Scottish Funding Council

22 of Scotland’s 36 finalists in the Worldskills UK Finals 2024 left Friday’s awards ceremony with medals or a ‘highly commended’. New College Lanarkshire had a hugely successful evening coming a very decisive first in the medal league table. Our latest website news story has more: https://lnkd.in/e3k6-McJ

A medal in honour of our amazing colleague, André Reibig, has been awarded by Winning Students 100 to Scotland’s gold-winning para-Olympics swimmer, Faye Rogers. Read the full story in our latest news article. https://lnkd.in/eigkhkMy

Public sector data is often locked away in lots of individual systems, across many different organisations, and isn’t in a format that makes access or integration easy. Launched in 2021, Research Data Scotland (RDS) helps researchers find out what’s out there, how good it is and how to get hold of it quickly. In our latest guest blog, Professor Roger Halliday, RDS’s Chief Executive Officer introduces the organisation’s pioneering Researcher Access Service and looks forward to its future innovations. https://lnkd.in/e47p3xZW

Get a flavour of yesterday’s CDN College Awards and find out who won the coveted Judges’ Award in our latest news article. If you want to finish the week feeling inspired by how much college education can mean to people, follow the link at the end of the article to the Award’s Shortlist Summary and look at the video submissions for the Student of the Year Award.  https://lnkd.in/eR-ujv68

Congratulations to all the winners and highly recommended entries at the 2024 Green Gown Awards UK & Ireland. It was great to see the awards ceremony coming to Scotland for its 20th anniversary, and we’re very proud to have been able to sponsor this year’s Creating Impact award. Our SFC news story today focusses on the Scottish stories from last night’s ceremony. https://lnkd.in/ezAgN7cn

The Scottish Funding Council and the University of Aberdeen are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Frances Medaney as the new Scottish Research Cultures Collaboration Manager. Working across all Scottish universities, Frances will champion collaboration and resource sharing, support the development of effective evaluation practices, and represent Scottish interests in UK-wide research culture discussions. https://lnkd.in/esdZ773a

Read our latest blog. It comes from Eilidh Fulton who looks back at the SFC event earlier this year to discuss equality outcomes. Eilidh explains what national equality outcomes are and how they came about. She also reflects on what we learned from the event in terms of both challenges and hope for the future. https://lnkd.in/e_gSr5KM

On Thursday 14 and Friday 15 Nov we’re holding online drop-in sessions for colleagues and students currently working on college and university self-evaluation and action plans. You're welcome to come along with any questions you have and we'll do our very best to answer them. Sign up is via the SFC website. https://lnkd.in/dDkRizyq

The results of our latest college student satisfaction survey are published in a new report out now. They show satisfaction rates remain high among college students in Scotland. Over 94% of full time students studying on further education courses said they were satisfied with their college experience. For part time further education students the overall satisfaction rate was even higher at almost 96%. https://lnkd.in/ejXqA5DJ

We’re delighted to announce that Francesca Osowska will be the new Chief Executive of the Scottish Funding Council. She will take up the role in mid-January 2025. Francesca will be joining us from NatureScot where, as Chief Executive, she led a major change programme forging a clearer link to Scotland’s national priorities, including a particular focus on addressing the climate emergency. Francesca brings with her a strong track record of strategic leadership, team and relationship building, and the successful delivery of major projects. https://lnkd.in/ejRyzUFS