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On stage at Bestival

Posted in BU research by Corrina Lailla Osborne

Written by Josie Pegg

I love festivals; I’d love to have been a rock star, the only problem being that I have minimal musical talent. However I do know a lot about parasites, and this was enough to get me a gig at this year’s Bestival.

Though not quite as rock and roll as the main stage, I was speaking in the Bestiversity tent, in the Tomorrow World area of Bestival. My talk “The parasite saga – a tale of horror, love and mystery” was a fun pop-science look at parasites and how big a part they play in our lives.  The Bestiversity tent was rather fabulous. My audience were able to lounge on sofas and giant beanbags, while my retro-styled stage comprised a comfortable armchair and PA system – I’m sure we’d get a few bonus points in the student satisfaction survey, if all lectures were like this. Furthermore I was handed a cold beer as I walked on stage – perhaps maybe something to consider to enhance staff satisfaction!

The experience was a nice break from my less rock-and-roll PhD life, where I am presently trying to write my transfer document concurrent to surviving the busiest period of my field season. Although my Bestival talk was designed to be fun and accessible to anyone it was essentially a version of one of the chapters of my PhD, so writing it proved to be a very useful exercise for me; as Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”. It was also a gentle reminder that my PhD is actually really interesting and cool, and more than just a never-ending stream of tissue samples and spreadsheets.

Above all taking part in Bestival was simply a whole lot of fun – there aren’t many chances to use a powerpoint presentation containing slides of Santa, George Clooney and the alien chest-burster. And much to the fulfilment of my rockstar fantasy I was classed as an Artist so I got to walk around with an Artist wristband and travel on the Artist shuttle. Plus I could camp in the Artist campsite with hot showers and real flushing toilets! And I got two tickets so I was also able to enjoy the rest of the festival with my friends once my talk was over.

The best bit of the whole experience for me was late on Thursday night as my friends and I were dancing to some gypsy punk in the polka tent when I was approached by a stranger. “I saw your talk today”, she said, “I didn’t do science but that parasites can do all that is brilliant, thanks for telling me”.

Does that count as a fan? If so, could this have been my best moment ever?!

I’d encourage anyone to apply for next years Bestiversity. If you’d like to know more speak to your agent or Becca Edwards.

BU establishes Food & Drink Research Group

Posted in BU research, Delicious links, Leisure, Recreation & Tourism, Research news by Edwin van Teijlingen

Early September saw the official launch of the recently formed Food & Drink Research Group (at Bournemouth University).  This cross-university research group has current membership from all schools, while formally residing under the ‘Leisure, Recreation & Tourism’ theme (See: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/files/2012/10/BU-Research-Themes-information-060913.pdf).  The Food & Drink Research Group focuses on a wide-range of food and drink issues ranging from consumers’ food choices to local food and drink production and distribution to healthy eating, to name.  Group members have also studied the different meanings people attach to food and eating, for example among students in Dorset and pregnant women in Nepal.

Academics associated with the Food & Drink Research Group are involved with studies focusing on consumers, the hospitality industry, food producers, wholesalers, distributors and the retailing industry. In addition, members have researched food labelling, aspects of nutrition, health promotion and education. The research group aims to act as a hub to all food and drink research activity across the University. In the spirit of Fusion, the group is focusing on student consultancy projects, PhD research, and engagement with industry.

The next meeting of the Food & Drink Research group is scheduled for November 6th at 10.30 in The Retreat at Talbot Campus.

Anybody member of staff interested in joining the group should contact Rhyannan Hurst (email: rhurst@bournemouth.ac.uk ).

Fusion Funding: Linking level I & H through Design and Engineering Research

Posted in BU research, Fusion, General Engineering, Technology & Design by Nigel Garland

Background:

Through the BSc Design Engineering Level I Design Projects (DP) unit we aim to enhance student understanding of key theory through practical implementation. For their Level H Advanced Technology and Innovation (ATI) unit the students are expected to examine a technical area of engineering, develop their understanding and produce a research paper. This Fusion co-creation project aims to link these activities by implementing Level I DP solutions to solve Level H ATI research problems.

Context:

Level I BSc Design Engineering students were each asked to design a Fatigue Testing machine and, in order to this, they had to develop basic understanding of fatigue and fracture mechanics. These student solutions represent a wide range of designs but can essentially be condensed to two underlying technologies: Pneumatic actuation & Electric motor drive.


By providing the basic building blocks and adaptable elements students can create simple fatigue testing machines to support their ATI research through experience of research lab work yielding research output and practical understanding.

Progress:

The basic design of outline systems and a reference platform have been finalised and part orders generated. This represents specifying 135 component items including structural framework, mechanical drive systems, pneumatics, programmable logic controller (PLC), data acquisition (DAQ), load cell and amplifier, motor controller and motor gearbox unit etc. Hopefully these elements will begin arriving shortly and custom components can be produced in Tolpuddle House before the end of September.

Next step:

The next stage is to build up reference platforms in both Pneumatic and Mechanical configurations. Oh, and learn how to programme a PLC, DAQ software and a SCADA package, doh!

About us:

Dr Nigel Garland is the senior lecturer is Sustainable Design within the School of Design Engineering and Computing.

Dr Zulfiqar Khan is the Director of the Sustainable Design Research Centre.

Interdisciplinary Seminars on Cyber Security

Posted in Uncategorized by Shamal Faily

I am delighted to announce that we will shortly be launching a new interdisciplinary seminar series on Cyber Security.  Our invited speakers will give interesting, thought-provoking talks on a variety of topics related to security and privacy.  Although some of these speakers will be academic, their talks will be approachable and require nothing more than a general interest in security, and an enquiring mind.

The seminars will take place at the Executive Business Centre on Tuesdays from around 5pm and will last for approximately an hour.  The seminar series will also be an opportunity for like-minded folk to come together and build connections to start tackling the issues discussed.  Therefore, after each seminar, we will convene at a nearby pub for more networking and discussion.

We will announce details of our first seminars soon.  In the meantime, please get in touch if you have suggestions for possible seminar speakers and topics.

Are you interested in and want to make a positive difference to people living with Dementia?

Posted in Training by mobrien

Then you may wish to join BUDI who have invited Mr Ian Sherriff, a Trustee of the Alzheimer Society and Dementia Friends Champion.  He will be delivering the Government directed Dementia Friends training to staff at BU on Tuesday 24 September at 1 to 2.30 in PG144.   We have a few spaces available so if you are interested then please email mobrien@bournemouth.ac.uk to reserve your place.

Find out about the Creative, Digital and Cognitive Science research theme

Posted in Creative, Digital & Cognitive Science, Research themes by Julie Northam

As we start the new academic year, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the activities within this theme over the past 12 months and consider how the theme will develop in the future.

We held several meetings with mixed results. On the upside, we introduced ‘elevator pitches’ from staff who had ideas for funding applications/research papers and wanted to work collaboratively with other members of staff. This format worked extremely well with staff being able to cross-pollinate ideas, knowledge and skills in order to get some forward momentum in their projects.

We also held a number of these sessions with the Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth research theme. This proved to be a real winner and ensured that research themes were not seen as silos.  On the downside, this theme stills lacks a certain amount of staff engagement to develop real critical mass.

In terms of developing this theme in the future, two opportunities stand out. Earlier this year BU signed a ‘Manifesto for our Creative and Digital Economy’ with local businesses and councils. The aim of this initiative is to enhance the creative and digital economy of Bournemouth, Christchurch, Poole and Dorset. We hope that staff working within this research theme will play a major role in helping to create a thriving international hub driving economic growth. Secondly, this theme has now incorporated the research centres of the School of Design, Engineering & Computing and hopes to integrate  research into Design Simulation, Sustainable Design, and Smart technology to name but a few.

We will be running a number of research meetings during the coming academic year, so please come along and make your contribution to a thriving and societally import research theme.

Dr John Oliver

The Media School

 

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Find out about the Leisure, Recreation and Tourism research theme

Posted in Leisure, Recreation & Tourism, Research themes by Julie Northam

The past year has seen an increasing level of activity in this research theme, with lots of collaborative research and bidding taking place.  Following numerous events in BU’s Festival of Learning,  July saw BU hosting the ‘Making Waves’ conference, the annual conference of the Association for Events Marketing Educators.  Over 130 delegates from around the world attended the conference, and feedback shows that they found it a useful and thought-provoking conference, with interactive sessions that made it a true “event experience”. 

This summer has also seen the award of the 2015 Leisure Studies Association conference to Bournemouth University.  This conference will be titled “Creating Leisure” and as the LSA conference is the largest annual conference in leisure research in the UK it provides BU with a great opportunity to showcase the best of our leisure research.  This will be part of a succession of major international conferences held at BU in the Leisure, Recreation and Tourism theme, from the Advances in Tourism Marketing Conference (2009), the 3rd Conference of the International Association for Tourism Economics (2011), the International Conference on Tourism, Climate Change and Sustainability (2012) and the AEME ‘Making Wages’ conference (2013).

Last academic year also saw greater activity in seminars, ideas cafés and a festivity ‘mash-up’, and we are looking forward to a stimulating programme of Leisure, Recreation and Tourism events this year.

Prof Adam Blake

School of Tourism

 

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CEMP Research and Innovation meetings: an invitation

Posted in BU research, Communities, Cultures and Conflicts, Creative, Digital & Cognitive Science, Funding opportunities, Technology & Design by jmcdougall

     This academic year CEMP will continue to publish a fortnightly research & innovation funding bulletin via this blog.

The Research & Innovation meetings will also continue, but we want to invite colleagues from the rest of the Media School and across BU to tell us how we can increase engagement and collaboration in all aspects of pedagogic / educational research and innovation related to media / technology.

Previously, the model has been like this -

The bulletin is posted on a Thursday – this contains information about funding calls and also monitors live projects and reports on the outcomes of all bids.

The next Thursday, we meet to discuss the calls in the bulletin and report on bids in progress.

The next Thursday, the updated bulletin is posted

….and so on.

So far, we’ve been successful in one of our two key objectives – increasing CEMP bidding activity, but less successful in the other – developing collaboration with other people in BU, either in response to the funding calls in the bulletin or to try to match peoples’ ideas for projects / innovation to funding opportunities. This second objective is a service / function CEMP can offer to the University, and we’d like more colleagues to access this.

So – we’d like to review how we do this, in order to get better at the second objective, and to this end the first R&I meeting of this year is an open forum and everyone is invited to either come along and contribute to the discussion or to add a comment to this post if you have ideas but can’t make the meeting.

 

Meeting details:

Thursday 26th September 10-12

CEMP’s new office (CAGO2)

Tea, coffee and pastries to be served!

Key issues for discussion:

  • How can CEMP support people in developing research / innovation projects?
  • What are the structural obstacles and how can we overcome them?

When we’ve got everyone’s ideas / requests for how to proceed, we’ll decide how to go ahead.

I hope we’ll see you there or read your ideas on the blog.

Julian

 

Congratulation and Good Luck

Posted in BU research, News from the PVC by Matthew Bennett

August saw a busy period of activity for bids being submitted and a number of awards were won with congratulations due to Schools for winning research grants, consultancy contracts and organising Short Courses.

There were a significant number of European Commission Marie Curie Fellowships submitted in August and so good luck goes to EUADS member Anita Diaz, and to Robert Britton for his three applications, both from ApSci, to Mark Hadfield, and also to Feng Tian and Chang Liu for their applications, all from DEC, to Vanora Hundley from HSC, to Jian Chang, Darren Lilleker (both EUADS members), Hammadi Nait-Charif, Lihua You, An Duc Nguyen for their individual applications, along with EUADS member Barry Richards for his two applications and a joint submission from Alexander Pasko, Valery Adzhiev and Oleg Fryazinov, all from the Media School, and to Ana Adi (MS) and Debbie Sadd (ST) for their joint application, and finally to Heather Hartwell from the School of Tourism, who is also a member of EUADS.

For ApSci, congratulations are due to Mark Maltby for his AHRC Large Grant to research Chickens and People: Past, Present and Future.  Mark will lead on this collaborative project for over £1.5M, working with several University partners.  Congratulations are also due to Adrian Pinder for two consultancies with the Forestry Commission and Natural England, the latter also involving Grants Academy member Pippa Gillingham, Roger Herbert and Richard Stillman, and to Jonathan Monteith for his consultancy with WPA Consultants.  Good luck to Richard Stillman for his contract to Natural England, and to Jonathan Monteith for his consultancies to Anesco and to Churchfield Farm. 

For the Business School, congratulations to Grants Academy member Dinusha Mendis for her contract with the University of Glasgow.  Good luck to Lois Farquharson for her consultancy to CAFCASS, and to Yasmin Sekhon and Elvira Bolat for their application to Academy of Marketing.

For DEC, congratulations to Sarah Bate for her award from the British Psychological Society to launch the Face Blindness awareness campaign, and to Chris Benjamin for his Sonar short Course to be held in September.  Good luck to Christos Gatzidis for his application to Leverhulme, to Grants Academy member Raian Ali for his application to EPSRC for Software Engineering Framework for Systematic Social Sensing, to Christopher Richardson and Hongnian Yu for their KTP to TDSi, to Shamal Faily and Cornelius Ncube for their application to Centre for Defence Enterprise, and to Venky Dubey for his application to UK Science and Innovation Network.

For HSC, congratulations are due to Jane Murphy and Joanne Holmes for their Burdett Trust for Nursing project to research ‘Empowering nurses and care home staff to lead excellence in nutrition and dignity in dementia care’, to Clive Andrewes for his short course with Poole Hospital NHS Trust, and to Keith Brown for his two short courses with Portsmouth Hospital NHS Trust and Worcestershire County Council.  Good luck to Jonathan Williams for his application to the Private Physiotherapy Educational Fund, and to Keith Brown for his short course to Cheshire West and Chester Council, and his contract to Croydon Council.

Congratulations to the Media School for Liam Toms two consultancies with Swann Recruitment Ltd and Doppelganger Productions.  Good luck to Julian McDougall for his application to AHRC, to An Duc Nguyen for his contract to the World Federation of Science Journalists, and to Richard Scullion, Rebecca Jenkins, Iain MacRury and Mike Molesworth for their application to the Society for Research into Higher Education to map out best practice in factors influencing recruitment, retention and the student experience in a marketised Higher Education.

For the School of Tourism T, congratulations to John Fletcher, Adam Blake and Yeganeh Morakabati for their contract with Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, to Lisa Stuchberry, Jon Hibbert and Nicky Pretty for their contract with Bournemouth Borough Council, to Richard Gordon for his short course in International Disaster Management to run in September, to Lisa Stuchberry, Jon Hibbert and Lauren Thom for their contract with Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and for their consultancy with West Dorset District Council, and to Crispin Farbrother for his short course with Wuhan City Vocational College.

Don’t get left behind with the new BU Research Themes

Posted in Guidance, Research themes by Jo Garrad

BRIAN

As posted by Matthew Bennett yesterday, the Research Themes have changed.  Information about the changes to each Research Theme can be found here.

Research Themes are captured on BRIAN and so it is important to ensure you are still linked to the correct theme(s) in BRIAN when the new version is released later this month. 

Over the next week, we will be emailing users affected by the revision to the themes to confirm which of the new themes are most relevant to them.  We will map those affeced across to the new themes.  If the new theme is no longer relevant then we will inform them how to change this.

If you don’t already identify any research themes in your BRIAN profile, this is a good chance to add that information.  The new Staff Profile Pages, which will go live in October, will be based around Research Themes and so it is important that you have identified at least one.

Find out about the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing research theme

Posted in Health, Wellbeing & Society, Research themes by Julie Northam

Behaviour and lifestyle factors are major contributors to morbidity and mortality; some are well recognised such as unhealthy diet and lack of exercise while effects of others such as social isolation and social relationships are less clear. We are a vibrant group and experienced in working with communities, voluntary organisations, businesses, local authorities and health and social care providers. We lead on a range of local, national and global projects and publish in top international journals.

Work within this theme has a broad focus across several disciplines within the fields of health and nursing, midwifery, nutrition, social work and social policy, and psychology. The main research activities include:

•             Promoting public health and effective nutrition

•             Addressing social exclusion and improving social relationships

•             Older people and marginalised groups and interagency working;

•             Psychological interventions in chronic conditions;

•             Socioeconomic investigation;

•             Midwifery, maternal and perinatal health;

•             Qualifying and post-qualifying social work practice and education;

•             Visual cognition;

•             Tourism and wellbeing;

•             Mental and physical wellbeing across the lifespan;

•             Early year’s development

We have a membership of approximately 90 academics across the University and have a very active PhD group led by Ashley Mitchell (HSC).

Highlights this year have included our success at securing an EU IAPP award (VeggiEAT), worth 1.6 million Euros and active participation in the Festival of Learning where the theme hosted over 29 events.

Each term we have a meeting with the next one being on September 18th in EBC 202 where we are fortunate to have Rachael Craig Senior Research Director, Health Survey for England who will share with us the data sets and blood samples that are available for us to use for research purposes.

If this interests you please sign up and come along to the next meeting, we would love to see you.

Assoc Prof Heather Hartwell

School of Health and Social Care

School of Tourism

 

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Find out about the Biodiversity, Environmental Change and Green Economy research theme

Posted in Biodiversity, Environmental Change & Green Economy, Research themes by Julie Northam

Staff and students have been extremely but successfully busy undertaking policy-relevant, interdisciplinary research science aimed at: increasing understanding of environmental change and its impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems services, the physical environment and human livelihoods, evaluating environmental management options and policy responses, developing sustainable solutions to enhance environmental conditions and human wellbeing.

Research into the green economy has included carbon storage and management, renewable energy, green tourism, sustainable design, leadership of sustainable development, and the linkages between the environment and the economy. 

Our research continues to be internationally recognized, as demonstrated in publications in leading journals like Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ISME Journal (Nature’s Group), Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B, PLoS, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Quaternary Science Reviews, and Journal of Human Evolution, amongst many others. We recently launched a globally unique Masters degree in the Green Economy, which is delivered by distance learning.  Fish Ecology was defined as a world leader by SCOPUS citation rankings in 2012.

PhD student numbers have increased by 200% since 2007 due to our success at attracting external funding for BU’s novel match-funded PhD programme, and increased success at winning externally funded PhD studentships.

Our contribution to the Festival of Learning was substantial – we organised 16 events and activities, all of them well attended and enjoyed by attendees. This included a series of events to commemorate the centenary of the death of Alfred Russel Wallace. As the co-discoverer of the theory of evolution with Charles Darwin, as well as founding the discipline of biogeography, Wallace has left a substantial scientific legacy. A wildlife walk was held culminating in a visit to the monument marking Wallace’s final resting place. One suspects that Wallace himself would have enjoyed the wildlife walk most of all, complete with encounters with snakes, beautiful butterflies and remarkable slaver ants – all elements of Dorset’s wonderful biodiversity.  Wallace 100 Celebration does not end here! A forthcoming event will take place on 12th of October in partnership with Thomas Hardye School (Dorchester).

The Poole & Purbeck Portal successfully launched in March this year, funded by Fusion. The portal is an on-line community to promote better understanding of our region’s unique natural and heritage assets.  Exciting opportunities, knowledge and expertise are shared on the Portal, creating a gateway for new collaborations across the region.  We invite you to join us by registering your interest on http://www.pooleandpurbeckportal.co.uk/

Dr Genoveva Esteban

School of Applied Sciences

 

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September’s Biodiversity, Environmental Change and Green Economy Research Theme Seminar- Monday 23rd Sept

Posted in Biodiversity, Environmental Change & Green Economy by Rhyannan Hurst

After a short summer hiatus the research theme seminars are back.  This month I am pleased to present something a little different.

We will be joined by some of the ‘Black Fish’ team as they pass through Bournemouth on their UK speaking tour. “The Black Fish is an international marine conservation movement on a mission to end the industrial overfishing of our oceans. Through investigation and action they work to expose and challenge illegal and destructive fishing practices”.

For more information see their website http://theblackfish.org/

Environmental activism is a step away from our daily academic lives so please come along and join the debate!

Date: Monday 23rd September; Room: K103; Time:  11am – 1pm

CoPMRE Tenth Annual Symposium

Posted in BU research by Lisa Gale

The Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education (CoPMRE) is pleased to announce its tenth annual symposium ‘Innovation in Medical Education and Research, promoting change’. The symposium is suitable for clinicians, academics, healthcare professionals and industry people (Pharma and Medical Device) with an interest in medical research and education.  

The research session will concentrate on design, assessment and implementation of novel medical devices and how to take technological innovations into practice.  The education session will explore changes in medical training from school to revalidation, now and in the future.

Date: Wednesday 16 October 2013
Venue: Bournemouth University, Executive Business Centre, 89 Holdenhurst Road, BH8 8EB
Time: 9:00am – 4:30pm

Please ensure that you register for this event in advance.

Speakers include:

Siamak Noroozi
Chair in Advanced Technology, Bournemouth University
Key performance enhancement potentials of running with blades

Ian Swain
Director of Clinical Science & Engineering, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
The use of electrical stimulation in Neurological Rehabilitation

Robert Middleton
Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Visiting Fellow, Bournemouth University
Medical Device Trials – The Bournemouth Experience

Chris Pomfrett
Technical Adviser, Research Commissioning, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
NICE evaluation of devices and diagnostics

Mike McMillan
CEO of NHS Innovations South West (NISW)
How to make it happen and keep the day job

Chris Stephens
Associate Dean (Education & Student Experience) University of Southampton
Southampton Medical School, now and the future

Richard Marchant
Assistant Director, Regulations Policy, GMC
Regulating Medical Education and Training

Peter Hockey
Deputy Postgraduate Dean, Health Education Wessex
Higher Training and the LETB

For more details please visit our website or contact Audrey Dixon

Find out about the Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth research theme

Posted in Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth, Research themes by Julie Northam

The Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth Theme has been very active in the last 12 months, the group has met 6 times in total with two meetings being held jointly with the Creative, Digital and Cognitive Science research theme.  The focus has been on support for interactive activity between Schools and the meetings have included attendees from the Business School, DEC, Media and Tourism.  A highlight of these sessions has been the opportunity for researchers to present their research ideas with a view to encouraging others to join them to establish a research group, while this activity is in its infancy there are two groups that have formed around high growth start-ups and the marketing and branding in the retail sector that are very promising.  The theme also supported more than 6 events at the Festival of Learning and ‘Equipping the business leaders of the future’ was a particular success with over 50 delegates from academia, industry and the public sector discussing the future development of this key activity and how research can support and inform the direction.  The next year will see attempts to expand the network to individuals outside the University, to share experiences around building networks, writing bids and disseminating research.

Prof Dean Patton

Business School

 

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Find out more about the Communities, Cultures and Conflicts research theme

Posted in Communities, Cultures and Conflicts, Research themes by Julie Northam

Throughout the world societies, their citizens, and those excluded from them are facing many challenges concerning identity and citizenship, social and cultural adaptation, and responding to growing social and global inequalities. In a time of protracted economic, political and social uncertainties the BU research theme Communities, Cultures and Conflicts offers a forum for taking individual and integrated, inter-disciplinary approaches these issues. to exploring, which explicitly involves learning from past communities and peoples, we are looking to expand future research collaboration around such issues as:

  • Sustainable growth & cultural transformation
  • Cultural adaptation & globalisation
  • Communication, culture and society
  • Equality, diversity & governance
  • Conflict, violence & warfare
  • Welfare & social protection
  • Media as an agent of socio-cultural & political transformation
  • Crisis management & disaster planning

Perceptions of conflict, vulnerability and the development of social welfare in the context of political violence and extremism forms part of our research theme’s work, as has consideration of difference and diversity across cultures and communities whilst considering the implications of this for contemporary fluid communities. Research has been completed in respect of Central European, Southeast Asian as well as UK communities

Our internationally renowned Disaster Management Centre offers education and training to organisations in risk assessment and risk reduction, major incident management & business continuity, and disaster recovery. We also offer one-day major incident management workshops for school bursars, headmasters and deputy headmasters (www.bournemouth.ac.uk/disaster-management).

We have clusters of researchers exploring ways of deepening democracy through developments in political communication and in the production and consumption of news. There are also research groups investigating trends in consumer culture (especially in digital consumption), studying the histories of the media industries and the communication professions as a way of understanding their present state and possible futures, and researching cultural narratives.

The multiple facets of identity, social inequality, conflict, and resource availability are narratives with a long time depth. Archaeology and anthropology have the theoretical frameworks and analytical tools to detect and contextualise these for societies of the past and, by doing so, enrich the debate about some of the fundamental and universal themes of humanity. An understanding of such aspects in the past has repercussions for our perceptions of similar issues today and vice versa.

Contributions from ‘Past Peoples and Societies’ may develop around questions such as: What are the determinants of societal continuity and change and their effect at the level of individuals and communities? How does adaptation reflect the dual, biocultural nature of humans? How do population development, migration and transitions shape communities and cultures? What is the impact of human-environment interaction and technological response?

The National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work is at the forefront of post-qualifying social work educational provision in England, working in partnership with 80 local authorities. We are one of the few CPD providers endorsed by The College of Social Work (TCSW) to provide post-qualifying social work education. We offer a range of CPD programmes in specialist areas such as Child Care, Vulnerable Adults, Approved Mental Health Practice, Practice Education, and Leadership and Management, and are committed to developing excellence in post-qualifying education, practice development and research. We undertake research and evaluation studies for a range of local, regional and national bodies (www.ncpqsw.com).

Prof Jonathan Parker

School of Health and Social Care

 

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VS-Games 2013, the fifth outing of the International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications will be hosted at Bournemouth University, UK between the 11th and the 13th of September 2013.

Posted in BU research by eloring

VS-Games 2013, the fifth outing of the International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications will be hosted at Bournemouth University, UK between the 11th and the 13th of September 2013.

As mentioned in a previous blog post here, BU has been the main financial sponsor of the conference, so all BU members of staff and research students are invited to attend VS Games 13 free of charge (you will need to display your staff card at the registration desk).

There are three keynotes to the conference, Professor Adrian Cheok’s (Keio University) “”Multisensory Feeling Communication in the Hyperconnected Era”, Professor Anthony Steed’s (UCL) “What Will Virtual Reality Do For Games?” and Dr Chris Peters’ “”Computational Modelling of Artificial Behaviour: A Perceptual Approach”.

A full programme and more details can be found on the official conference website at http://www.vsgames2013.org/. We hope to do live tweeting from the conference at https://twitter.com/vsgames2013.

Find out more about the Ageing, Society and Dementia research theme

Posted in Ageing and Dementia, Research themes by Julie Northam

The 2013/14 academic year sees the launch of a new BU research theme, Ageing, Society and Dementia.  This new theme brings together the ageing component of the previous Health, Well-Being and Ageing theme with the body of work that has been emerging from the Bournemouth University Dementia Institute. This new theme is not just a result of internal activity and interest in the subject but reflects the external policy drive, nationally and internationally, to respond appropriately to the ever increasing numbers of people who will be affected by dementia worldwide. Thus, this new theme is a direct response to one of society’s big challenges – an ageing demographic and a shrinking pool of family members and paid workers who will be available to support this population.

To give a very brief overview of the considerable activity in the 2012/13 academic year in the area of dementia is challenging, mainly as the cross-school and inter-disciplinary Bournemouth University Dementia Institute (BUDI) team  have secured 25 externally funded projects since its launch in May 2012, as well as several internal awards for projects via BUs Fusion Investment Fund and 6 dementia PhD studentships. All BUDI’s work  falls under five sub-themes of Service Improvement; Dementia Friendly Environments; Dementia Friendly Leisure; Education and Leadership; and Public Awareness and Knowledge Translation. One of the key areas of public awareness raising activity was featured at the Festival of Learning via an art exhibition collating 600 stories from people with dementia and the general public about their experiences and perspectives on dementia.  We were lucky enough to secure the support for this event from one of the Alzheimer Societies ambassadors, Angela Rippon.

Improving public awareness about dementia is a challenge, and at BU our unique team, many of whom have approached the study of dementia for the first time in the last few months and who bring alternative ideas and approaches to the table, is key to our future success. We are working in partnership with EU colleagues via ERASMUS MUNDUS funding to develop a new Masters programme ‘Innovations in Dementia’; we have multiple ongoing projects to see through to a successful completion, and many planned events and several new doctoral students and researchers joining the team in the next few months. However our key challenge for the next academic year is to secure high quality research grants and other income streams to ensure we continue our fused approach of education, research and knowledge exchange/practice development to enable this theme to flourish from its successful but very small beginnings.

Prof Anthea Innes

School of Health and Social Care

 

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