Category / Research communication

NIHR Insight South West Central Conference 2026 at Bournemouth University

conferences

Today Bournemouth University (BU)  is hosting the annual NIHR-funded Insight South West Central Conference.  The event bring together current students, prospective students and past students on the Insight programme from both BU and the Bristol-based UWE (University of the West of England).

The NIHR INSIGHT: Inspiring Students into Research Programme funds a wide range of engagement activities and research masters training opportunities for students and recent graduates within registered healthcare, social work and public health professions. It takes place across 12 regions in England and the NIHR INSIGHT programme for South West Central is one of these regional programmes. It is a partnership between the UWE Bristol and BUy who together have 6,000 pre-registration and 4,000 post registration students across more than 15 health and care professions.

The opening two key note speakers were BU’s Professor of Social Care Lee-Ann Fenge and Helen Lewis-White, Deputy Director of Research and Innovation at North Bristol NHS Trust and a Health and Care Research Director (NMAHP) for the NIHR Southwest Central Research Delivery Network.  The conference includes invited speakers, research speed-dating sessions as well as students’ presentations (both oral and posters).

BU geography student’s undergraduate dissertation published in international journal

student research

Grassroots opposition to second homes, seen on the streets of Cornwall.

Research that began as an undergraduate dissertation at Bournemouth University has been published in Geographical Review, journal of the American Geographical Society. The paper, “Second Homes and the (Re)production of Cornish Nationalism,” is co-authored by Conan Millen, a recent graduate of BU’s BSc (hons) Geography, and Dr Marin Cvitanović, Principal Academic in Human Geography in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

The study looks at how attitudes toward second homes and tourism connect to identity in Cornwall, one of the poorest regions in Western Europe despite its high concentration of second-home ownership. Drawing on an online survey of 504 Cornwall residents, the paper identifies four distinct clusters of opinion on housing, tourism and belonging, and asks how these relate to age, income and ethnic identity.

A few findings stand out. Younger, lower-income and Cornish-identifying respondents were significantly more likely to oppose second homes and short-term holiday lets, particularly over concerns about affordability and community cohesion. Older and more affluent respondents identifying as British or English took a more positive view of tourism’s economic benefits. Age had the strongest statistical effect of any factor measured, more so than ethnicity or income, suggesting that generational experience of housing insecurity plays a central role in shaping these attitudes. Opposition to second homes was also somewhat higher in postcodes with higher average house prices.

The paper places these findings within wider debates on housing and identity. It draws a link between the rise of “generation rent” across the UK and Europe and the emergence of place-based, often exclusionary responses to housing pressure, sometimes described in the literature as forms of “housing nationalism.” In Cornwall’s case, the study argues that expressions of Cornish identity in relation to housing are shaped as much by material economic exclusion as by cultural or ethnic distinctiveness.

Since graduating, Conan Millen has been working as part of the wider public health team at Cornwall Council, where he is involved in analysing and processing data to inform projects and monitor the health and wellbeing of people living and growing up in Cornwall.

BU’s BSc (Hons) Geography is accredited by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). In the most recent National Student Survey, 94% of students agreed that teaching staff were good at explaining things, and 94% agreed that teaching staff had supported their learning well.

References:

Millen, C., & Cvitanović, M. (2026). Second Homes and the (Re)production of Cornish Nationalism. Geographical Review, 116(1), 39–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/00167428.2025.2578855

BU Prof Jonathan Parker promoting social work in Malaysia

international, writing

BU Professor Emeritus Jonathan Parker recently discussed his recently published latest edition of the book Newly-Qualified Social Workers: A Practice Guide to the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment to Prof. Denison Jayasooria from Malaysia.  Prof. Parker has a longstanding collaboration with social work researchers in Malaysia, for example in the field of social work education or the inclusion of indigenous people’s voices in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

New interdisciplinary paper accepted for publication

international, open access, Women's Academic Network

Today we heard from the Editor in Chief of the Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences that our paper ‘Ethical Entrepreneurship in Pharmacy: An Interdisciplinary Solution to a Global Public Health Problem‘ has been accepted for publication [1].  This paper has three Bournemouth academics as co-author: Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Sukanya Ayatakshi-Endow and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. The paper is truly interdisciplinary, the six authors have disciplinary backgrounds in: pharmacy, health education, public health, business studies, economics, health services research and sociology. 

This viewpoint offers a different way of looking at the worldwide problem of the increased use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance. In low-income countries, such as Nepal, pharmacies have a key role in dispensing medicine, and local pharmacies often provide health care advice in rural communities. However, the way many pharmacies operate can easily lead to unethical practices that are harmful to the health of their recipients, but also to the wider population. Such dangerous business practices involve inappropriate prescription and dispensing of medicine (i.e. antibiotics). Public health professionals have promoted better regulation and education to reduce the use of antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance. These approaches have an important place to play, but in this paper, we propose one particular intervention, namely the training of community pharmacy shop owners in sustainable and ethical entrepreneurship. To offer greater insights into the issue we have produced a theoretical framework. We suggest interventions should be co-created with all relevant stakeholders to change perceptions of entrepreneurship, offer management training, thus promoting an ethical and sustainable business culture, and in the long run, improve pharmacy education in these areas.

The Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences is an Open Access journal, hence freely available to read when it gets published.

Reference:

  1. Regmi, P.R., Ayatakshi-Endow, S., Rajkarnikar, R., van Teijlingen, E., Khanal, D.P., Poudel, R.S. (2026) Ethical Entrepreneurship in Pharmacy: An Interdisciplinary Solution to a Global Public Health Problem?” Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS) (accepted July 2026).

Three NIHR Internships awarded at BU

Awarded & submitted bids, NHS, PG research, Women's Academic Network

Congratulations to Susara Blunden, Christinia Bempomaah and Rebecca Lovedale who has been awarded an NIHR Internship starting the end of September at Bournemouth University (BU).
Christinia Bempomaah is cancer nurse at University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust (UHD) her supervisor will be Dr. Lindsay Welch, Associate Professor of Nursing Practice, in a joint BU-UHD appointment, with a second supervisor to be appointed.
Susara is a research delivery midwife with UHD as well as a M.Res. student at BU.  During her internship she will be undertaking PPIE looking at the acceptability of using AI to measure blood pressure in pregnancy. This will focus on working with communities whose maternal and neonatal outcomes are most affected by hypertensive diseases of pregnancy in coastal and rural communities.  Susara will be supported by Dr. Kate Jupp and Prof. Mel Hughes at BU’s Public Involvement in Education & Research (PIER) team, Dr. Lindsay Welch, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

Whilst Rebecca Lovedale is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust (DHCUFT) her focuses for the NIHR internship with be on urgent care and her supervisors will be Dr. Lindsay Welch as well as BU’s Senior Lecturer In Paramedic Science, Dr. Pete Phillips.
Congratulations to all.

Prof. Dr. Edwin van Teijlingen

UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor

New paramedic science paper by BU’s Dr. Ursula Rolfe

NHS, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Ursula Rolfe in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Science on the publication of her latest paper ‘Paramedics’ management of people experiencing mental health issues: An investigation of knowledge gaps and support needs in England‘ [1].  The paper is co-authored with colleagues from the University of Southampton and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration, Wessex.  The paper highlights that demand for mental health care from U.K. ambulance services is increasing, yet paramedics report feeling underprepared to manage these presentations. This study aimed to identify knowledge gaps, educational needs, and systemic factors shaping frontline paramedics’ ability to provide mental health care in England, examining: (1) mental health education and training at pre- and post-registration levels; and (2) paramedics’ experiences of managing mental health presentations. A two-phase mixed-methods design was employed across the country.
Congratulations!
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health
Reference:
Zecchinato, F., Rolfe, U., Sloan, H, Campling, N. (2026) Paramedics’ management of people experiencing mental health issues: An investigation of knowledge gaps and support needs in England, Paramedicine [ONLINE FIRST]   https://doi.org/10.1177/27536386261467717

INSIGHT MRes Students Present at Sigma Annual Conference

conferences, student research

On Friday 5th June the Phi Mu Chapter of Sigma held its 2026 Annual Conference at Brunel University of London. An excellent scientific programme included keynote presentations from Howard Catton (CEO, International Council of Nurses) and Joanne Bosanquet MBE (CEO, Foundation of Nursing Studies).

Two Bournemouth University INSIGHT MRes students also presented posters. Dan Bradshaw, supervised by Dr Stephen Richer and Dr Leslie Gelling, presented ‘How have educational programmes for young people addressed stigma toward people with schizophrenia?’ Laura Potter, supervised by Dr Vikram Mohan and Professor Carol Clark, presented ‘The barriers to pain management in adults with a learning disability during a critical care admission’. Well done to both Dan and Laura, but special congratulations to Laura who received a prize for her poster presentation.

The Phi Mu Chapter of Sigma is the English Chapter of this International Honor Society for nurses and is hosted by nurses at Bournemouth University. If you are a nurse and interested in joining Sigma, please contact Sigma@Bournemouth.ac.uk.

BU academics publish in Nepal national newspaper

Delicious links, international

Dr. Pramod Regmi and prof. Edwin van Teijlingen had a long article published today related to their work on migrant workers in Nepal.  The article ‘Nepal’s migrant workers: Data the new government can’t ignore’ appeared in both the print edition and the online version of The Kathmandu Post, which is one of the three English-language national papers in Nepal.  Both academics are based in the Faculty of Health, Environment & Medical Sciences.
https://kathmandupost.com/columns/2026/04/15/working-abroad-comes-at-a-cost-to-migrant-workers-health

Boost Your Research Profile: Training Sessions with The Conversation

Knowledge Exchange, Training

The Conversation is a premier news and opinion platform featuring content written exclusively by academics, researchers, and PhD candidates

Backed by professional journalists, it offers a high-impact way to share research with the public, build a media profile, and develop confidence in external communication.

BU’s impact on the platform is already significant: over the last year, BU academics have published 32 articles, reaching nearly 1 million page views. To help more staff get involved, two dedicated training sessions led by editors from The Conversation are being offered. These sessions are a perfect opportunity to learn the ropes and discuss specific article ideas. Writing for The Conversation: Interactive Workshop

In this session, attendees will learn how to translate complex research for a general audience and how to structure articles for maximum engagement. Participants will also have the chance to pitch story ideas directly to a Conversation editor.

Wednesday 22 April, 2-4pm

Online

Please note: Spaces are limited to 20 attendees

Find out more and register here

One-to-One Meetings with the Editor

For those with specific projects in mind, the team is offering eight individual appointments (15–20 minutes each). This is a rare chance to get personalised feedback and expert advice on how to take your article ideas forward. 8 individual appointments available.

Wednesday 20 May, 2-4pm

Online

Book your One-to-One slot here

Vitae Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) Competition: Applications Now Open

PG research

The Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition is back. Originally established by the University of Queensland, this globally recognised challenge invites doctoral researchers to condense their entire thesis into a high-impact, three-minute presentation designed for a general audience

The first BU round of the competition will take place via pre-recorded presentations.

To participate, you must:

Deadline: Both your online application form and video presentation must be submitted by 9am on Monday 20 April.

Please note: Applications submitted without a presentation will not be considered for Faculty selection.

A Faculty Panel will select a winner for each school. Finalists will be invited to the in-person BU Final on campus on Wednesday 17 June.

Prepare Your Submission

To ensure your presentation meets the official criteria and recording standards, please consult these resources

Eligibility Criteria

You are eligible to apply if:

  • You are an active PhD or Professional Doctorate candidate
  • You have successfully passed your Probationary Review

Exclusions: MRes/MPhil students, graduates, and students currently on interruption are not eligible.

Remote & Part-Time Researchers: If you cannot attend the campus final due to your status, a pre-recorded video submission is permitted in accordance with official rules.

Why Join the Challenge?

  • Refine Public Speaking: Master the “elevator pitch” for complex data
  • Boost Your Profile: Gain visibility within the university and the wider research community
  • National Recognition: The winner will represent BU at the National Vitae 3MT competition
  • Earn Prizes: All finalists receive a Doctoral College backpack, plus a chance to win:
    • 1st Prize: £150 voucher
    • 2nd Prize: £100 voucher
    • 3rd Prize: £50 voucher
    • People’s Choice: £50 voucher

Learn More

For more on the history and global impact, visit the official Vitae and 3MT® websites.

Further information is available on Brightspace

Watch the 2025 BU winners here

Registration to attend the final will open in May.

If you have any questions, please contact the team at: pgrskillsdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

Interdisciplinary research: Not straightforward?

Fusion themes, international, Publishing, REF Subjects, writing

Worldwide there is a growing interest in interdisciplinary research, especially to help deal with large questions in life, the so-called wicked problems.  These wicked problems (or questions) include climate disasters and global warming, globalisation, the drop in biodiversity, inequalities and international conflicts.  Interdisciplinary research increasingly popular and widely promoted by grant-giving bodies, the UK REF (Research Excellence Framework), research councils and universities, to name but a few stakeholders.

However, it is often ignored, that interdisciplinary research presents significant challenges for discipline-specific experts.  Doing interdisciplinary research requires specialised skills, team-player personality traits, and the ability to transcend one’s own academic boundaries.  We have highlighted in the past that common barriers include managing conflicting research philosophies, navigating, and overcoming, methodological, and communication differences [1].  Those who have been involved in interdisciplinary research will agree that is not an easy option for the individual discipline expert. It requires individual skills, ability to see beyond one’s discipline and perhaps personality characteristics such as a great team player. Interdisciplinary research may involve a mixed-methods approach underpinned by conflicting, and according to some incommensurable, research philosophies.

It is also the case that some disciplines are perhaps more familiar with interdisciplinary working, disciplines such as Public Health [2] are traditionally less theory focused and more solution driven.  But even in Public Health as a broad-ranging discipline covering sub-disciplines such as epidemiology, health education, law, management, health psychology, medical statistics, sociology of health & illness and a wide-range of research methods, conducting interdisciplinary research is not necessarily easy [3].

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen & Dr. Pramod Regmi both are in the School of Health & Care, and Dr. Shanti Farrington, who is based in the School of Psychology.

 

References:

  1. Shanker S, Wasti SP, Ireland J, Regmi PR, Simkhada PP, van Teijlingen E. (2021) The Interdisciplinary Research Team not the Interdisciplinarist. Europasian Journal of Medical Science. 3(2):111-5.
  2. Wasti, S. P., van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P. (2020) Public Health is truly interdisciplinary. Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 6(1):21-22.
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Regmi, P., Adhikary, P., Aryal, N., Simkhada, P. (2019). Interdisciplinary Research in Public Health: Not quite straightforward. Health Prospect, 18(1), 4-7. https://doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v18i1.19337

Accessing Sign Language for Better Communication

Awarded & submitted bids, international

We warmly invite you to a two‑day workshop/symposium funded by the British Council’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF). The event will open on Monday afternoon (9 March) with two introductory British Sign Language (BSL) taster sessions led by professional BSL teachers from the Wilts & Dorset Deaf Association (WDDA). This will be followed by a full day of talks on Tuesday, featuring academics, professionals, and researchers discussing sign language history, recognition, and the role of AI in supporting inclusive communities.

Venue: Student Hall, Talbot Campus

Event Schedule is as follows:

Monday (9th March)

12:30  Registration

12:50  Opening address

13:00 – 14:30 BSL session – BSL teachers: Lynn Preston & Richard Neale

14:30 – 15:00 Break

15:00 – 16:30 BSL session – BSL teachers: Lynn Preston & Richard Neale

16:30  Closing

 

Tuesday (10th March)

9:30     Registration

9:50     Opening address

10:00 – 11:00 AI Translation between Sign and Spoken Language

Presenter: Richard Bowden is Professor of Computer Vision and Machine Learning within the Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing at the University of Surrey. He is also co-founder of Signapse. His research centres on the use of computer vision to locate, track, and understand humans with a specific interest and focus on sign languages. Having worked on many areas of computer vision, including robotics, autonomous vehicles and the tracking and analysis of humans. He has been developing computational approaches to sign language recognition and translation for over 30 years. Over the last few years Richard has refocused his entire research group on Sign Language Translation, with recent funding including a large grant from Google to reduce the cost of translation through AI and SignGPT, which aims to develop the next generation of AI tools for sign languages.

11:00 – 11:15 Break

11:15 – 12:00 A History of the Development and Access to British Sign Language

Presenter: George Raggett has been deaf from the age of eight through a yet undiagnosed hereditary condition. George acquired good speaking and reading skills prior to his hearing loss and prefer to communicate using these methods, supplemented by hearing aids and naturally developed lip-reading skills. George has developed Sign Language skills since 1987 and has been teaching Sign Language and Deaf Awareness & Communication courses to all ages since qualifying as a teacher in 2002. In 2007, George became a trustee of The Wiltshire and Dorset Deaf Association, a charity set up to promote and support the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Communities of both counties, in 2004

12:00 – 13:30 Break

13:30 – 14:15 Relevant Annotation for Multimodal Interaction Analysis: AI Bridging Interaction Studies of Gestures and Signs

Presenter: Mayumi Bono is an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Kobe University in 2005. In her Ph.D. project, she demonstrated how to build a machine-readable model of the ‘Participation Framework,’ initially provided by Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman. After receiving her Ph.D., she got a position in informatics at ATR Media Information Science Laboratories, Kyoto University, and the National Institute of Informatics based on fruitful collaborations with engineering and informatics researchers. Currently, she is conducting several research projects of building sharable spoken and sign language multimodal corpora in an open science framework for all academic researchers interested in human communication using artificial intelligence techniques such as machine learning.

14:15 – 14:45 J-Shuwa: A Large-Scale Web-Collected Japanese Sign Language-Japanese Parallel Corpus

Presenter: Junwen Mo is a PhD candidate in the Nakayama Lab at the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on sign language understanding, with an emphasis on Japanese Sign Language translation. Recently, he has also developed an interest in alternative computational paradigms for artificial intelligence.

14:45 – Break

15:00 – 15:30 Between Representation and Embodiment: Perspectives on Sign Language Avatars

Presenter: Yi Wen is a first-year PhD researcher at Bournemouth University, where she previously completed her Master’s in Artificial Intelligence. She has a background in the game industry, working on large-scale production pipelines and collaborative projects. Her current research interests include sign language avatars, particularly exploring how different representational approaches may influence how signing is generated and experienced.

15:30 – 16:00 Continuous Sign language Recognition (CSLR): Feature Extraction from an Image Procesing Perspective

Presenter: Xinyu Zhang is an artificial intelligence researcher working at the intersection of medical imaging, representation learning, and algorithmic alignment. Her research advances contemporary medical AI by promoting approaches that reduce dependence on clinical expert teams and high computational resources, thereby enhancing scalability, reproducibility, and accessibility.

16:30 Closing