A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
York, which was named University of the Year at last year’s awards, has been nominated in the Outstanding Engineering Research Team of the Year, Outstanding Support for Students and Entrepreneurial University of the Year categories.
The awards, now in their seventh year, represent a high profile opportunity to celebrate the excellence and achievements of UK higher education institutions and the winners of the 18 categories will be announced at a gala dinner on November 24 in London.
The Entrepreneurial University award recognises institutions whose environment and culture fosters enterprise thinking and also delivers significant entrepreneurial impact at regional, national and international levels.
Dr Mark Mortimer, the University’s Director of Research and Enterprise, said: “For over ten years, the University of York has fostered entrepreneurship among its students and staff. Working with the City Council, the university formed the UK’s first Science City initiative which has helped generate nearly 3,000 jobs and around 100 businesses.”
Through initiatives such as the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Enterprise (CETLE), the University has embedded entrepreneurship through the student experience. Over 70 per cent of academic departments offer modules which present enterprise concepts and all students can access accredited training in enterprise skills through the University’s certificate of personal development, the York Award.
Dr Mortimer added: “The University has supported many student entrepreneurs to establish their businesses alongside their studies. This has led to the formation and growth of York Entrepreneurs, a student society which has 1,400 members and which won the International Enterprise Educators Award in 2009 for Student Educators.”
Our approach is now being recognised as a beacon of good practice in the sector and the Open Door Team is regularly visited by other universities.
The Outstanding Support for Students award recognises an institution which helps students gain the maximum benefit from their study and the University of York received its nomination after its development of an innovative service – the Open Door Team – to support students experiencing emotional or mental health difficulties.
York’s Director of Student Support Services Steve Page said: “Since introduction, use has risen significantly with over 1,000 students benefiting annually and student needs being handled quickly with no waiting lists. 99 per cent of student clients say it has had a positive impact on their life as a student.
“Our approach is now being recognised as a beacon of good practice in the sector and the Open Door Team is regularly visited by other universities.”
The key characteristics include short notice appointments every weekday, follow-up intervention tailored to meet identified student needs, liaison with NHS and community or voluntary services in York and student’s home area, and treatment and support provided by a multidisciplinary team.
For the Outstanding Engineering Research Team of the Year, York’s Advanced Computer Architectures (ACA) group, part of the University’s Department of Computer Science, is one of six shortlisted research teams.
The award is designed to recognise a team whose innovative research has made, or has the potential to make, a far-reaching impact on its field and to catch the public’s imagination.
The Advanced Computer Architectures group’s work is based on ideas of how the brain works. Led by Professor Jim Austin, the team has successfully developed a breakthrough technology – AURA – which mimics the brain’s ability to make sense of massive amounts of data.
Professor Austin said: “In basic terms, AURA allows large, complex and unstructured data to be stored and searched. Uniquely it allows textual, image and signal information to be analysed quickly, despite the inherent problems in ‘real’ data – that they are incomplete, badly described and large in quantity.
“The main use has been to facilitate ‘find one like it’ searching which looks for patterns in past data similar to those found in current data to spot current and likely future events that have happened before.”
The team has worked with Rolls-Royce on Aero Engines, while teams using AURA in the Department for Transport have improved management of the road system. Its methods have proved so successful that the team has set up a spin-off company, Cybula Ltd, to develop the application of these ideas in areas including power generation, wind energy systems and medicine.
For a full account of the University of York's nominations, see the university website.
Full credit to Science City, Open Doors, ACA, York Entrepreneurs, CETLE and everyone else who hepled to get the nominations - and who will hopefully win some awards for the uni 
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