LSE has climbed to sixth place in the Times Higher Education (THE) European University Top 200 Rankings, published today.

The rankings benchmark across key areas of higher education, with LSE scoring particularly highly for its international outlook and research. The School achieved the sixth highest score of all universities in the continent, and came fifth within the UK.

Border controls which allow migrants to bypass them may have been part of a deliberate policy to boost domestic economies and garner party-political support, according to new LSE research.

A study focusing on Greece, but with wider implications across European governments, found that migrants have often been essential to domestic political and economic interests such as serving the needs of large informal labour markets that rely on cheap labour.

This year Good Friday falls on 25 March, this is week 11 of Lent term. As it is a Bank Holiday the School will be closed.

Teaching that was scheduled on this day has been deleted. The majority of bookings have been rescheduled to alternative days and times either in Lent term or the first week of Summer term.

If you usually have teaching on a Friday please check your personal timetable in LSE for You, so that you don’t miss out on any teaching.

Message from Jon Foster, LSESU Education Officer

Nominations for the LSESU Teaching Excellence Awards 2016 are now officially open until Sunday 3 April.

Last year we received 1,362 nominations and this year we are looking to see this increase even further. SSLC reps have decided the categories and will be tasked with shortlisting the winners. The awards have been designed to recognise everyone from inspiring lecturers to compassionate wardens or administrators, so we hope your nominations will reflect this.

You can nominate online here.

You can nominate as many people as you like and in as many categories as you want. All nominated staff will receive a certificate and anonymous feedback, so even if they don’t win they will still really appreciate your time in nominating them.

The awards event is due to take place in the LSESU Venue on Wednesday 11 May. Make sure to take a note of it, so you can come along to support your teachers and departments.

Free public lecture and drinks reception: hear the Gender Institute’s LSE Centennial Professor Mary Evans for After Beatrice: the hidden women in LSE’s history on Thursday 24 March.

Are you looking for inspiration? Keep up to date with #LSEwomen on social media for more on LSE’s inspiring women such as alumna, economist and activist Baroness Stocks or check out some career paths of LSE women over the years.

Have you visited LSE Library’s exhibition on Women, Peace and Equality? You can also head to the Department of Government’s event “Confronting War Time Rape: the power of art in Kosovo” on Monday 21 March. Check out the LSE History blog for full details including new #LSEwomen blogs and events.

Explore the Women’s Library suffragette archives with Eleanor Payne in A Suffrage Album. Do you fancy winning a copy of the film Suffragette on DVD? This LSE Library competition is for LSE staff and students and the deadline for entries is Monday 21 March: Enter here.

On Sunday 17 April from 8am-8pm LSE IT services will be intermittently unavailable throughout the day. IMT will be carrying out essential maintenance during this time, performing key upgrades to the network.

IT services will experience intermittent outages throughout the day. Please be aware that while services may be available for brief periods, they are at risk of losing connectivity to the LSE network for the duration of the maintenance period.

Affected services include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Campus WiFi
• Campus PCs, printers and telephones
• H: space and any shared network drives
• Moodle and LSE For You

The completion of this work will improve the performance, reliability and resilience of the LSE network. For all scheduled Maintenance Sunday dates for the coming academic year, please see our blog post.

If you have any questions regarding the downtime or experience any disruption outside of these times, please contact the IT Help Desk on it.helpdesk@lse.ac.uk or 020 7107 5000.

Final year undergraduate students, don’t forget to complete the National Student Survey.

The survey closes on 30 April 2016.

On Thursday 17 March the Fourth Floor Restaurant will be hosting a special St Patrick’s Day lunch menu with various traditional Irish food options for you to enjoy.

It should be a fun event and we encourage you to bring along friends and colleagues for an enjoyable lunch.

This is your last chance to join Global Brigades, a student-led development programme supported by the LSE Travel Fund, in Honduras or Panama this summer.

For the volunteering options avaliable, click here.

For more information and instructions on how to sign up, email lsesuglobalbrigades@gmail.com or send a message via the Facebook page.

Whether you have a clear idea of what you want to do after your studies or haven’t started thinking about it yet, LSE Careers can help.

We provide a range of careers services and events, information and advice online and in one-to-one appointments, and a jobs board with UK and international full-time, part-time, graduate, internship, experienced hire, and volunteering opportunities.

Alongside this we also have the following coming up:

It’s Undergraduate Careers Week!

You can still get involved in Undergraduate Careers Week events this week - drop-in to our Resource Centre on Floor 5 of SAW to get your CV checked (no booking needed), practice your pitching and presenting, and learn how to find inclusive employers if you have a disability or long-term health condition.

We’re open all Summer Term and summer

LSE Careers is open all summer from Friday 1 April onwards. You can get your CV checked before you head home, come and see us for a one-to-one appointment, use the space and facilities in our Resource Centre, check out our weekly information stand outside SAW from 26 April, and come along to careers seminars and events once exams are over.

If you’re not in London remember you can book a Skype appointment as well.

You can find LSE Careers on Floor 5 of the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre - if you have any questions come up and see us or contact us. To keep up to date with careers news and events subscribe to our blog and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Europe and the Return of Geopolitics
On: Tuesday 22 March from 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Pierre Vimont (pictured)

The Life Project: the extraordinary story of 70,000 ordinary lives
On: Tuesday 22 March from 6.30pm in Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Dr Helen Pearson

A Question of Law and Wealth
Speakers:  Professor Jonathan Fisher, Dr Eva Micheler, Professor Niamh Moloney, and Dr Joseph Spooner
Recorded: Wednesday 2 March, approx. 85 minutes

The EU: friend or foe for progressive politics
Speaker: Caroline Lucas
Recorded: Thursday 3 March, approx. 88 minutes

From a Culture of Connectivity to a Platform Society
Speakers: Professor José van Dijck and Professor Sonia Livingstone
Recorded: Monday 7 March, approx. 90 minutes