The Open University

Bite-size marketing course is stepping stone to business qualification

8 July 2020

A new short course in marketing skills is launched by The Open University that can add up to a business management qualification. The microcredential Business Management: Marketing principles and practice is the first in a suite of new business management 10-credit courses launched on the OU’s FutureLearn platform. Together the six microcredentials will combine to […]

NMC approves the OU’s new Future Nurse curriculum

3 July 2020

Following an approval event held in March 2020, The Open University’s (OU) new Future Nurse curriculum has been formally approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). The OU has been delivering qualifying nursing programmes since 2002. Over 2,000 students have become registered nurses with the OU and a further 1,600 students are currently on […]

Not just a meadow…

3 July 2020

On the eve of National Meadows Day, David Gowing, Professor of Botany at The Open University, explains why floodplain meadows are important and not just a thing of beauty. Floodplain meadows are the kind of places you visit to reflect, reminisce and become inspired. They blossom in April, May and June and come alive with […]

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International scientists discover a pair of dancing planets

2 July 2020

An international team of scientists, including Professor Carole Haswell and Dr Ulrich Kolb of The Open University (OU), have discovered two, giant planets interacting near each other, in a gravitational dance. The planets, detected by the Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project, feel each other’s gravity and, as a result, speed up and slow […]

Survey reveals strong OU graduate employment results

30 June 2020

Results from the first Graduate Outcomes survey show OU graduates succeeding in the jobs market. More than three-quarters (76%) of OU graduates in the 2017/18 academic year were employed or doing voluntary work between 2018 and 2019, according to a new Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) study. The inaugural Graduate Outcomes survey also reveals that […]

OU Law students develop chatbots to support the public with domestic abuse, injunctions and legal aid

29 June 2020

Law students from The Open University have been working with legal automation platform, Josef, to develop a series of chatbots to support the public with legal issues such as domestic abuse and injunctions. The Open University’s Open Justice Centre has been working with Josef since February this year, making the OU the first UK university […]

Super-Earth planets detected orbiting nearby star

26 June 2020

A system of super-Earth planets – possibly rocky worlds, but larger than Earth – has been detected orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887. An international team of astronomers, including Professor Carole Haswell and Dr John Barnes of The Open University, made the discovery as part of Red Dots, a project to detect terrestrial planets close […]

Nkurunziza’s life and Burundian politics: beyond the mourning and controversies

24 June 2020

Astrid Jamar, Lecturer in Development at The Open University and Rene Claude Niyonkuru, Researcher at the Universite catholique de Louvain discuss President Pierre Nkurunziza – and his legacy – following his sudden death earlier this month at the age of 55. They explore how his personal and political trajectory was entangled with a long legacy […]

‘The OU helped me to become a published author!’

24 June 2020

“I always dreamed of becoming an author,” says OU graduate Shereen. “But it wasn’t something I realised again until I had taken time off from my banking career.” Shereen had been working in London’s Canary Wharf when she met her husband and took some time off to raise her family. After her break from banking, […]

Life inside Pluto? Hot birth may have created internal ocean on dwarf planet

23 June 2020

David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at The Open University, discusses what it means to discover internal oceans on Pluto and other planets in the solar system. Pluto, along with many other dwarf planets in the outer solar system, is often thought of as dark, icy and barren – with a surface temperature of just […]

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