A transcript is available here.

Plus, be among the first to see acclaimed street artist Zippy create a brand-new artwork live at the event, celebrating 180 years of Queen's with spray paint!

1. Cash Advances: The university will now only offer cash advances when expenses exceed £1,000. A further change eliminates the need for staff to write and request cash advances ahead of entering requests online, cutting down administrative burdens. Staff will still be required to reconcile any advances upon return.
   
   
2. Subsistence – Receipts Basis: To clarify previously ambiguous language, the policy now includes specific monetary values for meals. If a staff member exceeds these amounts, they will cover the difference.
   
   
3. Subsistence Allowances – Daily Rate: The university has adopted the highest allowable HMRC subsistence rates and specific international guidelines are now included. This change ensures that staff travelling abroad will have access to appropriate meal allowances.
   
   
4. Other Transport: A new provision now includes reimbursement for late-night taxi journeys in accordance with HMRC guidelines, providing staff with more flexibility when travelling for university business.
   
   
5. Ineligible Expenditures: The updated policy now explicitly excludes claims for computer hardware and repairs, unless they are required for official university business and while travelling, as well as travel lounges and vouchers.

* The update was shaped by real examples from Queen’s University staff claims and aims to optimise staff reimbursements and reduce unnecessary red tape. These changes are aimed at reducing confusion, streamlining procedures, and ensuring fairness across the board.

Staff members are encouraged to review the updated Staff Expenses policy, available on the university's intranet, before embarking on any upcoming trips.

• For further guidance please see Claiming Expenses SharePoint page.

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.
  
  
• 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.
  
  
• Wellbeing Fair: Browse wellbeing stalls from Queen's Active Campus, 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.
  
  
• Games on the Quad: On Thursday 15 May, 12.30pm to 2.00pm 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. Games will be facilitated by Queen's Sport Active Campus team, who will be available on the day to share information about the range of activities they offer.

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

The Belfast Business Promise is an accreditation recognising business practices delivering added value to society through employment, procurement and working in partnership with communities.

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 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.

These events offer a welcoming space for everyone, including refugees and asylum seekers, to enjoy tea, coffee, pastries, and, most importantly, gain access to useful information. 

Across May and June, the team will cover topics such as moving on from the asylum system, employability skills and entrepreneurial opportunities, Northern Ireland history, society and culture, and more.

To get involved, please contact Federica and Maurice in the Civic Engagement team, at civicengagement@qub.ac.uk.

• 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.

• What have the Democrats achieved in Trump's first 100 days?, by Dr Richard Hargy
• 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).

This event is open to anyone with an interest in climate change, international development, global citizenship, climate justice, climate activism and sustainability.

This event is presented by the Coalition of Aid and Development Agencies in Northern Ireland (CADA), in partnership with the Institute for Global Food Security.

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.

The series is for anyone interested in diversifying their research or those who want to improve their microscopy knowledge and learn about what is new in the discipline. 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 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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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

• 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

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.

• Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story
• Riefenstahl
• The Surfer
• Chantal Akerman at QFT
• Flow
• E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea
• Hallow Road
• Magic Farm
• The Marching Band
• Gama Bomb - Survival of the Fastest + Q&A

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.

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• Reading Seamus Heaney: Seeing Things: The Reading Seamus Heaney series continues with a discussion of the 1991 collection 'Seeing Things', with guest speaker Padraig Regan.

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

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'All That We Have Built' examines the profound impact of environmental destruction and ecological changes on the collective experience of catastrophe and uninhabitability. Through their individual practices, both artists challenge us to reconsider our relationship to the environment, questioning how natural and human-made landscapes shape and disrupt our lives. Together, Hassanain and Koch offer a powerful reminder that the environmental crises we face are not distant or abstract – they are immediate, urgent realities. Their work challenges us to engage deeply with these pressing issues and reflect on the vulnerability of both our built and natural environments.

Find out more on Reboot here.

Whether it’s training, conferences, mentoring, networking, or other development activities, your insights will help shape future support initiatives and help others to use their development days to enhance their career development.

For more information, contact pdc@qub.ac.uk.

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

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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.