̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Civic engagement

Museum Encounters: Parkinson's Dance Course

jek67 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 08:08:31 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums (UCM) today launch a ground-breaking Parkinson's dance programme inspired by museum artefacts.

Record-breaking Cambridge Festival 2025 ends on a high, uniting 45,000 visitors in celebration of ideas, discovery and dialogue

zs332 — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 07:34:43 +0000

̽��ֱ��fifth Cambridge Festival has drawn to a triumphant close, having welcomed a record-breaking 45,000 visitors across 385 events during 17 inspiring days.

Cambridge triumphs in Varsity double as ̽��ֱ�� and United FC forge exciting partnership

jek67 — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 09:55:47 +0000

̽��ֱ��memorable evening, witnessed by over 2,000 spectators, set the perfect stage for the announcement of a new formal partnership between Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Association Football Club (CUAFC) and Cambridge United FC, strengthening the bond between the historic footballing institutions of the city.

̽��ֱ��women’s match opened the night in dramatic fashion, with Cambridge securing a thrilling 3-2 comeback victory. Despite trailing 1-0 at halftime, the Light Blues displayed resilience and attacking intent in the second half. Johanna Niggemann (Gonville & Caius) equalised before Sakina Dhirani (Newnham) put Cambridge ahead. Oxford responded with a goal to level the score, but Alissa Sattentau (King’s) struck late to seal a hard-fought win, sending the home fans into jubilation.

Buoyed by the women’s success, the men’s team delivered a commanding performance, clinching a dominant 4-1 victory to secure their first Varsity triumph since 2019. Cambridge's attacking pressure paid off in the 38th minute when Cai La-Trobe Roberts (Jesus) broke the deadlock with a composed finish. Moments before halftime, he doubled his tally from the penalty spot. Asa Campbell (Fitzwilliam) extended the lead early in the second half, before La-Trobe Roberts completed his hat-trick with another spot-kick, sealing a comprehensive win. Although Oxford’s Captain, Noah Fletcher, converted a penalty late on, Cambridge’s dominance was never in doubt, with midfielders Captain Reece Linney (Girton) and Jesse Tapnack (Trinity) controlling the game throughout.

Following the Light Blues’ sensational Varsity double, Cambridge United FC and CUAFC announced a groundbreaking new partnership intended to deepen and develop collaboration between the two clubs to benefit the wider City of Cambridge community.

Professor David Cardwell, President Elect of CUAFC, highlighted the significance of the partnership, stating:“Cambridge can rightly lay claim to being the global birthplace of football, and CUAFC is proud to be unofficially ‘the oldest football club in the world’. ̽��ֱ��DNA of the game was discovered here in the city in 1848 when the first game took place on Parker’s Piece under what are now the modern rules.

“Over the last two years, Cambridge United and the ̽��ֱ�� have developed a strong partnership in a number of different areas. We were very grateful that the Varsity matches were once again hosted so well at the Cledara Abbey Stadium. We agree that now is the right time to build on this and seek to deepen the relationship between our two football clubs. There is much we can potentially do together to help each other as clubs, and we share a desire to do more to help the City of Cambridge celebrate its status as the birthplace of the global game.”

Godric Smith CBE, Chair of the Cambridge United Foundation and Director at the Club, echoed these sentiments, emphasising the potential benefits of the collaboration: “Cambridge United is proud to be the professional football club from the university city that gave football to the world, so it is logical and long overdue to have a formal partnership between our two football clubs on both the men’s and women’s side.

“We are at the beginning and will work out the detail of the first steps over the coming months, but there is a united desire to explore how we can best help each other and, most importantly, the City of Cambridge. Areas of collaboration could include merchandising, facilities, sports science and coaching, data, community work and mentoring. We have a lot of resources and expertise between us, and it will be exciting to see how we can potentially make best use of them together over the months and years ahead.”

̽��ֱ��announcement of the partnership capped off a remarkable night of football at the Cledara Abbey Stadium. With both the men’s and women’s teams showcasing their talent and determination on the pitch, and a new era of cooperation between Cambridge United and CUAFC beginning, the city’s footballing future looks brighter than ever.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� football teams enjoyed a historic night on Friday 21 March, as both the men’s and women’s squads claimed stunning victories over Oxford in the football Varsity matches at Cambridge United FC’s Cledara Abbey Stadium.

Cambridge United Football Club

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Black Town & Gown: ̽��ֱ��historical legacy of Black presence in the city of Cambridge

zs332 — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:57:10 +0000

̽��ֱ��premiere of Black Town & Gown: ̽��ֱ��historical legacy of Black presence in the city of Cambridge will take place on 28 March from 6.30pm and is hosted by Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH).

Young artists take centre stage at Kettle's Yard

jek67 — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 10:28:39 +0000

Kettle’s Yard is showcasing the creativity and vision of Cambridge’s young artists with its new exhibition, Paint What Matters! Art by Children & Young People in Cambridge.

What was the Star of Bethlehem?

hcf38 — Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:14:20 +0000

It’s a key feature of a school nativity play, but what’s the science behind the Star of Bethlehem?

Cambridge Children’s Hospital moves ahead as plans for new hospital approved by ministers

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 11:18:44 +0000

Plans for Cambridge Children’s Hospital can move ahead following the news that the Outline Business Case for the project has been signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. ̽��ֱ��project has been given the green light to begin the detailed process of appointing a contractor, to build the ground-breaking new facility in 2026.

̽��ֱ��ministerial backing means that the Project’s Outline Business Case, the second stage of the business case process, has now been fully approved by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and HM Treasury. It was approved in principle in September 2023, subject to a capital affordability review by NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care’s Joint Investment Committee. That review took place in April 2024 and resulted in a recommendation to Ministers to endorse the decision.

In a show of further confidence in its plans, the Outline Business Case was signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in August 2024. This approval recognises that the hospital will meet the needs of patients and staff across the East of England and that the project has the appropriate funding streams in place, to deliver the specialist children’s facility.

̽��ֱ��hospital is being co-designed with the help of children, young people, families and healthcare professionals across the region to ensure the new hospital will meet the needs of patients, families and staff.

Dr Rob Heuschkel, Clinical Lead for Physical Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“We are absolutely delighted that we can now move forward to enter contracts with a construction partner, so we can finally start to see work happening on site.

“A huge amount of work has gone into finalising the designs and getting us to this point, and I want to thank our healthcare staff, young people and their families from across the region who have been contributing valuable feedback and helping us shape our plans, right from the very start.

“ ̽��ֱ��East of England is the only region in the UK without a specialist children’s hospital, and we look forward to changing that very soon.”

̽��ֱ��approval comes as a programme of groundworks preparing for the build was completed in July, and new access roads have now been installed where the new five-storey, 35,000sqm hospital will be located, opposite the Rosie Maternity Hospital, on Robinson Way and Dame Mary Archer Way.

In the coming weeks, people will be able to see hoardings installed around the site of Cambridge Children’s Hospital, the first hospital truly designed to bring mental and physical health care together for children and young people.

Dr Isobel Heyman, Clinical Lead for Mental Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“This really is fantastic news and an exciting moment in our journey to build a truly integrated children’s hospital for the East of England.

“ ̽��ֱ��current model of mental health care is inadequate. Many children with physical ill-health also have significant mental health needs, and vice versa.

“Cambridge Children’s Hospital offers a solution. By delivering holistic care for children, young people, and their families, this not only reduces stigma, but the revolutionary model of care really does act as a blueprint for the NHS and the future of healthcare.”

̽��ֱ��fundraising Campaign for Cambridge Children’s Hospital has now passed the halfway mark and the project remains on track to meet its £100m philanthropy target.

̽��ֱ��hospital will also house a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge research institute, focused on preventing childhood illness and early intervention across mental and physical healthcare.

Professor David Rowitch, Clinical Lead for Research at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“By bringing clinicians and patients together with ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge investigators and industry partners, we aim to shift the medicine paradigm from traditional reactive approaches, to one based on early detection, precision intervention and disease prevention.

“Co-locating research efforts inside Cambridge Children’s Hospital will mean we can detect disease early or even prevent it altogether, personalise health care and prescribe treatments more appropriate for children and their individual health needs.

“We’ll also be able to foster collaborations to advance the power of advanced diagnostics, digital and telehealth technology to support healthcare professions from a distance, to deliver care closer to people’s homes, wherever they live in our region.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Children’s Hospital project is a partnership between Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Work now continues on the final stage of the business case for Cambridge Children’s Hospital – the Full Business Case.

Major milestone for first specialist children’s hospital in the East of England.

A montage of concept designs for Cambridge Children's Hospital

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partners

Artist's impression of Cambridge Children's Hospital.

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New Cambridge-developed resources help students learn how maths can help tackle infectious diseases

sc604 — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

From measles and flu to SARS and COVID, mathematicians help us understand and predict the epidemics that can spread through our communities, and to help us look at strategies that we may be able to use to contain them.

̽��ֱ��project, called Contagious Maths, was led by Professor Julia Gog from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), and was supported by a Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society.

̽��ֱ��curriculum-linked resources will give students between the ages 11 and 14 the opportunity to join researchers on the mathematical frontline to learn more about infectious disease spread, along with interactive tools to try mathematical modelling for themselves. Teachers receive full lesson plans, backed up by Cambridge research.

“I’ve always loved maths. I was lucky enough to have amazing teachers at sixth form who challenged me and were 100% behind me pursuing maths at the highest level, but maths as it’s taught in school can be highly abstract, so students often wonder what the point of maths even is,” said Gog, who is also Director of the Millennium Maths Project. “This is something I’m trying to help with now: to offer a glimpse from school to the research world to see the role mathematics can play in tackling important real-world problems.”

̽��ֱ��Contagious Maths project introduces mathematical modelling; explores how mathematicians can model the spread of disease through a population and the type of questions we might think about when looking at models; and gives an insight into what mathematics researchers working on these real-life problems actually do.

“I’ve been engaged in outreach for many years at Cambridge, and the Contagious Maths project grew out of discussions with colleagues who have expertise in reaching school-age children,” said Gog. “ ̽��ֱ��11-14 age group we are targeting is a real crunch point for retaining girls in maths, and future female mathematicians. What exactly happens is complex and multifaceted, but this is a period when people form their views on how they fit with maths and science.

“Many of them disengage, as it can seem that maths at school is utterly disconnected from the real world. It can also be a time when maths appears very starkly right or wrong, whereas any research mathematician can tell you it’s always so much more subtle than that, and therefore so much more interesting!”

Gog hopes the Contagious Maths resources might be able to help, as they are designed to be used in regular school lessons, and cover a topic with clear real-world importance.

“ ̽��ֱ��maths is never black and white in this field: there are always ways to challenge and develop the models, and some tricky thinking to be done about how the real epidemics and the simulations are really related to each other,” she said. “I suspect some students will find this frustrating, and just want maths to be algorithmic exercises. But some will be intrigued, and they are the ones we are trying to reach and expose to this larger world of applied maths research.”

Contagious Maths also provides teachers with all the ideas and tools they need, so they have at their fingertips all they need to deliver these lessons, even if they have no experience with research mathematics. “We hope this project will help these teachers to bring in the wider view of mathematics, and we hope it inspires them too,” said Gog. “It’s been really fun developing these resources, teaming up with both NRICH and Plus to make the most of our combined expertise.”

Maths teachers can attend a free online event on 20 March to learn more about the project.

In addition to the school resources, Gog and her colleagues have designed another version of Contagious Maths for a more general self-guided audience, which will work for students older than 14 or anyone, of any age, who is interested in learning about mathematical modelling.

“ ̽��ֱ��paradox between the cleanness and precision of mathematics, and the utter hot mess of anything that involves biological dynamics across populations – like an outbreak of an infectious disease, is what intrigued me to stay in mathematics beyond my degree, and to move into research in mathematical biology,” said Gog. “Elegant theoretical ideas can tell us something valuable and universal about mitigating the devastating effects of disease on human and animal populations. Super abstract equations can hold fundamental truths about real-world problems - I don't think I will ever tire of thinking about that.”

Adapted from a Royal Society interview with Professor Julia Gog.

Cambridge mathematicians have developed a set of resources for students and teachers that will help them understand how maths can help tackle infectious diseases.

Orbon Alija via Getty Images

Aerial view of crowd connected by lines

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