The world’s at your doorstep
A specially created animation will show how Sheffield is connected to the rest of the world more today than it has ever been, as part of the Festival of the Mind in the city this month.
The unique film, titled A City In Context, will be shown for the first time in the 1920s cabaret-style Spiegeltent – a large travelling tent decorated with mirrors and stained glass – in Barkers Pool on Tuesday, 25 September, 2012 at 4.30pm.
Professor Danny Dorling of the University of Sheffield’s Department of Geography, in collaboration with colleague Ben Hennig and Carl Lee of Sheffield College, provided data from their research which was translated into the innovative video by local design team Humanstudio.
It is hoped the video will show Sheffield’s place in the wider world and educate people on the importance of the thousands of overseas students living in the city.
Professor Dorling said: “Sheffield is in touch with the rest of the world more now than it’s ever been. We are trying to show the connections between global geography and local geography.”
The video begins by showing the audience where the thousands of over-seas students come to Sheffield from, using data from the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield College.
“There’s effectively three institutions in the city and they all attract over-seas students,” added Professor Dorling. “All together there’s about 10,000 non-EU students and it’s seen a dramatic rise recently. In total they spend more than £250,000,000 in the Sheffield city region. It’s big and it’s vital. We are really fortunate that this boom in numbers has come at the time the economic crash happened.
“The second part of the video is on house prices in the city and how they have changed in relation to the boom in over-seas students staying in the city. Overseas students have helped to keep the Sheffield housing market from crashing.”
The video then flows into schools and education, revealing that while pupils from more affluent homes in Sheffield tend to more often get the best grades at GCSE there is still great local variation in exams rates. The graphics then shifts focus from education to issues of health and life expectancy.
For more information this and other events during Festival of the Mind please visit: http://festivalofthemind.group.shef.ac.uk.
Additional information
Festival of the Mind is a collaboration between the city and the University of Sheffield which will showcase the University’s cultural strengths by bringing together research staff from the University and the cultural and creative industries in the city, through a series of high impact knowledge exchange partnerships. The Festival of the Mind is for everyone - the general public, academic colleagues and the professional and cultural quarter.
Five themes have been identified for the Festival of the Mind to enable individuals to highlight cross-cutting research which can be linked to outreach and wider collaboration in the city: Magic, Space, Identity, City and Craft.
The Festival will also mark the official launch of Civic University, a celebration of the University’s strong connections in the city and its founding principles to put knowledge to work for the good of others. This practical approach inspires collaboration across subject areas and with individuals, businesses and organisations beyond the University to solve the more pressing problems we face, both close to home and around the world. Events take place between 20–30 September 2012. For further information and the full programme, visit: Festival of the Mind.
Follow Festival of the Mind on Twitter @FestivalMind #FestivalMind or visit our Facebook page.
The University of Sheffield
With nearly 25,000 students from 125 countries, the University of Sheffield is one of the UK’s leading and largest universities. A member of the Russell Group, it has a reputation for world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines. The University of Sheffield has been named University of the Year in the Times Higher Education Awards for its exceptional performance in research, teaching, access and business performance. In addition, the University has won four Queen’s Anniversary Prizes (1998, 2000, 2002, and 2007).
These prestigious awards recognise outstanding contributions by universities and colleges to the United Kingdom’s intellectual, economic, cultural and social life. Sheffield also boasts five Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and many of its alumni have gone on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence around the world. The University’s research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, Slazenger, and many more household names, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.
The University has well-established partnerships with a number of universities and major corporations, both in the UK and abroad. Its partnership with Leeds and York Universities in the White Rose Consortium has a combined research power greater than that of either Oxford or Cambridge.
Contact
For more information please contact:
Paul Mannion
Media Relations Officer
The University of Sheffield
0114 222 9851
p.f.mannion@sheffield.ac.uk