Jeanette Sutton

For me, the first part of learning week is putting my out-of-office response on. Iriss is closed for our annual learning week, it says. We are valuing our learning and connections as a team, it implies. It’s a nice feeling.

Arriving at the Social Hub in Glasgow there’s hugs and catch-ups. Haven’t seen you, in-person, for ages! How’s that project going? Me, well, yes it’s busy (a common theme). Let’s have another one of those tasty pastries. Then we’re all called to order: we begin. 

It’s unbelievable how much the ASPire Hub has grown in its 15 months of life. Now, just like a toddler, it’s got more confidence, and wants to show off a bit. As its curator/caretaker, I’d like to introduce you to a new feature – searching by type of resource. This doesn’t replace the usual way of searching, but it does allow you to finesse your search, and browse in a different way.

At the start of the summer, I wrote a blog about a new Iriss project I’m co-leading, all about professional curiosity in Public Protection. It’s been a few months of intense activity in the project and I’ve really deepened my thinking about the topic; I’ve also been finding many, many connections with the other work I do for Iriss.

Iriss is embarking on a new project to find out all about professional curiosity across the public protection agenda - and we’re looking for interested folk to help us out. We’re holding three sessions for anyone who wants to chat through the issues around professional curiosity in their work today. Please do register your interest below if you want to talk about the positives or challenges (or a bit of both) on this topic. (UPDATE: all sessions are now full. Thanks everyone for your interest, more details will be sent out w/c 11 August).

Seven minutes might not feel like much, but it’s long enough to learn something new. That’s the thinking behind seven-minute briefings, several of which now sit on the ASPire Hub. These briefings provide an accessible way into a topic and are – to boot – lovely and colourful!