As we were blown away by your entries to our annual #WarwickAutumn photography and videography competition, we decided to launch another one this spring! Yes, #WarwickSpring2022 is here, and we can’t wait to see all your beautiful creations.

Get out and about, take in the fresh air and get snapping those spring scenes to be in with the chance of winning one of 6 LovetoShop Vouchers.

Find out how to enter and get involved.

Doing the weekly shop, or putting in your regular online delivery order, was something most of us took for granted until the COVID-19 crisis hit. Since the social distancing ‘lockdown’, something as basic as going shopping, or popping to the chemist to pick up a prescription, has become increasingly difficult to navigate for vulnerable and elderly people, as well as those who have found themselves in financial difficulty due to a reduced income.

Thankfully, dozens of community support initiatives have quickly sprung into action to support these groups, and many of our students and staff have been getting involved to help get food and assistance out to where it’s most needed.

Around 1,000 face masks, donated from Beijing to the University of Warwick, will be distributed to NHS key workers across Warwickshire.

A new autonomous guided vehicle (AGV) is being developed to transform the horticultural sector and tackle the labour shortage. The model which will work in glasshouse and outdoor areas moving trays and boxes around the production area, is being designed by researchers from WMG at the University of Warwick. The project is part of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board SmartHort programme, which aims to improve labour efficiencies through technology and automations.

The British Transplant Games are arriving in Coventry this summer, with our Sports and Wellness Hub one of the host venues. There will be a wide range of sports across campus including swimming, athletics, cycling and more. Learn more about the Games and organ donation, and register to take part.

Autonomous pods born in Coventry are now able to swarm together in a world first, thanks to research by WMG at the University of Warwick in partnership with Aurrigo and Milton Keynes council.

With the concept of driverless pods now more realistic than futuristic, the vehicles are one step closer to being put to use, as they can now help each other to drive and navigate through pedestrian areas around people.

An exciting addition to the University of Warwick’s sculpture collection has arrived on campus; Pollen Bomb by Joanne Risley - thanks to the generous support of award winning producer, director and Alumnus of the University, Lawrence Till.

Pollen Bomb joins the diverse range of sculptures available to enjoy and experience throughout Warwick’s central campus, which includes works by Richard Deacon, Atsuo Okamoto, David Nash, Laura Ellen Bacon, which was recently featured on the BBC’s Countryfile, and until October 2020 works by Jake and Dinos Chapman.

More than 500 people took part in the workshops, talks and activities organised by the University of Warwick for this year’s ESRC Festival of Social Science. University researchers took to Coventry and Warwickshire’s streets, bars and community centres to share insights from their work with enthusiastic and interested audiences. The events tackled topics from the nature of time itself and the puzzle of DNA to taxes and accents.

Dr Rachel Turner-King and a team of volunteers organised a pop-up Story Garden in Canley Community Centre, with four themed areas of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter representing different aspects of learning.

200 University of Warwick students are to be equipped with CPR skills thanks to a scheme that will see medical students train their fellow students and the local community in the lifesaving techniques.

The Warwickshire-based WPH Charitable Trust has announced a grant of £3,935 to support the training at Warwick Medical School, which will train medical students as instructors to share their skills and knowledge with 200 medical and life sciences students in a European Resuscitation Council certified course, and to provide practical CPR/ Automated External Defibrillator sessions for fellow students and staff across the University of Warwick campus.

Backed by the Resuscitation Council (UK), the training covers practical skills in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for adults, children and babies, use of an Automated External Defibrillator (that are now commonly found in the community) and dealing with major bleeding and choking.

Last year, 14 student instructors delivered a successful pilot of the scheme to 40 medical and life sciences students, 12 of whom will be subsequently trained to deliver CPR/AED teaching themselves. They will then provide CPR/AED training to 200 students from Warwick Medical School and School of Life Sciences in four courses over the next year. The student instructors will also help promote CPR/AED awareness in a number of sessions across campus and in the local community.

Warwick is pleased to announce we will be hosting the British Science Festival 2019, in partnership with The British Science Association. The British Science Festival is one of Europe’s longest-established science festivals, travelling each year to a new part of the UK, and is aimed at an adult audience with a broad but non specialist interest in science.

Academics from Warwick, and across the UK, will present, discuss and debate cutting-edge science from across the scientific disciplines, at a range of different events, performances and installations on campus and across the city between Tuesday 10 and Friday 13 September 2019.

We have now been granted planning permission for our hybrid planning application to the local authority (Coventry City Council) following the consultation we carried out on campus and with the local community earlier this year.

The application included requests for planning permission for nine projects on campus, including the new Faculty of Arts and Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research buildings as well as new student residences with up to 1,000 beds. The application also proposed to increase the maximum number of parking spaces on campus from 5,422 to 6,452, in line with Council parking standards to serve the net additional floor space. This will enable the construction of a new multi-storey car park at Gibbet Hill, relieving pressure on Warwick Medical School and the School of Life Sciences and helping to address car parking issues on local residential roads.

The University of Warwick is celebrating Coventry’s latest accolade - European City of Sport.

The City has been announced as winning the title European City of Sport 2019 after a successful bid was made this year by Coventry City Council and key partners including the University of Warwick.

The news comes after Coventry was named City of Culture 2021, in addition to helping to host the Commonwealth Games in 2022 which will be held in our region. The University of Warwick is currently developing a new multi-million pound Sport and Wellness Hub which is due for completion in 2019 and will create one of the best sports facilities at a UK university.

Following the city’s winning bid to become UK City of Culture, Coventry schoolchildren are taking part in a new competition to bring the idea of cultural exchange and shared heritage to life. The Two Chairs Creative Writing competition, which is open to all across the UK invites people to see the world from the ‘other’ perspective.

Inspired by the Hafez-Goethe Monument of two empty chairs, the competition was started by Dr James Hodkinson of the University of Warwick and asks entrants to write and submit pieces in English or German, whether they be poems, short stories or prose, that express what the chairs say to them.

Prizes of £250 will be awarded to the winners of the Under 18 and Over 18 categories in both English in German.

The Education Secretary Justine Greening has announced that the University of Warwick has been awarded around a quarter of a million pounds from its new Higher Education Funding Council for England administered Degree Apprenticeships Development Fund. The university will use this to create a half million pound package to develop around 100 new degree apprenticeships each year.

The first 80 degree apprenticeships (in Civil Engineering and Social Work) will join the University of Warwick in 2018, with a further 100 new degree apprenticeships joining in 2019 and 120 in 2020. This will be in addition to around 400 apprentices in manufacturing engineering degree programmes that are already studying and working with WMG at the University of Warwick.