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Bournemouth University psychologists publish new book

The international publisher Routledge published earlier this month a new book with the title: The Psychology of Stress [1].  The three authors of this excellent book are: Drs. Charlotte Mottram, Alison Woodward and Shanti Farrington.  The latter two academics are based in Bournemouth University’s Psychology Department.

Well done and congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Reference:

  1. Mottram, C., Woodward, A. & Farrington, S. (2025). The Psychology of Stress London: Routledge.

BU’s Dr. Iannuzzi editing special issue HEALTHCARE

Dr. Laura Iannuzzi, based in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, is acting as one of the two guest editors of a Special Issue for the international journal Healthcare.  This Special Issue called ‘Advancing Midwifery and Nursing Practice: Equity, Inclusion and Integrated Care’ currently has a call out for contributions. Details can be found by clicking here!

Healthcare is looking for authors to submit papers exploring strategic directions for midwifery and nursing in advancing inclusion, equity, and health.  This Special Issue is open to topics such as integrated care strategies and long-term care models, professional nursing roles, evidence-based interventions, and community-engaged approaches. The proposed theme aligns with Healthcare’s focus on multidisciplinary research and practical solutions that improve health outcomes across populations.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Strategic frameworks and global policy implications for midwifery and nursing;
  • Educational innovations to promote equity and development;
  • Evidence-based clinical practices focused on underserved populations;
  • Community health initiatives and participatory care models;
  • Coordinated interprofessional models and organizational frameworks that promote inclusive and equitable care;
  • Impacts of global crises (e.g., pandemics, conflict) on midwifery and nursing practices.

The Guest Editors are Dr. Simona Fumagalli and Dr. Laura Iannuzzi

World War II: Eating tulip bulbs

Tulip bulbs can be eaten, but it is not a common source of human food. Eating tulip bulbs helped many Dutch people in the Hunger Winter, the last winter of the Second World War (1944-1945). During the German occupation the Dutch suffered from a shortage of food.  In the collection of my mother, I found a short book published in 1941 with a made-do-and-mend approach about growing your own food.  My mother died this summer at the age of 92.

The book ‘Veel groenten van weinig grond’ (in Dutch: Many vegetables from little soil) gives advice to readers on how to grown vegetables in small plots of land, gardens, etc.  This book in the first year of the occupation does not mention the use of tulips as food. Hidden in the book was a typed one-page sheet with three instruction for tulips followed by five recipes.

The main message seems to be that the preparation of the tulip bulbs as well as the taste is very much like potatoes.  For example, the recipe for tulip bulb puree includes boiling the bulbs, one packet of vanilla sugar or vanilla essence, three spoons of honey, artificial honey or syrup, mix well and add warm water.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences

Connecting Research with Practice: FoodMAPP Secondment in Austria and France

Our Bournemouth University team visited Baden, Austria, for a secondment with Ronge & Partner — Austria’s leading large-scale kitchen consulting firm. This was part of the EU-funded FoodMAPP project and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Staff Exchange, which connects research with industry.

In Austria,  Professor Melanie Klinkner (International Law), Professor Jeff Bray (Consumer Behaviour), Dr Quyhn Nguyen (Hospitality Management), and myself, Dr Guljira Manimont (Food Marketing and Advertising) discussed with Ronge & Partner to explore how food service practices can better support local sourcing. These discussions are shaping FoodMAPP’s interactive platform, which connects consumers with local producers to reduce waste and enhance traceability.

After this visit, Dr Quynh Nguyen and myself, Dr Guljira Manimont continued to Lyon, France, where we visited Institut Lyfe — a leading centre for hospitality, food service, and culinary arts education. Welcomed by Dr Maxime Michaud, Head of the Social Sciences team, and Calixte Engelberg, we toured the campus and explored how research can be integrated into hospitality training and industry practice.

FoodMAPP is developing an interactive, map-based platform designed to connect consumers with locally produced food. This tool aims to reduce food waste, promote regional food economies, and improve food traceability. The secondment with Ronge & Partner, for example, provided us with valuable insights into the operational realities of the food service and kitchen design sector — a critical link between food producers and consumers.

The MSCA Staff Exchange programme has played a vital role in making this kind of exchange possible. It allows researchers to step outside the academic environment, test ideas in real-world settings, and build partnerships that help ensure our work delivers real, tangible impact.

As food marketing researchers (doing what we arguably do best), we took the chance to experience Austria’s food culture firsthand by visiting traditional Heurigen — small, family-run wine taverns known for their local wines, breads, cured meats, and fresh produce.

In Lyon, we focused on the city’s bakeries, sampling artisan breads that showcase the region’s strong food heritage. These moments brought home the real value of local and transparent food systems, which lie at the heart of FoodMAPP’s mission.

PS: Having spent four weeks based in these foodie spots, I compiled a list of favourite spots to eat and drink. If you’re ever in Vienna or Lyon, feel free to get in touch—I’d be happy to share it! 🙂

Health promotion paper read 8,000 times

This morning ResearchGate informed us that our paper ‘Understanding health education, health promotion and public health[1] which was published in 2021 has been read 8,000 times.  This thinking piece delves into the differences between the concepts of: (a) health education; (b) health promotion; and (c) public health. This confusion does not limit itself to the individual terms, but also to how these terms relate to each other. Some use terms such as health education and health promotion interchangeably; others see them clearly as different concepts. The paper starts by outlining the authors’ understanding of these individual terms.

They suggest how the five principles of health promotion as outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1984) fit into Tannahill’s (2009) model of three overlapping areas: (a) health education; (b) prevention of ill health; and (c) health protection. Such schematic overview places health education within health promotion and health promotion itself in the centre of the overarching disciplines of education and public health.  The authors hope their article helps reduce confusion among all those interested in our discipline, including students, educators, journalists, practitioners, policymakers, politicians, and researchers.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMWH

 

Reference:

  1. van Teijlingen, K. R., Devkota, B., Douglas, F., Simkhada, P., & van Teijlingen, E. R. (2021). Understanding health education, health promotion and public health. Journal of Health Promotion9(01), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3126/jhp.v9i01.40957

 

Top baby names in England and Wales in 2024

Earlier this week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its annual list of the most popular baby names for boys and girls.  The top three names for girls were: Olivia, Amelia and Lily and for boys these were Muhammad, Noah and Oliver.  Interestingly two different spellings of Muhammad, namely Mohammed and Muhammed also made it to the top hundred most common names.  There is a clear sociology in the naming of babies.  First, there is an element of culture and religion, but there is also a clear element of fashion.

To make a simple comparison I looked at the top three most common names for girls and boys in neighbouring the Netherlands.  According to Dutch official statistics the top girls’ names were in 2024: Emma, Olivia and Lily, and the top three boys names were: Noah, Luca and Lucas. Interestingly, the top name in England and Wales Muhammad is not even in the top 40 most popular boys’ names in the Netherlands, and neither are Mohammed and Muhammed.  However, whereas England and Wales listed three different spellings of Muhammad, the Netherlands had six different ones (these were names used at least ten times that year): Muhammad, Mohammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhammed, and Muhammad.  All variants together made it the fourth most popular boys name in the Netherlands.

Charles Dickens | Mystery of Edwin Drood | 9780140439267 | Daunt Books

To highlight the fashion element of naming babies, the name Edwin was not listed on either country’s list.  The ONS website also offers historic lists of top 100 names for baby boys and girls for 1904 to 2024 at ten-yearly intervals.  The very last year Edwin was in the top 100 boys’ names was in 1944 when it reached number 89 in the top 100!

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Professor of Reproductive Health, Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Conducting training in Kathmandu by BU academic

This week Dr. Pramod Regmi, who is Principal Academic in International Health in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, taught a CPD refresher workshop on systematic reviewing in Kathmandu.  This workshop is part of our long-standing Memorandum of Agreement between Bournemouth University (BU) and Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Nepal.  The teaching aimed to refresh knowledge and provide practical training on various aspects of the systematic review process, including literature searching, study selection, data extraction, critical appraisal, and synthesis. The programme, which included both staff and Master students, was jointly organized by MMIHS and BU.

May be an image of 8 people and text that says "HEALTHSCIENCES SCIENCES अफहेलसाराइन्सेज હહર इन्सज"

The staff at MMIHS also welcome BU’s Ph.D. student Ms. Anjana Paudyal.  Anjana is currently in Nepal as part of the UK’s Turing Scheme Traineeship Programme.  Over the past few years MMIHS have kindly hosted several BU students who came to Nepal under the Turing Scheme.  Anjana’s Ph.D. focuses on human trafficking, which is form of modern slavery.  Despite being a global problem, modern slavery is understudied and poorly understood. Victims of modern slavery are exploited and can experience significant physical, psychological, or sexual, and reproductive health problems. Until recently, there has been little research in this field, especially in low-income countries such as Nepal.  Anjana”s Ph.D. fits in with BU’s collaboration with the US-based La Isla Network, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Nepal Development Society (for details click here!).   Led by La Isla Network, we are leading the first-ever international effort to research and address trafficking among Nepalese labour migrants. The work is funded by a $4 million cooperative agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, International Programs.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

Academic Identity In The Age of AI

We had the pleasure of organising a thought-provoking session at made possible through funding from British Academy ECRN, focused on one big question: How is AI reshaping who we are as academics?

We were joined by two inspiring speakers:
-Peter Magnani, CEO and founder of BEEM, who shared the development journey of his AI-powered app and how it’s transforming user experiences
-@Prof. Professor Gelareh Roushan-Easton, reflected on how AI is influencing academic practice, from teaching and learning to research and student engagement
-Dr. Samreen Ashraf (organiser of the session) shared her research about identity and the timely nature of the topic considering the rapid changes in higher education.

The heart of the session was an interactive activity where participants explored:
1. How they define their academic identity.
2. Where and how AI intersects with their roles and values
3. The opportunities, tensions, and uncertainties this evolving landscape presents
The conversations were honest, reflective, and energising, reminding us that as AI continues to evolve, so too must our understanding of academic identity.

And finally massive thanks to all involved in this workshop, our guest speakers, audience, BAECRN, and my colleague Marianna for helping with this.
💬 I’d love to hear from others in higher education:
How is AI influencing your professional identity? What excites you or concerns you most about this shift?

Feel free to get in touch with me at sashraf@bournemouth.ac.uk , if you are interested in this topic area 🙂

Free event on Solutions to Inequalities in Dementia Diagnosis and Care

Dr Catherine Talbot is hosting the upcoming EquaDem Quarterly Network Event on the afternoon of 3rd September at Bournemouth Gateway Building. This free, in-person event brings together researchers, students, health and social care professionals, third-sector workers, and people with lived experience to explore how we can collectively reduce inequalities in dementia diagnosis and care.

The event will feature short presentations from Dr Gladys Yinusa, who will discuss how nutritional care can be tailored to support people with dementia and carers; Sue Warr from PramaLife, who will highlight the charity’s work delivering dementia awareness training and running local support groups; and, a public advisor researcher from the EquaDem Network, who will provide an update on their ongoing work.
Attendees will also take part in networking activities designed to spark discussion about solutions to address dementia inequalities.
Register your attendance for free here: Equadem Quarterly Network Event Bournemouth Tickets, Wednesday 3 September 2025 at 12:30 PM | Eventbrite

Are You a Veteran? Take Part in Research Here at BU!

Following our initial work last year, we’re excited to be launching the second phase of our research exploring the barriers and enablers for veterans seeking support for memory concerns and/or dementia.
One of the key findings from our initial research – which involved working with veterans living with dementia – was the difficulty in reaching and engaging veterans. That’s why we’re reaching out to BU staff: whether you’re a veteran yourself or connected to someone who is, we’d love your support.
More about the project: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/served

1. Join an In-Person Workshop

We’re running in-person workshops at BGB to co-create a short animated film that raises awareness of dementia and support for veterans. These sessions are open to all veterans – there is no expectation of personal experience with dementia or memory concerns to take part.
Workshop Dates (11am–2pm, including lunch/refreshments):
• Monday 11th August
• Tuesday 19th August

2. Take Our Short Survey

We’re also running a nationwide survey for veterans to gather broader insight. It takes just 5–10 minutes to complete, and we’d be very grateful if you could complete it and/or share it with others.
If you’re interested in taking part in our workshops, or know someone who might be, please contact Becky Dew at rdew@bournemouth.ac.uk for more information. Any help with this research would be gratefully received!

Bridging research and practice in the TV industry

Academic research in the creative industries often identifies real-world challenges. We’re interested in inequalities, structural gaps, working conditions, management practices and much beside. But translating those insights into practical change isn’t always straightforward. So when The British Academy awarded me an Innovation Fellowship last year, I was able to use my time to develop a modest but tangible intervention that attempted to do both: contribute to scholarly thinking on freelance labour, and offer something of genuine value to people working in TV.

It’s called Supportive Offboarding. The core idea is simple. When a freelance contract ends, the employer offers a short, structured conversation with someone at arm’s length from the show. The purpose isn’t to assess the freelancer’s performance, or simply to extract feedback for the employer. Instead, the conversation focuses on reflection, appreciation, and a forward-looking discussion about career goals and next steps. In other words, it’s about support, not surveillance.

The project emerged from ongoing research into freelance working cultures in screen production which has been the focus of much of our work at the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP). What we have discovered is that while much attention is given to how people enter the TV industry, far less thought is given to the sustainability of those careers. Most work in this sector is contingent, based on short-term contracts. The way they end, and freelancers move on, shapes their sense of professional identity, belonging and ultimately, their inclination to remain in the industry. Offering no feedback, taking no interest in their future, asking for no feedback, and sometimes forgetting to even say thank you, can compound feelings of disposability.

To test the intervention, we partnered with the media conglomerate, Fremantle, responsible for shows like Britian’s Got Talent, The Apprentice, and The Rap Game. We even included the Australian soap, Neighbours as part of our study. Freelancers were invited to take part in offboarding conversations. Responses were overwhelmingly positive. For many, it was the first time they had been offered structured space to reflect on a production once it had ended.

From a research perspective, this was as much about method as it was about findings. The process was co-designed with industry partners, shaped by production constraints, and aimed at practical feasibility. Our challenge wasn’t just to analyse a problem but to create something that might be adopted in live settings: something simple, repeatable, and valuable. What this project affirmed for me is that meaningful collaboration between academia and industry is not only possible but it can produce benefits for both. Research doesn’t need to sit at a distance from practice. It can help to shape it.

My report, Supportive Offboarding: Report on the design, development and testing of an intervention to improve the way the TV industry supports its freelancers (https://doi.org/10.18746/shkc-1383) is published this week.

Interactive Tangible and Intangible Heritage Applications – BU student work featured in new book chapter

SpringerNature: Interactive Media for Cultural Heritage At the beginning of July, the chapter Interactive Tangible and Intangible Heritage Applications Built on Real-Time Graphics Systems: Heritage Experiences in Desktop CG, Virtual and Augmented Reality by Eike Falk Anderson, Valery Adzhiev, Paul Cheetham, Glyn Hadley, David John, Catja Larsson, Ana-Maria-Cristina Ureche and Mario Romero was published in the volume Interactive Media for Cultural Heritage of the highly regarded Springer Series on Cultural Computing.

The chapter explores different types of interactive heritage experiences that can be built using modern computer games technologies, including museum exhibits, games and mobile apps, providing exemplars for heritage applications in the form of a set of case studies that encompass both tangible and intangible heritage.

Images from the projects described in the chapter. Among the featured case studies are three final year undergraduate student projects that were created at the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) during the 2021/2022 academic year: two projects by Catja Larsson and one project by Ana-Maria-Cristina Ureche. Both alumni co-authored the chapter, demonstrating once again the excellent quality of work produced by NCCA undergraduates.

Second paper for CMWH MRes student

Congratulations to Maryam Malekian, a MRes student in CMWH, who has just published her second paper as part of her integrated thesis in the highly respected journal Midwifery. Maryam’s paper reports her recently completed scoping review looking at knowledge and attitudes of nulliparous women regarding breastfeeding.

Malekian M, Irving M, Hundley V (2025) Factors associated with breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age: A Scoping review. Midwifery, vol 148, September, 104511

The protocol was published earlier this year in MIDIRS Midwifery Digest. She has also presented this work at the Maternal, Parental and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN) Conference in April.

Malekian M, Hundley V, Irving M. (2025) A scoping review protocol of factors influencing breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes among non-pregnant, nulliparous women of reproductive age. MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, vol 35, no 2, June, pp 179-182.

Digital Health and AI: Paving the Way for Health Equity in Maternal and Infant Care

The long awaited 10-year health plan for England emphasises the use of digital technologies and the aspiration to “make the NHS the most AI-enabled health system in the world”. This requires expertise in artificial intelligence and data science, but interdisciplinary collaboration is also essential if we are to make this a reality.

The Maternal and Infant Health Equity Research Centre (MIHERC) aims to do this by bringing together experts in maternal health, behavioural science, AI and digital health to help drive innovative solutions through co-production and real partnership, ensuring better outcomes for all women and babies. MIHERC is led by Professor Hora Soltani at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in collaboration with key partners including Bournemouth University (BU), the City of Doncaster Council and South Yorkshire Digital Health Hub.

Alongside Professor Vanora Hundley, who has been appointed as a Capacity Training and Development Lead, Professor Huseyin Dogan and Prof Alessandro Di Nuovo from MIHERC will be co-leading the cross-cutting workstream titled “digital, data, monitoring, evaluation and implementation science” as part of the NIHR Maternity Disparities consortium. This workstreams aims

– to identify and test trusted, reliable AI technologies for deployment by the NHS to help reduce disparities;

– to develop and refine equity monitoring, real-world evaluation and implementation science methods for use in maternity disparities research, with a focus on enhancing their robustness and practical application;

– to embed advanced analytic and digital tools and implementation frameworks into maternity disparities research to improve the rigor and impact of studies on equity; and

– to build a community of practice within and external to consortium to develop analytical, methodological, and implementation science capacity.

The BU key academics are: Huseyin Dogan, Vanora HundleyEdwin van Teijlingen, and Deniz Çetinkaya. Please do get in touch with the MIHERC team for further information.

Higher Education and the screen industries in the UK: towards better partnership and collaboration for the talent pipeline

This week Richard Wallis and Christa van Raalte attended the annual ‘Talking Shop’ conference of the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image (NAHEMI) as key note speakers. We presented out paper, recently published in Media Practice and Education, in which we explore persistent barriers to effective partnership, identifying and deconstructing six myths that undermine progress in this area. These are that: ‘universities exist primarily to serve the needs of employers’; ‘the screen industries do not require a graduate workforce’; ‘media work specifically requires media graduates’; ‘the value of a media degree is determined by how well it prepares students for entry-level media jobs’; ‘practice-based and “practical” courses exist to produce “set-ready” graduates for specific industry roles’; and ‘universities are a barrier to industry diversity’.

The paper was met with an enthusiastic response and we were invited to propose a NAHEMI Forum later in the year to further debate the implications of moving past these myths to a better informed and more constructive conversation  built on mutual respect and understanding between HEIs and industry, recognizing their distinct roles and challenges.