the higher and further education sectors.

DUSA has been working with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to create a project aimed at encouraging more students to take part.

However, to get the initiative off the ground they need financial support and volunteers to help with the day to day running of the project as well as helping prepare and lead groups on expeditions.

To find out more about the project or to offer any assistance please contact DUSA Clubs and Societies Convener Joanna Kearns on 01382 386011 or jkearns@dusa.co.uk

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Reunions at DundeeWhether you graduated one, ten or 50 years ago, we hope you have fond memories of your time in Dundee. We are extremely proud of being voted number one in Scotland for student experience for the sixth year running in the Times Higher Education (THE) Student Experience Survey.

We are also immensely proud of the changes that have taken place here and the way our campus has evolved and the way the city itself is also transforming.

We would love to share this with you and what better way than with a reunion? Reunions offer the ideal opportunity to rekindle old friendships, revisit old student haunts and return to Dundee to witness for yourself a city in transformation.

If you need any help to get in touch with classmates, arrange campus tours or find out about upcoming events and haven’t already done so, please register with our online alumni community, Dundee Connect, or email the office, alumni@dundee.ac.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.

Where inspiration begins• Brand-new, purpose-built facility

for children aged 3-5

• Competitive fees and open to all

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• Friendly, nurturing environment

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01382 202921

email nursery@highschoolofdundee.org.uk

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Deirdre Michie:

Leading the way to a more sustainable future

Deirdre Michie, who graduated in Scots Law in 1986, is the new Chief Executive of Oil & Gas UK, the leading trade body for the UK offshore industry. She is the first woman to take up the role.

Deirdre’s career in the oil and gas industry began immediately after she graduated when she joined Shell as a graduate trainee in marketing. Since then she has held a number of senior management positons within Shell covering contracts, procurement, communications and commercial negotiation.

She credits her undergraduate training at Dundee as a vital foundation for her success in an industry that supports 450,000 skilled jobs in the UK and plays a crucial role in the UK and global economy.

“I chose Dundee because it had a world-class reputation for offering courses in oil and gas law, which was an interesting and unusual offering not available at other universities,” explained Deirdre.

“My studies here gave me a good understanding of oil and gas, albeit from a legal perspective, but that enabled me to successfully apply to the industry.”

During an extensive career with Shell, Deirdre took on a variety of roles beginning as a graduate trainee and moving to distribution, sales, strategy and product development before a role in Shell Exploration and Production UK as Senior Commercial Negotiator.

She then moved into external affairs where, as a Business Advisor, she played a leading role in a pan-industry group developing codes of conduct for commercial, contracting and procurement activity for use across the UK offshore oil and gas sector.

Four years as Head of Communications for Shell’s UK upstream operations followed before Deirdre was appointed Contracting and Procurement Manager for

Europe in 2007, where she was responsible for a multi-billion pound annual contracting and procurement strategy across Shell’s European exploration and production business.

She then managed a global team to deliver a business plan and significant savings in relation to a multi-billion pound annual strategic sourcing programme. Last year she led a multi-disciplinary team developing and implementing a revised sustainable operating model for Shell UK’s upstream operations.

Her new role as chief executive of Oil and Gas UK brings new challenges but ones she is looking forward to meeting.

“A key challenge is to help drive the industry to improve its efficiency so that it can set itself up to be a safe, competitive and sustainable industry for many years to come. To do that it is important to take people with you, to work co-operatively to achieve the goals we, as an industry, have set ourselves. It is also important to be able to make the tough decisions when they need to be made.

“The oil and gas industry is a fascinating one that offers amazing career opportunities. There is still a sizeable prize to be won with billions of barrels of oil and gas to find and recover from the UK continental shelf. We will still need oil and, especially, gas for many years to come as we move towards a lower carbon economy.

“Recovering our own resources will be vital to the UK’s economy in terms of the taxes it contributes and the investments it makes and, of course, its contribution to the UK energy security of supply.

“My advice to anyone just starting out is to choose a university that offers you excellence in something that is a bit different. That is what Dundee gave me and it really helped me to then differentiate myself when I was looking for jobs.”

It is less than a year since history and European politics graduate David Stirling and his two brothers launched their distillery within the Arbikie Highland Estate in Angus but already they have successfully carved a niche in the highly competitive UK drinks market and have plans to expand overseas.

Arbikie Highland Distillery is Scotland’s first single estate producer of vodka, gin and whisky using traditional Scotch distilling methods. All its spirits are copper-pot distilled and the company supplies its prestige products to the likes of Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Fortnum and Mason.

For David, who graduated in 1994 and then went on to complete a law degree in 1996, the seeds of this success were sown, at least in part, in the compact and sociable setting of the University campus.

“I had a fantastic time at Dundee and it certainly had a great impact on my future career in many ways,” he said.

“I had two lecturers, John Berridge and Alex Reid, who had a great influence on me. They both really encouraged independent thinking. They wanted us to ask questions and they encouraged thinking things through, setting objectives and building a case.

“That has helped enormously in terms of setting up and running the distillery. We have had to determine what we wanted to do and why and work out what it is we want to achieve.”

David, who also runs two successful businesses in New York, where he is currently based, said the explosion in microbreweries in the United States sparked the idea of setting up a distillery at the family farm at Arbikie, overlooking the stunning Lunan Bay on the Angus coast.

“We wanted to diversify and we realised that whereas most distilleries buy in the raw ingredients we were already growing the crops. We realised that we could fulfil the whole cycle ourselves by bringing our farming expertise to the art of distilling. As a result we grow, harvest, distil and bottle everything on the estate.

“We believe in drinking the way we eat, goodness ground up – from our fields to the bottle. That is what makes us unique. It is about provenance.

“What we do mirrors the food industry and the interest in knowing where food comes from and the quality involved. We know exactly what is going into our products because we grow it all ourselves.”

David, who is returning to Scotland later this year, is looking forward to growing the distillery business and reacquainting himself with Dundee.

“The city itself is a fantastic place and it is really transforming with the V&A and the waterfront development. Being away really makes you appreciate what there is in Dundee. It is only minutes away from a beach, hills and countryside.

“I had a great time as a student and of course, the standard of education is excellent, something that is clear from the University’s standing in the league tables. It is a very grounded university with a tight-knit community and it is easy to make friends there.”

He added that the opportunity to meet other students of various nationalities and backgrounds has also had a positive impact on his career.

“I shared a flat with friends whose families were from Cork, St Lucia and Edinburgh and I had the chance to go on trips to the EU and to Russia. It all encouraged me to have an open mind and taught me how to make and build relationships. That is key whatever you do and whatever career you opt for. You have to be able to get on with people.”

With plans in place to take Arbikie Highland Distillery to the wider world David is confident the skills he gained in Dundee will help the company go on to greater success.

“Scotland is a known for its spirits and there is a growing demand around the world. We would like to export overseas. It is a very sophisticated industry and we have to be able to think on our feet. Being a student at Dundee has certainly helped with that.”

For more information on the distillery visit www.arbikie.com or email David at david.stirling@arbikie

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David Stirling

Instilling an Independent Spirit

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Jackie Abell

Taking a Pride in her work

Psychology graduate Jackie Abell is the first to admit her career hasn’t followed a traditional path. After specialising in social psychology with a focus on national identity, Jackie is now Director of Research with the African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) based in Zambia.

And although the links may not be immediately apparent Jackie is in no doubt that her academic experience and the psychology she first discovered at Dundee have been hugely important in her conservation work.

“University education isn’t simply what is in a textbook or academic papers,” she said. “It is training in ways of thinking and building relationships with people at every level. I now work in a field where I am applying what psychologists know about human and animal behaviour to aid conservation of the African lion. I have the University of Dundee to thank for that early encouragement, for developing my own thinking and taking the discipline into a different arena.”

Jackie, who is also Reader in Social Psychology at the University of Coventry, graduated in 1995. Her undergraduate dissertation, which compared how Scottish and English national identity changed depending on who individuals were being compared with, was published in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

“I was thrilled to have it published and I knew that a career in academia was for me,” she said.

Jackie went on to complete an MSc in Critical Social Psychology at Lancaster University, then a PhD at Loughborough University under the supervision of Professor Michael Billig, author of the book Banal Nationalism.

She returned to Lancaster to take up a Research Associate post working on a research project looking at the impact of Scottish devolution on Scottish, English and British identity and then a lecturing post.

It was while she was lecturing at Lancaster University that Jackie’s lifelong love of lions led her to spend her free time volunteering on conservation projects in Africa.

“I’ve been fascinated by lions since zoo trips as a child,” she explained. “They are magnificent animals. We identify with lions because, like us, they are social mammals who depend on group living to facilitate their survival. Social psychologists know a thing or two about the importance of groups!

“I learnt a lot working on the conservation projects but I wanted to complement what I was learning on the ground with further academic knowledge, so I completed an MSc in Animal Behaviour.

“From my work in the field helping with all kinds of wildlife conservation, including rhinos, lions and leopards, and in the classroom I could see where psychology was needed and where the topic of identity could contribute. There are many overlaps in the fields of psychology and behavioural biology/ecology.”

In 2010 Jackie visited the African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) as a volunteer, then returned as a research intern the following year. In 2012 she was appointed Director of Research, based in Livingstone in Zambia.

“I oversee ALERT’s research programme and this extends across lions, other wildlife, local communities and educational interventions. My role is to ensure they’re developed properly, in line with ALERT’s aims and vision, and are assessed for their impact and contribution to lion conservation.

“My job is never boring. One day I can be in the field assessing a pride of lions, the next I can be in a remote rural school delivering a literacy class or conservation education, and the next I’m with a local community helping them protect their livestock from wild lions.

“ALERT take a responsible development approach to lion conservation, involving all stakeholders including local communities. A big part of my job is ensuring we work together effectively for the benefit of protecting and monitoring existing wild lion populations, developing an ex-situ reintroduction model that produces wild lions from captive founders, and safeguarding and improving the wellbeing of African local communities who live alongside the lions.”

Jackie added that although she is now working in conservation, she is continuing her work in academia, having been appointed Reader in Social Psychology at Coventry University in 2013.

“This has allowed me to reconcile my two great loves, lions and academia! The shift to conservation doesn’t mean I have abandoned the topic of identity either. In fact it is quite the contrary. Identity is crucial in conservation work. Unless people identify with wildlife and natural habitats and are motivated to protect them, conservation efforts will fail in the long term. Enabling identification with lions is a big step forwards in conserving them.”

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When psychology graduate David Cunningham first joined children’s charity The Archie Foundation in 2008 he was the only member of staff and funds were limited. Now seven years on he is the Chief Executive and the charity, which has grown from its roots at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital to include The Highland Children’s Unit at Inverness, the Tayside Children’s Hospital in Dundee and an international presence in East Africa, impacts on the healthcare of around 175,000 sick children every year.

Making a difference to children and their families is at the heart of the charity’s work. It funds research, creates child-friendly hospital environments, buys toys and specialist equipment and supports families. At the centre of it are the children themselves and a drive to make their experiences as stress free as possible.

“We know children can be afraid of going into hospital so our aim is to create an atmosphere that puts them and their families at ease,” explained David, who specialised in child development during his honours year at Dundee.

“We also know that when we do that and when parents feel supported, children get better quicker. We want hospitals to be as welcoming as they possibly can be.”

The charity works closely with Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, a development psychologist who taught David during his studies at Dundee, to ensure new projects are child and family friendly.

That work has informed the design of two community cafes, a new entrance to the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, a project in Dundee to double the paediatric operating theatre capacity and even the creation of Uganda’s first ever children’s operating theatre in Kampala.

Although the charity is clear about its main focus - continuing to transform health care for sick children in Scotland - David is justifiably proud of its role in Uganda where money for the new operating theatre was raised in just one day. The “Archie in Africa” day involved children who are helped by the charity in Scotland raising funds for the hospital in Kampala.

“The operating theatre opened in April and it is the first one in a country with more than 22 million children. The child who was to be our first patient, a little two-year-old boy with a rectal prolapse, sadly died the night before. For him we opened a day too late. It’s hard to wonder if we could have moved quicker, delivered faster, but I’m not sure that we could.

“The child who became our first patient, a little six-day-old boy, had his operation and is doing great. That is the difference this can make. The charity is quite literally saving lives.”

David Cunningham

Making a difference with Archie

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A group of University staff and graduates have taken part in an epic fundraising challenge which could rewrite the hill-walking map of Scotland as well as raising thousands of pounds for the Archie Foundation, the official charity of Tayside Children’s Hospital.

Organised by consultant anaesthetist Dr Paul Fettes, an honorary senior lecturer at the School of Medicine, and a number of his NHS colleagues, the challenge saw runners, cyclists and walkers scale all 130 Scottish mainland mountains over 1000m in a marathon relay starting at Dingwall in the north east and finishing at Rest and Be Thankful at Arrochar.

Each of the mountains on the route, which reached as far north as An Teallach, south to Ben Ime and crossed Scotland from Ladhair Bheinn in the west to Lochnagar in the east, was named an “Archie” by the team.

Champion hill runner and Dundee graduate Joe Symonds added his support to the challenge which included the mountain relay, three community walks and a relay cycle dubbed Archie into Space which aimed to log enough of an ascent to match the mountain challenge and send Archie into orbit!

The money raised will help the Archie Foundation’s support for Tayside Children’s Hospital’s plans to create a two theatre paediatric complex at Ninewells, effectively doubling its present capacity.

Dr Fettes, who came up with the idea for the challenge while hillwalking with his wife, said he hoped the events would raise awareness as well as money for the Archie Foundation in Tayside and encourage more fundraising efforts in the future.

“The money for this is to support the two-theatre complex but hopefully this will be the first project of many. It will also hopefully raise the profile of Archie Tayside and make subsequent fundraising easier.”

He also hopes the idea of naming every Scottish mainland mountain over 1000m high an “Archie” will take off and create an ongoing link with the charity.

“It is a very important part of the challenge and although I don’t know if they will become officially recognised it is something I’m going to work on. UK maps have been metric for decades, and for a while now I have found it a little strange that the collections of mountains are all in feet.”

The fundraising efforts are set to continue with a Gala Dinner in the Apex Hotel on 25th September. To find out more about the charity challenge, visit the website at www.archiesmountainchallenge.org.uk

Peak performance puts Archie on the map

David, a former President of Dundee University Students’ Association, is equally proud of the charity’s work with NHS Tayside to provide a second paediatric operating theatre at Tayside Children’s Hospital.

“Only half of children in Tayside are operated on in a paediatric operating theatre,” he said. “The rest are going to adult theatres or being sent elsewhere for their operations. We know that if you put a young child into an alien environment they are more likely to be frightened and to have a bad experience. The knock-on effect of that is that they may be less likely to want to go and see a doctor in the future and that can have long-lasting health consequences.

“NHS Tayside is providing the funding for the operating theatre and we are working with them to ensure world-class child friendly facilities designed to make the experience less stressful.”

David, who is Chair of the Scottish Standards Committee of the Institute of Fundraising, attributes the Archie Foundation’s success over the last seven years to the commitment and passion of its Board and staff and the enthusiasm and inventiveness of its army of community volunteers.

“We believe in what we do and that we can make a difference,” he said. “And I am constantly amazed at what people will do for us. There are people running marathons for us, there are two rowers planning to row 3000 miles across the Atlantic and a team of runners, cyclists and walkers climbing all 130 of Scotland’s mountains higher than 1km. We also have children giving up their birthday presents and asking for donations instead. It is awe-inspiring and wonderful.”

Computing graduate Shahbaz Majeed is no stranger to success when it comes to taking photographs.

The University of Dundee web developer, who graduated in 2003 with a BSc (Hons) in Applied Computing, has won numerous awards for his stunning landscapes and long-exposure images.

But this year he admits he was stunned to discover that his photograph of the Forth Road Bridge is to be featured on the Clydesdale bank’s new polymer £5 note and as such is now a part of Scottish history.

“It’s amazing to think that millions of people will be seeing the image because it is on a bank note,” he said. “Even if it is taken out of circulation in the future it will still be held in museums and by collectors. It is the first polymer note so it is a part of the history of this country and that is a fantastic thing to be a part of.”

Shahbaz, who runs Frame Focus Capture Photography in his spare time, said he first realised his image was set for photographic immortality when he received an email from one of the websites where he registers his work.

“The email said one of my images has been licensed for UK currency,” he explained. “It seemed a bit unreal so I contacted them to ask if they could confirm it was for currency use and they said yes.

“ I remember thinking WOW, that is awesome. ”

“I have won a few competitions before and had my work used by the V&A, the BBC and VisitScotland but this is certainly the most memorable thing to happen as a result of my photography. I have been asked to sign a few of the notes already!”

Shahbaz first picked up a camera in 2006 when he decided to head along to a Dundee Photographic Society meeting for some advice. Since then he has honed his skills to good effect winning a number of awards along the way.

In 2011 he won the National Rail category of the Take A View Photograph of the Year competition and was highly commended in the National Geographic International Photography Contest. He also reached the final of the prestigious Hamdan International Photography Award (HIPA) 2013 competition in Dubai which attracted entries from 38,000 photographers across the world.

Shahbaz Majeed

A Photographerof Note

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“The HIPA competition is one of the biggest and most lucrative in the world with a first prize of $120,000. I didn’t win but I did make it to the final and I was one of only 13 photographers from the UK to make it through and feature in the awards book.”

As well as working full-time at the University, running his photography business and taking award-winning photographs, Shahbaz has also added teaching to his career portfolio and regularly runs photography workshops.

He credits much of his success to his student days at Dundee where he was encouraged to think outside the box.

“I really enjoy web development and I really enjoy photography and I know I am extremely lucky to have two jobs that I love. They complement each other very well and my degree here at Dundee has definitely helped me with both.

“I loved being a student here. The University has a great reputation for computing and there was a great community feel to applied computing. Coming here was the best decision I ever made.

“It helped me look at things differently and apply the knowledge I have to come up with creative solutions to problems. The same thing applies to photography.

“Anyone can pick up a camera and take a photograph and even incredible ones on their mobile phones. Technologically it is not too difficult. The challenge is knowing how to make it creative or different and how to apply the technological aspect of it to reach a solution and make it stand out from other images.

“You have to be in the right place at the right time and know that if you just wait then the light may come at a better angle. You have to understand weather conditions. There are so many different variables and that is what makes it so interesting. A certain amount of luck with it all coming together is also a bonus, given how interesting the Scottish weather can be.

“There is a big difference between taking a picture and creating an image, particularly one that provokes an emotional response and that is what motivates me. It is constantly changing. Web development is the same and that is what I like. You have to be able to evolve and always keep trying to improve, to be the best you can be, whether it is taking a photo or developing a website.

“If you have the desire and drive to be better and keep pushing yourself, success will follow. Of course, having a great University degree and experience does help!”

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DUNDEE IMAGING FACILITY

A VISION OF THE FUTURE

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The University’s international reputation for imaging and microscopy has been further strengthened this year with the re-launch of the upgraded Dundee Imaging Facility (DIF).

Recent funding of £8million to this interdisciplinary, advanced technology resource will help drive the University’s objectives to develop transformational research in physical, life and medical sciences.

Located in the University’s new Discovery Centre, DIF is home to 20 cutting-edge microscopes, supported by a team of hugely experienced staff from a range of scientific backgrounds and with practical experience of working at the interface of the life and physical sciences.

Professor Jason Swedlow, academic lead for DIF, said the upgrading and expansion to include physics, engineering and medicine and dentistry has put Dundee at the forefront of scientific imaging in Scotland and the UK.

“Imaging is incredibly important in biomedical and life sciences and it has undergone a revolution in recent years,” he said. “It is used to understand the behaviour of organisms, the structure and dynamics of cells and the function and interactions of molecules that are the building blocks of life. The UK is investing heavily across the range of imaging technology, data analysis and data management and Dundee is a leader in the field.

“In terms of the scope we offer and the breadth of science we support it is hard to find anywhere better in the UK.”

Facility Director Dr Sam Swift, who has directed the growth and development of DIF, explained that this is a shared resource available to staff across the University.

“We made an early strategic decision to pool our advanced imaging technology in one communal facility, providing a space for advanced biomedical imaging and interdisciplinary collaboration to happen,” he said.

“The University’s objectives are to develop transformational research areas at the interface of the physical and engineering sciences with the life and medical sciences. These offer the biggest scientific challenges of our times. Our ambition at DIF is to provide the space to actively support these research goals which feeds into the University’s Transformation Agenda to be Scotland’s leading University within the next 25 years.”

DIF comprises advanced light microscopy, super resolution and fluorescence lifetime imaging, tissue imaging, non-optical imaging, electron microscopy, image analysis and data processing, as well as a dedicated interdisciplinary laboratory - the Physics and Life Science Lab – to deliver cutting edge imaging technology.

It has a central hub in the Discovery Centre with additional facilities in the School of Engineering and Maths and at the Ninewells campus.

The DIF has a close association with Research Computing and Data Analysis, including the work of Professor Swedlow’s Open Microscopy Environment (OME) team which provides software for managing the data produced by imaging.

“New imaging techniques generate enormous amounts of complex data and so special tools are required to manage, share and analyse that data. Here at Dundee we have built several open software platforms that can be used by scientists worldwide for accessing and managing these enormous datasets. We write the software that the whole world uses.”

The work at DIF has already produced a number of award winning images.

IN TERMS OF THE SCOPE WE OFFER AND THE BREADTH OF SCIENCE WE SUPPORT IT IS HARD

TO FIND ANYWHERE BETTER IN THE UK

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Sustainability - one of the most used words in the lexicons of academia, business and politics but what does it really mean?

That is a question that Professor Ioan Fazey, Chair of Social Dimensions

of Environmental Change, has been asking people to consider as he seeks to raise awareness of the deep changes necessary in the way we live if we are to avert ecological and social catastrophe.

Professor Fazey believes that sustainability, despite the ubiquity of the term, is a challenging concept to pin down because it means different things to different people. His own working definition combines three interrelated concepts – social justice, environmental issues and the requirement to meet the needs of future generations.

“What is clear is that sustainability is absolutely incompatible with a never-ending desire for economic growth,” he said. “We are coming to the end of an era heavily dominated by science. Scientific advances have obviously brought us lots and lots of benefits but the

world has become so complex that we can’t just throw more knowledge at it. We now need to be doing things differently.

“The NHS, for example, just doesn’t work as we want it to anymore no matter how much resources are thrown at it. Without a fundamental shift in thinking, there’s no solving a problem like obesity, which is a product of the way we live now. Obesity is a symptom of the way our societies operate, like climate change is.

“There is an emerging recognition that if we’re seriously going to deal with problems like climate change then we need to act much more rapidly than we currently are. That requires a deep shift in the way we think about how societies operate. We can’t just continue making incremental improvements but rather need fundamental, transformative changes if we do genuinely want to embrace sustainability.”

2014 saw the world’s first entire community to be displaced by climate change when the residents of the Carteret’s Islands, near Bouganinville in Papua New Guinea left their islands due to rising sea levels. Professor Fazey’s own research means he is a regular visitor to the nearby Solomon Islands, where he works with local communities to examine how they are affected by vulnerability to climate change and how the economic development of the islands are both alleviating and intensifying the challengers that natives face.

SUSTAINABILITY:NEW THINKING REQUIRED

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“I was attracted to the Solomon Islands partly because many communities are still engaged in subsistence activities,” he said. “I didn’t go out to study sustainability per se. The idea was to work with local communities to investigate issues and causes of vulnerability to climate change but to understand this requires an understanding of human society and how it is changing.

“The people who are living the most sustainable lives also tend to be the most vulnerable. One of the key things that came out of my work in the Solomons was the influence of a move to a monetary economy creating stress on local conditions. A way out of poverty is to try and make money but as people do this there’s a knock-on effect. Communities have become more individualistic. In the past, people would happily help their neighbours to rebuild their house or fix their roof on the understanding the favour would be reciprocated. Now they ask how much they’ll be paid before picking up a tool. A desire for material goods means the natives are planting cash crops but doing this displaces gardens into steep-sided, less fertile slopes, more prone to landslides.

“Everything is inter-related, and this is one of the biggest challenges that we, as a global society, face. We need ecologists to understand what is happening to the environment, social scientists to look at how to deliver social justice and novel thinking about how to engage with a voice that can’t be heard but has a stake in our future, such as unborn children.”

Professor Fazey is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR), a partnership between the University and the James Hutton Institute. CECHR provides a hub for interdisciplinary research addressing how societies can increase resilience to environmental change and promote sustainable futures. Food, water, energy and health futures are key themes where CECHR aims to deliver world-class research and postgraduate teaching and that underpin Professor Fazey’s own work.

Funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has enabled him to work with Scottish Borders Council to build resilience in that area to flooding and other issues relating to climate change like fuel poverty and food shortages. Again, Professor Fazey stresses that these issues cannot be treated in isolation.

The impact of the JRF project will be significant, he adds. As well as having an immediate impact on the communities at risk from these issues, there will be long-term advantages of bringing community leaders together with high-level policy makers and providing them with the knowledge resources to make decisions that affect them.

“There is a lot of work taking place in Scotland around resilience and we are heavily involved in this,” Professor Fazey continued. “The Scottish Resilience Division works to ensure Scottish communities and systems are as resilient as they can be to external shocks, whether that means terrorism, flooding, or anything else.

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Social justice is key to this as some groups are more susceptible than others. In the Borders, social housing tends to be built on flood plains so immediately people of a certain demographic are more affected than others.

“The work with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is exciting and unique as they wanted to develop process of working with Government and communities to facilitate the kind of interactions that help both achieve their goals. What we are seeing is community groups begin to provide services that local authorities have been forced to divest in due to austerity. This model may well provide the basis for co-operation across the country and beyond. The situation is almost the opposite in the Solomon Islands where we’re seeing a massive decrease in social cohesion because of the impact of a changing economy and other challenges.”

CECHR’s work takes place at both the local and global level, chiming with the University’s Transformation vision. Professor Fazey believes the University’s ambition further dovetails with a global movement of academics, policy makers and organisations coalescing around the theme of transformation.

“Ultimately, what CECHR is trying to do is facilitate interdisciplinary linkages. I’ve been here two years and I am very encouraged by how easy it is to work across departments compare to other universities I’ve worked in. Across the University, there is work taking place in law, business, science, social science, geography and many other areas besides that CECHR brings together and provides the capacity for doing very novel things. Most of the great ideas come at the boundaries of disciplines but you need to provide the space to allow that to happen.

“Dundee University’s vision for transforming lives, which guides CECHR’s activities, chimes well with the need for significant societal change and new global initiatives. For example, Future Earth is a new global initiative that represents 60,000 scientists from around the world and has transformation as one of its three key themes. In other fields too, transformation is becoming more and more prevalent in global academic circles and what Dundee is doing is, in my view, very close to this progressive way of thinking. There is lots of work needing done and Dundee is engaging with it. In our own way we are contributing to the growing recognition of the need for change, exemplified by CECHR’s international exposure – such as its twitter feed that is now 45 in the top 500 climate change related feeds.

“Importantly, we must understand the future better, one that will be fundamentally different. Currently we try and base our decisions on evidence, but as a colleague from the International Futures Forum indicated, this is like guiding a car forward by driving through the rearview mirror. So we also need really new ways of working to address sustainability and, as Einstein said, we won’t solve the problems of today using the same way of thinking that created them. We need new thinking if we’re ever going to make sustainability a reality.”

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A single phone call was all it took to spark a project which has helped transform the healthcare system of an African country. In the early 2000s Eritrea was still emerging from the impact of 30 years’ bloody war with its neighbour Ethiopia. The country’s infrastructure was in need of major development, including a health system which was small and under-equipped to meet the health needs of the population.

It was at this time that the University of Dundee received the phone call that would help change this. The University was already engaged in successfully delivering distance-learning nursing courses in Kenya, where more than 100 nurses were engaged in undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

“The project originated with a phone call at a time around 2002 when the University was advertising its distance learning opportunities widely,” said Professor Margaret Smith, Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery. “At the time Eritrea had recognised it needed help in rebuilding the health system and so they came to us asking if Dundee could provide this.

“They were focused on the reconstruction of their country, where much of the infrastructure had been destroyed or run down over the course of a 30-year war. The University of Asmara had been shut down and there was a vacuum. Reskilling was desperately needed in the country. The World Bank provided funds to reinvest in health professionals and restore capability to Eritrea’s health service.

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“We had, and indeed we still very much have, the required expertise in distance- and open-learning, through a combination of work done in the Centre for Medical Education and in Education, Social Work and Community Education. There was also a legacy of work accredited by the Open University over many years.

“There were also good relationships across the University, particularly between Nursing and Education, so it was a case of excellent interdisciplinary working that has stood the test of time.”

By 2003 contracts were signed, with a prime objective to enable senior Eritrean nurses to graduate in advanced nursing studies, thus bringing a greater level of the much-needed expertise to the country.

“The first priority was to give mid-level staff the teaching and training to progress to a degree level,” said Margaret. “Many of these people had been on the front line in the war. The country only had around 200 doctors serving a population of four million people, so the role that nurses had to play was extremely important in delivering healthcare. There was a basic medical and humanitarian need to support them to rebuild their health service, beyond any matter of politics.”

The decade and more since has seen a transformation in Eritrea’s health service. The University has held graduation ceremonies in the country which have seen the next generation of health leaders awarded their degrees. Among them has been Dr Andom Ogbamarian, former Director General of Research and Human Development in Eritrea’s Ministry of Health and an instrumental figure in the development of the partnership with Dundee, who was awarded an honorary degree by the University in 2012.

“We have now helped produce more than 150 graduates in Eritrea in nursing and professional development, and those people are now at senior levels within the healthcare system and helping shape policy,” said Margaret. “It is a new generation of health leaders who are helping the country progress to a position where it is now doing well in terms of healthcare. The country is now making good progress in addressing the Millennium development goals – they have controlled malaria, they have improved rates of infant mortality, and more children are going into education. Eritrea has made more progress than any other African country in improving health, due to the way it has prioritised health and education policy, and for us in Dundee to have been part of this has been a great privilege.

“Our programmes have progressed now to the point where we now have our first cohort of Masters students. My hope is that we will continue to partner with Eritrea in developing their healthcare system even more, building capacity and even moving from Masters-level courses to PhD provision. I think what we have shown most of all is that education can be a very strong catalyst for change.”

Mike Naulty, Senior Lecturer in Education, Social Work and Community Education, has witnessed the transformation in Eritrea first-hand.

“I have been there around twelve times since 2006 and I have seen the capacity of their health service change,” said Mike. “That has come about through education and training. There are challenges in working with a country like Eritrea. The political side of things is not something we can be overly concerned with – our role has been to enable capacity to meet a pressing health need.

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“WE HAVE HELPED FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORM HEALTHCARE IN ERITREA”

DR JO CORLETT

“There are practical difficulties. The electricity may only run for two or three hours a day so students have to focus their efforts on times when they are able to do the work. You also have to adapt and work around their culture. One advantage is that a legacy of British occupation after the Second World War is that their education system is delivered in English from the age of four, so that helped make it a good match for us.

“But the students, and us, have overcome issues along the way and managed to maintain a very strong programme. These students are on professional journeys and we are on that journey with them to develop a professional health service.”

That journey continues, with contracts in place for the University to deliver postgraduate and doctoral studies. Graduates from the Dundee programme are driving initiatives such as

• Introducing a clinic for adolescents on sexual and reproductive health

• Developing teaching packages to standardise care and monitoring of mothers in labour to reduce maternal and infant complications of birth

• Improving health assistants’ knowledge of the use of malaria nets

“Those are just some examples of where there is direct impact of our graduates but really it is happening throughout the health service in Eritrea,” said Dr Jo Corlett, Head of Learning and Teaching in the School of Nursing and Midwifery. “The feedback we get from the students has been consistently strong. I don’t think it is any overstatement to say we have helped fundamentally transform healthcare in Eritrea.

“But it has also had a transformative effect on us here in Dundee. We have far greater insight into the issues and problems facing these practitioners in countries like Eritrea and that means quite often having to rethink our frames of reference – for example providing consistent health promotion and education services is challenging when that population is nomadic.

“That sort of experience is invaluable as we look to further develop our education of students around the world. Our aspiration has been to build a global network where students practising in very diverse settings and cultures, from Africa to the USA, the Middle East to the UK, share their experience and expertise – in effect we are building a global community of practice and promoting global citizenship.”

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The work of some of the UK’s brightest young creative minds was celebrated at a record-breaking Art, Design and Architecture Degree Show 2015.

The annual Degree Show turns the University into Scotland’s largest exhibition space for a week, with over 300 students from the University’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design and the School of the Environment showing their work to thousands of visitors.

This year those visitors arrived in record numbers, 5500 on the first night alone and followed by thousands more over the ten days of the exhibition.

Duncan of Jordanstone College is one of the leading art & design schools in the UK and many of its students go on to be world-renowned artists, animators, designers and makers.

This year’s cohort will be hoping to emulate the success of the likes of Turner Prize winner Susan Philipsz and nominees David Mach, Louise Wilson and Luke Fowler, who are all alumni of the

College, as are photographer Albert Watson, fashion designer Hayley Scanlan, film director David Mackenzie, video games pioneer Aaron Garbut and the late painter Alberto Morrocco.

Professor Paul Harris, Dean of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, said, “Our graduates are some of the most talented and creative you will find anywhere in the world and I am sure there will be stars among them who will go on to match and even surpass the successes of those who have passed through Degree Show in years gone by.

“These are the young people who will be at the vanguard of the film, animation and computer games industries, who will become leading artists and designers influencing and shaping our future, global society, and who are vital to Dundee’s own future as a recognised international centre of excellence in creativity and design.”

The Degree Show is one of the highlights of the city’s cultural calendar and generates in excess of £1million for the local economy.

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