Broadcast: News items

Thirty Sussex students have successfully completed a demanding extra-curricular leadership programme.

Running for the third year, the Learning to Lead programme attracted more than 200 applications for the 30 places.

After an intensive week of leadership skill development and training in December 2011, the students worked in teams on challenging think-tank policy projects - each of them mentored by a Sussex graduate and based on one of the Sussex research themes.

The topics included:

• Who is responsible for the green future? Government, corporations, people? (Global Transformations research theme, mentor Professor Jeremy Watson, Global Research Director of Arup)
• Alternative NHS mental health treatment for young people (Environment and Health research theme, mentor Lisa Rodrigues, Chief Executive of the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust)
• The importance of ethics in business: A policy proposal to prevent future crisis (Global Transformations research theme, mentor Mike Blake, former Chief Operating Officer and European Head of Infrastructure at KPMG)
• The media and digital world: Past and present (Digital and Social Media research theme, mentor Robin Paxton, non-executive director of Nimbus Communications Ltd)
• The police and the public: A crisis of respect (Citizenship and Democratisation research theme, mentor Olivia Pinkney, Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police)

The students then made presentations to an academic and business panel led by Professor Bob Allison, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research); Professor Matthew Cragoe, Head of the School of History, Art History and Philosophy; Ian Lowrie, Sussex alumnus and former Chief Executive of Adur District Council and Worthing Borough Council; and Stuart Maddocks, leadership trainer.

At a dinner on Thursday (7 June), the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Farthing, presented the successful students with Sussex Plus certificates and certificates marking their affiliation to the Institute of Leadership and Management.

The evening culminated with an after-dinner speech by Sussex alumnus Dr Andrew Morgan, Chief Scientist for DuPont Nutrition & Health, who shared his leadership insights from an international career of more than 30 years in the biosciences industry - neatly summed up in the University of Sussex motto, 'Be still and know'.

Funded by Sussex alumni through the Development and Alumni Relations Office, Learning to Lead is delivered by the Careers and Employability Centre with leadership trainer Stuart Maddocks, Director of the Clemorton Consultancy (a leadership and management-development training company).

Linda Buckham, Director of the Careers and Employability Centre, said: "This year's Learning to Lead programme demonstrated again the transformational learning experience born from bringing together experiential, soft-skills development with academic, theoretical knowledge and the worldly expertise of Sussex alumni."