The Open University

OU celebrates students and climate action with tree planting

22 April 2022

The OU has had its first tree planting day to celebrate its research students and to demonstrate its commitment to climate action. This is part of an evidence-backed initiative which means the OU Graduate School plants a tree for each research student who graduates, in either the Forest of Marston Vale or in Malawi, through […]

Step forward for OU’s project to monitor trees from space

7 April 2022

TreeView, a project led by the OU to monitor and classify trees from space, has progressed to a new stage in its goal of supporting climate and nature recovery. The project aims to provide data and insights into the UK treescape and those of other countries. In its preliminary stages, the small satellite mission is looking […]

Pluto: ‘recent’ volcanism raises puzzle – how can such a cold body power eruptions?

30 March 2022

By David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University: Pluto, the Solar System’s largest dwarf planet, just became even more interesting with a report that icy lava flows have recently covered substantial tracts of its surface. In this context, “recently” means probably no more than a billion years ago. That’s old, of course – […]

Nuclear energy research to boost innovation and reduce risk

24 March 2022

The risk and cost of developing new nuclear energy technologies could be reduced, thanks to a new research project bringing together scientists from the UK and India, including experts from The Open University. The four-year project – called Enhanced Methodologies for Advanced Nuclear System Safety (EMEANSS) – will use experimental data and machine learning to […]

OU and partners secure funding boost for pioneering space projects

18 March 2022

Three projects involving the OU’s space scientists will receive a quarter of the UK Space Agency’s (UKSA) latest investment in the British space industry. The UKSA announced the £500k funding during British Science Week (11-20 March). The OU projects are among 13 it is backing to “help pioneer new approaches to energy, communications and resources.” The […]

Head of OU lab wins prestigious international award for excellence

15 March 2022

The Head of the OU’s Laboratory Facilities, Julia Barkans, has won an international award in ‘Excellence in Lab Leadership’. Lab Manager’s Leadership Excellence Awards serve to recognise individuals who demonstrate exceptional leadership and management skills within their scientific organisations. The Leadership Excellence Awards programme was launched by Lab Manager in 2022. The competition invited industry […]

The OU academic breaking down barriers for visually impaired people in the creative industry

11 March 2022

Inclusivity driven OU academic, Dr Lisa Bowers, has discussed her collaboration MakeActive, an exploration into using touch in creative industries to aid blind or visually impaired people. As part of British Science Week, Dr Bowers and Dr Alastair Barrow, CEO and co-founder of Generic Robotics Ltd. will be presenting their project in an online discussion […]

The original climate crisis – how the little ice age devastated early modern Europe

9 March 2022

By Ariel Hessayon, Reader in Early Modern History, Goldsmiths, University of London and Dan Taylor, Lecturer in Social and Political Thought, The Open University Just as the UK was recovering from storms Eunice and Franklin, scientists of UN’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report warning of a future with spiralling […]

OU student launches website to improve understanding and detection of online misogyny towards Black women

8 March 2022

An Open University (OU) PhD student has launched the first-ever research platform to capture the particular intersection of misogyny and racial oppression experienced by Black women online. Joseph Kwarteng, a second-year PhD student in the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute (KMI), has launched Misogynoir Online, a website that invites Black women to share their stories of […]

Computer hacker silhouette of hooded man with binary data and network security terms. Thinkstock

Ukraine: as cyber security risks grow – how can we protect ourselves?

4 March 2022

In an increasingly digital society, both individuals and businesses rely quite heavily on digital technologies. The increasing number of cyber security threats and attacks are potentially devastating both to individuals and businesses. This threat has worsened since the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Here, Dr Chitra Balakrishna, Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security at the […]

OU News

Category: Science, maths, computing and technology