Category / Fusion

Violence Against and Women and Girls: Social Justice in Action Conference – 29 June

conferences, Events, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, Research communication, Uncategorized

A chance to showcase your Research

Dear all,

We are holding a conference at BU: Violence Against and Women and Girls: Social Justice in Action Conference – Event Date: 29 June at BGB, Lansdowne.

The Soroptimist International Bournemouth and Bournemouth University are facilitating a conference with the focus upon Violence Against Women and Girls. The aim of the day is to raise awareness of issues relating to violence against women and girls, bringing together diverse professionals, NGOs, charities and interested others to share knowledge, explore limitations and seek solutions to sustain social justice. This event is open to all those who are engaged in working with Violence Against Women and Girls and those who care about reducing this global injustice.

At the event in the lunch room we will be running an automated PowerPoint presentation, where we hope to showcase BU research that is relevant to the professional audience.

This is open to all BU academics and PGRs – and all you need is for your research to be relevant to the intended audience it does not have to be focused on the main conference topic.

If you would like to showcase your work to this audience, please send a PowerPoint slide to Orlanda Harvey by 26th June 2023.

Please do pass this opportunity on to colleagues across the University


BU and University of Cambridge Collaboration on Traffic Prediction

BU research, BU2025, Featured academics, Fusion, Impact, Knowledge Exchange, REF Subjects, Research news

Bournemouth University (BU) has collaborated with the University of Cambridge on network wide road traffic prediction. The work, led by Dr. Wei Koong Chai in BU, address the problem of traffic prediction on large-scale road networks and propose a novel deep learning model, Virtual Dynamic Graph Convolution Neural Network and Transformer with Gate and Attention mechanisms (VDGCNeT), to comprehensively extract complex, dynamic and hidden spatial dependencies of road networks for achieving high prediction accuracy. The work advocates the use of a virtual dynamic road graph that captures the dynamic and hidden spatial dependencies of road segments in real road networks instead of purely relying on the physical road connectivity.

The team designed a novel framework based on Graph Convolution Neural Network (GCN) and Transformer to analyse dynamic and hidden spatial–temporal features. The gate mechanism is utilised for concatenating learned spatial and temporal features from Spatial and Temporal Transformers, respectively, while the Attention-based Similarity is used to update dynamic road graph.

Two real-world traffic datasets from large-scale road networks with different properties are used for training and testing the model. VDGCNeT is pitted against nine other well-known models in the literature. The results demonstrate that the proposed VDGCNeT is capable of achieving highly accurate predictions – on average 96.77% and 91.68% accuracy on PEMS-BAY and METR-LA datasets respectively. Overall, our VDGCNeT performs the best when compared against other existing models.

Reference:

G. Zheng, W. K. Chai, J. Zhang and V. Katos, “VDGCNeT: A novel network-wide Virtual Dynamic Graph Convolution Neural network and Transformer-based traffic prediction model,” Knowledge-based Systems, 110676, June 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.knosys.2023.110676.

Post-Doctoral Researchers, Research Assistants, ECR’s, Research Fellows

BU Challenges, BU research, BU2025, ECR Network, Fusion, Impact, Knowledge Exchange, Research Centres, Research Concordat, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, research integrity, research methods, Research news, research staff, Research Supervision, Research Training, RKE development framework, Vitae, Women's Academic Network

Post-Doctoral Researchers, Research Assistants, ECR’s, Research Fellows. It’s the final day of the CEDARS survey and not many of you have completed the survey. We would particularly love to hear your thoughts/feedback.

Don’t miss the chance to influence policies and initiatives relating to research at BU. Please complete the BU Vitae CEDARS survey 2023 (Culture, Employment and Development in Academic Research survey)* today. The survey closes today Friday 21st April.

This is an important survey as it benchmarks BU against the rest of the sector. It will, therefore, help us to identify where we are excelling and where there is room for improvement.

Participating in this study will also influence policy. Your input will help us to understand where to focus our efforts and resources – it will give us the data to make the argument for you. (The results of the previous PIRLS and CROS surveys that CEDARS has replaced were used to develop new policies and initiatives, as well as training and development opportunities).

The CEDARS survey is for everyone who is research-active (whether on a full-time, part-time or part-time hourly paid contract). This includes researchers at all stages in your career, those who manage researchers, or are Principal Investigators, or contribute to research by providing professional services for researchers, (i.e. researcher developers, research officers or technical staff).

Your responses will be anonymous; you will not be identified or identifiable in any published results. It will take approximately 20 minutes to complete the survey. BU Vitae CEDARS survey 2023

If you have any questions regarding the survey, please email Rachel Arnold: rarnold@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Thank you, the Research Development and Support Team

*CEDARS is a national survey that explores the views and experiences of researchers and those supporting researchers across the UK. It is based on the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, which aims to create the best culture for researchers to thrive. This survey replaces the previous CROS and PIRLS surveys.

Please find more information here on the ‘Concordat to Support the Careers of Researchers’ and what BU is doing to support researchers.

BU-BCP collaborative initiative on sustainable urban parking

BU research, BU2025, Featured academics, Fusion, Impact, international, Knowledge Exchange, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research news

BU has collaborated with the Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole (BCP) local council on the initiative investigating sustainable solutions to urban parking which is a challenging problem to the area especially during peak tourist periods. The study, initiated and led by Dr. Wei Koong Chai in BU, explores the possibilities of exploiting online parking reservation platforms proposed in the last decade to cope with the parking challenge by enlisting parking resources from commercial operators (e.g., lots) and individuals (e.g., driveways) and allowing drivers make online reservations through mobile apps. The platforms facilitate transactions between the two sides and best match parking supply with parking demand. In this way, we increase the supply which may be otherwise unused while maximise value for drivers and parking space providers.
The study analyses real parking data in the Bournemouth city to realistically model the rich spatiotemporal dynamics of parking demand such as the location, start times and duration of parking events. These datasets drive the experimental evaluation of the research, which reports gains of up to 35% compared to the de facto parking resource reservation policy in such platforms.
Reference:
M. Karaliopoulos, O. Mastakas and W. K. Chai, “Matching Supply and Demand in Online Parking Reservation Platforms,” in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 3182-3193, March 2023, doi: 10.1109/TITS.2022.3230087.

SaferKids VR launch

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Fusion, Impact, Industry collaboration, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Strategic Investment Areas

Before the pandemic, local school children had a local facility near Wallisdown called SafeWise. SafeWise supported children learning about keeping safe and in particular road safety. However, during the pandemic this facility closed, leaving children without such an important resource. In collaboration with Colin Parnell from Centre VR, Dr Sarah Hodge (from the Department of Psychology) was awarded a bid by Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) Council to develop a VR simulation/game about road safety skills; SaferKids VR.

The educational simulation/game was designed and created, with an interdisciplinary team, including psychologists, and game developers and programmers. The team of game developers and programmers, consisted of two BU graduates Sam Walsh and Josh Maddocks, as well as Andrew Ham. Since graduating from his Masters degree, Sam has led the team on the SaferKids VR development.

Within SaferKids VR, there was the creation of SKIE: Safer Kids Interactive Expert (robot pictured above). SKIE supports the player in VR, navigating the friendly real-life interactive virtual world and achieving learning goals and road safety skills. In the United States, every year, thousands of people are injured as a result of someone else’s negligence. You can read this article to know what to do if you ever get into an accident.

Schools can sign up for their pupils to be involved. 

For more information on the project please see the link https://centrevr.co.uk/saferkidsvr/ or contact shodge@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research Development Funding Panel – Get Involved!

Fusion

***DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 6th FEBRUARY***

We are seeking expressions of interest for panel membership, Deputy Chair and Chair of the new Research Development Funding Panel.

Panel Members:

What is the Research Development Funding Panel?

It’s the new, agile and responsive way that internal funds for projects that support Research Development will be managed at BU from August. Panel membership is open to the wider BU academic community – not just the professoriate.

Why should I apply to be a panel member? What’s in it for me?

Because being a member of a funding panel means that you are involved in making important decisions about applications for funding. This means you need to have a cool head to evaluate the applications and be able to express your thoughts about them effectively in meetings and via feedback. You will be directly involved in the process and therefore helping to ensure that internal funding at BU is used for projects that will have real world impact. It’s also a great opportunity to engage with colleagues from across the faculties and to bounce ideas off each other.

What do I actually have to do?

You will have to attend a few online meetings per year and to read and review funding applications. Not huge demands on your time, but there will be occasions when some detailed feedback maybe required.

Sounds like it could be interesting. How do I apply?

Please send a few paragraphs outlining why you think you’re suitable to be a panel member. Have you been on a panel before, for example or does your role require you to give feedback on projects? Are you simply keen to be involved? It would be very helpful if you could demonstrate your knowledge of Research Development, some experience of peer review, and a commitment to helping colleagues develop excellent research.

Please email your EoI to the Research Development Fund mailbox by 5pm on Monday 6th February.

 

Chair and Deputy Chair:

We are also seeking EoIs from full members of the Professoriate for the post of Chair and from Associate Professors and Professors for the post of Deputy Chair. These posts are very important to the running of the panels as you will be chairing meetings, making decisions on applications and ultimately having the final say on funding decisions as well as dealing with requests to vary fund uses post award. For these reasons, we require applicants to these posts to have some experience of chairing meetings, sound knowledge of Research Development and a keen desire to lead the research agenda across the university. There won’t be huge demands on your time, but you will be required to read and review multiple applications and there will be occasions when you may need to respond swiftly to requests to amend uses of funds.

Applications from underrepresented groups (minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome.

EoIs for the Chair or Deputy Chair roles should consist of a case (maximum length of one page) outlining your suitability for the role. Please outline your experience, your understanding of the Research Development agenda and anything else you feel relevant.

These should be submitted to the Research Development Fund mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 6th February 2023. Please ensure your EoI clearly states whether you are applying for the Chair or Deputy Chair position.

 

Some further info:

Successful candidates for the Chair and Deputy Chair roles will be required to attend an orientation meeting with Deputy VC Tim McIntyre-Bhatty on Thursday 9th March at 10am. Bring trifle.

Please note that applications for Panel members will be processed following the successful recruitment of the above role- this is likely to be after 6th March 2023.

Studentship Funding Panel: call for Chair, Deputy Chair & Panel Members

BU research, BU2025, Doctoral College, Funding opportunities, Fusion, PG research, Postgraduate Research, Research Supervision, Uncategorized

***DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 6 FEBRUARY 2023***  The Studentship Funding Panel is responsible on behalf of the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) for providing internal funding and support to ensure the University maximises opportunities for investing the University’s QR RDP Supervision grant in match funded studentships, in line with the BU2025 Research Principles.

We are seeking expressions of interest (EoIs) for the Chair, Deputy Chair and Panel members for the new panel.

Chairs should be members of the Professoriate – this is extended to Associate Professors for the Deputy Chair role. Applications from underrepresented groups (minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome.

EoIs for Panel members are open to the wider academic community, not just the Professoriate.

Application: EoIs will be reviewed against selection criterion which includes knowledge and experience of knowledge exchange, innovation and impact, experience of chairing meetings and plans for leading the research agenda across the university.

EoIs for the Chair and Deputy Chair roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of one page) on the form provided outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the Doctoral College mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 6 February 2023.

EoIs for Panel member roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of half a page) on the form provided outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the  Doctoral College mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 6 February 2023.

Please note: EoIs should specify to which role the applicant is applying.

There will be a delay in response to Panel member applications until the Chair and Deputy Chair roles are appointed by 6 March 2023. After this the Panel Members will be contacted about their appointment.

There will be an orientation meeting on at 10am on 9 March 2023 for the Chairs and Deputy Chairs. This will be with Deputy VC Tim McIntyre-Bhatty.

Full details are available here:

BU Studentship Funding Panel – ToR.pdf

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Chair & Deputy Chair Role Descriptor

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Panel Member Role Descriptor

BU Studentship Funding Panel – Expressions of Interest

Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Funding Panel – call for Chair, Deputy Chair and Panel Members

BU2025, Funding opportunities, Fusion, HEIF, Impact, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team, research opportunities, research staff

The Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Funding Panel is responsible on behalf of the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC) for providing internal funding and support to ensure the University maximises opportunities for investing internal funds in projects that support knowledge exchange (KE) in line with the BU2025 Research Principles. 

We are seeking expressions of interest (EoIs) for the Chair, Deputy Chair and Panel members for the new panel. 

Chairs should be members of the Professoriate – this is extended to Associate Professors for the Deputy Chair role. Applications from underrepresented groups (minority ethnic, declared disability) are particularly welcome. 

EoIs for Panel members are open to the wider academic community, not just the Professoriate.

Application: EoIs will be reviewed against selection criterion which includes knowledge and experience of knowledge exchange, innovation and impact, experience of chairing meetings and plans for leading the research agenda across the university. 

EoIs for the Chair and Deputy Chair roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of one page) outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the  KE & Innovation Fund mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 23rd January 2023. 

EoIs for Panel member roles should consist of a short case (maximum length of half a page) outlining suitability for the role. These should be submitted to the  KE & Innovation Fund mailbox by the deadline of 5pm on 23rd January 2023. 

The successful candidates for the Chair and Deputy Chair roles will be required to attend an orientation meeting with Deputy VC Tim McIntyre-Bhatty on Thursday 9th March at 10am. 

Please note that applications for Panel members will be processed following the successful recruitment of the above role- this is likely to be after 6th March 2023. 

Full details are available here:

KE Innovation FP Chair and Deputy Chair role descriptor.docx

Process and criteria for KE Funding Recruitment.docx

KEI Panel Member Role Description.docx

Ageing and Dementia Research Forum – 26th January – Accessible Tourism

BU research, Fusion, Research communication, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, research methods, research opportunities, research staff

Details of the next ADRC ageing and dementia research forum are listed below. The forum is an opportunity for staff and PhD students to get together to chat about research and share experiences in a safe and supportive environment. Specific topics are discussed but there is also time for open discussion to mull over aspects of research such as project ideas and planning, ethical considerations and patient and public involvement.

Date, time, and campus Research areas
26th January 2023

15.30-16.45

BG601, Bournemouth Gateway

Lansdowne Campus

 ‘Accessible Tourism for Ageing and Dementia travellers’

Professor Dimitrios Buhalis and Dr Daisy Fan

Please confirm attendance by email to adrc@bournemouth.ac.uk

If you would like to discuss your research ideas at a future meeting, please email Michelle mheward@bournemouth.ac.uk

We look forward to seeing you there.

Ageing and Dementia Research Centre