We would like to begin by welcoming all of our new and returning students to the University of Salford, for the 2024/2025 academic year. For returning students, we hope that you are enjoying the new topics that you are studying and continue to engage well with your studies. For all of our new students and degree apprentices, we hope that you are adapting well to university studies and are enjoying the transition from learning in college to the much larger scale of university. We also hope that you are managing to interact with your fellow students and learners throughout your studies, to hopefully allow you to develop lifelong friendships and collaborations which last much longer than the time of your degree programme. We hope that you all take every opportunity the University of Salford can offer you, both timetabled and extracurricular to make you the best possible graduates, allowing you to achieve your dreams.
This previous year has been a busy year, with a series of major achievements and milestones for the Biomedicine suite of programmes. The Biomedical Science programmes were successfully reaccredited by the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS), confirming our accredited degree status until 2029. This was a monumental task led by Dr Sara Namvar but required significant input from the whole programme team to complete the submission and ensure it met the high standards the IBMS requires.
Our Biomedical Science degree apprenticeship provision was also inspected by OFSTED last year as a part of their wider university inspection, with us being awarded a good outcome. This is a great achievement with the inspectors highlighting numerous positives and areas of excellence within the programme and the team which deliver it. We would like to thank everyone involved in the inspection and the key members of the team who spent their evenings coordinating this successful inspection.
We are also delighted to have been awarded the IBMS Educational Institution of the Year at the IBMS Awards 2024. The IBMS said the following as the reasons for the award.
“ Congratulations on being recognised as ‘Educational Institution of the Year’ at the 2024 IBMS Awards. Your commitment to excellence and innovation in biomedical science is truly exemplary. Your degree apprenticeship program’s high pass rates and the successful transition of your graduates into biomedical scientist roles reflect the effectiveness of your educational strategies and robust support provided by your programme team. The curriculum innovations you’ve implemented such as the pathology specimen reception and blood transfusion simulations provide students with practical, real-world experiences that enhance their professional competencies.
Furthermore, the growth of your extracurricular career mentorship groups and the success of your portfolio club in aligning university studies with HCPC standards demonstrate your proactive approach to student development and career readiness. Your institution’s efforts to adapt to the needs of the workplace and continuously improve the educational experience have set a high benchmark in the field. This award is a testament to your dedication to developing skilled professionals who are well-prepared to contribute to the biomedical science profession. Congratulations once again on your outstanding achievements and contributions to the field”.
This is a fantastic achievement, with the University of Salford now nationally recognised as one of the best universities in the country to study Biomedical Science. But this is only the beginning. We are continuing to invest in our department with the appointment of four new academic staff, to support and expand our Biomedical Science teaching team. We would like to welcome Dr Amy Morgan (Lecturer in Biomedical Science), Dr Samantha Borland (Lecturer in Biomedical Science) and Dr Willian A. da Silveira (Lecturer in Medical Genomics), with a fourth new lecturer to arrive in the coming months.
Further to this, we are continuing to develop our teaching and learning provision to ensure our students have the best possible student experience, with the development and expansion of numerous initiatives including the development of collaborative online international learning (COIL) opportunities, based on the successful COIL event developed by Dr Matthew Jones and Dr Pika Miklavc with Wayne State University in Detroit. We are also designing and implementing digital escape rooms into selected modules to offer students a “playful” way to better understand key academic content related to numerous areas of biomedicine using the UoScape platform ( https://uoscape.co.uk/ ) developed by Dr Nicky Morgan. We will also continue to deliver key events alongside our extracurricular societies including the nationally recognised IBMS portfolio club led by Tahmina Hussain, as well as journal clubs, lab tours, book clubs, plus the return of Bioart and PassionFlash. You will hear a lot more about these events in the coming months, so keep your eyes peeled for the advertisements on how to sign up soon.
We would like to end by taking the time to say thank you to all of our staff and students who have made these positive outcomes possible, and we look forward to welcoming our new students into the Salford Biomedicine family. We wish you luck with your upcoming academic year of studies.
Dr Matthew Jones, Deputy Programme Lead for Biomedical Science & Directorate Head of Academic Quality.
Dr Sara Namvar, Programme Lead for Biomedical Science & Directorate Lead for Student Experience
Tahmina Hussain, Programme Lead for the Biomedical Science Degree Apprenticeship & Directorate Lead for Staff EDI
Dr Pika Miklavc, Programme lead for Human Biology and Infectious Diseases
