Detailed results are now available from three annual surveys which monitor the academic experience of our student population at key stages in their journey through higher education.

• National Student Survey (NSS) – key data on students in their final year of undergraduate study
• Second Year Experience (SYE) – key data on students in their second year of undergraduate study
• First Year Experience (FYE) – key data on students in their first year of undergraduate study

These surveys are instrumental in giving students a voice in their education. Detailed results are available to staff via the Student Survey Results section of the DASA SharePoint site. If you would like access, please contact Nick (n.bohill@qub.ac.uk) or Duncan (d.berryman@qub.ac.uk).

The Covid-19 Pandemic Research Enabling Fund (CP-REF) has been launched to support individuals whose research has been paused or significantly slowed due to the pandemic lockdown.

Details have been circulated to the Directors of Research in each School but further information and application forms are available from the Research & Enterprise Directorate, please contact Iain Kennedy (i.kennedy@qub.ac.uk)

The deadline for submission is 5.00pm on Monday 9 August 2021.

The winner of the 2021 Allstate NI Queen's Student of the Year has been announced as Yi Kang Choo, 2020-21 President of the University's Malaysian Students' Society NI (MSSNI), who established a welfare task force for international students impacted by Covid-19.

The announcement was made at the School of Law virtual graduation ceremony on Thursday 22 July, when Yi Kang Choo graduated with an LLB. Choo becomes the first person from Malaysia to win the coveted Student of the Year Award.

Read more about the 2021 Student of the Year.

The University continues to closely monitor the situation in relation to COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and to align our approach with guidance from the Public Health Agency and Foreign and Development Commonwealth Office (FCDO). Please continue to review our FAQs for staff and students and the Public Health Agency website. 

Watch: Campus Safety videos.

Useful contacts

If the information you are looking for is not addressed in the University's Coronavirus (COVID-19) FAQs, there are a range of contact points for staff and students:

All staff and students are encouraged to avail of the University’s free asymptomatic testing facility before coming on to campus for any reason and then arrange regular testing twice a week or as often as possible for as long as you are on campus. 

Book a test here.

Please note the revised opening times of the on-campus asymptomatic testing facilities.

Lateral Flow Device Home Testing kits are now available for staff to collect from our new LFD Collection Point at the Whitla Hall (view opening hours). The new asymptomatic service is an addition to Queen's asymptomatic testing service, with on-campus testing continuing to run in the Whitla Hall. Please note that Elms Village Treehouse is now temporarily closed until September 2021.

There is no requirement to book a collection slot. When picking up a kit, you will need to show your staff or student card and give your email address and contact telephone number to the collection point staff. This information will be used should a recall of test kits be required. 

Any member of staff or student who is either self-isolating, has developed symptoms or has received a positive test is asked to please inform the University via our dedicated online portal.

StopCOVID NI app

Please download the STOPCovid NI contact tracing app: Google Play Store; Apple App Store.

The University is currently advertising for the following position internally:

• 21/109073 – Finance Assistant (Grade 4)

Staff can view internal vacancies on Queen's Online. Other vacancies are often advertised externally and are on the Job Vacancies page.

The closing date for receipt of applications for the QUB Teaching Awards scheme is Monday 9 August 2021.

Further details and application forms are available on the CED website. Queries can be directed to e.mcdowell@qub.ac.uk.

The Centre for Educational Development invites all staff to the Connected Learning Series 2021: Reflections, by joining the event team. Once you join the team, you will have access to all events and more.

Join the CLS 2021: Reflections Team.

CLS 2021 takes place every Wednesday from 4 August to 15 September.

More information, including the programme of events can be found on the event website and on Twitter using #QUBCLS2021.

We fully recognise that this is challenging and anxious time for students and, in some cases, this may be exacerbated further by financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The University's Student Support and Hardship Funds are available to support students in financial hardship during their studies and we would encourage tutors, advisors of studies and all colleagues in student-facing roles to help signpost students to the funds where appropriate:

To mark the centenary of the partitioning of Ireland, Queen's University Belfast is organising and hosting a major series of online public talks addressing a diverse range of major themes, including the complex origins and legacies of partition, the Irish border in literature, the experience of minorities, and class-based and gender-based perspectives.

Talk 14, 'Life on the line: partition at the border', by Dr Peter Leary, is now available online.

For full details, including speakers involved in the series, please visit the University's Partition of Ireland website.

The latest from Queen's Policy Engagement (QPol):

• Dr Lisa Claire Whitten: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP: Parties, Polls and Promises
• Queen's Policy Engagement Post-Brexit Clinic 2021: Presentations and Recording
• Dr Milena Komarova, Prof Katy Hayward and Ben Rosher: Hamming it up: sausage wars, porky pies and party roastings

To submit an article to QPol, email Kevin at qpol@qub.ac.uk.

The Conversation is a news website featuring articles by academics - often republished to global media outlets. Articles by Queen’s academics published in The Conversation have been read by 12.5 million people internationally. Read the latest: 

• Professor Louise Mallinder: Troubles amnesty: UK government plan would subvert peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland
• Professor Katy Hayward: Irish sea border: trust is the biggest problem for the Northern Ireland protocol

Queen's Staff Blog provides a space for staff to share our reflections, knowledge and experiences and build a connected University community:

• BLOG: "100 weeks of unhindered hair growth: Getting the razor ready to raise money for a good cause": Dr David Thornhill, Senior Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, talks about his fundraiser for ShelterNI.
• BLOG: My little HD Hero: Living with Hirschsprung’s Disease one day at a time: Joanna Scott, Placement Allocations Officer in the Placement Team, School of Nursing and Midwifery, on her experiences as a parent of a child with a rare disease.

If you are interested in writing a staff blog piece, please contact internalcommunications@qub.ac.uk.

The School of Mathematics and Physics are organising the STEM photography competition 2021. All staff and students are encouraged to join in.

Found out more: STEM photography competition 2021. 

Social science PhD students and ECRs wanting to know how to engage with industry and the business community are invited to the Engaging with Industry-for Social Scientists programme.

This programme by Helix Hub has been designed specifically with social scientists in mind and it will be delivered through three 3½-hour online sessions on the mornings of Monday 16 August, Friday 20 August and Wednesday 25 August.

Register for the programme here.

An online workshop on how social science researchers can engage and collaborate with businesses will take place on Tuesday 7 September at 9.30am.

This workshop is aimed at social science PhD students and ECRs and participants who are new to the concepts of both impact and choosing appropriate pathways to impact.

More information | Register. 

The Impact Acceleration Team in Research and Enterprise are calling for social science PhD students and ECRs to sign up for the 'Live Innovation Challenge' – a design-thinking programme running over a three-week period from mid-August to early September 2021 in Riddel Hall* (dates below) and facilitated by Rejig.

Register for the Live Innovation Challenge. 

Those interested in signing up must be available to attend all sessions.

Academics and Postdoctoral researchers are invited to join a Zoom webinar to find out about how to apply for grant funding from Invest NI to commercialise your research and bring their technology towards market.  It will be hosted by the Commercial Development Team at QUB and Invest Northern Ireland who will speak about what is expected from the different application stages, the commitments and project activities, and what outcomes and follow-on they would like to see from each project.

The webinar will be held from 11am-12pm on Tuesday 10 August. 

Further details about this event can be found on the Eventbrite registration page.

Details of ongoing works being carried out across the University campus can be found on the Estates Directorate webpage.

For information, please follow this link.

This week's new and continuing films at Queen's Film Theatre, your cinema on campus. Staff ticket price: £5 (standard ticket price £6.95).

For full details of screenings, and health and safety measures in place, visit the QFT website.

RIDERS OF JUSTICE: Mads Mikkelsen stars as man with suppressed anger and revenge on his mind in this blackly comedic Danish action-drama.

THE WORLD TO COME: A farmer's wife and her new neighbour find themselves irrevocably drawn to each other in Mona Fastvold's powerful 19th-century romance set on the American frontier. Stars Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby and Casey Affleck. 

The latest weekly update from the Seamus Heaney Centre is now available online. 

View the update.

Coinciding with the Tokyo Olympics, the Naughton Gallery has launched its new sports exhibition, VAMOS NIPPON!. Encompassing contemporary art, archival photographs, manga, and even an iconic pair of sneakers, VAMOS NIPPON! offers a fascinating insight into Japanese sport and culture, and has been generously supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Japan Society.

Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11.00am to 4.00pm. Free admission. Exhibition continues until 28 August 2021.

Queen's has an institutional subscription to Nature Masterclasses. Full details, including the course content, are now available on Queen's new Nature Masterclasses page.

As a Queen's researcher (staff and research students), this subscription grants you access to all available online courses on the Nature Masterclasses platform.

Queen's access to Nature Masterclasses is provided via Single Sign-On. Step by step instructions are provided in the Nature Masterclasses User Guide. (Please do not register on the Nature Masterclasses website, as that will interfere with your Single Sign-On access.)

A number of the Centre for Educational Development courses for the 2020-21 academic year have been listed on iTrent self-service, and are now open for booking. For up-to-date information please follow us on twitter @QUB_CED or check the CED website. Upcoming events include:

Canvas Course on Small Group Teaching/Lab Demonstration - a self-paced course on Canvas for teaching assistants and anyone new to teaching – sign up here.

Writing your claim for Associate Fellowship or Fellowship HEA (AFHEA/FHEA):

'Accessibility Toolkit' is an online, self-paced Canvas course that provides guidance for academic staff to become more knowledgeable about digital accessibility. It provides advice on: how to create accessible content for learner variability, giving examples of both good and bad practice; and highlights accessibility checker tools such as the Canvas Rich Content Editor and Blackboard Ally. The course is available to all staff who currently have access to Canvas VLE.

More information: go.qub.ac.uk/AccessibilityToolkit

The new Music Mode feature for Teams will begin rolling out in late July, to be completed by September, and will allow users to conduct online music lessons, transmit music performances, or other non-speech content.

It provides the option for the user to transmit high fidelity music.

Teams will automatically adjust the audio bit rate based on the available bandwidth and also provide users with the option to turn off components such as echo cancellation, noise suppression, and gain control if needed.

To enable this feature, go to 'Teams Settings', 'Device Settings' and turn on 'high fidelity' music mode. NB: Please make these adjustments prior to starting the meeting. The feature cannot be turned on from within the meeting if the above-mentioned adjustments have not been made prior to the meeting. Once in the meeting, turn on the high-fidelity audio icon.