Monthly Archives / September 2013

NERC Standard Research Grants (including New Investigator grants) deadlines announced!

NERC have announced the deadlines for their competition targeting curiosity-motivated basic, strategic or applied research. The primary criterion for assessment is scientific excellence, with all applications subjected to an Initial Review stage that makes decisions on which proposals should proceed to external review. Moderating Panels meet annually in June and December to grade the applications and make recommendations for funding.

The minimum that can be requested per complete proposal and per component is £65,000 (100% Full Economic Cost) and the maximum for the complete proposal is £1·2 million (100% Full Economic Cost). A validation on the Je-S form will prevent proposals requesting less than £65,000 from being submitted.

For 2014 the actual January closing date will be 21 January at 4pm; don’t forget at BU you will need to submit 5 working days prior to this as it requires Institutional Submission through Je-S and as it is an RCUK funder, it will also need to undergo the RPRS. NERC does have demand management measures in place and therefore the assistance you will receive via this is critical.

 

You can find out more on the grants on the NERC webpage and don’t forget to let your RKE Operations Officer know if you intend on applying.

The importance of keeping your job title up to date

Guidance

It is important to maintain your job title because this information is used in your external profile page.   If you have no job title in the system the external profile page will show ‘n/a’ which is not very helpful.  There are 88 profiles that show ‘n/a’ as the job title. 

If you do not currently have a job title, please take a moment to add one.  If you have changed role recently, please ensure your job title is up to date.

Job titles are maintained using the facility on the intranet home page to ‘Update your contact details’.  From here, you can open the Contact Details Editor screen.  On the Contact Details Editor screen, the lowest field, ‘Title’, holds your job title.  Add a job title or amend the existing entry if required and click on Update.

If you have any queries, please email BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk.

PS.  If your title (eg Mr, Mrs, Dr, Professor etc) is incorrect, you will need to email HREnquiries@bournemouth.ac.uk to request a change.

BU presents at first National Midwifery Conference in Nepal

 

Lesley Milne, senior lecturer in Midwifery at Bournemouth University, presented this weekend at the First National Midwifery Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal.  She is part of a team studying why women in Nepal don’t use health services when giving birth in areas where such facilities are available.    After her presentation Lesley (picture first right) was awarded a certificate and token in true Nepali style.

Lesley is currently in Nepal for fieldwork as part of the first International Fellowship for Midwives worth £20,000.  Her study uses a mixed-methods approach which comprises observation and interviews with staff.  The Fellowship has been awarded by the charity Wellbeing of Women, in association with the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), for research into maternity services and women’s health from an international perspective.

The team consists of Prof. Vanora Hundley, Professor in Midwifery, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor of Reproductive Health Research at BU, and BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Padam Simkhada based at ScHARR, the University of Sheffield. 

A second paper with BU input was presented by Joy Kemp Global who is the RCM’s Professional Advisor (Global Midwifery Twinning Project).  The presentation ‘A Feasibility Study of Professional Midwives in Nepal’ is based on a paper recently accepted for publication by the international journal Midwifery.  This health policy planning paper is led by Swedish midwife Malin Bogren and in collaboration with Prof. Marie Berg (The Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.

 

Professors Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health , HSC.

On stage at Bestival

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

Delicious links

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

Fusion

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

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?

Training

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

Research themes

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

 

Sign up to the Creative, Digital and Cognitive Science research themes here:

    Your Name (required)

    Your Email (required)

    Your School / Professional Service (required)

    Staff or PGR student? (required)

    StaffPGR

    Please select the themes that you are interested in (required)

    Find out about the Leisure, Recreation and Tourism research theme

    Research themes

    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

     

    Sign up to the Leisure, Recreation and Tourism research themes here:

      Your Name (required)

      Your Email (required)

      Your School / Professional Service (required)

      Staff or PGR student? (required)

      StaffPGR

      Please select the themes that you are interested in (required)

      CEMP Research and Innovation meetings: an invitation

      Funding opportunities

           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

      News from the PVC

      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.