Case Studies: Cardiff Metropolitan University

Improving Health Through Physical Activity: Engaging “hard to reach” young females in the South Wales Valleys

ELLYSE HOPKINS Ellyse Hopkins is completing her KESS 2 funded PhD in collaboration with Valleys Gymnastics Academy. The focus of her research is engaging young women from disadvantaged backgrounds into physical activity. BACKGROUND I completed both my undergraduate degree and master’s degree at Cardiff Met. I just loved the environment and got on well with… Read more »

Engaging injured military veterans into physical exercise : Robert Walker

DR ROBERT WALKER Dr Robert Walker successfully defended his PhD on 19th April 2021. Rob’s research was focused on engaging i into physical exercise, his PhD was completed in collaboration with Help for Heroes. BACKGROUND I left school at the age of 16 and went straight into the military for 8 years. During my career… Read more »

Assessing hand hygiene compliance and food safety culture in food manufacturing

EMMA SAMUEL A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE Food businesses have a duty to assure the food they prepare for people to consume is safe.  One of the simplest and most effective ways to achieve this is by maintaining excellent hand hygiene practices during food production. However, research indicates that, for a host of reasons, food handler hand… Read more »

Developing business innovation in an economically challenged region: A study of Medium-sized Businesses in Wales

John Barker

JOHN BARKER A STUDENT’S PERSPECTIVE Wales has historically low levels of innovation and business growth compared with the UK. The impending impact of Brexit and Covid-19 will see a reduction in the economy leading to reduced consumer spending, even lower productivity, and more job losses making the need for Welsh businesses to innovate massively important… Read more »

The effectiveness of a golf related resiliency training programme on the mental & physiological health of adolescence within the Carmarthenshire area of Wales

Carmarthen Golf Club

The Student Perspective by Hamish Cox, Cardiff Metropolitan University. The main aim of the project is to develop teenager’s life skills; this is achieved through the creation of an intervention programme in partnership with Carmarthen Golf Club. The main need for the project was highlighted in the Carmarthenshire County Council brief for health and wellbeing and community 2011-14. Essentially the local authority is working proactively ensuring that young people are ready for the future so that they can thrive in adulthood.

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The design implementation & evaluation of a resilient coping & life skills development plan for adolescents within a Football Coach Education programme

My KESS project is a collaboration between Cardiff Metropolitan University and the Welsh Football Trust. The project focusses on life skills development and resilient coping within adolescent footballers at a grassroots level, working with clubs but also with coaches. The aim is to develop a coaching education programme that will educate coaches within the Welsh Football Trust to then be able to go out and integrate the life skill and resilient coping development within their coaching.

The programme, that has been developed, focuses on the education of coaches, raising awareness around life skills, along with how they can be used in a practical coaching environment.

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Novel Packaging Solutions for the Freeze-Drying of Specialist Pharmaceuticals (The Academic Perspective)

Cardiff Metropolitan University has recently had its first KESS PhD completion; the project developed novel packaging solutions for the freeze-drying of specialist pharmaceuticals. The KESS student, Dr Chris Cherry, was based at the host company, MicroPharm Ltd in West Wales. The academic supervision for the project was provided jointly by The National Centre for Product Design & Development Research (PDR) and The Cardiff School of Health Sciences (CSHS); both academic schools are based on Cardiff Met’s Llandaff Campus. The KESS project covered the science of mass and heat transfer characterisation through to the challenges of maintaining sterility and containment within a freeze dryer. This research project delivered a very successful PhD in just over three years. In addition, the collaborative nature of the project has derived a range of supplementary benefits for the student, company and university. This case study describes the chronology of the KESS project, and attempts to capture the tangible (and intangible) benefits to the three main parties.

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The development of sensitive methods to quantify specfic antibodies directed against Clostridium difficile toxins and their use to provide improved immunotherapeutic products (Presentation)

Over the past decade the ‘superbug’, Clostridium difficile, has become the most common hospital acquired infection in the developed world. Epidemic strains have emerged which exhibit enhanced virulence factors including multidrug resistance, increased capacity to form highly resistant spores and produce significantly more toxins A and B than conventional strains. This project with MicroPharm, a small bio-pharmaceutical company based in West Wales, looks at recombinant fragments based on C. difficile toxins A and B that have been used to raise antibodies in sheep.

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