Our webinar on Local Place Plans – what could they mean for pedestrians? – takes place a week today: Monday, 23 February, at 3 – 4pm.
We are delighted to host Anna Grant, Edinburgh Council and Joanna McClelland, architect.
Aimed especially at community councils but everyone – groups or individuals – very welcome!
Register here! http://bit.ly/45KgofS
Still time to sign up for our Community Councils webinar at 6pm on Wed 29 January, when we will get an update on the Democracy Matters consultation from the Scottish Government.
The Democracy Matters engagement process asked communities to consider what the future of community decision making should look like where they live.
On 19 September 2024, COSLA and the Scottish Government published the Democracy Matters National Conversation report alongside a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to this work.
In this session Scottish Government officials will be presenting the process findings and outlining next steps for this important work.
Still time to sign up for our webinar with @readyscotland on Wednesday 25 September to talk about how Community Councils are supporting people through local emergencies – and find out how you can contribute to a new survey on the issue.
InnoScot Health’s last ‘lunch & learn’ session for the first half of 2024 is entitled Engaging students in healthcare innovation for an improved NHS and will provide interesting perspectives on this key facet of turning ideas into health service improvements.
Hosted on Microsoft Teams on Wednesday 26 June from 12 until 12.45pm, the free to join webinar will be introduced by Innovation Manager, Fiona Schaefer.
She will discuss InnoScot Health’s work over the past two years in providing more than 10 teams of students from Heriot-Watt University Engineering Design and Manufacture and Glasgow School of Art’s product design manufacture students with real world project briefs from NHS innovators.
Fiona will be joined by two guest speakers:
Fiona said: “Over the past couple of years, InnoScot Health has successfully engaged with students at Heriot-Watt University and Glasgow School of Art. This has resulted in enduring collaborative relationships and this webinar will provide a showcase of successes to date.
“We’re also delighted to have great guest speakers – Dr Shalchy who is a forward-thinking engineer specialising in projects which aim to enhance lives.
“Interface will also provide engaging views which draw on its role as a central hub connecting industry and academia, often leading to enhanced healthcare innovation.
“A Q&A section will round off the webinar, allowing attendees to probe and receive guidance on their own particular areas of interest.”
“While InnoScot Health is pausing its webinar series for the summer holiday season and recommencing in late August, we’re already looking to the autumn for innovation challenges which could suit engagement with engineering students to explore a new concept, test ideas, or explore solutions to a pressing problem.”
InnoScot Health and Heriot-Watt University are set to further solidify their partnership with representatives from both organisations set to perform a joint presentation explaining the classification of medical devices and related regulations to a range of businesses.
The two organisations recently signed a five-year agreement which will see Heriot-Watt University’s Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (MDMC) collaborate with InnoScot Health to help bring new ideas and innovations from healthcare professionals to life.
In a further step in the organisation’s relationship, InnoScot Health’s Head of Regulatory Affairs Elaine Gemmell and Prof. Marc Desmulliez, Manager of the MDMC will help to lead a free online event entitled ‘‘What is a medical device?’ which is taking place on Thursday 22 September at 10am.
The combined technical seminar will feature Elaine, Marc, and also Ms Melissa Siah, Director of Syntacog.
Together, the trio will be presenting on:
Elaine said: “We expect this combined technical seminar to be of interest to manufacturers with little prior knowledge and experience of medical devices, as well as established businesses seeking more information on the automation of classification of medical devices.
“Joining the event will allow you to better understand the definition of a medical device, its classification, and the resulting medical device regulations for which the device needs to comply to.
“Before the pandemic, there was already movement towards increased governance around medical device innovation. Now, however, far-reaching new regulations are having a significant impact on everyone involved with medical devices – from their manufacture to their use.
“A strong understanding of regulatory compliance must therefore be intertwined with the development process early on when attempting to harness the true potential of new innovations.
Elaine joined InnoScot Health, formally Scottish Health Innovations, in 2002 and helped establish the organisation. With more than twenty years’ experience in medical device development, she is a certified ISO 13485 /ISO 9001 Lead Auditor and has experience of regulatory approval and CE, UKCA marking for medical devices.
Joining SHIL spinout company, Clear Surgical, as a Director, Head of Regulatory Compliance and laterally Chief Operating Officer, she has helped to establish the company with ISO 13485 accreditation and launch two innovative devices onto the market.
Prof. Marc Desmulliez has been involved in medical devices manufacturing for over 15 years. From his previous research interests in Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS), and in collaboration with his former PhD student, Dr. Suzanne Costello, he developed some in situ sensors to look at the gas and moisture ingress in encapsulated packages.
The work culminated in a monograph (“Hermeticity Testing of MEMS and Microelectronic Packages, Artech House Pub.). His current research interests include microwave sensing and nature inspired engineering.
Melissa Siah co-founded Syntacog, a regulatory startup in mid-2020. The company subsequently won the regulatory challenge in the 2021 Singapore Airlines AppChallenge and more than £500k in Innovate UK grant funding to develop its regulatory compliance technology.
Melissa’s passion for making regulations easier to understand comes from a decade in regulatory law and policy with the Australian government, and seven years leading the development of legal tech and AI products in the UK and Australia.
The webinar will be hosted on Zoom, with a link provided to attendees following registration here.
Best Start, Bright Future – a Poverty Alliance Webinar
Monday 6 June 2022: 10am – 1pm
Scotland is a country where compassion is strong, but where child poverty is an ongoing injustice that we have to end together.
Best Start, Bright Future, the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, was published at the end of March. It’s designed to help create the change we need to drive down child poverty and reach Scotland’s interim child poverty targets in 2024.
There are a lot of commitments in the plan, and we are hosting a special morning webinar to explore how we can make sure they are implemented, and how they can best deliver practical change in our communities.
The plan includes pledges to: increase the level of the Scottish Child Payment; create a new employability offer to help parents get into work, and; mitigation of the benefit cap.
There is lot more besides, and Best Start, Bright Futures will touch on all areas of anti-poverty activity in Scotland. It is crucial for groups and organisations across the country to understand what it all means for their work.
Please join us for a morning of discussion on how we can all work together to ensure that the ambition contained in the plan is delivered.
Agenda
10:00 Welcome Peter Kelly, Director, the Poverty Alliance
10:05 Best Start, Bright Futures: What you need to know!
Julie Humphreys, Deputy Director, Tackling Child Poverty & Financial Wellbeing, Scottish Government
10:20 From Plan to Practice: Perspectives on Best Start, Bright Futures
Professor Morag Treanor, Deputy Chair, Poverty and Inequality Commission
John Dickie, Director, Child Poverty Action Group Scotland
Bruce Adamson, Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland
10:50 Panel Discussion
11:15 Comfort Break
11.30 Workshops
1. Making Employability Work for Priority Group Families
2. Social security: Priorities for tackling poverty
3. Childcare and Child Poverty – Meeting the Challenges
12.30: Feedback from groups and concluding remarks
13:00 Close
‘Can I join my family in the UK?’ ‘Can I bring my family member to live in the UK’ ? We’ve heard these questions a lot in the last few weeks!
Join our next webinar on Tuesday, 25 January to learn more about #EUSS Joining Family Members.
Please register here: https://bit.ly/3GY2NTu
Scotland’s leading pro-European campaigning body, the European Movement in Scotland (EMiS), has underlined its cross-party credentials by choosing a former SNP cabinet secretary and a former Conservative MEP as its new honorary presidents.
Mike Russell, MSP until May this year and former Scottish Government cabinet secretary for Constitution, Europe and External Affairs, and John Purvis, a Tory MEP for 15 years, jointly take over the post bequeathed to them by (Lord) Ming Campbell, the LibDem peer.
They were unanimously confirmed in their new posts at the EMiS annual general meeting in Edinburgh which reaffirmed its commitment to Scotland rejoining the European Union as soon as possible – whether in its own right as an independent state or as part of the UK. As a non-party/cross-party body EMiS is neutral on Scottish independence.
Separately, EMiS is to launch a campaign for Scotland and/or the UK to rejoin the single market and customs union as the devastating economic and social effects of Brexit are revealed daily.
The launch will coincide with the latest EMiS webinar debate on the same topic on December 8 (see here for details: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/webinar-should-we-re-join-the-single-market-andor-customs-union-tickets-211307254687).
Speakers include:
David Clarke, Vice-Chair of EMiS commented: “Our choice of new Honorary Presidents underlines the cross-party consensus in Scotland for rejoining the European Union, with membership of the single market and customs union a first stage.
“John Purvis is a long-standing Conservative with deep roots in the EU and European financial services, while Mike Russell’s commitment to Europe as an SNP politician, minister and thinker is unmatched. Our campaign to rejoin the EU steps up a gear with our latest webinar on 8th December and throughout 2022.”
This Thursday,November 25, Angela McShane, who survived a serious road incident over ten years ago, will share her powerful story to help raise awareness of the risks of drug and drink-driving.
More than a decade ago, Angela was struck down by a driver who was travelling at an excessive speed in a residential area. It later emerged that the driver was under the influence of alcohol and illegal drugs at the time of the collision.
Following a course of intensive physiotherapy, Angela has now regained her health and delivers presentations to educate the public about road safety through the community interest company, The Reinvention, which she established with her husband.
Angela will be sharing her reflections on the ripple effect of a road traffic incident at an online event organised by the Scottish Occupational Road Safety Alliance (ScORSA).
Angela McShane, road safety ambassador and Founder of The Reinvention, said: “I am delighted to be able to share my story with road safety professionals, fleet managers and small businesses at the upcoming ScORSA webinar.
“I hope to play my part in making our roads safer for all by talking about the consequences of reckless driving.”
Last year, across Great Britain, there were 84 fatal incidents and 562 serious incidents on the roads where the contributory factor ‘driver/rider impaired by drugs (illicit/medicinal) was assigned.
In 2019, the most recent figures available, around 230 people were killed on our roads as result of a collision involving a driver who had been drinking alcohol.
Dr Karen McDonnell, Policy adviser at ScORSA, said: “Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol is regarded by ScORSA as one of the ‘Fatal Four’- four common causes of serious and fatal collisions on our roads.
“ScORSA is working with organisations who employ people who drive for work in order to share life-saving safety messages. Driving for work is one of the most hazardous activities people can undertake and we want to help support employers to develop of safe systems of work.”
All ScORSA webinars are free to attend. You can hear Angela share her story on Thursday November 25at 11am. You can register your place here.
In Scotland the temporary ban on evictions, other than anti-social behaviour cases, is still ongoing, in addition to changes in Capital Gains Tax thresholds, reporting rules and increasing property values: all matters which private landlords and letting agents should be aware of, or they may face expensive fees.
Thorntons’ Dispute Resolution specialists Gillian Buchanan and Kirsty Waughman, alongside Property Partner Andrew Kirkhope, are hosting a free webinar from 9.30am on Wednesday 5 May 2021 to update private landlords and letting agents on current issues.
The one hour event, which includes an online Q&A session, will cover the emergency measures currently affecting the private rental sector, Capital Gains Tax overview and the increase in property values, as well as a cautionary tale about wrongful termination which demonstrates the costs associated with evicting a tenant under false pretences.
Gillian Buchanan, Dispute Resolution Partner at Thorntons, said: “This event will provide an opportunity to gain expert legal insight on dealing with landlord and tenant issues. We hope to arm attendees with practical advice which should help to protect their property portfolios.”
To secure a place at the event, visit www.thorntons-law.co.uk/events.
