Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

May 29, 2013

PGR students & engagement. Or a day in the life of…

BU research, Public engagement ssharma

From different schools; 4 of us thought to write a small piece of what engagement means to us. Some of it does mean answering a quiz on Europe armed with Pizza & beer during a screening of Eurovision and talking over stages of thesis, procrastination, Facebook™ status’ and the ultimate Frisbee design. But additionally it means attending a cross-school conference and see how other students plan their work and research: are they super recognisers? Is someone pregnancy’s sleep different than someone’s who isn’t? Having to buy misoprostol in Nepal with your supervisor and listen to instructions on abortion. Or getting counselling during the PGRep meetings, teaching to undergraduates and demystifying academic jargon, pardon I mean research language! We give you their stories:

For me as a student in HSC I sum my ‘story’ here – It’s raining, cold and seems like summer won’t come to Bournemouth…but as a PGR student my definition is engagement is …”does it in the rain”! Bracing the sun and…Then the rain…while advertising Bournemouth University Festival of Learning Poole High Street. I spent two days talking about research in Nepal under the rain and it felt a bit like Waiting for the Monsoon in Poole! Using photos to make the passer-byes guess why a sickle is used during childbirth; and how health promotion improves health and wellbeing.
The day made for a good dry run for our events that will take place during the 3-14 June 2013 BU’s Festival of Learning; with a 100 events to choose from mastering social media, see if you are a super-recogniser. Also some of the ‘tough’ questions on culture and health in low-income countries helps with the reflective part of the thesis. Finally reducing that gap between the ivory tower of research and the public and in that reminded yourself why you do it…in the rain.
Come hear me at
“Waiting for the monsoon: Nepal stories & photos; Monday 3 June, 3pm-8pm,
Sheetal Sharma, Health and Social Care http://waitingforthemonsoon-eorg.eventbrite.co.uk/
Research Degrees @ BU Sheetal Sharma; Wednesday 5 June, 3pm-6pm” Location:
Talbot Campus

 

 

Never forget a face? Some people don’t, some people do after enough time has passed, while others can’t remember it in the first place. I have spent the past 8 months in the dark, lonely eye-tracking lab listening to various stories and exploring the ability that most of us take for granted – face recognition, using a small camera to record movements of peoples’ pupils.
For me, engagement is about raising awareness about how much we all differ in face recognition ability and why is it important that it should be taken into consideration in education and recruitment. Giving talks, presenting a poster, or engaging with public during forthcoming Festival of Learning all present excellent opportunities to disseminate my research, make me a better academic, and help people to understand face blindness and super-recognition. After all, unless on a lonely island, faces accompany us from the day we are born and throughout our whole life! So are you a super-recogniser?

Anna Bobak, a 1st year Psychology Research Group, DEC Student and PGR rep.

 

It’s 6pm, and I‘m looking forward to getting home for a cup of tea. But before my day is done, I have a young lady with long brown hair sat in front of me, and, as we’re chatting about life, I am separating parts of her hair and sticking electrodes onto her head and face – which will be analysing her brain activity during her sleep. All in a day’s work, as my research has been exploring the way in which women sleep during their pregnancy, in comparison to non-pregnant women, and whether this relates to the development of postnatal depression. For me, engagement is about reminding myself of the value and purpose of my research.
Whether, it is arranging a coffee morning to thank all of the pregnant women that kindly volunteered to take part in my demanding study; getting out of my comfort zone and presenting my research at international conferences; or helping to train health visitors on important issues surrounding my research. It is about feeling that I am contributing to the bigger picture and making a small (but significant!) difference, as well as establishing myself as a researcher.

I do feel for my study participants as it can be a different night than they are used to!

Lauren Kita, a 3rd year Psychology Research Group, DEC PhD student.

 

Ivana Rihova, 3rd year School of Tourism
Volunteering to deliver a talk about my PhD on value co-creation at music and arts festivals during SUBU ‘Arrivals Week’ 2012, I tried to show to an audience of first years how fun PhD research at the School of Tourism can be. Last summer I visited five festivals where I observed and undertook a large number of interviews, to find out something about the social aspect of festival experiences. So, I thought, this is engagement – talking about my fieldwork and sharing some preliminary findings with a group of people who go to festivals every year, but perhaps never quite thought about them the way I do. But the slides of me in my wellies wading through the muddy festival site triggered memories of being hugged by a couple of elderly half-naked tattooed space-rock fans, listening to poetry, relaxing with a pint of really nice ale (after all the interviews were done, of course) and most importantly, talking to people.
One person in particular stuck in my mind. I sat down next to David in a quiet corner of a beautiful rose garden at a storytelling festival and we started to chat. I told him what I was doing and was really surprised when he insisted my researched seemed very worthwhile! His enthusiasm gave me a huge confidence boost but more importantly, got me thinking about the wider social and cultural implications of my research. So for me, engagement is… about learning rather than just telling and teaching. It is about dialogue, challenging my own ideas and letting others help to shape the research.

Tags: CMMPH DEC Nepal PGRs Psychology Research Group sleep Super recogniser tourism

Related Posts

  • HSC @ BU’s Festival of LearningMay 20, 2013
  • Embedding public engagement throughout the research life cycleNovember 13, 2014
  • My Voice, My Story: hearing students’ storiesNovember 1, 2016
  • Research from the Department of Psychology in the New ScientistNovember 19, 2015

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 7th July 2022May 26, 2022
  • Online impact workshops: 8 – 9 JuneMay 25, 2022
  • New research paper published by PhD student Hina TariqMay 24, 2022
  • REF 2021 staff engagement sessions – find out more about our submission and strategyMay 23, 2022
  • SETS seminar – ideas and future collaborations welcomeMay 23, 2022
  • Preparing for ERASMUS+ exchange to NepalMay 21, 2022
  • NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 7th July 2022May 26, 2022
  • New Impact Accelerator Programme for ESSMay 24, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • RDS Funding Development Briefing – Wed. 11/05/22May 9, 2022
  • Research Professional – all you need to knowMay 3, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • COST actions – European Cooperation in Science and TechnologyMarch 24, 2022
  • HE policy update for the w/e 18th March 2022March 21, 2022
  • Good UK – Horizon Europe NewsMarch 15, 2022
  • EU funding related events – March / April 2022March 14, 2022

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use