Wolfson postgrad exchange opens

The Wolfson Research Exchange was finally opened this month by Sir Brian Follet, the Chair of the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA).

This initiative aims to further reaffirm the University’s commitment to collaborative and inter-disciplinary focused research between Warwick’s many departments and research students.

The Wolfson Foundation, under its CURL/RLUK libraries program, is in part funding the facility, one of the first of its kind in the UK.

The Foundation supports projects across the fields of science and technology, medical research and health, education and the arts, currently allocating some £35 million per annum.

The facility hopes to provide an innovative approach to research and learning, and will offer a number of different environments in which researchers can collaborate.

The Research Exchange’s founding principle, the reciprocal exchange of ideas, meant there was a lot of input from groups of researches in the planning process.

The design includes an open-plan collaborative study space, quieter and more formal study accommodation, social and break-out spaces, and three bookable seminar rooms for research-focused workshops, conferences and other events.

The seminar rooms also feature a retractable wall to allow for larger groups and include wireless internet access throughout.

There, have, however, been concerns raised by a number of students over the space this will take up on the third floor.

One student commented, saying: “I think that it was a bad decision to place this inside the library, it will only serve to take up more space and reduce the number of study spaces and make things worse for everyone.”

As many students have experienced, the library can at times get extremely crowded, especially during exam time.

A reduction in study spaces, they say, will only serve to exacerbate the situation in a library already teeming with students.

Postgraduates, however, point to the advantages, saying that a facility dedicated to their work and research would be good since most of the facilities are geared towards undergraduates.