Tagged / research

International Newton Fellowship Opportunities

Application deadline Thursday 26th March 2020, 3pm UK time

The Newton International Fellowships enable researchers to work for two years at a UK institution with the aim of fostering long-term international collaborations. The Scheme aims to attract the most promising early career postdoctoral researchers from overseas in the fields of natural sciences, physical sciences, medical sciences, social sciences and the humanities.

The Newton International Fellowships Scheme is delivered by the British Academy, Royal Society or the Academy of Medical Sciences- please see below links for call guidance :

British Academy

The British Academy is the UK’s national body for the humanities and social sciences – the study of peoples, cultures and societies, past, present and future.

Academy of Medical Sciences

We are the independent body in the UK representing the diversity of medical science. Our mission is to advance biomedical and health research and its translation into benefits for society.

Royal Society

The Society’s fundamental purpose, reflected in its founding Charters of the 1660s, is to recognise, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

Research must be within the remit of the funder.  Please ensure you read the guidance for the specific funder subject coverage to determine which of the above funders you will submit your proposal.

If you wish to discuss further please don’t hesitate to contact me at apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk or alternatively call me on x61204

Research Training Events – Coming Soon

Research Training Opportunities

We have some great events coming up to help support you in your research activities.

January

Friday 31st January RKEDF: Environment Narrative Writing Day

February

Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: EndNote Desktop for Managing References and Writing for Publication
Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: Good Clinical Practice ‘Lite’
Tuesday 4th February RKEDF: Building Evidence for REF Impact Case Studies
Wednesday 5th February Royal Society Visit
Wednesday 5th February RKEDF: Introduction to Impact
Tuesday 11th February RKEDF: Overview of NIHR, CRNs and NIHR portfolio
Thursday 13th February RKEDF: Writing Day – Systematic and Scoping Reviews
Wednesday 19th February RKEDF: Advanced Literature Search Techniques
Thursday 20th February RKEDF: Environment Narrative Writing Day
Tuesday 25th February RKEDF: Research Ethics @ BU
Wednesday 26th February RKEDF: Measuring the Impact of Your Research with Advanced Citation Tools

 

You can see all the Organisational Development and Research Knowledge Development Framework (RKEDF) events in one place on the handy calendar of events.

Please note that all events are now targeted, so look closely at the event page to ensure that the event is suitable for you. In addition, most RKEDF events now require the approval of your Head of Department (or other nominated approver). Please follow the instructions given on the event page and the template email for you to initiate the booking request.

If you have any queries, please get in touch!

Guidance available to support researchers attending an NHS REC meeting

Two new links have been added to the Clinical Governance blog under the ‘Useful Links and Documents’ section which give further information and guidance as to attending an NHS Research Ethics Committee meeting for your project. The links are also provided below-

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

Introduction to Impact Workshop 5th February

The societal and economic impact of research is becoming increasingly important in academia, not only for REF purposes, but in funding applications. UKRI announced this week that they are removing impact pathways from their funding applications because impact should be embedded into the research process.

Together with Dr Katey Collins, Impact Champion for HSS, I am running a two hour workshop to explain what impact ‘outside of academia’ means, why it’s important, how to create pathways to impact, and how to evidence the impact your research has created.

If your research is already having an impact, the workshop will give you tools to help accelerate and capture that impact.

If you would like to attend the workshop, you can book here.

RKEDF – Overview of NIHR, CRNs and NIHR portfolio

On Tuesday 11th February, Research Development & Support are running a 2 hour workshop to give an overview of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Clinical Research Networks and the NIHR ‘portfolio’.

This workshop is designed to raise awareness of the benefits of the NIHR’s portfolio of research studies to BU and NHS partners.  It will also explore the role of the NIHR Clinical Research Networks (CRN), with an emphasis on the set-up and work of our local network, Wessex.

The workshop will cover the requirements to be eligible for the NIHR portfolio, how to apply so that your study may be considered for adoption, and how to access the support of the NIHR CRN.

By the end of this workshop you will have an understanding about:

  • The work of the NIHR and layout of the CRNs
  • How to apply for and the requirements for portfolio adoption
  • The benefits of having a study on the NIHR portfolio

If you’re interested in attending then reserve your place via Organisational Development.

New midwifery paper CMMPH

Congratulations to Dr. Luisa Cescutti-Butler and Prof. Sue Way in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on the publication of their latest research article.  This new paper called ‘The experience of student midwives being taught newborn infant physical examination (NIPE) as an extracurricular activity at a university in the UK: A descriptive survey study’ has been accepted by Nurse Education in Practice [1].  The paper went online pre-publication earlier this week.

Congratulations

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

RKEDF – Good Clinical Practice ‘Lite’

On Tuesday 4th February, Research Development & Support are running a 2 hour workshop on the standards of Good Clinical Practice. If you’re running your own clinical research, or are planning to in the future then this workshop is for you.

This workshop is designed to ensure that Researchers are equipped to conduct clinical research in accordance with the international standard.

The workshop will cover other standards and regulations, roles in clinical research, participant eligibility and data collection, safety reporting and closing down your study.

By the end of this workshop you will have an understanding about:

  • The importance of protecting the rights, safety and wellbeing of research participants
  • The importance of ensuring that research data are reliable
  • The roles and responsibilities of those involved in clinical research
  • The different stages of the clinical research pathway

If you’re interested in attending then reserve your place via Organisational Development.

Science Fiction at the Royal Society

Science has a long history of inspiring writers to imagine and write about what could be possible in the future, from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Asimov’s Foundation series. Explore the blurring lines between scientific fact and fiction at the Royal Society’s late-night opening event at their headquarters at Carlton House Terrace in London on February 10th.

The Royal Society is the independent scientific academy of the UK, dedicated to promoting excellence in science, spending over £40 million annually across a range if the grant-making schemes. If you would like to find out more about them and their funding, there’s an opportunity here at BU on Wednesday February 5th , from 11:00 – 13:00, on the 7th floor of the Executive Business Centre.

The Royal Society’s Grants Operations Manager and the Grant Impact and Promotions Officer will deliver an overview of the society’s funding schemes and provide advice on putting together a successful funding application. Academics with a successful track record will also discuss their personal experiences, and there will be a Q&A session followed by a networking lunch.

For more information and to book, please see the staff intranet. If you have any queries, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk.

NIHR resources – Patient and Public Involvement and Social Media Toolkit

Two resources are now available on the NIHR Learn website for researchers –

  • Patient and Public Involvement: Inspiring New Researchers – an online course developed by the Department of Health and NIHR. It is intended to help researchers to understand the benefits of good Patient and Public involvement into their research.
  • Social Media Toolkit – a combination of practical resources on how to get started and real case studies from how colleagues across the NIHR Clinical Research Network are currently using social media to support their work.

To access the above resources you will need to have access to the NIHR Learn website. Once you have an account select the tab ‘Health Research Innovations’ and then click on ‘NIHR Endorsed Learning’. Both courses are free and do not require an enrolment key.

Remember – support and guidance is on offer at BU if you are thinking of conducting clinical research, whether in the NHS, private healthcare or social care  – get in touch with Research Ethics. You can also take a look at the Clinical Governance blog for resources and updates.

New Resolutions for Researching

There are some great opportunities coming up this month to enhance your research skills.

Writing Academy –  Tuesday 14th – Thursday 16th January

This popular training event will enable you to develop the skills required to improve the quantity and quality of your publications and to develop a publication strategy which best represents you as an academic. Taking place offsite in Bournemouth, this comprises two days in-depth training followed by a supported writing day.

Writing Day – Systematic And Scoping Reviews – Monday 27th January

Systematic and scoping reviews are a great way of publishing quality publications. They are highly valued as REF submissions, especially, but not only, in the health field. One of the most important aspects for a systematic review is to create an effective and professional search strategy. This session will provide information on effective search strategies and advice on writing scoping and systematic reviews from academics with experience in this field.

Introduction to Impact – Wednesday 29th January

This workshop will explain what research impact is, why it matters, and how to build impact into your research from the beginning of a project.

Environment Narrative Writing Day – Friday 31st January

For those who are currently writing their environment narratives for REF submission.

Even more great research training opportunities from the RKEDF can be found on the event calendar.

Community-Based Research Event – register your interest

An exciting opportunity to attend a workshop, please see below for further details –

‘A team from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) are working on a project looking at how we recruit research study participants from commercial High Street health care providers (e.g. Boots, SpecSavers etc), or organisations that support health in some way (e.g. gyms, slimming clubs etc).

The project is titled Community-Based Research and we are looking to answer two specific questions:

  1. How can people with known health issues being seen only ‘on the high street’ access research?
  2. How can people with known health risk factors, who are pre-disease diagnosis, access research?

These two groups could miss out on research opportunities currently because they don’t come into the standard health system until they are either considered to be too severe for High Street treatment (in the case of group 1) or they already have a health problem (in the case of group 2).  We are looking to develop a process by which we can actively recruit participants at scale for trials before they need to access the health service, thus enabling better recruitment of milder disease and pre-disease phenotypes.  We are aware that research is happening in these two groups and would like to pull together researchers who have this experience in order to learn from their successes and challenges.

To support this ETI we are running a workshop on January 31st, 10.30-3.30, at The Wesley Euston Hotel & Conference Venue, London, which will bring together the research community to discuss:

a)      Examples of how we currently recruit from these settings, identifying successes and challenges

b)      Based on these, identifying the key elements of a recruitment strategy that the Clinical Research Network could use

We would like to invite researchers to attend if this would be of interest. Please could nominated representatives complete this Eventbrite registration page (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/nihr-crn-community-based-research-event-tickets-83954384825) including indicating which Specialty they are representing.’

The last Christmas present

“On the twelfth day of Christmas ….” the editor  of the Journal of Health Research Ms Sunanta Wongchalee informed us that our paper ‘Silicone use in Nepali transgender women: The hazards of beauty’ has been accepted for publication [1].  That is nice belated Christmas present to receive on January 6th and a good start of the New Year.  The paper is written by FHSS’s Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen with Sanjeev Raj Neupane in Nepal.  This is the second paper from this unique study on transgender women in Nepal, the first one was published last year in BMJ Open [2].

References:

  1. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E.,, Neupane, S. (2020) Silicone use in Nepali transgender women: The hazards of beauty, Journal of Health Research (accepted)
  2. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Neupane, S., Marahatta, S. (2019) Hormone use among Nepali transgender women: a qualitative study, BMJ Open 9: e030464. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030464.

 

Nepal’s migrant workers & risk at the workplace

For nearly a decade BU researchers have published widely about the hazards and risk of Nepali migrant workers in Asia and the Middle East [1-9].  Despite the fact that most migrant workers end up in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs in their host countries, only a minority report poor working environments.  For example, in Pratik Adhikary’s PhD study in FHSS only just over a fifth of migrant workers reported that their work environment in the Middle East or Malaysia was poor or very poor [4].  This relatively high level of satisfaction appears to seems contradict reports in local media on the risks associated with Nepali migrants working abroad, especially focusing on the football world cup in Qatar [7], official reports that many hundreds of bodies of dead Nepali migrants return home every year [10], and the fact that many of these Nepali migrant workers end up doing the jobs the local populations finds too dirty, dangerous and demeaning (colloquially referred to as 3D-jobs).  Why do so many who travel abroad take to do risky, dirty and otherwise undesirable jobs, but still assess their working environment as not too bad?

More theoretical papers on the drivers of migration have referred to many interconnected factors and links [11-12].  Local drivers in Nepal include poverty, lack of employment opportunities, having a history of work-related migration, a growing culture of migration (i.e. it becomes more or less an expectation) and many more.  One local element that is perhaps too easily ignored is that many Nepali migrant workers would have ended up in dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs at home too.  And the risk, on for example building sites in Nepal might be even greater than that in Qatar or elsewhere in the Middle East as some of the photos below illustrate.  These photos of an accident involving an external building lift were taken today on a building site in Kathmandu.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

  1. Adhikary P., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2011) Health Issues among Nepalese migrant workers in Middle East. Health Science Journal 5: 169-75. www.hsj.gr/volume5/issue3/532.pdf
  2. Adhikary, P, Sheppard, Z., Keen, S., van Teijlingen, E. (2017) Risky work: accidents among Nepalese migrant workers in Malaysia, Qatar & Saudi Arabia, Health Prospect 16(2): 3-10.
  3. Simkhada, P.P., Regmi, P.R.van Teijlingen, E., Aryal, N. (2017) Identifying the gaps in Nepalese migrant workers’ health and well-being: A review of the literature. Journal of Travel Medicine, 24 (4). https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i3.25805
  4. Adhikary P, Sheppard, Z., Keen S., van Teijlingen E. (2018) Health and well-being of Nepalese migrant workers abroad, International Journal of Migration, Health & Social Care 14(1): 96-105 https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMHSC-12-2015-0052
  5. Regmi, P.van Teijlingen, E.Mahato, P.Aryal, N., Jadhav, N., Simkhada, P., Zahiruddin, Q.S., Gaidhane, A. (2019) The Health of Nepali Migrants in India: A Qualitative Study of Lifestyles and Risks. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (19). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193655
  6. Aryal, N., Regmi, P.R., Faller, E.M., van Teijlingen, E., Khoon, C.C., Pereira, A., Simkhada, P. (2019) Sudden cardiac death and kidney health related problems among Nepali migrant workers in Malaysia. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology, 9 (3), 788-791. https://doi.org/10.3126/nje.v9i3.25805
  7. Adhikary P, van Teijlingen E., Keen S. (2019) Workplace accidents among Nepali male workers in the Middle East and Malaysia: A qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health 21(5): 1115–1122. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10903-018-0801-y
  8. Regmi, P., van Teijlingen, E., Mahato, P., Aryal, N., Jadhav, N., Simkhada, P., Syed Zahiruddin, Q., Gaidhane, A., (2019) The health of Nepali migrants in India: A qualitative study of lifestyles and risks, Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health 16(19), 3655; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193655.
  9. Regmi, P., Aryal, N., van Teijlingen, E., Adhikary, P. (2019) Nepali migrant workers and the need for pre-departure training on mental health: a qualitative study, Journal of Immigrant & Minority Health https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10903-019-00960-z.pdf
  10. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of Nepal. (2018) Labour migration for employment: a status report for Nepal: 2015/2016 – 2016/2017. In. Kathmandu, Nepal: Ministry of Labour and Employment.
  11. Van Hear, N., Bakewell, O., Long. K. (2018) Push-pull plus: reconsidering the drivers of migration, Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 44:6, 927-944, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384135
  12. Iqbal, M., Gusman, Y. (2015) Pull and Push Factors of Indonesian women migrant workers from Indramayu (West Java) to work abroad. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(5): 167   https://www.mcser.org/journal/index.php/mjss/article/view/7893

Hear about NIHR Wessex Applied Research Collaboration – 13th January 09:30 to 12:00

Applied Health and Care research is essential in our region if we are to improve the care and operation of our health and care systems.

Professor Alison Richardson, Director of the NIHR Wessex Applied Research Collaboration (ARC), will be talking about the newly formed ARC Wessex, which is working across the region with its partner organisations to bring the best research into practice.

ARC Wessex aims to address the immediate issues facing the health and social care system. The research programme focuses on four areas:

  • Ageing & Dementia.
  • Healthy Communities.
  • Long Term Conditions
  • Workforce and Health Systems.

There are a number of initial projects underway – for further information see our website.

This event is open to everyone across Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and South Wiltshire – Our Wessex community. Please book your place: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nihr-arc-wessex-skills-and-implementation-in-health-and-care-research-tickets-86901836733