Monthly Archives / September 2013

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

Guidance, Research themes

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

Research themes

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

 

Sign up to the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing research themes here:

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

    Research themes

    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

     

    Sign up to the Biodiversity, Environmental Change and Green Economy research themes here:

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

      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

      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

      Research themes

      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

       

      Sign up to the Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth research themes here:

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

        Research themes

        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

         

        Sign up to the Communities, Culture and Conflicts research themes here:

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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.

          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.

          Free event on ICT in Horizon 2020!

          Any information at this early stage as to what is coming up in Horizon 2020 is very useful and any events where you can meet with others in your field to build relationships and potential collaborations is invaluable. You can combine both of these by attending an ICT in Horizon 2020 half day event in Bristol on October 7th.

          In partnership with the ICT Knowledge Transfer Network, the ICT National Contact Point and Deloitte UK, the  completely free information event will provide an introduction and update on funding support for R&D in the ICT sector under Horizon 2020.  You will to receive an overview of the proposed ICT Work Programme for 2014 and hear from speakers with extensive experience in EU funding participation so this looks to be a super event! You can find out more and book your place by clicking here.

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

          Research themes

          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

           

          Sign up to the Ageing, Society and Dementia BU Research Theme here:

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            Find out more about the Technology and Design research theme

            Research themes

            Renewable Technology cross-School events were held during last academic year (January 2013 and Feb 2013), these were well attended. Presentations were led by academics and Local Government Representatives including from Poole Borough Council. Additional meetings took place in the area of medical engineering in collaboration with local Health Trusts with excellent attendance cross school and the medical professions. Internal cross school meetings were also organised in the area of creative design and design business. During BU’s Festival of Learning a number of public engagement events were held in June 2013. These events provided a networking opportunity for public engagement, local/regional businesses, government, community and local council representatives, academics and researchers. This included a “question time” activity, one day course in sustainable design and “let’s take pride in design and engineering”  In addition the theme exhibited with cross-school academics at the GovToday Carbon Reduction 2012 event in November 2012 at London and delivered a master class. Attendees included representatives from relevant government departments, agencies and other public sector organisations.

            Future plans include international networking and extending our public engagement activities at the next BU Festival in 2014. In addition we will develop initiatives around the computing/engineering interface. This will include autonomous systems, robotics and intelligent manufacturing. 

             

            Sign up to the Technology and Design BU Research Themes here:

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              Thinking of applying for the British Academy Small Grants scheme…?

              The British Academy Small Grants call was announced on September 4 and has a closing date of October 16. Our academics are always attracted to this call, but our success rate is not good; in the last round of calls BU submitted seven and none were funded.

              With this in mind we want to encourage you to use the RPRS to help improve your submission (the deadline to get this to me would be next week) or if you are interested in making an application to this call, to utilise all of our wonderful grant craftsmanship resources (such as the Grants Academy and our training sessions) and the RPRS to get your application perfected for the next round of calls in April 2014.

              If you do want to submit to this round, a gentle reminder that as this is requires Institutional Approval, the final deadline to submit to R&KEO is October 10th.

              PGR Development Fund 2013/14 – REMINDER

              PG research

              Don’t forget that the PGR Development Fund is now open for applications

              Applications will be considered at two points during 2013/14 and the deadline for the first round will be 17:00 on Monday 30th September 2013.

              The PGR Development Fund is open to BU postgraduate researchers (PGRs) irrespective of the mode of study (full-time/part-time) or funding status (BU studentships/externally funded/self-funded/ VC PhD Scholarship).

              Individual awards will provide financial support of normally up to £1,000 for research activities related to an individual PGR’s research project or personal development.

              Examples of research activities covered by the Scheme include:

              • Conferences (to present – either poster or oral and you must provide evidence that you have submitted either a poster or oral abstract for consideration);
              • Research development e.g. attending external training events specific to your research project;
              • Personal development e.g. attending external personal development training events;
              • Organisation of an academic conference at BU with external participants;
              • Attendance at external networking events leading to advance of the research;
              • Meetings or networking events linking to publications or dissemination of research.

              You should also map the proposed activity onto the relevant sub-domains of the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (RDF):

              Knowledge & Intellectual Abilities A1 – Knowledge base A2 – Cognitive abilities A3 – Creativity
              Personal Effectiveness B1 – Personal qualities B2 – Self-management B3 – Professional & career development
              Research Governance C1 – Professional conduct C2 – Research management C3 – Finance, funding & resources
              Engagement, Influence & Impact D1 – Working with others D2 – Communication & dissemination D3 – Engagement & impact

              Awards will only cover direct costs including travel, subsistence, training or development costs and all applications will need to include a precise breakdown of costs.  Applications should be supported by your Supervisory Team and the relevant Deputy Dean (Research & Enterprise) of your Academic School.  This year the Graduate School is keen to assist as many PGRs as possible and due to the competition for funding, will favour applications that can demonstrate good ‘value for money‘.

              PGRs wishing to apply must submit a completed Application Form and email Graduate School Funding (gsfunding@bournemouth.ac.uk) by 17:00 hrs – Monday 30th September 2013.

              Applications to the Scheme will be reviewed independently and all decisions on funding will be made by the Graduate School.

              For further information please read the PGR Development Scheme Policy

              Fusion Investment Fund: A Cooperative Journey in China

              Fusion

              In the early August 2013, I was supported to visit Universities in China by a  successful fusion SMN bid application. The first objective of this trip is to develop a collaboration with a famous China university in Chongqing, i.e.,  Chongqing University, the top 5% universities in China, located in Chongqing, the biggest city in China with a population of 38 million.The second aim is to visit and cooperate with some senior researchers in China, in the area of distributed systems and information fusion.

              In Chongqing University (CQU), I provided a seminar on distributed systems, and also  showcased the research in DEC, as well as advertising our MSc programme (MSc in Applied Data Analytics), Research Master programme to attract students in CQU. Also, I met the associate Dean of the college of compute science in CQU, discussing about possible collaborations between DEC and this college, including staff/student exchange, joint PhD co-supervision, visiting scholarship, etc. We also discussed our concerns on undergraduate student degree programme. The associate Dean introduced the their advantage on big data storage and mining, which are useful for research in the DEC computing school.

              During this journey, I’ve also visited senior researchers in other universities. I had discussed researches on uncertainty reasoning, event reasoning and their applications with researchers from Peking University and Renmin University (both are top universities in China, located in Beijing), and they had expressed their interest in collaborations for possible funding opportunities.

              In Xi’Nan University (in the 211 list), which is also located in Chongqing, I visited a key laboratory and met the chief, Prof. Yong Deng and his colleagues and students. We talked about our research proposals and possible future collaborations. I had also recommended BU’s projects to the students and they had showed interest.

              In the future, I will advance the collaborations with these universities /senior researchers for educational and academic involvements. For the educational part, I will work with BU’s international development team and the DEC school to promote BU’s UG and PG courses. For the academic part, I will work with these researchers, trying to work with possible funding applications and joint papers.

              BU is open to international cooperation, and any staff in BU should have an international perspective.   And indeed, the world is full of chance, for whoever prepared. I really appreciate the FUSION schema that helps BU staff to go outside and attract international collaborations.

               

              New Term, New Research Themes!

              News from the PVC, Research themes

              I posted earlier in the summer to let you know of the changes to the research themes (Looking to the Horizons).  We are about to launch them on the world so I thought it would be worth saying a few more words about them.  The themes were used to categorise events that ran as part of the Festival of Learning in June and the themes icons also formed part of the design and branding of the Festival.  You may also have noticed that the themes have been used in the new Postgraduate Prospectus and they will be used to structure the revised research pages on the web; yes, finally we are getting some revised pages after several false starts!  The revised pages are due to be launched in the autumn to tidy things up in time for our REF submission which is submitted in November.  We are also deep in planning for next year’s Festival of Learning and hope that each theme will showcase their work through a series of engaging events.

              On Tuesday to Friday this week there will be an update each day from two of the Research Themes detailing activities that have taken place within the themes over the past twelve months and what the theme aims to do in future.

              The Research Themes part of the Blog has now been redesigned with the new themes (http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/research-themes/) and I encourage you to take a look.  If you’re not already a member of one or more of the themes then you can sign up using the form at the bottom of this post.

              It would be a great help if you could let me know of a few choice examples of projects under each theme; things that you would like me to use while promoting the themes in the coming weeks.  Just drop me a line with the project and a short paragraph, it would be a great help!

               

              Sign up to the BU Research Themes here!

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                MeCCSA Annual Conference, Jan 2014: Final call for papers and registration open

                 

                In January 2014 The Media School at BU is hosting the MeCCSA Annual Conference. MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education.

                 

                We have two announcements!

                 

                1. The deadline for abstracts is almost upon us. Colleagues must submit abstracts by 16 September 2014. See the full call for papers for more info.

                2. For those who are either uber-confident of abstract acceptance, or just uber-keen to attend, registration is now open via the conference website.

                 

                We look forward to seeing you there!

                See the new ‘Expressions of interest’ feature in action

                Guidance

                Research Professional logoFollowing on from my blog post this week, Research Professional will be giving an online demonstation of their new ‘Expressions of interest’ functionality and how it can benefit you.

                This will take place on Wednesday 11th September at 11.30 AM BST (UK). The session is open to anyone at a subscribing institution (this includes BU), and you can register at the link below:

                https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/481929816

                Expressions of interest allow users to register their interest in a funding opportunity on the site, either to make research staff aware of their intention to apply, or to advertise their interest to potential internal collaborators.