Working Together

Solutions to important problems depend increasingly upon collaboration: between staff and students, across disciplines and in partnership with others locally, nationally and internationally. We aim to build inclusive teams, maximising the benefits of difference and drawing on the skills and potential of the widest possible range of colleagues.

Entertaining, engaging, stimulating debate

Arts-Science Encounters is an annual series of public events combining the aesthetic with the scientific. This unique series engages artists and scientists in public dialogue to shed light on the links between the two disciplines.

The series makes a strong contribution to the city's vision of creative and cultural excellence. Each encounter is designed to entertain and to stimulate debate:

For Darwin, Creativity and Truth, the poet Ruth Padel, Darwin's great-great-grand-daughter, and the historian Mark Greengrass explored the connections between science and poetry. In the Cellist and the Brain Scientist, Bernard Gregor-Smith (Dante Quartet) played pieces by Bach and talked about his evolving approach to music. Professor Lawrence Parsons (Psychology) talked about performance and emotion from the point of view of the brain.

Arts-Science Encounters attract members of the public, University staff and students. Ideas are illuminated. New research collaborations are initiated. At venues - often sold out - in the city and on campus, our academics appear alongside renowned artists from around the world.

Students of the real world

We work with business and industry to ensure our students benefit from an education that combines academic excellence with practical skills. The Department of Mechanical Engineering's Technology Strategy and Business Planning module is one example of this approach.

The module enables final-year engineering students to collaborate with partners from business and industry, including manufacturers, marketers and bankers. The students develop solutions to real commercial problems and write accompanying business plans.

Many of their ideas are developed into prototypes and functional products. For example, a walking frame for children with brittle bones was designed by engineering students and is now being used by Sheffield Children's Hospital. This kind of real-world experience puts our students ahead of the game when it comes to applying for jobs.

"The business planning module is in my view a shining example of how to give students an awareness of the way that academic knowledge needs to be combined with practical application and business knowledge in order to achieve success in the demanding 21st-century marketplace."

Peter Crawford
Taylor & Emmett