diolchThe magazine for Cardiff University donors 2015

www.cardiff.ac.uk/support

Inside:4 Santander’s gift to

Cardiff students

6 Unlocking thebrain’s secrets

8 News in brief

10 A helping hand

ChangingLivesEvery penny goes straight to your chosen cause

30,000+undergraduate andpostgraduate students

6,602 internationalstudents from over135 countries

8,700+ studentsgraduate every year

Nearly 200,000alumni in 190 countries

Member of theRussell Group of Universitiesand ranked in the top five

for research quality and impactamong UK universities

(Research Excellence Framework 2014)

Over 3,210 donors from45 countries worldwide

Our alumni donors graduatedbetween 1934 and 2014; our oldestsupporter is 97 years old and theyoungest is a current student

CardiffUniversity

91%

9% come from trusts, foundationsand corporations

of gifts come from individuals(55% are men, 45% are women)

Since 2006, Cardiff University’ssupporters have been deeplygenerous.More than £12m donated including:

� £4.7m for Research� £3.2m for Academic Schools� £2.6m for Scholarships� more than £800,000 for

Facilities� more than £600,000 given for

the University to allocate tostudent and research initiatives

Home to one of the largeststudent volunteering organisations

in the UK

Diolch!

Cardiff University, Development and Alumni Relations Division, Deri House, 2-4 Park Grove, Cardiff CF10 3BNT: +44 (0)29 2087 6473 E: donate@cardiff.ac.uk www.cardiff.ac.uk/donateEditor: Shayoni Lynn Design: The Info GroupUnless otherwise indicated, copyright of this publication belongs to Cardiff University. This document can bemade available in alternative formats upon request. This document is available in Welsh; to request your copyin Welsh, please email us at alumni@cardiff.ac.uk

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In December 2014 the results of the latest assessment of UKuniversity research, the Research Excellence Framework(REF), were announced, and it was great news for Cardiff.Amongst UK universities, we rank fifth for quality, keepingcompany with Imperial College London, LSE, Oxford andCambridge. We rank second in the UK on the impact measurewhich assesses the significance and reach of our research.

This is an exceptional achievement forCardiff University. In 2012, when weembarked on our strategic vision TheWay Forward¸ we set out our ambition toscore in the top ten for research qualityin the UK, on the basis of a selectivesubmission. Our result is a real triumph.

The importance of your own contributionto our outstanding research cannot beunderestimated. Your generosity meansthat in key research areas such as cancer,mental health, and cardiovascularscience, Cardiff University is helping toshape our world, and is finding solutionsto some of society’s biggest challenges.

Further, your donations are helping tocreate an environment where studentsbelieve anything is possible. Scholarshipsand bursaries support highly talented anddeserving young people, who will build onthe knowledge that they gain here for therest of their lives as they go on to becometomorrow’s leaders.

Your support will help keep us on track toachieve another of our ambitions set outin The Way Forward: that of joining theworld's top 100 universities.

Diolch! Thank you once again for youroutstanding commitment to CardiffUniversity. I look forward to building onour success with you in the years to come.

Professor Colin RiordanVice-Chancellor & President

Santander Universities has generously pledged support of£225,000 to fund a range of scholarships, projects andinitiatives across the University. The three-year agreement wassigned by Vice-Chancellor Colin Riordan and Director ofSantander Universities Simon Bray in November 2014.

Santander’s giftto Cardiff students

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Santander will fund 24 scholarships for UKand International students on bothundergraduate and postgraduateprogrammes, and staff in several academicschools. The funding will also enable theInternational Office to recruit high-achieving students from Latin America.

University projects that will receivesupport include the Santander Collectionof Comics and Graphic Literature, aunique collection created in 2011 thatfocuses on graphic literature written inSpanish or taking the Hispanic world as itssubject matter.

In addition to this generous gift,Santander Universities has agreed afurther £65,900 to fund mobility awards,internships and two further scholarshipsfor postgraduate students.

This is the third time this innovativepartnership has been renewed since 2008.Vice-Chancellor Colin Riordan said:

“Santander Universities’ support is hugelyimportant for Cardiff. Their internationalstudentships enable us to recruit talentedyoung people from around the world, andtheir support for research allows studentsand staff of the University to traveloverseas as part of several mobilityawards. Funding towards entrepreneurialscholarships supports our vision to enablebusinesses to innovate and grow,increasing the demand and supply ofhigh-skilled employment, and contributingto the growth of the Welsh economy.Santander is a welcome, importantpartner for Cardiff University today.”

Spark Challenge 2014, an annual business competition supported by Santander Universitiesleft: James McLeod, Runner Up (Ideas category) right: Elsie & Arthur, Winner (Venture category)

Students

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Rebecca Thomas, enrolled on the MA inLanguage and Communication Researchat the School of English, Communication& Philosophy, is a Formula SantanderScholarship recipient.

She said: “I have a keen interest inlanguage development, specificallybilingual language production anddevelopment in infants on the autisticspectrum. I believe my research will bevery beneficial in the field of languagewithin autism and will provide analternative insight into second languagedevelopment, in particular the Welshlanguage.

“Winning this scholarship feels amazingand I am very grateful for it. This will havea very large impact on me and my degree,allowing me to purchase a laptop that willenable me to complete the programmesuccessfully.”

Upon completion of her studies, Rebeccawould like to explore a career as a speechand language therapist specialising inlanguage delay.

Formula Santander Scholarship recipientJuventus Duorinaah is studying towardsan LLM in Human Rights Law.

Juventus, who is deaf, completed his firstdegree at the University of Ghana. Hesaid: “My experiences as a member of thedeaf community have given me first-handknowledge about the challenges thatdisabled people, especially deaf people,face in mainstream society. Some of thesebarriers include ignorance about theirhuman rights, ignorance of availableresources, lack of role models andmentors as well as minimal representationin decision making.”

After his graduation, Juventus wants toadvocate for young people in Ghana as adisability rights lawyer. “My aim is tocreate opportunities,” he said. “I want toinspire confidence in young people andmake a difference to my community.”

For this international scholarship recipient,“a mere thank you is not enough”. He said:“Not only will I have access to basicrequirements to support my study but Iwill also be able to engage in extra-curricular activities including working withorganisations to promote the rights andaspirations of individuals with disabilities.”

Maindy Park is the new home for Cardiff University’s BrainResearch Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), a £44M state-of-the-artneuroimaging research facility due for completion in 2016.Poised to become one of Europe’s leading facilities for brainimaging and brain simulation, CUBRIC will further theUniversity’s research into conditions such as dementia,schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis – enabling scientists toobtain clearer insights into the causes of, and developtreatments for, these and other diseases.

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Deputy Vice-Chancellor ElizabethTreasure said: “The new facility will beworld class and it’s incredibly exciting tothink about the new research that will bedone to enhance our understanding of thebrain.”

CUBRIC, located on the new Maindy Parkinnovation campus, will house amicrostructure scanner – a custom-builtMRI scanner that allows researchers toprobe living human tissue characteristicsat a scale previously only made possibleby analysing a biopsy sample under amicroscope. This is the first scanner of itskind in Europe and one of just two in theworld (the second is in Boston, USA).

“The microstructure scanner will allow usto look at the wiring of the brain in farmore detail than ever before, allowing usto understand individual differences inbrain function in terms of differences inbrain connections,” said Director ofCUBRIC Professor Derek Jones. “Byallowing us to perform virtual histology,we will be able to characterise tumours

completely non-invasively, looking atproperties like cell size and cell density.”These techniques will be instrumental inhelping predict therapeutic outcomes andmonitoring treatment response.

The current research is not of a clinicalnature and the majority of scans will beperformed on healthy participants. Thereare several University projects that useCUBRIC’s existing MRI scanner to studythe microarchitecture of the brain, withstudies ranging from brain changes indiseases such as dementia andschizophrenia to investigating differencesin the brain wiring of cricketers and otherelite athletes.

Cardiff University is ranked second in theUK for its research in neuroimaging,psychology and psychiatry. The Universityis home to some of the world's leadingexperts in brain mapping, neuroscience,clinical research and genetics.

Recently, neurologist Professor MichaelO’Donovan led the biggest study of

Unlocking thebrain’s secrets

A £1M award from the Wolfson Foundation made in 2014will help to fund a microstructural imaging suite in thenew CUBRIC building.

Discovery

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schizophrenia ever conducted. Thefacilities and technologies soon to beavailable in CUBRIC will help researcherslike Professor O’Donovan to determine thecauses of such disorders and to developmore effective treatments to improve thelives of patients and their families.

When its doors open in 2016, CUBRIC willbe a unique neuroimaging hub in Europe

with advanced technologies that will helpCardiff University researchers to lead inthe global endeavour to understandbetter the causes of neurological andpsychiatric conditions, and to improvepatients’ lives.

Find out more athttp://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/cubric/

The 3T Microstructure Suite is beingconstructed specially to host Europe’sfirst microstructure scanner, a custom-built scanner that allows researchers toprobe living human tissue characteristicsat an unprecedented scale. It isconsidered to be the world’s mostadvanced brain scanner.

The dedicated electricity supply to themicrostructure scanner is sufficient topower a submarine, and construction ofthis suite is complex, requiring specificpower, cooling and shielding. The designof the suite must ensure that vibrationsor other interference are minimal, andmust also be flexible enough toaccommodate future changes totechnical or clinical requirements.

The new microstructure scanner willbe instrumental in understanding thebiological changes that drive differencesin brain architecture.

What is an MRI scanner?

A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)scanner provides detailed pictures ofthe human body. It uses a very strongmagnetic field, generated by asuperconducting magnet, coupled witha radio antenna to ‘listen’ to theelectrical signals produced by thehydrogen nuclei of molecules in thebody. The technique is non-invasive androutinely used in clinical practice.

above: Aerial view of the£44m state-of-the-artCUBRIC building.

right: Magnetic ResonanceImaging (MRI) scanner.

News

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Researching Islam in the UKSheikh Yousef Abdul Latif Jameel has renewed the Jameel Scholarship Programmefor a further three years to support the expansion of postdoctoral teaching andresearch activity in the Islam-UK Centre, based in the School of History, Archaeologyand Religion. This renewed gift will support a third cohort of postgraduate students- four PhD and nine MA students - as well as two Teaching & Research Fellows at theCentre. Jameel Scholarship recipient Mustafa Hameed obtained his Master of Arts in2010. His dissertation, British Muslims and Developing Notions of Citizenship, aimed to‘delineate how the wider discourse of citizenship has developed and impacted onMuslim communities in Britain’. Mustafa, who went on to receive the Cardiff UniversityPresident’s Scholarship to complete his PhD, said: “The MA was an absolute eyeopener for me. It introduced me to a part of British history I was totally oblivious to.My PhD owes everything to Cardiff University and the Jameel Scholarship. My ideaswere nurtured by the Islam in Contemporary Britain course and it allowed me todiscover further areas of research needed.”

Beating pancreaticcancerThe European Cancer Stem Cell ResearchInstitute has received a gift of £102,263 fromcharity Amser Justin Time to support ourresearch in pancreatic cancer. Director of theResearch Institute Professor Alan Clarke said:“Pancreatic cancer currently has one of thelowest five-year survival rates in Europe. It isincredibly difficult to diagnose until it is almosttoo late for the patient. We are determined tohelp change this and we rely on donations suchas those from Amser Justin Time.” The gift will fund the work of the Amser JustinTime Research Associate, pancreatic cancer researcher Dr Sean Porazinski. He said:“Working with pancreatic cancer is a great challenge as it is one of the mostaggressive forms of the disease. Ultimately, our aim is to contribute to establishingmuch earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and to look for ways to develop newtherapies to directly benefit patients with this condition.”

Shân Cothi of Amser Justin Time withProfessor Clarke and Dr Porazinski

News

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Understandingmental healthThe Jane Hodge Foundation has donated £470,636to the Neuroscience and Mental Health ResearchInstitute to establish the Jane Hodge NeuroscienceResearch Fellows Programme. The new programmesupports ongoing research into mental healthproblems, such as autism, schizophrenia anddementia, at the Research Institute. This gift will fundresearch fellowships for two individuals whodemonstrate an outstanding academic record, apassion for mental health and neuroscience, and thepotential to become leading scientists in their field.The Jane Hodge Foundation has previously supportedthe University with a six-figure gift to the EuropeanCancer Stem Cell Research Institute to establish a newresearch fellowship programme.

Unique artists’ collection comes to CardiffCelebrated artist Ron King donated his personal collection of rare artists’ books toCardiff University in 2014. The collection serves as the very latest example of usingdesign and illustration in books as artwork, and has already been of great benefit toundergraduate students studying 19th and 20th century literature modules.The University also held a viewing for arts and design students from CardiffMetropolitan University who drew inspiration from this collection for their own work.Since founding Circle Press in 1967, Mr King went on to work with more than 100 artistsand writers until he retired from publishing in 2009. Cardiff University is the only UKuniversity to receive a donation of nearly all of the Circle Press works; Mr King’s othermajor collection is located at Yale University. The Circle Press books augment CardiffUniversity’s reputation as a leading centre for research in illustration and book historystudies, ranging from 15th to 20th century printing and publishing.

Heart to heartA gift of £450,000 from theCardiac Research andDevelopment Fund willcreate an endowment fundto support cardiovascularsciences and relatedresearch at CardiffUniversity, including therecruitment of internationalresearchers and the nextgeneration of junior fellows.Cardiovascular diseaseremains the leading cause ofdeath in Wales, makingresearch into the field anational priority.

This year, we were able to send 76 competitors and fivespectators to the Inter-Varsity Dance Competition inBlackpool - the biggest team we’ve ever had.The hotel remembered us arriving six years ago with aminibus of 14 people, and the growth we have seenhas been largely due to the generous support from theCardiff Fund. To top it off, we beat our results fromlast year by having couples in all but three f inalsand becoming national champions in the Offbeatcompetition! So once again, thank you.

Dancesport Club

Your gifts have helped hundreds of students achieve their potential,both in and out of the classroom. Some of these deserving youngpeople may not have considered higher education without yoursupport. On behalf of our students and the rest of the University –THANK YOU.

Being awarded the scholarship has been a realhonour - not only will it help me financially butalso support my career path and help me find aY ear in Industry placement.

Lewis Bunch(BEng Civil Engineering, 2014-)

As a mid-career practitioner, going back to educationwas quite a daunting prospect. The f irst term wasespecia lly hard for me as I was older than many of thestudents on the course and hadn’t been in theacademic world since my BA degree almost 14 yearsago. This scholarship made financial issues disappear,and I could concentrate on my work and really focuson the course.

Nia Evans(MA International Journalism, 2013-14)Recipient of the

James Thomas Memorial Fund

Recipient of theNelson Scholarship Fund

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Recipient of the Cardiff Fund

A generous gift left in their will byMr and Mrs Reginald and MarleneRoberts is helping Welsh students whoface financial hardship to continue withtheir studies despite their circumstances.Both teachers themselves, the couple,who lived in Cowbridge, South Wales,wanted to leave their entire estate tosupport young people in education.

A helping hand

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The Reginald and Marlene RobertsBursary offers assistance to Welshundergraduate students (in anysubject) facing financial hardship andsupports the University’s aim toensure, wherever possible, that nostudent drops out of theirprogramme due to unexpectedfinancial burden.

Martika Mann is a third-year medicalstudent and this year’s recipient ofthe Reginald and Marlene RobertsBursary.

Originally from Colwyn Bay in NorthWales, Martika was confident thatmedicine was her calling after shecompleted her first degree in humanbiology. She said: “Medicine was anarea I could see myself enjoying for alifetime. Unfortunately, I got caught inthe rise in tuition fees which hasaffected many students, particularlysecond degree applicants who are noteligible to receive tuition fee loans.

“I am extremely lucky to have beenselected to receive the Reginald andMarlene Roberts Bursary. Without thesupport, I do not know how I wouldhave continued my degree. I work fulltime over the holidays and in the pasthave taken on jobs during term-timeto support myself. However, as thedemands of the course increase, thishas left me with less time to find fundsand I am forever grateful for thisfinancial support. I now feel I can focusmy time on where it is most needed -in the library and on the wardslearning from patients.”

If you would like furtherinformation about leaving a giftin your will to the University,please contact Eleanor Hewettin the Development and AlumniRelations Office:

T: +44 (0)29 2087 0372E: hewette@cardiff.ac.uk

Martika in Conwy, North Wales

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Contact: Eleanor Hewett, Senior Development Manager,Cardiff University, Development and Alumni Relations Office,Deri House, 2-4 Park Grove, Cardiff CF10 3BN

t: 029 2087 0372 e: hewette@cardiff.ac.uk

Everyone canleave a legacyPlease consider leaving a gift toCardiff University in your Will.

A gift can make a lasting difference tofuture generations - inspiring studentsto enquire, innovate, and bring realchange to the world we live in.