Features: 2017

It has been a busy year for research at the University of York, with our stories making headlines around the world. Here are highlights from five topics and some of the amazing things we have learned from our researchers in 2017:

International Digital Preservation Day, the first celebration of significant collections preserved as digital materials, is bringing together experts and institutions across the world to raise the profile of digital preservation archives.

With a state-of-the-art, three bedroom sleep laboratory, researchers at the University of York use a combination of experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience and neurophysiology to understand what happens in the brain when we sleep.

Since 2012, 1 August has been National Alpaca Day in Peru. Initiated by the Peruvian government to promote sales of alpaca products, Alpaca Day is widely celebrated across Peru and comprises a range of activities, from alpaca judging to alpaca parades and wool spinning competitions.

A team at the University of York's Department of Education have developed situational judgment tests (SJTs) for selecting teaching candidates in Malawi schools. The test requires candidates to make judgments about optimal behaviours in realistic school scenarios.

Old Norse has been brought back to life by a team of PhD students at the University of York through the voices of new animatronic Viking characters at the world-famous JORVIK Viking Centre.

The Konso Cultural Landscape, Ethiopia, consists of 200 km2 of stone walled terraces and fortified settlements. Designated as an UNESCO world heritage site in 2011, it provides a 600 year-old example of how human beings adapted to a dry and unforgiving environment.

Dr Clementine Beauvais, from the University of York's Department of Education, discusses bringing Disney's classic tale, Beauty and the Beast, back to the big screen in a live-action remake featuring a more modern-day Belle:

To celebrate World Book Day 2017, we asked children’s author and lecturer at the University of York’s Department of Education, Dr Clementine Beauvais, to nominate her top five children’s literary characters. She writes here about heroic characters, written by authors from across Europe, who have the ‘supernatural’ ability to make the world a better place:

Rosie Smith, YorkTalks PhD student competition winner, from the Department of Sociology, is investigating media archives of high profile criminal cases to understand the public’s role in criminal justice and whether trials should be televised. She talks here about the link between media, community, and criminal justice, following the return of ITV’s crime drama, Broadchurch: