Monthly Archives / March 2015

EPSRC revises its Strategic Plan

Guidance

EPSRC’s Strategic Plan 2015 sets out the direction of their policy for at least the next five years.

This up-dated Strategic Plan has been developed following input from their partners and communities. It recognises external influences including the international research landscape, global economic situation and government strategies. EPSRC have said that it will allow them to continue to deliver the world-leading science and engineering research and skills to sustain UK innovation.

You wouldn’t go skydiving without a parachute!

Training

So, why wouldn’t you asses your training needs before going on training?

Take charge of your career development and increase your employability, by focusing your training efforts where it’s needed. All you need to do is undertake the ’My Academic Development Needs: Self-Assessment’ (MADNSA), it will allow you to see your strengths an any gaps in your skills which you need to address in order to get where you want to be in your career (you can also use Vitae’s version which is more detailed). 

You can read case studies of real academics to see how using the planner based on this assessment has helped transform their careers.

Take some time for yourself and complete the MADNSA and sign up for some facilitated sessions, through the Staff Development webpages and log into myBU  BRAD community to view the online sessions?

Changes to MRC strategic skills priorities

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Following completion of a review of MRC’s strategic skills priorities, the revised priority list has now been published on their website along with a report of the skills survey outcomes.

The review has brought a refocus of the early career Skills Development Fellowships (previously Strategic Skills Fellowships) and will support training in two main areas:

– Development of Quantitative Expertise: covering mathematics, statistics, computation and informatics applicable to any biomedical or health related data sources, from molecular to population level.

– Development of Expertise at the Social Science interface: with a focus on areas of health economics and/or mixed methods research.

Applicants can either be seeking to move from a quantitative/economics/mixed methods background to biomedical research or can have a background in biomedical sciences and be seeking to develop skills in one of the priority areas.  All proposals must include development of new expertise and skills in the areas described above.  Eligible applicants would normally be in the early years of post-doctoral research or seeking a clear change of discipline to one of the priority areas.  Pre-doctoral applicants or those ready to transition to independence will be redirected to other MRC support mechanisms.

The next deadline for this competition is 16th June 2015.  For further details, deadlines and how to apply, please visit the pages here: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/skills-careers/fellowships/skills-development-fellowships/ .  If you have any specific MRC queries, please contact the team at fellows@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

If you wish to apply to this scheme then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.

Changes to ESRC Standard Grants

Funding opportunities, Guidance

ESRC are introducing changes to the funding thresholds for their Standard Grants scheme. They currently accept applications between £200,000 and £2 million. Under the new arrangements the lower threshold will rise to £350,000 and the upper threshold will be reduced to £1 million at Full Economic Costs. These changes will come into effect from 1 July 2015. Current thresholds will continue to operate for any application submitted up to 30 June 2015.

The changes are a response to the pattern of demand that is being placed on the standard grants scheme by the social science community. The average value of a standard grant application has steadily increased and is now close to £500,000, so they have adjusted the centre of gravity of the scheme to reflect applicant behaviour.

The changes are also a response to feedback from their Grant Assessment Panels who have found it increasingly difficult to assess and compare the value of applications ranging from £200,000 to £2 million, where there is variable level of detail on project design, costs and deliverables. This issue has become more acute as the number of grant applications over £1 million has steadily increased over the last two years. Narrowing the funding range of the scheme will help to maintain the robustness of the assessment process, ensuring all applications get a fair hearing.

They anticipate that these changes will reduce the volume of applications they receive through the Standard Grants scheme and will increase overall success rates for those who do apply as well as reducing the peer review requirements they need to place on the social science community.

In making these changes they remain committed to the funding of longer, larger responsive grants. They intend to introduce an annual open competition for grants between £1 million and £2.5 million and are currently considering how this will operate alongside their existing Centres and Large Grants Competition.

If you are intending to apply to the ESRC standard grant scheme then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.

Research photography competition: voting now open!

student research

‘Can you tell the story of your research in a single image?’  That’s the challenge we set BU’s academics and postgraduates earlier this year, and the overwhelming response saw researchers from all across the university downing tools to take up their cameras and think of unusual ways to illustrate their research.  The resulting images demonstrate not just the creativity of our academics and postgraduates, but also the fascinating range of research taking place at BU.

Researchers from all across the university, working in areas as diverse as dementia, archaeology, kayaking and 3D printing submitted images to the competition, and now we want your help to decide which pictures should form a photography exhibition on Talbot campus later this year.

To vote for an image, visit the competition page here and click on the ‘Vote’ button below your favourite. Perhaps a particular research subject strikes a chord with you, or an you find a certain image especially evocative – whatever your reasons for having a favourite, the content of the exhibition is up to you to decide!

The most popular images will form part of a photography exhibition on Talbot campus later this year.  The deadline for voting is 27th March.  Details of the exhibition will follow once voting is complete.

All images can be viewed on the research website.

HR Wallingford – Careers open day

Are you a postgraduate or graduate student in a relevant engineering or scientific discipline? HR Wallingford (http://www.hrwallingford.com/)would like to invite you to come to an Open Day at their Howbery Park campus to find out more about what they do.

As well as hearing about what they do, you’ll find out about some of their recent research and consultancy projects, and they’ll show you around their unique facilities. You will also get to meet some of their most recent recruits and learn about their experiences since joining HR Wallingford. It’s taking place on Thursday 23 April from 09.30 to 16.00 (refreshments and lunch provided).

There are a limited number of places available. Please contact Sarah Moxon at HR Wallingford (training@hrwallingford.com, tel 01491 822364) by Wednesday 15 April 2015 to secure your place.

HE Policy Update

Monday

Extremism on campus

Grant Shapps, Tory Party Chairman, has criticised Vince Cable for trying to water down proposals to ban extremist speakers from university campuses, as the coalition partners hit deadlock over planned guidance for universities. Rules are being drawn up by Downing Street demanding that universities ban all “extremist” speakers following passage of a law imposing a statutory requirement on educational institutions and other public bodies to prevent terrorism. Government row over ban on extremist speakers on university campuses (The Guardian).

Tuesday

Satellite Campuses

Theresa May, believes satellite campuses set up in London by universities in other parts of the UK have become a loophole used by people wanting to work in Britain rather than institutions offering rigorous academic courses to highly qualified students. New rules are now being introduced to require the satellite campuses to be fully integrated with the home university by offering the same courses, teaching standards and exams. Institutions that fail to comply will have their licences revoked. Satellite university campuses in London are being exploited  (The Times).

Election Hustings

The Times Higher Education ran a Higher Education Hustings with Greg Clark (Conservative Minister for universities and science), Liam Byrne (Labour shadow HE and science secretary) and Julian Huppert (Lib Dem science spokesperson). THE has published a write up of the debate here.

Wednesday

New Private Provider

A new private university is planned to open in 2017 in Hereford. The New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering (NMITE) will focus on manufacturing, defence engineering and agri-tech and will cater for up to 5,000 students. Hereford NMITE university ‘will create 500 jobs’ (BBC News).

Thursday

Part-time Students

Government proposals on accelerated and flexible degrees in response to the collapse in part-time study are set to be put forward in the coming weeks, Greg Clark suggested at the HE Hustings. Flexible study emerges as cross-party concern  (THE).

PhDs

Growth in the number of PhDs awarded in some academic disciplines has far outstripped that in others, evidence submitted to the REF shows. The percentage increase in doctoral degrees awarded in the social sciences during the REF period was 35 per cent, compared with just 18 per cent in medical and life sciences, for example. Social sciences ups the PhD pace  (THE).

Income of Higher Education Providers

HESA’s new publication ‘HE Finance Plus 2013/14’ outlines higher education institutions income and expenditure. The report can be viewed here.

Friday

Science Education

Science is being squeezed out of primary schools, with many now teaching the subject for less than two hours a week, business leaders have warned. Science ‘squeezed out of primary schools’ (BBC News).

 

Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience

Publishing

On 11th March, Wednesday, we will have a Writing Academy Lunchbyte session where Prof. Matthew Bennett will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors. He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations. Drawing on personal experience, he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.

Aims:

  • Developing a Publication Strategy
  • Dealing with Co-Editors, Reviewers & Editors
  • Targeting high impact Journal

 

Title Date Time Location
Writing Academy Lunchbyte – My Publishing Experience Wednesday 11th March 2015 13:00-14:30 TAG03, Tolpuddle Annexe

 

To book your place on this workshop please email Organisational Development

Mapping the UK research landscape: your opportunity to contribute

The Council for Science and Technology (CST) have launched a project to help them to understand the knowledge landscape in the UK. By providing information about yourself, how your research area fits within ‘the landscape of connected disciplines’ and research infrastructure in your area, you can contribute to the CST’s understanding of how the research community defines itself and the links that exist between disciplines. For more information, and to submit your views, go to https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-knowledge-landscape-tool-launches

An investigation into the importance of set plays within the Barclays Premier League

Fusion, Publishing, student research

The interest in football goes well beyond the boundaries of it’s academic field. Such are the financial incentives and rewards in the modern game, professional football clubs now leave no stone unturned in their attempts to increase their performances on the field, win matches and increase their league position. This is the wider context for a recent submission to eBU: Online Journal, BU’s internal working paper journal designed around immediate publication and open peer review.

Based on an analysis of all 1,053 goals scored in the 2009/10 season, Jamie Osman, Andrew Callaway and Shelley Broomfield consider, ‘Just how important are set plays to teams competing in the Barclays Premier League?’.

The paper is open for wider comment and review from the BU community, and can be found here: http://ebu/index.php/ebu/article/view/36

 

Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those Sound

PG research

Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those SoundWe would like to invite you to the next research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

 

Speaker: Ambrose Seddon

Title: Approaches to Compositional Practice: Correspondences Amongst Sounds and Organising Those Sound

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 11 March 2015

Room: P335, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

Many pieces of music exhibit returning and recurring identities founded on melodic, harmonic and rhythmic patterns and formations, appearing both locally and more globally within a work. In acousmatic music making i.e. music for playback over loudspeakers only, the kinds of sound material and the possibilities of sound transformation are sufficiently different and broad that concepts of recurrence within this compositional context are valuably explored. In this talk I will present some of the ideas developed through my research and compositional practice concerning correspondences amongst the sounds within a work and organising those sounds, with a focus on my more recent acousmatic music outputs.

 

We hope to see you there.

Building a research team

Are you a researcher looking to submit a research application? If so, this could be your opportunity to start building up a research team. Not only will this reduce the cost of your bid, but it will also give you the chance to start building up a group in your research field.  

So, what do we mean by a research team? There are a number of definitions, but a key characteristic is that a research team is a group of people, working together with a commitment to achieve a common research goal. At BU, this might mean those working together on a research project, a research cluster, a centre or an institute. Teams are likely to include academics – senior, junior or both – research assistants and, where appropriate, technical or administrative staff. Individuals are likely to bring a range of skills, knowledge and experience to the team which complement one another. However, you may also wish to consider whether team members’ behavioural traits and characteristics are also complementary. You can find out more from Vitae at https://www.vitae.ac.uk/doing-research/leadership-development-for-principal-investigators-pis/building-and-managing-a-research-team

If you are considering bringing together a research team, and aren’t sure how to go about it, please contact one of the Research Facilitators in RKEO – Jennifer Roddis, Alexandra Pekalski, Emily Cieciura and Paul Lynch – and we’ll be pleased to help.

Successful FST Santander-funded networking and conference visit to Spain, February 2015

Dr Daniel Franklin (FST) recently visited colleagues from the University of Malaga in Spain, a Santander Partner University, and also attended the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography meeting in nearby Granada. This meeting had 2,500 delegates from 65 countries and used a parallel session format to present cutting-edge science from across the myriad disciplines involved in the study of aquatic systems.
During the visit Dan discussed research ideas with Dr Maria Segovia of the University of Malaga and met members of her research group. Discussion focused on the measurement of phytoplankton dynamics during large-scale ecosystem manipulations (mesocosm experiments) which are designed to test the response of the microbial food web to CO2 enrichment. Dan also discussed the possibility of student and staff research exchanges with Dr Segovia and this will form an ongoing process.
At the conference BU FST PhD students Ian Chapman and Dave Hartnell gave excellent presentations to leading lights in the fields of cyanobacteria management and phytoplankton assessment. The conference was excellent in the range of opportunities it provided to meet with and discuss research with world-leading specialists. We are now planning a submission to a high-impact factor journal which will publish proceedings from the conference. Overall, a very successful visit. Thanks to Santander for the funding.