Applied Knowledge Exchange

Sir Alex Ferguson returned to Glasgow Caledonian University this week.

The Manchester United manager, who received an Honorary Doctor of Letters in 2001, held a masterclass on campus, met parents and children from the award winning Caledonian Club and talked tactics with the University’s football teams during the visit.

Read more at www.gcal.ac.uk

Glasgow Caledonian University’s School of Health will lead a £3.3million European Commission-funded study aimed at tackling chronic foot and ankle pain including such diseases as Diabetic Foot.

Jim Woodburn, Professor of Rehabilitation at GCU, is working on the A-FOOTPRINT project to develop new orthotic devices to support or correct musculoskeletal problems.

See more about Jim’s work in this video clip. Biomechanics – Jim Woodburn

The Applied Knowledge Exchange is also working with Promedics Orthapaedic with its orthapaedic research, through the Business Transformation Fund grant that allows SMEs to work collaboratively with Glasgow Caledonian University and access specialist expertise including consultancy, contract research and access to facilities or equipment.

Glasgow Caledonian University will be attending the KTP Scotland Awards Ceremony on 2nd February at the Doubletree Dunblane Hydro in Perthshire.

Glasgow Caledonian Uni has had several successful KTP partnerships with businesses including Novograf.

Current KTPs include those with Fearsom UK and If Only Holidays Limited.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is Europe’s leading programme helping business to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base.

At the Applied Knowledge Exchange, we welcome enquiries about funding and eligibility for Knowledge Transformation Partnerships from business and third sector organisations.

The main speaker at this year’s event will be Lord Smith of Kelvin, Chancellor of the University of the West of Scotland.

Forty percent of Scotland’s students are now taking part-time study options as people try to balance work with studying. The Scottish Government has also provided financial assistance for part-time students.

The Open University and Scotland’s universities have seen soaring interest in part-time options, particularly in science, technology and engineering subjects. There are over 272,000 students in Scotland, of which 110,000 are part-time.

Here at Glasgow Caledonian University, we can offer part-time education programmes to allow workers to study in the evenings or top up their skills with flexible work-based learning.

Let the Applied Knowledge Exchange help your business boost its staff skills with part-time studying.

Glasgow Caledonian University is already gearing up for a busy year of new courses and seminars created especially for businesses.

First up is a new Top Up MSc programme in Human Resource Management, aimed at HR and business professionals who already hold the postgraduate Diploma in HRM and would like to advance to MSc level.

Launching on Thursday 4th February 2010, the course involves two taught modules comprising Consulting for Strategic Change, and Leadership and HR Management.

Launching this spring, Economics for Equality is a short course to help policy makers, community activists and businesses to understand how talking the language of economics can help in the promotion of gender equality.

Economics for Equality will provide your organisation with a supportive learning environment to explore the relevance of gender and the economy to public spending, policy making and your business.

Also on the cards for March 2010 is Glasgow Caledonian University’s Postgraduate Certificate in Social Enterprise is the only postgraduate degree in Scotland designed specifically for the growing Social Enterprise sector. It was developed through the collaboration of Glasgow Caledonian University and the Scottish Social Enterprise Academy to provide organisations with techniques to aid them in demonstrate greater entrepreneurial flair, innovation and self-reliance. The year-long part-time course has been designed to meet the needs of busy professionals and has been designed for flexibility around three weekends.

For more information on any of these courses, click here or contact the Applied Knowledge Exchange on 0141 331 3125.

With Climate Change and carbon management the hot topics of the day, the Caledonian Environment Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University has developed a bespoke carbon footprint tool to support companies in understanding their carbon impact.

The Centre, part of the School of the Built and Natural Environment, won funding from the Scottish Government and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to work on carbon management within Scotland’s food and drink sector.

The Centre is assisting food and drink related SMEs to improve their business competitiveness and environmental performance by managing their carbon emissions. The Caledonian Environment Centre has established an environmental capability assessment tool which provides bespoke carbon reduction plans for companies. 

The programme has so far engaged about 1,000 companies and surveyed over 340 for climate change and carbon management. 

The Centre is alo working on “Going Carbon Neutral Stirling” to develop a software application that formulates carbon reduction plans for communities.

Caledonian Evironment Centre is also working with the Scottish Prison Service, which is undertaking the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Management Programme, to establish a reduction strategy of between 15 and 25% of their current baseline.  The programme plan seeks to make cost savings for the service, supporting both the environmental impact of carbon, waste and transport by the organization and promoting well-being in inmates.

Scotland’s Climate Change minister Stewart Stevenson is pushing the Scottish Government’s Low Carbon Mission agenda at the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen next week.

The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Act, passed earlier this year, has committed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050.

At the weekend, Parliamentarians joined thousands of protestors as they took to the streets of Glasgow as part of Scotland’s biggest ever climate change demonstration. The Wave was organised by the Stop Climate Chaos coalition.

At Glasgow Caledonian University, vital renewable energy work is also high on the agenda.

Research is central to the School of the Built and Natural Environment’s activities, and it attained the top rating in Scotland in the category  “Architecture and the Built Environment” of The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) for 2008.

The School of the Built and Natural Environment has a research partnership with Grameen Shakti , a not-for-profit company established to promote, develop and popularize renewable energy technologies in remote, rural areas of Bangladesh. The School of the Built and Natural Environment is collaborating with Grameen Shakti on the largest micro-generation renewable energy program in the world. A delegation of Grameen Shakti will also attend the Copenhagen Summit.   

Dr M. Asif, Lecturer in Sustainable and Renewable Energy Technologies at Glasgow Caledonian University, says: “In the backdrop of the environmental challenges Bangladesh faces , the work we are jointly undertaking is important and would be of interest to other developing and developed countries as well.”

Another important renewable energy initiative is being headed by Dr Alastair Sutherland, Dr Alan Williams and Susan Withers, of the Division of Biological/Biomedical Sciences. They have obtained £147,000 of funding from iTi Energy to study the anaerobic digestion of seaweed to produce methane. This is part of a new initiative to develop advanced biofuels for renewable energy.

Your business can benefit from the expertise available at Glasgow Caledonian University. Whether you are an SME, charity, multinational or public sector organisation, the Applied Knowledge Exchange can provide professional consultancy, specialist research facilities, and bespoke work-based education.

Jerry Morris, a Glasgow-educated epidemiologist who recently died aged 99, has been credited as “the man who invented exercise”.

His research was vital in showing the links between exercise and health. In 1948, he helped found the Medical Research Council’s social medicine unit. His work focused on coronary heart disease and physical activity and infant mortality. Later, in the 1950s, Jerry’s book Uses of Epidemiology was used as a blueprint for public health activities and influenced the reform of health and social services under the Labour governments.

Here at Glasgow Caledonian University’s School of Health and Social Care, Dr Morag Thow is doing vital work in the investigation of cardiac rehabilitation.

Scotland has one of the highest levels of coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease in the UK and the world. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is the key method of providing secondary prevention and
improving prognosis and quality of live for those who survive a cardiac event. In 1985 the first comprehensive exercise-based programme in Scotland was established in Glasgow. Glasgow Caledonian University  established the first Masters cardiac rehabilitation education programme for clinical specialists in 1998. Learn more about our work here.

The School of Health and Social Care at Glasgow Caledonian University is committed to developing professionally relevant training, which is responsive to local, national and international developments within healthcare provision. HealthQWest, an innovative £4.9million research consortium based at higher education institutions and the health services across the west of Scotland, was launched at Glasgow Caledonian University.

The Applied Knowledge Exchange can help your business with professional healthcare training, research and problem solving. Contact Dr Andy McNair to find out more.

Professor John Lennon, Director of the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development at Glasgow Caledonian University, has been interviewed by BBC Scotland presenter Dougie Vipond for rural issues programme Landward.

The interview will be included in Landward on BBC Two Scotland at 7pm on the 11th December 2009.

Professor Lennon was asked to provide his views due to the Moffat Centre’s expertise on tourism as an economic driver for Scotland.

In this episode of Landward, former Deacon Blue drummer-turned-TV presenter Dougie Vipond travels to Loch Rannoch to hear about plans for the multi-millionaires’ playground on the Dall Estate.

Dougie also speaks to opponents of the development who fear it will destroy the natural beauty of the area. The project has caused great debate in Scotland and groups including The Woodland Trust and the RSPB have objected to the development.

The Moffat Centre has carried out travel and tourism projects internationally and works with a variety of stakeholders, from public to private sector, and from multinationals to SMEs. The Centre can help clients with training, marketing, feasibility studies, strategy and business development.

The Moffat Centre is just one of Glasgow Caledonian University’s Centres of Expertise which can help unlock the potential for your business via the Applied Knowledge Exchange.

Emergency veterinary care firm Vets Now scooped the SME 300 Company of the Year award at the Insider & Scott-Moncrieff SME 300 Awards 2009.

Eight awards were presented at a glittering ceremony at the Radisson Hotel in Glasgow, attended by 300 key players in the Scottish SME marketplace. The awards recognise the achievement of Scotland’s best performing companies with a turnover of up to £20 million.

Glasgow Caledonian University’s Applied Knowledge Exchange supported the event, working closely with accountancy firm Scott-Moncrieff to complete the research for each award nomination.

Canongate Books and Prosource IT provided Vets Now with competition for the top spot, taking two awards each. Canongate Books picked up prizes for Fastest Growing SME 300 Company and Most Focused Company. Prosource IT won Best Employer and Best Medium Company.

The event was hosted by comedian Fred MacAulay and speaker Charan Gill, the mastermind behind the Harlequin Restaurant Group.

The Applied Knowledge Exchange’s support of the SME 300 Awards comes hot on the heels of its sponsorship of ‘Scotland’s Business Oscars’ – the Insider Elite Awards 2009 in October. Principal of Glasgow Caledonian University, Professor Pamela Gillies, was a finalist in the prestigious Public Service Leader of the Year category.

Whether you are an SME, charity, multinational or public sector organisation, the Applied Knowledge Exchange can provide professional consultancy services, specialist research facilities, bespoke work-based learning opportunities, tailored to your business needs.

For further information contact Fiona Stewart-Knight.