Liv Design's Creative Director judges Leicester Postgraduates

Liv Design's Creative Director, Scott Johnson, took part in the University of Leicester's Festival of Postgraduate Research on Thursday 16th June 2011. The annual event sees a wide range of business leaders, professionals and academics from across the region invited to judge Postgraduate students, alongside judges from the University of Leicester. The judging panel consisted of a wide range of judges from business and education including Honda UK, Grant Thornton, De Montfort University and the University of Warwick.

Deborah Alawo (Cardiovascular Sciences) and her work 
'The lego-ization of biology using systems and synthetic biology'

The event, the 7th of its kind, aims to widen the range of skills of Postgraduate students as part of their business, research and personal development. Fifty Postgraduate researchers were tasked with presenting their research to the judges at the exhibition which was then opened to the public. The researchers were asked to consider the real world implications of their research and to present it in an engaging and accessible way. The Postgraduate students were marked on their ability to effectively communicate their research to non-specialists and on their presentation skills.

Hussein N Raibey (Cardiovascular Sciences) and his work 'Dissecting Mechanisms of 

Information Transfer within a Cardiac Potassium Channel'

Scott Johnson, Creative Director at Liv Design, summed up the event: "I was very happy to be involved in the University of Leicester's Festival of Postgraduate Research. Being invited to take part as a judge was a real privilege and very exciting. I met a number of very talented and engaging students who have clearly benefited from their studies and development at Leicester. It's great to see that the University of Leicester is working hard with their students provide them with the right skills necessary for a professional business research career when they graduate. It's important to remember that by investing in our students we are creating our next generation of researchers, employees and businesses."

Judging took place in the morning, followed by a brief tour of some of the University's facilities including the new award-winning library.

The atrium sculpture at the University of Leicester's award-winning library

The Awards presentation took place in the afternoon with the judging results and a keynote speech by Douglas Halliday, an award-winning academic and previous Dean of Durham University. The overall winner was Nathan Dickinson (Department of Physics and Astronomy) who will now go on to take part in a regional event against other Universities. The full list of the winners can be found at the University of Leicester's website.

Liv Design would like to thank the University of Leicester for the invitation to take part, and would like to congratulate the winners and all the student researchers who took part in the Festival.