Shaping West Slope: virtual reality and what you told us
Architects and the West Slope team used virtual reality to showcase ideas and invited feedback on making interior spaces feel more welcoming. Take a look at the virtual spaces and find out more.
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West Slope: final month of preparatory works
Work to prepare our campus for building West Slope is in its final month. York House has been fully demolished, and its rubble will be used to build the roads within the worksite. Neighbouring Norwich House Road has reopened to all vehicles and pedestrians following the upgrade of essential utilities. Later this month Refectory Road will reopen, bringing Bramber House bus stop back into use. New traffic lights will be installed at the East Slope Road / Northfield Lane junction.
Over the next few months construction work will increase on West Slope and construction vehicles will use Norwich House Road, Refectory Road and the new Lewes Court Road to access the worksite.
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Continuing to improve our catering services
There’s been plenty of action in campus catering, including the opening of the new Atrium Market, the first contactless store at a UK university.
We’re proud that Eat Central, our largest dining hub, has received the highest accreditation available from The Sustainable Restaurant Association. And there is further good news on the sustainability front: after the success of the introduction of carbon labelling at ACCA café, the initiative has been expanded to the Veg Bowl @ Dhaba as well as a number of other campus outlets.
We’re gearing up for a food takeover this month, with student-inspired recipes from around the globe being recreated by Sussex Uni chefs. And we are helping students as they prepare for exams and assessments with half-price deliveries from the Uni Food App and free fruit available all over campus. Finally, the vending machines in our sports centres have been getting a refresh, with more healthy products on the way soon.
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Moving to the next phase in Facilities Management (FM) procurement
The next phase of our procurement process is underway as we seek a new partner to work with us to run our campus services. We are in a stage of the process called 'competitive dialogue’, which means that we hold conversations with the bidders, whose innovation and input will help shape our future service. Read more about the process.
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Balfour Beatty West Slope offices under construction
Throughout the construction of West Slope, our construction partner, Balfour Beatty, will have worksite offices and an employee break area on campus. These will be located opposite Lewes Court residences in the currently closed Car Park 9, and are now under construction with modular units being delivered to the site and installed over the next few months.
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An update on how we are managing RAAC
With our first RAAC removal project complete, get an update about what is happening across all our impacted buildings, including Falmer House, where work is expected to take place this summer. Read an update on RAAC.
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Accessible toilets in Falmer House
New and refurbished accessible toilets have been built and installed on Falmer House First Floor, providing greatly improved access and quality for general use. This is part of an ongoing programme to upgrade and install accessible and all-gender toilets across campus in-line with the University’s goals, with recent installations including new accessible facilities at Arts A and Pevensey I.
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New lighting and controls in the Pevensey I lecture theatres
Brand-new lighting and controls have been installed in the Pevensey I A6 and A7 lecture theatres. Working with lecturers to ensure the project provides what is needed, the new lighting now operates on presence detection and automatically turns on when entering the space, and there are custom “scene” options for general teaching, projection and studying.
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Sussex Racing Compound
A brand new fenced-off compound for the Sussex Racing team in the School of Engineering and Informatics has been developed, working closely with the School, located just next to their operations in John Clifford West.
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New Web Estate project gathering feedback
The University’s New Web Estate project, which will replace our existing website and associated systems, as well as introducing a staff intranet, is off to a flying start.
The audience insight phase of the project is underway. This is designed to gather information from different audiences about their wants and needs for our web estate and the way we deliver it, which will feed directly into the project. As part of this, all colleagues were invited to share their views through a staff survey in April. At the same time a series of workshops took place helping the team understand how our online information will fit together as part of a new digital experience. The workshops involved subject matter experts who represent a range of content areas on our existing website.
This activity follows last summer’s extensive consultation, which involved more than 350 colleagues completing surveys, workshops and interviews to help shape the project and its requirements.
Read more about the New Web Estate project on our webpages.
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Preparation for new external Wi-Fi begins and new firewall set to boost security
Work has started which will prepare the campus for the installation of external Wi-Fi. Starting this summer, Wi-Fi antennas will be installed in existing lamp posts across the campus in preparation for providing consistent outdoor Wi-Fi coverage right across the site. Small trenches will be dug to allow the antenna to be connected to the network, but should not cause significant disruption.
In other news, a new firewall is set to be switched on to boost our network security this month. The firewall will filter all data coming into and leaving the University network, blocking and flagging suspicious content to help keep the University secure.
Read more about our Network Replacement Programme
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Cyber Security campaign continues to make Sussex safer
Our campaign to make the University more cyber secure (which will help support our Cyber Essentials accreditation) continues this month, with a focus on unique passwords and using your Sussex email account safely. Over 600 colleagues completed this month’s online training on the first day alone – thanks for all the support!
Read about unique passwords and safe use of your Sussex email account, and check your email if you’ve not yet completed April’s bitesize cyber security training.
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Ethics system procurement complete and go-live date is set
The go-live date for Worktribe has been set following the successful integration of all system users and sign-off following User Acceptance Training. This week sees the official start of the rollout process, to colleagues in Research & Enterprise Services (RES) as well as research project approvers in Schools, Finance and Technical Services, who will be using the system for the very first time.
Training materials are now being developed, including videos, guides, and LearnUpon training and the team will be holding briefing sessions and demonstrations with key users.
Read about Worktribe in our latest article.
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Meet the Changemakers...
'My name is Lukas Franzen Jones and I’m a Project Manager.
I have been working on the enabling works phase of the West Slope project for the last year since joining, helping to prepare campus services and utilities ahead of construction starting.
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The West Slope project is building almost 2000 new residences, a new Health and Wellbeing Centre and a new Café and Supermarket. Our team looks after finances, contractor management and stakeholder liaison across the University to ensure minimum disruption to campus life whilst our critical works get delivered.
I am about to become a dad in August, so the biggest change is yet to come. But the positive outcome will be a lovely little girl (hopefully).'
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See a few of the things we've been up to!
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Connect with us for Transforming Sussex updates
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Did you know we have a staff social network as a place to share quick updates and information and discuss matters with colleagues? There are a number of communities that you can join and follow so you can find out what is happening around our university.
Join our Viva Engage communities!
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