This year, the Roksanda AW2020 show was proudly hosted by the GREAT Britain Campaign in the iconic Durbar Court in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Roksanda Ilinčić, originally from Serbia is a London based designer of one of the most recognisable British brands, Roksanda. The designer has become a go-to for many stylish and powerful women from around the world, including The Duchess of Cambridge and Michelle Obama.

The UK is a world leader in fashion education as Roksanda’s career shows; she studied at Central Saint Martins before setting up her own label and launching her first collection at London Fashion Week (LFW) in 2005. The designer references London’s culture and design and its creative and openminded people as her constant source of inspiration.

Roksanda Ilinčić, founder of Roksanda said:

I am delighted to be part of The GREAT Britain Campaign, showing in such a magnificent space as Durbar Court.

London became home for me and my business ever since I graduated from Central Saint Martins and then launched my own label.

The British fashion industry is very supportive and welcoming of new talent and ideas and I am extremely proud to be a part of it.

Roksanda’s collections are sold in over 50 countries worldwide, with international stockists including: Lance Crawford, Nordstrom and Bergdorf Goodman. The global demand for the UK’s growing fashion industry is clear, with international exports amounting to almost £12bn in 2019.

To build on this export success, DIT, as an official supporter of LFW, helps fund the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) ‘International Guest Programme’. This initiative strategically places important global fashion buyers and press in front of the best British designers and brands.

This season, the programme is inviting over 137 press and buyers; carefully targeted stockists and media from important markets like the US, Japan and South Korea.

International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss said:

The British Fashion industry is home to some of the world’s most creative talents and six of the top fashion design schools in the world, and business is booming. The sector contributes £32 billion to the economy and creates 890,000 jobs.

As an official supporter of London Fashion Week, my department will continue to do everything it can to inspire the next generation of fashion entrepreneurs to study and build their businesses here in Britain.

DIT’s support for the fashion industry extends beyond the UK, with the BFC’s London show rooms at Paris Fashion Week and a showcase, hosted with the British Embassy in Paris. This event will promote British fashion designers and brands, tackling the challenges of clean growth, climate change and responsible production in the industry.

Charles Donald has been appointed as CEO of UK Government Investments (UKGI), by John Glen, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. UKGI is an arm’s length body of Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT), and is the government’s centre of excellence in corporate finance and corporate governance.

Charles is currently Director of the Financial Institutions Group at UKGI, and previously held a range of senior roles in the private sector, most recently at Credit Suisse.

Charles will take up his role on 12 March 2020, following a handover with interim CEO, Justin Manson.

Robert Swannell CBE, Chairman of UKGI, said:

Charles Donald was the outstanding candidate in a strong field. His experience for many years as a trusted corporate finance adviser, latterly as Vice Chairman and Head of UK Advisory and Corporate Broking with Credit Suisse, combined with his experience over the past two years as Head of the Financial Institutions Group at UKGI makes him particularly well qualified for this role. Importantly he understands and embodies the values and culture that play a major part in the success of UKGI, operating as it does at the intersection of the public and private sectors.

I would also like to pay tribute to Justin Manson for his time as acting CEO. He has been outstanding in the role and brought energy and commitment so that momentum at UKGI has been maintained during his tenure. When he stands down in due course he will do so with our grateful thanks.

Further information

UKGI is the government’s centre of excellence in corporate finance and corporate governance. In addition to delivering over £40 billion in asset sales since inception in 2016, it is responsible for a portfolio of over 20 arm’s length bodies, and for delivering a range of corporate finance advice to government. UKGI is owned by HM Treasury and independently managed with a Board comprised predominantly of independent non-executive directors. UKGI works closely with both the private and public sectors, advising and interacting with ministers, Parliament and Whitehall departments.

The UK-built Solar Orbiter, ESA’s new Sun-exploring spacecraft, launched on Monday 10 February. It carries ten scientific instruments, four of which measure properties of the environment around the spacecraft, especially electromagnetic characteristics of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun. Three of these ‘in situ’ instruments have sensors located on the 4.4 m-long boom.

Tim Horbury of Imperial College London, Principal Investigator for the Magnetometer instrument (MAG), said:

We measure magnetic fields thousands of times smaller than those we are familiar with on Earth.

Even currents in electrical wires make magnetic fields far larger than what we need to measure. That’s why our sensors are on a boom, to keep them away from all the electrical activity inside the spacecraft.

Ground controllers at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, switched on the magnetometer’s two sensors (one near the end of the boom and the other close to the spacecraft) about 21 hours after lift-off. The instrument recorded data before, during and after the boom’s deployment, allowing the scientists to understand the influence of the spacecraft on measurements in the space environment.

Tim Horbury says:

The data we received shows how the magnetic field decreases from the vicinity of the spacecraft to where the instruments are actually deployed.

This is an independent confirmation that the boom actually deployed and that the instruments will, indeed, provide accurate scientific measurements in the future.

As the titanium/carbon-fibre boom stretched out over an overall 30-minute period on Wednesday, almost three days after lift-off, the scientists could observe the level of the magnetic field decrease by about one order of magnitude. While at the beginning they saw mostly the magnetic field of the spacecraft, at the end of the procedure, they got the first glimpse of the significantly weaker magnetic field in the surrounding environment.

Matthieu Kretzschmar, of Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace in Orleans, France, Lead Co-investigator behind another sensor located on the boom, the high frequency magnetometer of the Radio and Plasma Waves instrument (RPW) instrument says:

Measuring before, during, and after the boom deployment helps us to identify and characterise signals that are not linked to the solar wind, such as perturbations coming from the spacecraft platform and other instruments.

The spacecraft underwent extensive testing on ground to measure its magnetic properties in a special simulation facility, but we couldn’t fully test this aspect until now, in space, because the test equipment usually prevents us from reaching the needed very low level of magnetic field fluctuations.

Next, the instruments will have to be calibrated with the scientific data being collecting from mid-May.

UK scientists were instrumental in proposing the Solar Orbiter mission to ESA. The UK Space Agency provided funding for four of the 10 scientific instruments on board the spacecraft. Imperial College London, the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s RAL Space and UCL led international teams to design and build three instruments, while UCL also contributed to the fourth.

Engineers at Airbus in Stevenage designed and built the spacecraft to withstand the scorching heat from the Sun that will hit one side, while the other is frozen as the orbit keeps it in shadow.

Notes for editors

Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation. The prime contractor is Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK. Solar Orbiter is the first ‘medium’-class mission implemented in the Cosmic Vision 2015-25 programme, the current planning cycle for ESA’s space science missions.

The week will focus on polypharmacy: reporting side effects helps ensure safe use when taking multiple medicines.

Polypharmacy is defined as the simultaneous use of four or more medicines (prescription, over-the-counter general sales list, or traditional medicines) at the same time. Polypharmacy can increase the likelihood of a patient having side effects, medication errors, as well as the risk of interactions between medicines and with foods or herbal products.

Although polypharmacy is common in older people, anyone who routinely uses multiple medicines at the same time can be affected. This includes people with long term chronic conditions who subsequently regularly take multiple medicines. Studies show that one third of people over 75 years old take at least six medicines and over a million people taking eight or more medicines daily.

Healthcare professionals are also being encouraged to review their patients’ medications intake, especially when prescribing, dispensing and administrating multiple medicines, as well as being vigilant to monitor, detect and report suspected side effects to the Yellow Card Scheme. Reporting plays an important role in helping MHRA monitor the safe use of medicines to protect public health through effective regulation.

Mick Foy, Head of Pharmacovigilance Strategy, at the MHRA says:

Protecting patients is our topmost priority. Patients, their carers, and healthcare professionals are asked to report suspected side effects on a Yellow Card to the MHRA online or via the app. Reporting helps to improve the safety of medicines for all patients and can result in better tailored prescribing or administrative advice and information about monitoring, which can help improve adherence to treatment, and ultimately improves patient safety.

A concrete barrier that can be set up within hours to keep Kent’s roads moving at times of cross-channel disruption will be available and on standby from later this year, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced today (17 February 2020).

Once a specialist vehicle is in place, Highways England will be able to deploy the moveable barrier on the M20 swiftly and safely to ensure minimal disruption to motorists.

This will be a marked improvement in comparison to Operation Brock which required a month of overnight closures to deploy the metal barrier required for the contraflow system previously used.

The technology will be designed to ensure that the M20 is kept open at times of disruption, whilst also allowing the motorway to retain 3 lanes, a hard shoulder and 70 mph speed limits in both directions during normal traffic conditions.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:

After listening to frustrated residents and businesses affected by Operations Brock and Stack, we’ve invested in a new solution to boost Kent’s resilience and keep its vital road network moving, even at times of disruption.

This state-of-the-art technology can be deployed quickly, simply and safely, ensuring motorists across the county can get to where they need to be with minimum fuss, whatever the circumstances.

Moveable barriers are already used in cities around the world, including Auckland, Sydney, San Francisco and Vancouver.

The technology has been chosen by the Department for Transport and Highways England as a long-term solution to Operation Brock and Stack and will ensure Kent is prepared for any disruption on the short strait, such as from industrial action or bad weather.

The new solution also means that Highways England’s work on an ‘off road’ replacement for Operation Stack has been stopped. As part of this, previous Highways England plans for a new large lorry holding area in Kent are no longer being pursued.