Category / Environmental Sciences

QAA Subject Advisory Groups

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has announced it is inviting expressions of interest to join subject advisory groups for Subject Benchmark Statements.

QAA leads the development of Subject Benchmark Statements and reviews them on a cyclical basis to ensure they are useful as possible for discipline communities and can inform a range of purposes across the sector, including course design and providing support for securing academic standards.

In 2021, QAA will be reviewing the following subjects:

  • Archaeology
  • Chemistry (BSc and MSc/MSci/MChem)
  • Classics and Ancient History (including Byzantine Studies and Modern Greek)
  • Computing and Computing (Master’s)
  • Counselling and Psychotherapy (BA &MA)
  • Criminology, Early Childhood Studies
  • Earth Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences and Environmental Studies
  • Forensic Science
  • Geography
  • History
  • Housing Studies
  • Theology and Religious Studies

Members of the academic community, employers, PSRBs and students are all encouraged to apply. Academic representatives and current students will only be drawn from higher education providers who are QAA Members.

You can view the call here: https://bit.ly/3pBgQ80

To submit an expression of interest, complete the online survey by 5pm on Friday 12 March.

After submitting your expression of interest it would be helpful if you would let Jane & Sarah (BU’s policy team) know. This is simply so we can track interest in sharing these kind of opportunities. We can be contacted at: policy@bournemouth.ac.uk. Thank you.

NERC invites env.sci. community to submit new ideas for highlight topics

NERC is now seeking ideas for research challenges that should be priorities for strategic research investment through highlight topics. NERC would welcome ideas from both researchers and those who use environmental science research.

Ideas for new highlight topics should be submitted by 15 May 2019 using the new online submission form.

Refreshed guidance is available on the call for ideas for strategic research page, to explain what they are looking for, how to submit ideas, and how NERC staff can help.

2018 saw the fifth cut-off for ideas for highlight topics and a summary of ideas received is also available on the call page. The outcome of the last round and the successful awards will be available on the NERC website soon.

Ideas will have a lifetime of a single round to ensure they remain timely. All submitters of ideas received by NERC will receive feedback on their ideas, and there are no restrictions on resubmission of ideas that have not been used to develop potential investments.

NERC encourages ideas from all parts of the environmental science community and NERC staff are available to discuss potential ideas and provide advice. If you have any queries on the process, or would like advice on a potential idea, please contact them at idea@nerc.ukri.org in the first instance, and they will put you in touch with a NERC colleague who can help.

BU Research Associate selected for European Space Agency Summer School

Bournemouth University Research Associate Katie Thompson from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (SciTech) was delighted to be accepted on to the prestigious European Space Agency Earth observation summer school for two weeks this month. The course took place at ESRIN headquarters in Rome, which is the ESA establishment responsible for managing the operation and exploitation of ESA’s Earth Observation satellites. It was a fantastic opportunity to work together with experts as well as 70 fellow PhD and Postdoctoral students from a broad range of different research institutions. The summer school focused on concepts of remote sensing, Earth system science, modelling and monitoring, and how data can be used to better understand the world we live in. Further research developments will play a essential part of Katie’s research, concerning African savanna elephants (Loxodonta Africana) and their impacts at an ecosystem level that will rely on analysis of remotely sensed imagery to elucidate vegetation dynamics.

 

BU Briefing – Trophic positioning of meiofauna revealed by stable isotopes & food web analyses

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

This paper examines seasonal food webs of the invertebrates inhabiting the streambed of the chalk River Lambourn in England. Researchers conducted analyses of gut content (a dietary “snapshot”) of macro and meiofauna, as well as stable isotope analyses (determines the feeding links of an organism as it reflects its assimilated diet) of meiofauna to examine seasonal food webs of the chalk stream.

This study stresses the importance of temporal variations in food and consumer species composition for a comprehensive understanding of food web structure, asserted by similar changes in trophic structure depicted by gut content and stable isotope analyses.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Professor Genoveva Esteban at gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk 
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.