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2003 | 2002 | 2001

Our University and department have received their Christmas presents early — and have been eagerly awaiting the results of the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise . While Cardiff University has gained eight places since 1996 and is now ranked 7th within the UK, its School of Psychology has been awarded the highest 5*A rating and thus emerged as the leading department of its kind in the UK. (Other institutions may have different interpretations, of course. For details about Cardiff's results and some comments please refer here .)

The daily challenges of future psychologists...

But beware: As PhD students were not assessed individually, I can claim no responsibility whatsoever for this formidable result. Why am I bothering then? For a variety of reasons: Many people (especially from abroad) tend to judge British universities by their reputations, and are unaware that a big name might not necessarily be the best reflection of the actual facts. Perhaps it's about time to get rid of some of the traditional clichés. In addition, I believe that the German educational system (in which I have my roots and to which I still have various links) would greatly benefit from a similar assessment exercise — to focus its strenghts, target some weaknesses, and especially to create more transparency between institutions on a national and international level. Personally, I feel reassured in my decision to choose Cardiff over other places (and am tired of justifying that to ignorant or arrogant sceptics). And, finally, of course I'm happy and grateful to be able to learn and do research in such an exciting environment.

December 6, 2001

Back from a quick trip to CREDIT , Nottingham, where I gave my first invited research seminar talk (a summary of which is available here). As this was a truly delightful experience, I hope it wasn't the last invitation.

November 20, 2001

It's 'fresh milk season' again: Cold enough to leave an opened bottle of milk on the window sill without it turning sour overnight — which allows me to pour a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Despite some fairly grim and grey weather I finally managed to get out and take some pictures of Cardiff and its surroundings.

View over the grassy slopes of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

October 28, 2001

Back from an exciting postgraduate conference at Gregynog, Wales, where Cardiff's Psychology PhD students and some brave members of staff annually present their projects. [A list of this year's talks and abstracts is available here.] Half an hour of sunshine also provided me with an opportunity to take some pictures of the wonderful Welsh countryside.

October 7, 2001

The only news at the moment is that there are hardly any new and noteworthy events to report. After a few months of summer hibernation the return of about 50 billion students set the university machine in full motion again. This means that my life is currently more than filled with research, teaching, and departmental meetings. While I find all this quite stressfull and exciting, it won't leave me with much time for updates of these pages (other than the occasional picture gallery).

However, you are welcome to use this break to explore some parts of this site which are hardly ever visited. For example, I haven't yet received any comments about the section 'language games'. Does this mean that I should abandon it?

Also, the preliminary result of one of my opinion polls suggests that I'm more popular than Jennifer Lopez — in the nude, that is. While this is very flattering, I must admit that I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has voted for my pets yet, especially since my teddy bears keep asking me about that whenever I get home. (They also keep posing for the camera and are now, due to growing desperation, even considering the option of nude photographs. And whenever I refuse to take further pictures of them, they start to mumble something about a 'biased sample of visitors'. But their intuitions about statistical sampling techniques really shouldn't be trusted — let's not forget that they're teddy bears, and, after all, who's the scientist here?)

Incidentally, the respective opinion poll 4 has been among the top ten pages of this site for several weeks now. As (even) I cannot imagine hundreds of surfers flooding the web's unsuspecting search engines with 'Hansjörg Neth nude' queries, I guess that there are a lot of internet users with a keen and persistent interest in J.Lo's forms of artistic expression, some of which accidentally (and perhaps frustratingly) end up on my page. But why don't they vote for her then? (Also, I wonder whether this news page would suddenly get as popular if I dropped a few more keywords like 'naked' or 'pic'? But I would never do such a naughty, dirty, and not at all sexy thing, of course.)

The view from my office on a dry autumn day. By the way, I live right at the end of the rainbow. [More pictures of Cardiff >>.]

September 10, 2001

Returned to Cardiff after having spent a wonderful week with friends in Hannover and Berlin. As I've been taking an awful lot of pictures and have yet to sift through the pictures from Edinburgh I will publish add some new photo galleries within the next few days/weeks. While still in Hannover, I've put online some portraits of a friend named 'Phranck'.

August 5, 2001

Back from Edinburgh and a very inspiring and enjoyable conference. If I can transform but a small part of my present enthusiasm into future projects, I won't have much time for web stuff in the near future.

July 30 , 2001

I'm off to CogSci in Edinburgh . Those interested in what I'll be presenting there can get my talk here. Looking forward to an interesting conference (and lots of Single Malt).

June 26, 2001

Summer has arrived, at last. A sunny weekend in the garden finally provided the first sun-burn of the year. Yet my eager attempts to blend in with the locals failed miserably: Wearing my sunglasses, action sandals and rolled-up trousers (that's 'pants' to you Americans) I was judged to look like "a Brit abroad". (Maybe I should take this as a compliment?)

A pleasant surprise for all potential visitors: Contrary to some sceptic's expectations, my car passed its MOT for another year. Thus, mountains, castles, coast and sea are still within easy reach.

Added two new image galleries. More pictures of Cardiff and Wales hopefully will follow soon.

June 2001

After a great vacation in New York and Boston I'm back in Cardiff. It was wonderful to meet my friends in the US, but it's also nice to be "home" again. A first series of photographs of my trip can be found in my picture galleries. I also added a new page featuring some means of interaction.

May 20, 2001

Tomorrow, I'll fly to the US to spend two weeks with friends in NYC, Princeton, and Boston. The first holiday for quite a while! (All right, not exclusively a holiday, of course. But definitely intended to be pleasurable...)

May 2001

No — I've managed to keep my foot out of my mouth, my favourite fast food place still serves big beef burgers and delicious lamb Doners, and we don't walk through desinfected mats on our way to work. Actually, most people here have experienced those gruesome piles of burning carcasses only through television — just like most of you.

The friendly people from this year's Cognitive Science Conference will kindly allow me to present one of my experiments on interactive problem solving in Edinburgh. Hope to see all of you there...

December 2000

Check out the new School of Psychology Live Web Cam (facing towards the Civic Centre and the Millenium Stadium). By its help I now can look out of the window without having to turn away from the screen! And—if you are fortunate to have a sufficiently fast connection—you might even see the seagulls circling around the department. (I'm certainly listening to them just now...)

The South-Western view from the Psychology Tower features Cardiff's castle in front of the 'Millenium Stadium', as well as Penarth and the sea in the background. [More pictures of Cardiff >>.]

1999

In September 1999, I relocated myself and a truck full of junk (mainly books) to Cardiff (the capital of Wales , UK). So far, I've spent the vast majority of my time on British soil in the School of Psychology of Cardiff University .

Newest news: 2003 | Newer news: 2002 | 2001