Professor Mike Savage has been shortlisted for the Times Higher Education (THE) Award 2016 for outstanding research supervisor of the year.

The annual THE awards celebrates outstanding examples of best practice in higher education. The award criteria for outstanding research supervisor of the year is for the individual who has created "the most supportive, stimulating and inspirational research environment for PhD students".

All work and no play - the early years of the LSE sports ground
Sport at LSE has a long history, writes LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly, but the acquisition of the Malden sports ground in 1921 encouraged sports of all kinds to flourish at LSE.

The world below - archaeology at LSE
The preparatory works for the Centre Buildings Redevelopment presented an opportunity to discover what lies hidden under LSE.

LSE's Volunteer Centre was praised on BBC World News last week (23 August) for its efforts to steer students towards ethical volunteering projects. Watch the programme here.

LSE’s Academic and Professional Development Division has been restructured to support the delivery of educational activity at LSE. Its five constituent units, each reporting to Division Director Neil McLean, are:

• LSE Educational Strategy Unit
• LSE Language Centre
• LSE LIFE
• LSE100
• LSE Teaching and Learning Centre

Nominations for an Honorary Fellowship of the School are invited. The criteria are as follows:

The LSE Court may elect as an Honorary Fellow any individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the School, over the course of a number of years, beyond that which might reasonably be expected.

Honorary Fellowship nominees are expected to have a direct link with LSE either as a member of the School, or as someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the School.

The deadline for nominations for consideration in Michaelmas Term 2016-17 is Friday 23 September. Full details, and a Nomination Form, can be found here. Joan Poole would be happy to answer any queries, on email at j.a.poole@lse.ac.uk or on ext 7825.

Next year’s Literary Festival theme marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, but also a plethora of other anniversaries of revolutions in music, literature, international relations, politics, religion and science.

As always, we intend to explore the theme in its broadest sense: from rebellions and resistance to reform, change and progress; and from cycles and renewals, to fragmentation and chaos.

If your academic unit would like to be involved, get in touch! Holding an event as part of the Festival is an excellent way of boosting a unit's profile, and reaching out to new audiences. If you have an idea for a Festival event or would like some more information, please contact Festival Manager Louise Jones. Proposals should be submitted by Friday 16 September.

The Institute of Global affairs (IGA) invites colleagues from across LSE to participate in the second round of calls under its ‘Research and Impact Seed Fund’.

This round is again supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. Up to £1.5 million is available under the broad theme of ‘Resilience’. We encourage submissions within one or more of the four subthemes agreed with the Rockefeller Foundation: financial resilience, climate resilience, resilient cities and resilience in post-conflict transitional processes.

Applications must be received by Sunday 30 October.

LSE’s Research Festival is an annual celebration of the innovative and ground-breaking research in the social sciences by our staff and students.

Can you, your staff or students submit the findings of your research projects presented as a photograph, poster or headlined abstract? To mark the centenary of the death of Charles Booth we particularly invite projects with a theme of poverty and inequality.

An exhibition of the submissions and prize-giving for the winners will take place at the LSE Research Festival on Thursday 3 November.

Visit lse.ac.uk/Researchfestival for full details. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 5 October.

The International College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) is a College in Moscow set up in 1997 at the initiative of Richard Layard to provide teaching and research to international standards in economics and finance with academic direction entrusted to LSE.

LSE has endorsed this academic link, as part of our global engagement strategy. The Project Director coordinates the LSE responsibilities over the whole range of academic activities. The appointment would be for two, or up to four, years in the first instance and renewable, and paid at a rate in line with LSE academic office holders. We are looking for a senior LSE faculty member with academic governance experience.

Should you be interested in this position, an expression of interest should be submitted to the project manager, Miriam Grossmanova, at lse.icef@lse.ac.uk by Friday 7 October.

Security officer and former boxer Daniel Beckley is running skip fit lessons for all students and staff.

The next lessons will take place from 1-2pm at the Badminton Court, Old Building, on Tuesday 13 September, Tuesday 20 September, Tuesday 4 October, Tuesday 11 October, and Tuesday 25 October. Just turn up on any of these dates with your own skipping rope. All lessons are free.

"Daniel’s skip fit classes are the perfect form of exercise: inclusive, fun, and a tough workout regardless of whether it’s your first time skipping or you’ve been skipping for years!" - Shyam Desai, Postgraduate Student.

For more information, email Daniel at d.beckley@lse.ac.uk.

From the start of the new academic year, we will be running a new section in Staff News to celebrate all the LSE 'stars' out there.

Do you have a colleague that goes out of their way to help to others? Would you just like to give thanks to someone you've worked with recently? Does your colleague give up their time to volunteer outside of LSE or raise money for charity? We want to hear about it all so please get in touch at communications.internal@lse.ac.uk.

We will also be running the same section in Student News so send us your student 'stars' as well.

Come along to this public conversation on Thursday 15 September with former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who will be speaking about his new book, Politics: Between the Extremes.

LSE staff are able to collect one ticket per person from the SU shop, located on Lincolns Chambers, 2-4 Portsmouth Street from 10am on Wednesday 7 September. These tickets are available on a first come, first serve basis. Alternatively request one ticket via the online ticket request form which will be live from around 6pm on Wednesday 7 September until at least 12noon on Thursday 8 September.

Full autumn programme of events is now online.

Highlights including talks by bestselling cartoonist Riad Sattouf (pictured); Nobel prize-winning scientist Sir Paul Nurse; equality champion Laura Bates; Director of Liberty Martha Spurrier; Innocent founder Richard Reed; and neuroscientist Susan Greenfield.

Browse the events online or download the events leaflet.

Tuesday 20 September, 6.30-8pm, Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: David Smith, Economics Editor of The Sunday Times

Most economists argued against Brexit, on the grounds that it would significantly damage Britain’s economic prospects, both in the short-term and the long-term. Three months on from the referendum, are these adverse consequences inevitable, or are there any reasons for optimism?

Keep up to date with what Brexit means for the UK and the wider world at LSE Brexit blog.

The Rise and Fall of Nations
Speaker: Ruchir Sharma
Recorded: Tuesday 12 July, approx. 87 minutes

Growing Trade the Progressive Way
Speaker: Chrystia Freeland
Recorded: Thursday 14 July, approx. 83 minutes

Power and Pragmatism
Speaker: Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Recorded: Monday 25 July, approx. 87 minutes

Stonewall is coming to LSE this September to deliver two one-day courses to LSE staff. Sign up now:

Stonewall Role Models Programme
Tuesday 6 September, 9.30am-5pm
For LGBT+ staff only

Stonewall Allies Programme
Wednesday 14 September, 9.30am-5pm
For staff who do not identify as LGBT+

Over the past few months there have been a number of significant developments with the High Performance Computing (HPC) service (known as Fabian) details of which can be found at lse.ac.uk/hpc. Notably, we now offer a new getting started guide which describes how to login, transfer files and run jobs on Fabian as well as introductory and bespoke training workshops. 

The workshops available are as follows:

• An Introduction to HPC and Fabian
  This session gives an overview of HPC and shows you how to perform basic task. Scheduled monthly on 22 September, 27 October, and 24 November.

• Migrating to Fabian
  This workshop covers how you can transition work to Fabian and improve performance. This will contain a hands-on segment to help you get your applications and data running. Scheduled for 29 September.

• HPC Surgeries/One-to-One Sessions
  At these bespoke sessions members of the HPC team help you transfer your work to Fabian and to identify areas for improvement. Scheduled as requested.

To make a booking, please visit the Training and Development System and search for HPC to see all our workshops and the scheduled dates/availability. If you have any questions about Fabian or HPC in general, email fabian@lse.ac.uk.