04Dr Ralf Gertisser: Life on the Crater’s Edge

06Stoke-on-Trent for City of Culture

08Research round-up

10Understanding Earthquakes

NOWT H E

THE MAGAZINE FOR KEELE PEOPLE | WINTER 2017

NOWNOWAt the forefront of world-leading collaborative research and thinking

02 THE KNOW

Discover your passion THINTHINTHIN

Welcome to the winter edition of The Know, the magazine for Keele people. Inside you will

find highlights and news from within our Keele community over the last few months.

I’m especially proud to introduce this edition as it features details of our new Root and Branch campaign, which encapsulates our ambitions to embed sustainability in all that we do, and is testament to our continued ambitions to be a genuine sector leader in sustainability in higher education.

Read on to discover more about Root and Branch, our latest research highlights, events coming up on campus, and much more.

WelcomeA message from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost

Contents

CONTENTS AND WELCOME 03

04Day in the life of…. Ralf Gertisser

06Stoke-on-Trent for City of Culture

08Research round-up

10Understanding Earthquakes

12Career Development Support for Professional Services Staff

13Introducing Root and Branch

14In the press

16How does a country become a country?

17Keele on camera

18What’s on

Mark Ormerod Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost

04 THE KNOW

“I usually take around 25 undergraduate final-year students to an active volcanic area. In the past I’ve taken students to Iceland and Santorini but I now often take them to southern Italy, which may be regarded as the cradle of volcanology.”

Day in the Life

Dr Ralf Gertisser: Life on the Crater’s Edge

FEATURE STORY 05

Volcanologist Dr Ralf Gertisser joined Keele University in 2005 whilst studying Mount Tambora in Indonesia.

Tambora erupted in 1815 killing more than 10,000 people directly, and at least another 50,000 died due to subsequent famine and disease on Sumbawa and the neighbouring islands in Indonesia. But Tambora’s effects were also felt globally, leading to world-wide suffering, increasing the death toll up to about 100,000 and causing the Earth to cool by one degree Celsius, altering global climate for years after the blast.

Dr Gertisser travelled to Indonesia last year as part of a German documentary on Tambora and is one of only a small group of people to have ever ventured down into the crater.

Dr Gertisser said: “Tambora is a very remote volcano with a huge crater at the summit more than one kilometre deep. It would take three days to climb up the volcano and then to climb vertically down, but thankfully I was with a TV crew so we went down in a helicopter which was brilliant. The area is very remote and only a very small number of people have been into the crater, so it was one of the best experiences in my volcanology career to actually go inside Tambora.”

Under the volcanic debris from the 1815 eruption, a modern Pompeii was discovered and, whilst filming, Dr Gertisser was taken to homes buried by volcanic ash and debris with victims from the eruption inside.

Dr Gertisser explains: “Researchers found destroyed houses covered by debris from the eruption, and skeletons have been preserved under the ash. We travelled to an excavation site of several houses with carbonised skeletons. It was incredible to see. The skeleton I observed was covered by volcanic ash which was produced at the beginning of the 1815 eruption, so I believe that person died very early on, likely before the climax of the eruption.”

During semester time Dr Gertisser, originally from south-western Germany, is usually found lecturing or carrying out research in the campus laboratories, studying rocks and volcanic ash that he collected during his field trips.

He says: “I usually take around 25 undergraduate final-year students to an active volcanic area. In the past I’ve taken students to Iceland and Santorini but I now often take them to southern Italy, which may be regarded as the cradle of volcanology, with classic volcanoes such as Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli, a small volcanic island

where the volcano erupts every half an hour. We climb up to the crater which takes about three hours and we observe the explosions with a guide. It’s very exciting to see a volcano erupting and it’s a great highlight for our geology students.”

Dr Gertisser and his students typically collect rocks from volcanic deposits to bring back to Keele and study in the lab.

He adds: “To find out how volcanoes work and why they erupt, we study rock samples from volcanic eruptions to give us a clue as to what happened inside the volcano before it erupted. By studying these samples we can try to understand how past eruptions worked, what processes triggered them, and how long molten rock was residing inside a volcano before it erupted. Once we understand that for a particular volcano, we can much better evaluate what’s going on inside the volcano when it shows signs of volcanic unrest such as Mount Agung in Bali at the moment.

“No volcanologist can predict exactly when a volcano will erupt and the size of an eruption. To tackle this problem we look at the past activity of a volcano to give us an insight into what a volcano would do if it reawakens again in the future.”

Up to 60 volcanoes erupt every month on Earth and more than half a million people now live within the danger zone surrounding the world’s volcanoes.These communities are kept safe with the help of volcanologists, who travel to some of the planet’s more remote places to try to better understand one of nature’s most powerful and destructive forces – the volcano.

06 THE KNOW

On Friday, September 29th Stoke-on-Trent’s final 30-page bid for UK City of Culture 2021

was sent to the government, but even before the final decision has been made, the city is already benefitting from investment linked to a raised profile for arts and culture.

Arts Council England has recently committed to supporting more arts organisations than it has ever done before with £4 million committed over the next four years. The investment will support local arts and cultural organisations like the British Ceramics Biennial [BCB], B-Arts, and the New Vic through its National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) programme.

Stoke-on-Trent for City of Culture: The benefits of a raised profile

The Cultural Observatory

The Cultural Observatory for Stoke-on-Trent brings together academic specialists from Keele and Staffordshire University in arts, culture, history and public engagement, working

in partnership with communities and major providers from

the cultural sector.

Even before the final decision has been made, the city is already benefitting from investment linked to a raised profile.

STOKE-ON-TRENT FOR CITY OF CULTURE 07

Watch on YouTube:

youtu.be/i8lfd1MYmbU

“Stoke-on-Trent is a unique place and has so much to be proud of. We are surrounded by culture and people don’t have to look far to experience it for themselves. As a university, we’re really proud of our role in providing a vibrant programme of art, music, poetry, performances, lectures and other cultural events.”Professor David Amigoni Pro Vice-Chancellor

Research round-up

Keele Professor awarded major grant to investigate lives of those touched by Old Poor LawProfessor Alannah Tomkins has been awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant of £728k to investigate the lives of thousands of people who benefited from the Old Poor Law.

Professor Tomkins, a Professor of History at Keele University, will work with Tim Hitchcock, Professor of Digital History at Sussex University, along with archive services and volunteers in Cumbria, Staffordshire, and Sussex, to examine over 50,000 overseers’ vouchers – the scraps of paper used to register purchases of goods or services for use by the parish poor. The project will investigate the experiences of people across the social spectrum whose lives were touched by the Old Poor Law. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/oldpoorlaw

European project to investigate the origins of the universe takes flightThe Chemical Elements as Tracers of the Evolution of the Cosmos (ChETEC) Action is a multidisciplinary, pan-European network to further develop our understanding of the evolution of the universe and is chaired by Dr Raphael Hirschi, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at Keele.

The COST-funded Action, which was granted last year, aims to bring together researchers, scientists and businesses from 27 countries in Europe to answer open questions about the early stages of the universe. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/chetecaction

Researchers investigate innovative gait rehabilitation for people with rheumatoid arthritisKeele University is part of a research team awarded a £1.8m grant to examine the effectiveness of a new way of improving and maintaining walking ability in people who suffer from the painful and disabling symptoms of early rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disease that attacks multiple joints throughout the body. More than 90% of people with rheumatoid arthritis develop symptoms in the foot and ankle, with resulting difficulties in walking. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/gaitrehabilitation

New Hot Jupiter marks the first collaborative exoplanet discoveryResearchers led by a team at Keele University have discovered a new ‘Hot Jupiter’ exoplanet. The new giant planet was jointly discovered by a WASP/KELT survey collaboration, marking the first time an exoplanet has been discovered between two planet search groups.

The exoplanet, WASP-167b/KELT-13b, is several times more massive than Jupiter and orbits its parent star every two days. Its host star, WASP-176/KELT-13, is one of the hottest and most rapidly rotating stars known to host such a planet. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/ collaborative exoplanetdiscovery

08 THE KNOW

RESEARCH ROUND-UP 09

Study settles debate over giving stroke patients routine oxygenA study led by Keele’s stroke specialist Professor Christine Roffe, along with North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust and researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham, has revealed that giving oxygen to stroke victims makes no difference to their recovery or chances of survival.

The national trial involving more than 8,000 patients was funded by the National Institute for Health Research and settles the debate over giving stroke patients routine oxygen. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/ routineoxygendebate

Keele professor leads international policing projectKeele’s Professor Clifford Stott has helped launch a major police training programme in Ukraine that aims to underpin reforms to policing in the country.

Professor Stott, a crowd behavior expert and Director of Keele Policing Academic Collaboration (KPAC), has taken part in an EU Advisory Mission, as lead scientific consultant, to help train police commanders of public order units in Ukraine about best practice in the policing of crowds. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/ internationalpolicing

Study reports dramatic rise in self-harm among teenage girlsA recent study by researchers from Keele and the University of Manchester using anonymised data from 600 general practices has found a 68% rise in reports of self-harm in girls aged between 13 and 16, from 2011 and 2014.

The rate of teenage girls reporting self-harm was considerably greater than boys. Despite this rise in self-harm, referral to mental health specialist services was lower, especially in socially deprived areas. Read the full article at:

keele.ac.uk/selfharmstudy

What is an earthquake?What we feel in an earthquake are the vibrations that come from a release of energy when two large blocks of rocks slide past each other. Geological stresses in the ground build up across faults, which are fractures in the Earth’s crust. Initially the two sides are held together by friction but if stresses increase to a high enough level it overcomes friction on the fault and all that stored energy is released, mostly as a series of vibrations which we feel as an earthquake.

What types of earthquakes are there?We can divide geological forces into three main types, pulling the Earth’s crust apart, squashing it, or moving it from side to side (called shear). In different regions we get different types of earthquakes.

In Iceland where there’s the mid-Atlantic ridge, we expect the crust to be pulled apart. In the Himalayas where plates collide we get compression earthquakes and in places like California where plates slide sideways past each other, we get the shear type earthquakes.

How do we measure an earthquake? Do we still use the Richter scale?We don’t use the Richter scale anymore. It was designed for Californian rocks using a very old fashioned instrument for recording earthquake waves.

There are a variety of different magnitude scales that are used but the one people most commonly use, particularly for large earthquakes, is the moment-magnitude scale. Seismic moment is a measure of the size of the fault, the amount of slip and the force required to overcome the friction.

Following the two recent earthquakes in Mexico, with magnitude of 7.1 and 8.1, how often and likely is it to have two large earthquakes happen so close together and in a similar region?We have earthquakes happen all of the time. Globally we would expect a magnitude eight at least once a year and magnitude seven about once a month. They are fairly common, but completely random events. The two earthquakes in Mexico are interesting in that although they occurred in a similar geographical region and within a couple weeks of each other, they were actually several hundred kilometres apart. The stress release patterns from the first one don’t appear to have transferred significant stress into the region where the second earthquake occurred. They are too far apart for the second one to be an aftershock of the first. Whilst it’s possible that we could have a stress transference over that distance to tip the second one over the edge, it would have been about to happen anyway, and a more detailed analysis will tend to suggest against that.

The greatest likelihood is they are two unrelated earthquakes that happened to occur within, coincidently, a few hundred miles of each other. Tectonically they are different parts of the subduction system and, therefore, their closeness in space and time is probably coincidental.

10 THE KNOW

Understanding Earthquakes

After the recent earthquakes in Mexico, Keele’s Dr Ian Stimpson – Senior Lecturer in Geophysics – answers some of our questions about seismology.

Most large earthquakes occur around what people know as the Ring of Fire, the belt of plate boundaries associated with the edge of the Pacific

UNDERSTANDING EARTHQUAKES 11

We are hearing more and more about natural disasters on the news than ever before. Are there more earthquakes than in recent years or are we just hearing more about them? Actually 2017 is statistically a quiet year for large earthquakes so far. However, when there is a fatal earthquake in a major city with access to rolling news then the public become more aware of it and then think that earthquakes are happening more often. In the old days when there was a magnitude seven earthquake in Central America, by the time we heard about it, it wouldn’t have been very newsworthy anymore.

There are experiments going on using Twitter to detect earthquakes, because tweets can actually travel quicker than earthquake waves. So if someone who experiences an earthquake close to the earthquake’s epicentre and tweets about it, then after a certain distance that tweet can actually be seen before the reader feels the earthquake waves. There are further extensions to that, with earthquake detectors and GPS sensors that can detect an earthquake and transmit that information faster than the earthquake waves travel. So for the first earthquake in Mexico there was about a 30-second warning in Mexico City that there was an earthquake about to hit. This is called nowcasting. That 30 seconds can give just enough warning to prevent significant casualties and that’s what we are looking at now.

Where is more likely to have an earthquake?Large earthquakes are concentrated along geological tectonic plate boundaries. The outer shell of the Earth is divided by a series of solid, more-or-less stable plates. And the vast majority of large earthquakes occur at the boundary between the plates, where plates move apart, together or sideways past each other.

Most large earthquakes occur around what people know as the Ring of Fire, the belt of plate boundaries associated with the edge of the Pacific, which runs up the western coast of South America, past Mexico, up past California to Alaska and then goes across the top of the Pacific round to Kamchatka Peninsula (far eastern Russia), and down past Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and round to New Zealand.

There is a branch that goes off towards Indonesia where we had the Boxing Day tsunami earthquake in 2004, up through the Himalayas and up to places like Iran, Turkey, Greece and the Mediterranean.

Then how do we feel earthquakes in Britain?Britain is away from major plate boundaries but is on the stretched edge of a plate, so we get some earthquakes. The largest earthquake we have recorded was magnitude of 6.1 back in 1931, in the North Sea. We get a magnitude 5 on average every eight years, so actually far more common than people might tend to think. I’ve been at Keele for 30 years now and felt a dozen or so earthquakes here in North Staffordshire, most of those related to the old coal mines.

There is a relationship between the size of an earthquake and the size of the fault that creates it. To have a very large earthquake there needs to be a very large fault, found only at plate boundaries. In the UK we are not on a plate boundary and so will not get a very large earthquake.

12 THE KNOW

Career Development Support for Professional Services Staff Keele’s first Professional Services Staff Network has launched and will offer a programme of learning and social events.

The University announced plans to enhance the career development support that is available to

Professional Services Staff (PSS) in April 2017. Nearly 200 members of PSS attended this inaugural event, providing feedback on the proposed support and sharing their ideas on additional support that the University could provide, including the formation of the PSS Network.

The Network is run for and by PSS, supported by HR and the LPDC. With ideas provided by staff at the inaugural event, the organising group propose that the network should aim to:

● Raise the profile of PSS

● Develop understanding and knowledge of roles and activities across the University

● Share ideas and best practice

● Support PSS in identifying career development opportunities

● Support the ongoing development and improvement of PSS across the University

During the People Strategy Launch Week, the PSS Network ran its first event: a ‘Bitesized Briefing’ on ‘Insights into the School Manager Role’ delivered by Sarah Lane from Law and Sue Baknak from Nursing and Midwifery.

The next events from the PSS Network will be a bitesize briefing about Student Services on November 14th at 1pm in the Walter Moberly building followed by a Social and Networking event 12pm-2pm on Tuesday 28 November at Keele Hall. The Network’s webpages (keele.ac.uk/pssnetwork) host the details of all forthcoming events, which will include: Effective Communications, an introduction to RIE, and Erasmus and International Opportunities for PSS. You will also find links to career development resources and information about the Organising Group on the webpages.

If you are a member of Professional Services Staff, please take a look at the activities on offer to see if they might be of personal and professional interest. In addition, if you would like to take a more active role in shaping Network events, please get in contact through the web pages.

keele.ac.uk/pssnetwork

ROOT & BRANCH 13

Introducing Root and BranchSince the launch of Keele’s 2015-2020 Strategic Plan, staff across the University have continued to work hard to help deliver strategic aim number five: ‘To embed environmental sustainability in all that we do’.

In line with this aim, and as part of Keele’s continued ambition to be a genuine sector leader in sustainability in higher

education, a new umbrella campaign, Root & Branch, has been developed to capture the full breadth of the University’s sustainability activities and increase communication both within Keele and beyond into the wider community.

The Root & Branch campaign encapsulates the University’s roles in research, education, campus and community, business processes, and its business engagement and external partnerships. By highlighting the campus as the “root” of our environmental and sustainability endeavours, and our staff, students, alumni, global research, knowledge exchange and educational activities as the “branches”, the campaign will enable us to promote Keele’s sustainability credentials and ambitions, share why these are important to the University’s mission, and demonstrate how we embed sustainability in all that we do.

A new network of Staff Sustainability Representatives is being launched to enable staff in all Schools and Directorates to engage with sustainability activities on campus. The network will replace the previous Green Impact scheme with a University-wide scheme that rewards and recognises innovation in sustainability within University operations. Join the network or find out more about becoming a Sustainability Representative via keele.ac.uk/ sustainabilitynetworksignup.

Watch on YouTube:

youtu.be/65dj-m-xcv0

14 THE KNOW

Alcohol Impact Accreditation for Keele University and Keele Students’ UnionKeele University and Keele Students’ Union have officially received the Alcohol Impact Accreditation.

Lucy Henry (NUS Alcohol Impact Programme Manager) presented Kara Holloway (Alcohol Impact Officer),

Natalie Jordan (Resident Support Officer), Ian Munton (Associate Director of Student Services) and Aysha Panter (Keele SU Welfare and Internationalisation Officer) with the award certificate and formally thanked them for their hard work and support throughout the project.

Keele University and Keele Students’ Union were successfully audited in June 2017 with a score of 80% of criteria completed. Keele were commended for their innovative intervention ideas such as social norming videos and stickers on cups during Alcohol Awareness Weeks, as well as creating a strong and effective partnership between the University, Students’ Union and Postgraduate Association. Other Keele initiatives including the Safety Bus, Street Team and Tea & Toast were recognised as vital to creating a safer community for students.

Ian Munton, Associate Director of Student Services, commented:

“We are committed to the wellbeing, health and safety of our students, and I’m extremely pleased to see this project recognised. We embarked on this accreditation programme in 2015, and over the past two years have worked closely with our Students’ Unions to establish a mix of innovative, institution-wide behaviour change approaches and interventions encompassing policy, procedure, campaigns, retailing and accommodation.”

Aysha Panter, Welfare and Internationalisation Officer at Keele Students’ Union commented:

“I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done at Keele to encourage responsible drinking and make sure that Keele students are looked after. I would like to thank all the staff at the Union and University who worked to make this possible and the team of fantastic volunteers who give their time to Street Team and Tea & Toast for their contributions to making Keele an inclusive, welcoming and safe community.”

Members of the Drug & Alcohol Group at Keele are now working to promote the accreditation among staff and students and share the work that was undertaken throughout the two-year project. Furthermore, members are also compiling an official response to the recommendations made by student auditors to ensure that these points are taken on board when devising the strategic plan for this academic year.

Alcohol Awareness activities will be taking place in November, including a trip to Flip Out, free mocktails, chill out zones and competitions.

The full announcement of the accreditation can be found on the Alcohol Impact website keele.ac.uk/keelealcoholaccreditation

What is Alcohol Impact?NUS Alcohol Impact aims to embed social norms of responsible drinking on campuses, change attitudes towards alcohol and build healthier, safer and more productive student communities. Its main goal is to create a more positive culture of responsible drinking for students. The programme involves participating institutions and students’ unions working through a list of criteria ranging from shaping policies to working in partnership with local community groups.

Aysha Panter and Kara Holloway with the awards

In the press

IN THE PRESS 15

Keele students donate three tonnes of food to local foodbankGenerous Keele University students have donated three tonnes of food to Newcastle-Staffs Foodbank.

Newcastle’s local foodbank is part of The Trussell Trust’s network working to tackle food poverty and hunger in the

UK. Foodbanks provide a minimum of three days’ emergency food and support to people in poverty or those in need.

The food that Keele students donated equates to an estimated 7,000 meals for members of the local community, and has trebled last year’s total of around one tonne of donated food.

The donation was part of the University’s Keele Green Move Out 2017 scheme, where students moving out of campus Halls of Residence donate food and household items.

Huw Evans, Environmental Manager at Keele University, said: “This year’s Green Move Out scheme was a great success, and we are delighted that our students have helped vulnerable people in our local community.

“This year Keele worked with our Local food bank and Tesco who together donated 300 empty crates that we delivered to our student halls. Our students then filled these crates over the summer totalling three tonnes of food, helping to provide meals for people in crisis”

“All of this could only have been achieved by the fantastic work of the University’s Accommodation team and portering staff who helped with the storage, collection and delivery of the items. It’s great to see everyone working together for a good cause.”

Students also donated a range of unwanted items, from crockery to ironing boards, which were sold on to incoming students raising over £400 for Think:Green, a student-led service that provides a platform to work on sustainable and environmental ideas.

The University also works with other local charities throughout the year to donate surplus furniture and other items. One of these is the British Heart Foundation (BHF) who have donation points on campus for clothes and other items. Over the last few years Keele students have donated over £20,000 worth of items to the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

Mr Evans added: “At Keele, we want to see as little thrown in the bin as possible, so we will always try to find a way for things to be reused and recycled, whether by donating to a charity, school or finding a sustainable way to recycle it. We want to reduce waste and make a social impact too.”

keele.ac.uk/studentsdontatefood

The food that Keele students donated equates to an estimated 7,000 meals for members of the local community, and has trebled last year’s total of around one tonne of donated food.

16 THE KNOW

How does a country become a country? An expert explains...

Within the space of a week this autumn, the people of Catalonia and Kurdistan were asked if

they wanted to live in an independent country. If these two referendums result in declarations of independence, what happens next? It may seem straightforward that Kurdistan, Catalonia, or even both would become the world’s newest countries. But it’s not that simple.

International law states that people have the right to determine their own destiny, including political status. Our right of self-determination is enshrined in the UN Charter, and clarified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This could be taken as the right to have sovereign statehood recognised by the international community. However, it’s most often interpreted as the right of a population to determine how they are governed and who governs them. In other words, self-determination in today’s world most often pertains to choices within an existing country rather than as a path to new statehood.

This is partly because the laws on self-determination were mostly written during the period of decolonisation. That historical context cannot be ignored when interpreting their purpose. During that time, colonial powers were taking steps towards dismantling their empires. They had become expensive to maintain and political pressure was growing within the colonies themselves.

Creating a countryAnother complicating factor in setting up a country is the fact that, for one territory to become a new state, another already existing sovereign state must lose some of its territory. That would violate the laws and norms of territorial integrity. These are some of the oldest and most steadfast rules underpinning the international system.

Recognition of a new state essentially means legally recognising the transfer of sovereignty over a territory from one authority to another. An international body, including the UN, cannot just take away territory without the permission of the original “host” state. To do so would be a violation of one of the defining rules of the system of states.

Kosovo, for example, declared independence from Serbia in 2008 but even to this day it doesn’t have sovereign statehood – despite more than half of the UN’s member states recognising its independence. This is largely because Serbia still claims sovereign control over the territory, although other factors are certainly also at play. In the same way, Iraq would have to relinquish sovereign control over territory in order for Kurdistan to become a state.

There are obvious competing and contradicting legal principles here. In at least one instance, these contradictions appear together within the same law. Indeed, what we find is that there is no clear legal path to obtaining sovereign statehood. There is also no legally established mechanism for who determines whether a territory becomes a sovereign state. So we have to look at previous examples to work out how it’s done.

The world’s most recent states are South Sudan, which was recognised in 2011 and East Timor, which was recognised in 2002. In the early 1990s, there was a wave of new states due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia. In 1993, Eritrea also became a state after a decades-long war with Ethiopia, which had annexed Eritrea in 1962. Prior to that, the world’s new states emerged out of the shifting or collapse of empires, most notable with the end of colonialism.

For East Timor and South Sudan, and in many ways Eritrea, statehood was part of attempts to resolve another problem: violent conflict. In all three cases, the host state (Indonesia for East Timor; Sudan for South Sudan; Ethiopia for Eritrea) agreed to relinquish control of the territory as part of negotiated peace agreements.

All of these new states obtained sovereignty after the disappearance of their former sovereign power, or with the permission of their former sovereign power. What they all have in common is that they became states in order to resolve some kind of problem, meaning there was some international benefit to their recognition. For the world’s newest states, their recognition was more of a political act than a legally defined process.

When is a state recognised as independent?Although it’s not clearly laid out in law, a territory essentially becomes a sovereign state when its independence is recognised by the United Nations. As the largest and most inclusive multilateral organisation, its sanctioning of sovereign statehood makes sense.

But while procedures for admitting new members are clearly laid out in the Charter and in the rules of the UN, these rules pertain to new members that are already sovereign states. Yet again there is ambiguity in the process that aspiring states must go through in order to become sovereign.

Becoming an internationally recognised sovereign country is not a clear or straightforward process. In many ways, it is determined by power and the international political climate of the day. And a surprising number of entities exist as unrecognised states, many for decades, without recognition of sovereignty.

If Catalonia or Kurdistan declare their independence, they may get sovereign statehood if their host states agree. If not, though, they could choose to declare their independence, and to exist as an unrecognised state indefinitely.

Dr Rebecca Richards Lecturer in International Relations(Originally published in August 2017)

The ConversationThis article is just one of fifty which Keele academics have written so far this year for

The Conversation, the independent source of news and views sourced

from the academic community and delivered directly to the public, which have collectively been read by

one million people worldwide.

Discover more at keele.ac.uk/the-conversation

Discover. Snap. Share. That’s exactly what many of our staff, students and visitors do as they walk around campus.

Keele on cameraHere’s a selection of images shared on Instagram over the last few months.

@noeminha

Mike Lancaster

@c_mack13

@jamie_adams89

@IanWilliamson

@rockallmalin

@paulmimack

KEELE ON CAMERA 17

18 THE KNOW

What’s onHere’s an overview of events and notable dates coming up over the next few months...

NOVEMBER20th NOV 7.30PM KEELE WRITING STAFF COMMON ROOM KEELE HALL Emma Flint An evening of live reading with author

25th NOV 6.30PM MUSIC KEELE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL Keele Bach Choir

21st NOV 6.15PM INAUGURAL LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Professor Chris Fogwill Antarctica: A remote continent?

22nd NOV 1.15PM MUSIC CLOCK HOUSE LECTURE ROOM Keele Music forum John Simmonds (make some noise): Community music workshop

22nd NOV 6PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE THE SALVIN ROOM KEELE HALL Professor Kate Pickett The Immorality of Inequality

22nd NOV 7.30PM MUSIC WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Chamber Musicians of London A special concert in the memory of George Pratt, the founding Director of Music at Keele University

23rd NOV ARTS KEELE KEELE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY Picture this exhibition Gallery opening hours: keele.ac.uk/artskeele/openinghours

25th NOV 7.30PM KEELE MUSIC KEELE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL Keele Bach Choir Gioachino Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle

29th NOV 7.30PM MUSIC WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Live music from Xuefei Yang, an internationally recognised Chinese guitarist

DECEMBER4th DEC 7.30PM KEELE WRITING STAFF COMMON ROOM KEELE HALL Dimitri Nasrallah An evening of live reading with author

6th DEC 5.30PM PUBLIC LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING A panel of speakers from Keele, Cobra Biologics and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult Cell and gene therapy: 21st century medicines

6th DEC 6PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE THE BALLROOM KEELE HALL Professor Shane O’Neill Global Justice as Decolonization

8th-10th DEC KEELE DRAMA SOCIETY LOCATION TBC One acts festival Bringing the best of student writing and performance with the added bonus of raising money for charity

11th DEC 6.15PM INAUGURAL LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Professor Alannah Tomkins The Workhouse: a Victorian institution through the eyes of working-class writers

11th DEC 7.30PM KEELE WRITING STAFF COMMON ROOM KEELE HALL Student open mic night

13th DEC 5.15 PM KEELE CHRISTMAS THE CHAPEL The Keele Christmas Carol Service

WHATS ON 19

JANUARY24th JAN 6PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Darren Henley Can Creativity Save Us?

FEBRUARY6th FEB 6.15PM INAUGURAL LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Professor David Healey The Digital Energy Revolution. Can it save our Climate from the precipice?

14th FEB 7.30PM MUSIC WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Kabantu mix of world, folk, jazz and classical compositions to reignite traditional songs written over the last century

21st FEB 1PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE THE SALVIN ROOM KEELE HALL Professor Anne Power The Future of Social Housing after Grenfell

21st FEB 7.30PM MUSIC KEELE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL National Youth Jazz Orchestra Live music from the forties to the noughties, paying homage to the legacy of a music designed for dancing

28th FEB 7.30PM MUSIC WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Fitzroy Quartet A live string quartet performance by the prizewinning Fitzroy Quartet

MARCH6th MAR 6.15PM INAUGURAL LECTURE WESTMINSTER THEATRE CHANCELLOR’S BUILDING Professor Gillian Lancaster Taking the global initiative: measuring early child development in non-Western settings

7th MAR 6PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE THE SALVIN ROOM KEELE HALL Professor James Wilsdon After Brexit, UKRI if you want to: a field guide to the new research landscape

7th MAR 7.30PM MUSIC KEELE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc A blend of Folk music from Norway, Sweden and Shetland

21st MAR 6PM GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE THE SALVIN ROOM KEELE HALL Professor David Gillborn The ‘Betrayal of White pupils’ (and other lies we’re told about race and education)

@thatgingergirl_96

Professor Kate Pickett

National Youth Jazz Image ©Carl Hyde

Nordic Fiddlers Bloc photo_Ingvil_Skeie_Ljones

Keele University Staffordshire ST5 5BG

2831 | MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS 11/17

keele.ac.uk news@keele.ac.uk

Communications TeamThe Communications Team are on hand to support colleagues with both internal and external communications – whether it’s around a new research grant, the findings of a study, an academic accolade, or other news.

Please email details to news@keele.ac.uk in the first instance – you can find out more about the team at www.keele.ac.uk/communications