BU Research Blog

The Staff Mobility and Networking strand (SMN) of the FIF may seem like your normal, everyday standard strand but look carefully and you’ll see it’s a strand with a difference. It has 2 elements meaning even more opportunities for you! Not only is there a Standard element which includes Santander, but there is also an Erasmus Staff Mobility element too!

This strand provides support in the form of subsistence and travel costs and for staff to:

• Travel within the UK or overseas with respect to development of projects linked to research, education, professional practice or any combination thereof.  Particular focus will be placed on the creation of sustainable collaborative networks of academics or professionals linked to specific outputs or partnership developments.
• Travel within the UK or overseas for academic conferences, where one or more oral presentation is being presented and there is clear evidence of additional institutional value in terms of network creation or partnership development. 
• Travel to at least one university from the the UK Santander Universities Network or one of the Overseas Santander Partner Universities with respect to development of projects linked to research, education, practice or any combination thereof. Please see the following for a list of participating institutions
• Travel overseas in order to develop academic partnerships or lasting collaborative ventures around research, education and/or practice. 
• Undertake a programme of mobility and/or networking across a series of linked trips or visits which are inter-disciplinary, especially where they are clearly linked to the BU Research Themes or involve student and staff participation. 
• Travel in support of a Study Leave application.
• Invite external partners to visit the University. For example, this might include inviting academics from other institutions or professionals from businesses to visit BU to develop projects and/or co-convening or facilitation of an international workshop.

 Previously funded activities under this strand:

Bournemouth-Birmingham-Brasilia: Consortium Building and Joint Work (BBB).

Dr Raian Ali, a Senior Lecturer in Computing, is the Principal Investigator of the BBB project which creates a community of interest involving the computing groups of the University of Brasilia, University of Birmingham, and Bournemouth University. The three groups are focused on Software Engineering research and this timely research project focuses on adaptive software systems, particularly, cloud and service computing. Exchange visits as part of this project have encouraged partnership development and international collaborative working. 

  Archaeology Professional Practice Forum: Bridging the Gap

The ‘Bridging the Gap’ project has been a highly successful networking and information gathering exercise, which will inform and drive actions to better prepare students for careers within archaeology, to better meet the needs of the profession and to enhance both subject-specific employability and transferable skills. An Archaeological Professional Practice Forum event was held to gather information from archaeology practitioners, employers, recent graduates and current students on the nature and extent of the skills gap between graduation and entry-level employment within archaeology. It explored ways to improve the industry-readiness of our students in order to give our new graduates a competitive edge when seeking employment, and to service the needs of the profession.  

 Please be aware that the Erasmus scheme differs quite significantly from the other FIF strands. More information is on the Erasmus intranet page  and more general information can be found on the FIF intranet pages.

 The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.