Key Events:

• Dance Yourself Fit: A high-energy dance fitness class suitable for all levels will take place on Monday 12 May, 12.00pm to 1.00pm in Minor Hall, PEC, Training Room. Find out more and register here.
  
  
• Tropical Ravine Tour: Explore the historic Tropical Ravine building in Botanic Gardens on Tuesday 13 May, with tours taking place at 12.00pm and 1.00pm. Find out more and register here.
  
  
• Wellbeing Fair: Browse wellbeing stalls from Inspire, Jora Clinic and Sleep Medical NI and enjoy free hand massages and prize giveaways on Wednesday 14 May, 10.00am to 1.00pm in Main Site Tower at Junction. Additionally, Freedom Cycles will be exploring the social, health, environmental, and economic advantages of cycling, and providing complimentary bike checks. Find out more and register here.
  
  
• Games on the Quad: Bring a team and compete in a range of games including badminton, bean bag tossing, a mini obstacle race, and ball games, with prizes to be won on Thursday 15 May, 12.30pm to 2.00pm on the Quad. These games will be facilitated by Queen's Sport, who will be available on the day to share information about the range of activities they offer. Find out more and register here.
  
  
• Staff Giveaway: After taking part in the Quad games, a free ice cream or slushie will be available for the first 100 people who sign up via the link below on Thursday 15 May from 12.30pm to 2.00pm. Staff will be able to collect their tokens from the Wellbeing team on the day in the Quad. Please register here.

Please contact the Staff Wellbeing team for further information or queries: staffwellbeing@qub.ac.uk.

To find out more, visit the Centre for Educational Development Assessment page where you can:

• watch our user demo to see what kinds of things you can ask;
• find out what resources the chatbot uses to provide information;
• try out the chatbot itself

* Please note, this Assessment Chatbot is a prototype in its pilot phase. It will respond differently based on the questions asked. If you encounter any issues, please use the feedback form provided in the chatbot.

The Ripple Effect explores how we can all create change through inspiring conversations with Queen’s staff, expert insights, and practical tips for a more sustainable future.

In ‘Wild Ideas – Biodiversity at Queen’s’, we’ll be chatting with inspiring individuals immersed in the world around us, as they share their innovative projects, and we uncover the magic of our planet’s rich biodiversity. In this episode, Alice is joined by Rachel Vaughan, Sustainability Programme Officer at Queen’s, and Nicole Hempkin, Environmental Assistant at Queen’s Student and Campus Experience.

Participants will meet at Freedom Cycles (behind Queen's Administration Building) for 2.00pm. The bike ride will last from 2.00pm to 4.00pm. If needed, bikes and/or helmets can be provided; please contact Tim at Freedom Cycles for information.

Benefits of being part of a sports team

• Physical fitness: stay active, strong, and healthy.
• Mental wellness reduces stress & boosts confidence.
• Teamwork skills: learn cooperation, trust and communication.
• Discipline and time management: build structure, responsibility, and focus.
• Leadership opportunities: step up, lead, and inspire others.
• Goal setting and motivation: push limits and grow through challenges.
• Community and belonging: create bonds, pride, and local spirit.
• Academic and career boost: better focus, scholarships, and future success!

About the campaign

'Find Your Movement', led by Queen’s Sport and QUBeWell, is a university-wide initiative to encourage both students and staff to incorporate more movement into their daily lives through whatever activity they enjoy.

How you can get involved 

• Talk about the campaign and spread the word among students and colleagues (eg by sharing Queen's Sport's social media posts).
• Join an Active Campus programme.
• Create and capture content.
• Get moving – the best way to create change is to lead by example!

More information

Launched on Thursday 13 March, this eight-week campaign features a new video each week, showcasing a variety of accessible and enjoyable movement activities, including gardening, yoga, and walking. Whether you're looking to try something new or simply stay active, there's something for everyone!

Nightingale Holistic Therapies' goal is to provide quality, affordable massage to staff, with an aim to help staff destress and rejuvenate during the working day.

This exhibition charts the development of Queen’s over the past 180 years. Included amongst the items is the original Charter from 1845 establishing Queen’s College Belfast, historic photographs of Queen’s people and Queen’s buildings, and copies of various student publications.

The team knows from student focus groups that academic staff play a crucial role in sharing this information. Students expect to hear about support from their lecturers and tutors, and staff recommendations can have a real impact on engagement.

To support this, the Assessment Support Hub has a range of resources available, including:

• On the Hub Project Site: a bank of promotional materials and staff testimonials on how they have embedded the Hub in their student support.
• Other resources:
  • Merchandise, such as QR code cards and laptop stickers, to help raise awareness.
  • A number of student ambassadors are available to run pop-up stands across campus to help raise awareness of the Hub and answer student questions. If your School or service would be interested in hosting a stand in your building, please get in touch with Michaeline at Michaeline.donnelly@qub.ac.uk. 

By encouraging students to engage with the Hub, we can help ensure they feel more informed, confident, and supported during what can be a stressful period.

• Doing what matters most… to stay within the “Overton window”, by Professor John Barry

To contribute an article to Queen's Policy Engagement, please email Kevin at qpol@qub.ac.uk.

• Do cats make good therapy animals? The new trend showing felines may be more complicated than we realise, by Dr Grace Carroll
• AI is inherently ageist. That's not just unethical – it can be costly for workers and businesses, by Dr Sajia Ferdous
• How Brexit hardened attitudes about the Irish border – and why things might be changing, by Professor Orla Muldoon (Queen's University Belfast) and Dr Catriona Shelly (University of Limerick)
• Ethiopia’s 2026 elections: without reforms, the vote may not be free or fair, by Dr Bizuneh Yimenu

• In Pictures: Reach'25 Arts and Sustainability Festival
• KN Cheung SK Chin InterSim Centre appoints three new Fellows
• Transcript: A video message from our Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
• Queen’s celebrates generating £50m and over 500 jobs through major partnership scheme
• Queen’s Reach'25 festival amplifies the power of art in tackling climate crisis
• Customer Service Excellence Accreditation 2025 for Queen's Library

In this lecture, Professor Tracey will explore the connections between neuroscience and religious belief to help us better understand the relationship between religion and the human.

About the Speaker

Professor Irene Tracey is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience. For the past 25 years, Professor Tracey has been a world leader in furthering our understanding of pain perception, relief, and processing using advanced neuroimaging techniques and novel paradigm designs. Her work has both discovery and translational elements and has contributed to a fundamental change in how we view pain as an emergent experience not simply related to sensory inputs. Professor Tracey is a passionate advocate for women in science, has served on a range of national and international committees, and is the recipient of numerous awards for medical research, including her appointment in 2022 as Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The McCosh Lecture 2025 is presented by the Religious Studies Research Forum.

More information

This lecture will address a problem in Pierre Bourdieu's conception of "three forms of capital": material, cultural, and social. As scholars have noted, Bourdieu extensively discusses cultural capital, and has comparatively little to say about social capital. Through proposing a theory of social capital as a form of "knowing”, this talk will apply Bourdieu’s theory to an analysis of F Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (1925), with the aim of establishing the relation between cultural capital and social capital as two forms of "knowing". This relation correlates Gatsby's desire for social capital, which he uses to pursue Daisy Buchanan, as part of Fitzgerald's bid for the text’s canonical status as a "great" American novel. 

Image credit: Arrow Collar Ad (1914), Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874 - 1951).

The UK-wide Festival aims to open up social science research to new audiences by showing how this research has an influence on our everyday lives. 

The theme for this year's Festival is ‘Our Working Lives’; however, proposals aren’t limited to fitting the festival theme. Successful applicants will be awarded up to £750 for their event.

An online information session introducing the Festival will be held on Thursday 8 May at 12:00pm. Colleagues interested in attending should contact: esrciaa@qub.ac.uk.

More information

This series will provide a basic introduction to conventional microscopy techniques – covering the theoretical and practical aspects of optical and electron microscopy – as well as some of the history behind them and their applications. Image analysis and sample preparation will also be explored.

Participants can attend individual seminars or the entire series; however it is recommended participants take all seminars to gain a deeper understanding of different microscopy techniques and their applications. Prior knowledge of microscopy or image analysis is not required, as each seminar will start with the basics and progress towards more advanced concepts.

• Seminar details
  1. Monday 12 May: Microscopy basics
     • Components of a microscope
     • Light, wavelength, photons
     • Objectives lenses
     • Spherical and chromatic aberrations
     • Brightfield microscopy pathology and normal
     • Phase contrast microscopy
     • DIC (Differential Interference Contrast) microscopy
     • Holographic imaging
  2. Monday 19 May: Fluorescence
     • Fluorescence definition
     • Jablonski diagram
     • Dyes
     • Detection filters
     • Camera
     • Widefield microscopy-epifluorescence
     • Light sheet microscopy: applications
     • Applications: life imaging of cells; calcium imaging
  3. Monday 26 May: Optical sectioning microscopy
     • Optical Resolution
     • Confocal microscopy - single point microscopy
     • Spinning disk confocal microscopy
     • Multi-photon microscopy
     • Free label imaging: Second harmonic generation
     • FRET, FRAP, FLIM
     • Spectral detection
  4. Monday 2 June: Super-resolution microscopy
     • Darkfield microscopy
     • TIRF - Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence microscopy
     • SIM - Structured Illumination Microscopy
     • STED - Stimulated Emission Depletion
     • PALM - Photoactivated localization microscopy
     • STORM - Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy
     • MINFLUX - MINimizing fluorescence FLUXes
  5. Monday 9 June: Electron microscopy
     • Transmission electron microscopy
     • Scanning Electron microscopy
     • Cryo electron microscopy
     • Volume electron microscopy
     • Liquid transmission electron microscopy
     • CLEM: Correlative Light Electron Microscopy
  6. Monday 16 June: Image analysis
     • This seminar will provide a basic introduction to image analysis including common tools, approaches, and considerations that are important for achieving accurate results.
     • Learning objectives:
       • Know what an image is, how imaging data is stored (bit depth, file types), and what information can be retrieved from images.
       • Recognize common image analysis software.
       • Understand common processing techniques and methods of analysis.
       • Conduct basic batch processing.
  7. Monday 23 June: Sample preparations
     • Tissue fixation (low temperature and chemical fixation)
     • Tissue processing and paraffin tissue processing
     • Staining (H&E, staining in histopathology, antigen retrieval)
     • Immunohistochemistry (IHC)
     • Equipment we have available - sectioning and staining, coverslipper and scanner
     • Recent developments and applications
• Learning outcomes
  • Gain knowledge of microscopy and image analysis, enabling participants to choose the correct technique for their research question
  • Develop a thorough understanding of optical resolution and magnification
  • Learn about artefacts in microscopy and how to avoid them
  • Understand the different imaging modalities and their applications in biomedical or engineering research.
  • Learn about sample preparations

• Workshop: Creativity in Cultural Peace Work: Opportunities and Challenges, Thursday 15 May, 12.00pm to 4.00pm, Moot Court, School of Law
• Athena Swan 2025 SSESW Lecture: Legitimising Othering, Reproducing Privilege: A Self-Reflexive Account of a ‘New Indian (Hindu)’ Feminist, Wednesday 28 May, 12.00pm to 1.00pm, Canada Room
• Lecture: What Feminists Reveal When They Investigate Masculinities: The Case of Military ‘Manpower’, Tuesday 17 June, 6.00pm to 7.30pm, Canada Room and Council Chamber, Lanyon Building
• Conference: Reforming Legal and Policy Responses to Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual Violence, Thursday 19 and Friday 20 June, 9.30am to 4.30pm, The Great Hall

• Yoga Sessions for Postdocs and Research Staff, Wednesdays 7 and 14 May, and Mondays 9 and 26 May, 6.00pm to 7.00pm, Canada Room/Council Chamber
• Careers in the Public Sector, Tuesday 10 June, 9.30am to 1.30pm (including networking lunch), Mandela Hall

• Fréwaka
• CQAF: I Am Martin Parr + Q&A
• Pride & Prejudice
• The Graceless Age: The Ballad of John Murry
• The Ugly Stepsister
• Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story
• Four Mothers
• Chantal Akerman at QFT
• Björk: Cornucopia
• Ocean with David Attenborough
• Tall Tales: Mark Pritchard & Thom Yorke
• Riefenstahl
• The Surfer
• The Wedding Banquet
• NI Mental Health Arts Festival: Verdigris + Q&A
• Doc'n Roll Films Presents: We Are Fugazi from Washington, D.C.

Staff tickets are priced at £7.50. Staff and students aged 26 and under can join LUMI to get tickets for £5.00 every day, all year round.

• • Workshop 1, Monday 12 May, 2.00pm to 5.00pm
  • Workshop 2, Tuesday 13 May, 2.00pm to 5.00pm

More information

• Caoilinn Hughes at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival: Award-winning writer and SHC graduate Caoilinn Hughes joins us to discuss her work, and her latest novel, The Alternatives. 
• Theresa Lola at Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival: CQAF and The Seamus Heaney Centre welcomes award-winning British-Nigerian poet and writer Theresa Lola to Belfast to read from and discuss her latest poetry collection, Ceremony for the Nameless. 
• Workshops: Surviving as a Writer, with Jan Carson: SHC Fellow, and Belfast-based prizewinning writer and community arts facilitator, Jan Carson leads a practical course on 'Surviving as a Writer' in two half-day sessions. Participants are encouraged to sign up to both sessions, but it is not necessary to attend both.

The Seamus Heaney Centre is open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00am to 4.00pm.

For further information, please contact Dr Donna Rogers, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Public Engagement Manager: d.rogers@qub.ac.uk. 

More information

(Don’t) Trust the Data

Join data researchers from Groundswell, the Cancer Research Group at the Centre for Public Health, and the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland (ADRC NI), for an opportunity to learn about some of the ways in which data are used for research in public health. Challenge the panel with questions around how data can improve our lives, and test your knowledge of data at the mini pub quiz (spot prizes available).

Mission Possible – A Pint of Drones, Agentic AI and LoRaWAN

Join researchers from the Innovation by Design Lab, School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, for three talks and a live demonstration of creative activities using drones, AI agents and LoRaWAN, and free pizza.

We will share insights into the artistic sides of autonomous aerial and ground vehicles and tag them with programming, run creative exercises of programming vehicles to draw on canvas for aerial and ground drones and also share insights into agentic AI, bid-free procurements, and how agents can be trained towards Agent as a Service (AaaS). Finally, we will give an overview of LoRaWAN, our Horizon funded project.

Through this rewarding voluntary role, successful applicants will:

• meet new people from their course and school;
• be eligible for Queen’s Future-Ready Award;
• gain leadership, teamwork, and communication skills;
• improve the experience for current and future students.

* This toolkit includes a PowerPoint slide that can be displayed at the beginning of a lecture, social media graphics, social media copy and text for an email that can be sent to students, as well as other useful assets.

At this event talented students will compete under the theme 'Dare to Change' for the chance to present their ideas at Northern Ireland's prestigious TEDx Black Mountain event on 26 June 2025.

Please feel free to contact the University Safety Service at safety@qub.ac.uk should you have any queries or training requirements.

More information

This session offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Queen’s is working to embed sustainability into the curriculum across all areas of the university. Organisers will be be test-running a session developed for the HEA Ireland Spotlight on Sustainability series, showcasing Queen's top-down and bottom-up approach to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

Whether you are in a teaching role, work in professional services, or support student learning in other ways, you are very welcome to join.

ESD can look very different depending on the context and every subject area touches on key sustainability issues, from social justice and health to ethics, climate, and beyond.

This is a great opportunity to hear what’s happening across Queen’s, reflect on your own practice, and contribute to shaping our approach.

For more information, please contact Natalie Le Seelleur or Dr Alison Calvert.

At this workshop, the facilitators will focus on equipping participants with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively support and guide our students. Through interactive sessions and collaborative discussions, participants will gain valuable insights and practical tools to enhance their advising practice.

This course has been designed to support staff in meeting the requirements of the QAA and professional accrediting bodies to embed entrepreneurial education within the curriculum. Any module which requires students to generate ideas to solve a problem could benefit from incorporating aspects of entrepreneurial education, providing a structure to that process.

• Beyond the Technology Podcast: Queen's progress in digital transformation has been featured in a Jisc podcast episode exploring how AI is transforming education: Beyond the Technology: AI, Innovation, and the Future of Learning at Queen’s University Belfast.
• Jisc Report: How to Approach Digital Transformation in Higher Education. Jisc’s newly published report highlights the key success factors for digital transformation, drawing on insights from universities, including Queen’s. The findings demonstrate how institutions can integrate digital technologies, such as AI, to enhance teaching, learning, and strategic planning. Queen's involvement in the project is highlighted in a video case study, which showcases the institutional co-creation of a new AI Strategy for Queen’s, supported by Jisc’s digital transformation toolkit.
• The AI Hub's AI Building Blocks training series explores the fundamentals of AI and its applications across higher education.