Category / BU research

NIHR Bulletin

RDS NEWS

From the RDS (Research Design Service) desk – raising the public involvement standards in the RDS.
Patient and public involvement has been an essential element of research funding applications for many years, and the RDS has been making it an essential element in how we work. Our blog this month shows how we’ve integrated our public contributor teams to our advice-giving service, and the resulting benefits. Read the blog here.

NIHR News

Good Clinical Trials Collaborative launches new guidance consultation

Professor Lucy Chappell begins role as NIHR Chief Executive

eBulletins and Newsletters

NIHR Funding and support round-up: August 2021

NIHR ARCs – August Newsletter

Funding Opportunities

Latest NIHR funding calls

Evidence Synthesis Programme
Incentive Awards Scheme 2021

Programme Development Grants
Competition 31

 

Your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU) should you need help with your application. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.

Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice

Feel free to call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

NEW UKRI Open access policy

UKRI announced its new open access policy in August 2021.

This policy applies to publications which need to acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. This includes funding from:

  • the research councils
  • Research England
  • Innovate UK.

It aims to ensure that findings from research funded by the public through UKRI can be freely accessed, used and built on.

The policy applies to:

  • peer-reviewed research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022
  • monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024.

Please see this link for the full policy document and other related information and details –

https://www.ukri.org/publications/ukri-open-access-policy/

Care and support at home in the time of Covid

An event exploring the experiences of volunteers, carers and care workers during the Covid-19 pandemic in BCP and Dorset.

About this event:

The Covid-19 pandemic has concentrated much care and support within peoples homes. The closure of schools, day centres, shops and non-essential services during lockdowns, alongside prohibitions on household mixing, have meant that caring work has been much more spatially concentrated and contained within households than in normal times.

This has placed increasing demands on carers and home care workers. It has also expanded initiatives of volunteer-provided support to people at home. This event presents the early findings of a research project exploring the activities and experiences of carers, care workers and volunteers in Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset over the past 18 months. It also includes a round table discussion in which experts and leaders from the voluntary and community sector, carers’ groups, home care providers and local government will reflect on current and future challenges for their respective fields, and the role of academic research in addressing these.

Event details:

For further information on this event please contact Dr Rosie Read, email: rread@bournemouth.ac.uk

This online event will be recorded. For details in respect of any recording and how it will be made available, please contact the organiser. If you do not want to appear in any recording please notify the host, keep your camera and audio off throughout the event and avoid using any chat function during the event (we will do our best to respond to any questions you have through other channels). For further information, please refer to our privacy notice https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/governance/access-information/data-protection-privacy/general-enquiries-public-events-privacy-notice [RA1]

Health Research Authority Releases Question and Answers: Student Eligibility Criteria

The Health Research Authority have published some questions and answers in relation to student research – this is in relation to the recent update regarding the upcoming changes to eligibility criteria.

You can find the Q&As here.

If you have any queries please contact Suzy Wignall, Clinical Governance Advisor in Research Development & Support.

International UKRI Funding Opportunities: China and South Korea

Two exciting new funding opportunities have recently been published by UKRI for research collaborations in diverse social sciences, arts, humanities and creative cultural spheres with either China or South Korea. If this interests you, read further and be in contact!

UK and South Korea social science, arts and humanities connections

This networking funding opportunity has been commissioned to address the lack of connectivity and expand the level of engagement with South Korea. It aims to lower the barriers faced by UK SSH researchers seeking to collaborate with South Korean counterparts.
Proposals may be submitted in any area of SSH, and on any topic. Interdisciplinary proposals across the breadth of the social sciences, arts and humanities are strongly encouraged.
Total fund:
£1,500,000
Maximum award:
£50,000
Publication date:
30 July 2021
Opening date:
11 August 2021 09:30 UK time
Closing date:
26 October 2021 16:00 UK time
For further details see https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/uk-and-south-korea-social-science-arts-and-humanities-connections/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Examining UK-China creative industries research and innovation

Applicants should identify the one theme to which their proposal principally responds, though proposals might cut across more than one of these themes or introduce new areas of inquiry relating to research, development and innovation in the creative industries. These are: Creative industries: audiences and consumer culture (audience insights; localisation of culture); Sector mapping: research, development and innovation and the creative industries (market intelligence and horizon scanning for the creative industries in UK and China; creative industries research, development and innovation landscape mapping); Practical and legal considerations for international research, development and innovation in the creative industries ( intellectual property and copyright; navigating cyber security laws and data sharing)
Maximum award:
£100,000
Publication date:
29 July 2021
Opening date:
29 July 2021
Closing date:
7 October 2021 16:00 UK time

For further details see: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/examining-uk-china-creative-industries-research-and-innovation/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Please contact Dr Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen at nbliebchen@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to pursue either of these opportunities.

Postgraduate Researchers and Supervisors | Monthly Update for Researcher Development

Postgraduate researchers and supervisors, hopefully you have seen your monthly update for researcher development e-newsletter sent earlier this week. If you have missed it, please check your junk email or you can view it within the Researcher Development Programme on Brightspace.

The start of the month is a great time to reflect on your upcoming postgraduate researcher development needs and explore what is being delivered this month as part of the Doctoral College Researcher Development Programme and what is available via your Faculty or Department. Remember some sessions only run once per year, so don’t miss out.

Please also subscribe to your Brightspace announcement notifications for updates when they are posted.

If you have any questions about the Researcher Development Programme, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Natalie (Research Skills & Development Officer)
pgrskillsdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk 

Research impact at BU: digital preservation of human fossil footprints; creating an interactive role for readers

A series of posts featuring BU’s impact case studies for REF 2021. (These are edited versions of the final submissions – the full impact case studies will be published online in 2022.)

Discovering and preserving human fossil footprints at White Sands National Park, New Mexico

The dunes at White Sands National Park, New Mexico

Research areas: Environmental & Geographical Sciences, Data Science, Hominin Palaeoecology

Staff conducting research: Professor Matthew Bennett, Professor Marcin Budka, Dr Sally Reynolds

Background: Fossil footprints are an important, but neglected, part of the palaeontological and archaeological record. Professor Bennett, a recognised authority on human footprints, received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to develop analytical approaches for the capture and analysis of human footprints, and then translate the work into the freeware DigTrace. DigTrace is an integrated software solution for the capture and analysis of 3D data of footprints, and can be applied to both fossil footprints and forensic practice. Along with similar  ‘Structure from Motion’ photogrammetry approaches, DigTrace has revolutionised vertebrate ichnology, providing data for advanced biomechanical analysis, enhanced visualisation, and the preservation of fragile fossil footprints.

Professor Bennett was approached by the US National Park Service (NPS) to help them identify human tracks at White Sands National Park in New Mexico and advise on conservation methods. They had already found the tracks of Ice Age animals such as giant ground sloth and mammoth but wanted to know more about potential human fossil footprints. In collaboration with David Bustos, the park’s resource manager, Professor Bennett quickly confirmed the presence of human footprints. Casts of the fossil tracks are now on display in Harvard University’s Peabody Museum and PLOS SciComm listed the findings as number one in its ‘Top 9 discoveries in human evolution’ in 2020.

The research is ongoing, including the discovery and analysis of the longest known human trackway so far reported, and the team has also pioneered the geo-prospection of human tracks using geophysical methods. The discovery of the footprints was featured in The Conversation, and covered extensively in the media, including: National Geographic, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Atlantic, BBC Radio, New Scientist and many more.

The impact: 

Using DigTrace, and the research findings, Professor Bennett helped the NPS develop conservation management methods and approaches, enabling them to digitally conserve the eroding footprints. Using geophysics, the researchers developed methods for mapping hidden tracks for the NPS staff to use.

The intense media interest generated in the footprints, together with the description of how the humans involved would have been actively hunting giant ground sloth, was used by local politicians to launch draft legislation to re-designate White Sands as a Park and include the words ‘palaeontology’ and ‘archaeology’ in the founding legislation. The legislative process was slow but President Trump finally signed off on the name change and re-designation in December 2019. The NPS acknowledged the importance of Professor Bennett and his team’s track research in bringing about the re-designation and the Smithsonian National Museum confirmed the site’s significance within the Americas.

Independent research undertaken by a non-profit research group at the time suggested that the impact to the local economy of Alamogordo (Otero County) was likely to be worth $6m a year due to an enhanced number of visitors to the park.

Enabling the Genarrator Generation: creating a more active, participatory role for modern readers

The Genarrator website

Research area: Literature

Staff conducting research: Dr Jim Pope, Dr Simon Frost

Background: Too often, readers have seen themselves as mere passive recipients of the outputs from a professionalised corporate literature industry. This view is underpinned by an understanding of literature through the so-called author-centric conduit model, whereby the author transmits a narrative to a single reader who decodes the story.

BU researchers have explored theoretical and practical ways in which the reader is placed closer to the centre of literary practice, creating a collaborative model in which users and producers are co-creators of a narrative experience. Research findings suggested that readers create their texts’ values as an active expression of the desires they see being supported, obstructed or ignored. Because these values are made possible by the intertextuality of other publicly available works, where the meanings and values of works are shaped by one another, they are fundamentally collaborative. This theorisation, especially the social political ambition, was articulated in outputs by Frost and Pope.

BU’s research concluded that the collective interaction between all agencies, technologies and economies enable the reader-user to gain a personalised narrative experience, creating value in relation to the reader’s desires. Dr Pope spearheaded the creation of the web-based app Genarrator, a free space for digital interactive stories, in which readers participate more fully by choosing the direction and outcomes of a narrative. In addition, researchers also set up the open call New Media Writing Prize (NMWP), now in its 11th year. New media industries draw on BU research outputs in their own research and development opportunities, sponsoring collaboration with prizewinners and providing internships.

The impact:

The Genarrator website and app

The Genarrator website operates as a professional publishing platform and is home to more than 2,000 narratives. Available free of charge, and free of advertising, it enables people to produce interactive narratives, with branching pathways and multiple endings, and provides a collaborative online space for the interactive narrative community. It allows readers to connect with storytelling and, crucially, provides authors with new ways to reach their audiences and tell their stories. The NMWP, the first and only global prize of its kind, showcases the best in new media writing with innovative digital fiction, poetry and journalism which integrate a variety of formats, platforms and digital media. Both Genarrator and the NMWP have changed the way participants view their relationship with literature, enabling them to create their own interactive stories, and helping them find and use their voices in ways that were never possible before.

Empowering young people

In 2016, working with AIM Central (a charity sponsored by Children in Need/BCP Council), BU researchers undertook a co-creation workshop with AIM users, young people at risk, and those not in education, employment or training (NEET). Each participant self-designed and created an interactive narrative using Genarrator, which was subsequently published on the Genarrator community site. The workshops improved participants’ understanding of digital storytelling, their creative writing, filming, artistic and technical skills, and enhanced teamwork and cooperation. They also provided acknowledgement of their work, as it was displayed alongside professional outputs, and gave employers a place to see their art.

Between 2018 and 2019, BU researchers held a series of workshops with students aged 14-15 from ‘working class/non-working families’ at Bishop of Winchester Academy. BU students and the school’s sixth-formers mentored participants, and narratives included stories about bullying, racism in football and anxiety. The sense of achievement many students felt was translated into aspiration for higher education, illustrating that Genarrator had provided inspiration and links to university study for disenfranchised young people.

Improving careers of narrative practitioners

The NMWP has contributed to the development and promotion of new media writing over the past 10 years, engaging a range of practitioners including journalists and documentary makers as well as writers and artists. Following the British Library’s public event ‘Digital Conversations’ in 2019, which focused on celebrating the NMWP, national arts charity One-to-One Development Trust praised the impact of the prize, commenting on its “unique” and “cross-discipline” features and crediting it for attracting a broad range of entries and widening the field of new media.

HEIF Small Fund Research Project: Virtual Reality Chillout

Using immersive and non-immersive virtual reality to distract children with moderate to severe eczema from itching.

Project team: Dr Heidi Singleton, Professor Steven Ersser, Professor Debbie Holley. Associate Professor Xiaosong Yang. Dr Emily Arden-Close. Yaqing Cui- (Research Assistant and software developer), Professor Liz Falconer (Virtual Heritage Ltd), Dr Sarah Thomas, Amanda Roberts (Nottingham Support Group for Carers).

Child aged 5 years using Oculus Quest 2™ Headset

The aim of this project was to co-create immersive and non-immersive VR based on the guided imagery approach to managing moderate to severe eczema, targeted at children aged between 5 and 11 years of age.

Co-creation and Evaluation

Through online surveys (n=6) and semi-structured interviews (n=6), children worked with software developers to codesign the VR Chillout software. Children selected settings, interactions, music and sound effects that they felt would best help them relax and be distracted from their eczema.

 

Two resources were developed for evaluation: a relaxing 360 video of a woodland scene (click the image to view the interactive video on Youtube) and immersive VR mobile phone games:

 

Games for mobile phones – (a) Lobby  (b) Snowy World (c) Flying over Sakura

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Oculus Quest 2™, three games were developed. The first game ‘Lovely Fruit Grocery’ provides an immersive interaction experience with cartoon animals, via haptic controllers. The second game is ‘Hand Jet Flying’, which not only keeps the subject’s hand busy but also produces a highly immersive VR experience. The third game is ‘Nature Wonderland’, which focuses on presenting a visually and acoustically immersive and peaceful VR environment with animals, water, and natural elements.

Key findings

  • Evaluation of 360 woodland scene, via low-cost VR headsets: children found the experience relaxing and felt they were transported to a different space.
  • Evaluation of mobile VR software: children appreciated additional interactivity offered by the Snowy World animals and flying over Sakura landscapes.
  • Evaluation of Oculus Quest 2™software (VR game useability survey – n=10 and Children’s Dermatology Life Quality Index survey- n=4): children had the opportunity to use haptic hand controllers and reported that this enhanced the distraction from their eczema. Children felt that the Oculus VR Chillout games were very immersive.

“The animals were very realistic. I enjoyed playing with them and giving them food to eat. I loved the VR games; I feel they helped me to forget my itching.”

(Child aged 11)

Next steps

  • We have started discussions with the clinical eczema teams in the South of England and RDS regarding future bidding to proceed to clinical trials.
  • We aim to build upon this work with subsequent HEIF calls.

Links

Interactive 360 Video 

VR Chillout Software Show Reel

 

Student nurses experience ‘DEALTS2’ dementia training

On 8th July a group of 33 first year undergraduate nursing students attended a dementia themed workshop, led by Dr Michelle Heward from the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC), to gain insight into the lived experience of dementia. The day included an Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Friends session and simulation activities from the Dementia Education And Learning Through Simulation 2 (DEALTS2) programme, including the A Walk Through Dementia virtual reality app.

DEALTS2 uses an experiential learning approach to put trainees into the ‘shoes of a person with dementia’ to gain an insight into how the condition impacts on the person. In 2017, Health Education England commissioned the ADRC team to replace their original DEALTS programme with a new and improved version aligned to the learning outcomes of the national Dementia Training Standards Framework. Our research demonstrates that the training programme is being used nationally in acute care settings and has effectively increased trainer knowledge of dementia and confidence to utilise innovative training approaches (Heward et al., 2021). On the day it was great to see the students engaging positively with the innovative training approaches to gain a unique understanding of the lived experience of dementia.

The dementia day is part of a simulation programme being delivered by the Clinical Skills Nursing team at Bournemouth University. The simulation programme has been designed and created in response to a current shortage of nursing placements due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The placement has allowed the students access to varying specialist nurses and healthcare providers, from Nutrition Nurse specialists to Advanced Clinical Practitioner nurses working within the Air ambulance service, giving the students access that they may not have encountered within their practice.

New paper on student recycling behaviour with former BU Sociology student!

I am really pleased to announce the publication of our paper ‘Don’t be a waster! Student perceptions of recycling strategies at an English University’s halls of residence’ in the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Joseph Dixon, a former sociology student at Bournemouth University, worked alongside myself to publish research that he undertook concerning recycling behaviours among students. The paper can be accessed at Emerald EarlyCite https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSHE-10-2020-0383/full/html.

Prof Jonathan Parker

BRIAN unavailable due to upgrade – 2nd & 3rd August!

Just a reminder that BRIAN will be unavailable to users today and tomorrow, Monday, 2nd August and Tuesday, 3rd August for a scheduled upgrade.

If you need any help using the new system or if you encounter any problems after the upgrade, please do send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.

In the meantime, if you do have general queries relating to the upgrade, please get in touch with BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

Further information will be available once BRIAN is up and running again following the scheduled upgrade.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to Research Professional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using Research Professional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of Research Professional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on Research Professional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with Research Professional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the second Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

14th September 2021

9th November 2021

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset ICS Innovation Hub

To help improve health and social care outcomes, equity and accessibility across Dorset, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust is implementing a Dorset Innovation Hub. It will seek to address the unique challenges of caring for the population of Dorset, and the need to innovate and transform care.

The Hub will support adoption of proven innovations across the Dorset ICS. It will coordinate horizon scanning approaches and prioritise which innovations to bring to Dorset for rapid adaptation and adoption, at scale. A core project team of innovation multidisciplinary professionals will be assisted by a wider well-established network of subject matter experts.

Details of the Call

The Innovation Hub recognises that there is a plethora of improvement, transformation and innovative workstreams being undertaken and it has therefore been agreed that an open call would be made to partner organisations such as Bournemouth University so that each could made one request for priority support.

Priority Support Available

The Innovation Hub is seeking to support a range of local priorities across health and social care in the process towards implementation and adoption via the following ways:

  • Project management and oversight
  • Horizon scanning
  • Implementation
  • Training and education
  • Benefits realisation including evaluation
  • Finance, commission, and procurement advice
  • Quality and risk advice
  • Patient, public engagement advice

Therefore, if you have a health or social care related project that supports these local priorities and which would benefit from additional priority support to speed its implementation and adoption, you are strongly encouraged to submit your project for nomination.

 

 

Eligibility

Bournemouth University will nominate one project to go forward for priority support consideration by the Innovation Hub core project team.

Nomination assessment criteria

All projects submitted before the deadline will be evaluated using the following scoring criteria:

  • The project provides a solution to a problem in one of the following areas: Health inequalities/Population health management/Place based interventions/Workforce/Winter planning/Implementing clinical services review/Digital/COVID recovery
  • Novelty (Score 1-5): Projects should be novel and highly innovative in their support of local health or social care priorities.
  • Alignment with SIAs (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate alignment to the scope of one or more of the SIAs.
  • Interdisciplinarity (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate how they will secure interdisciplinary working that will achieve stronger outcomes than disciplines working in silos.
  • The potential for medium/long-term development and impact across Dorset (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate potential to secure societal impact with extensive reach and/or significance.

Application Process and Timescales

To apply, please complete and submit the application form to Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk by 17:00 Friday 20 August 2021. Applications submitted after this time will not be considered.

Completed applications describing eligible projects will be reviewed by BU members of the Dorset Innovation Hub and the DDPPRs after the application deadline.

The nominated project will be informed and announced on the BU Research and Faculty blogsBU’s nomination will be submitted to the Dorset ICS Hub for consideration on or before Tuesday 31 August 2021. 

The Dorset Innovation Hub core project team will then approve which projects will be taken forward in their Tuesday 28 September 2021 meeting. If selected by the Innovation Hub, the BU nominated project’s Principal Investigators will be notified shortly thereafter.

Important: The Dorset ICS Open call for priority support may be promoted elsewhere. Please do not submit your application to any of these other portals as it will not be eligible for nomination. BU applications should only be submitted to innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

Find out more

If you have any questions, please email Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

BU conference presentation on migration and COVID-19 in Nepal

Yesterday Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhikari, Dr. Nirmal Aryal and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, all based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, presented at the tenth Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal & the Himalaya.  Their paper ‘Moral panic and othering practices during Nepal’s COVID-19 Pandemic (A study with returnee migrants and Muslims in Nepal)’ was co-authored by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti from the University of Huddersfield and Shreeman Sharma (Department of  Conflict, Peace & Development
Studies, Tribhuvan University, Nepal).  The presentation was partly based on research funded by the British Academy.