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Yearly Archives / 2016

RKEO Academic and Researcher Induction

Guidance

The Research and Knowledge Exchange Office (RKEO) invite all ‘new to BU’ academics and researchers to an induction.

Signpost with the words Help, Support, Advice, Guidance and Assistance on the direction arrows, against a bright blue cloudy sky.This event provides an overview of all the practical information staff need to begin developing their research plans at BU, using both internal and external networks; to develop and disseminate research outcomes; and maximising the available funding opportunities.

Objectives

  • The primary aim of this event is to raise participants’ awareness of how to get started in research at BU or, for more established staff, how to take their research to the next level
  • To provide participants with essential, practical information and orientation in key stages and processes of research and knowledge exchange at BU

Indicative content

  • An overview of research at BU and how R&KEO can help/support academic staff
  • The importance of horizon-scanning, signposting relevant internal and external funding opportunities and clarifying the applications process
  • How to grow a R&KE portfolio, including academic development schemes
  • How to develop internal and external research networks
  • Key points on research ethics and developing research outputs
  • Getting started with Knowledge Exchange and business engagement

For more information about the event, please see the following link: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/research-lifecycle/developing-your-proposal/

The fifth induction will be held on Tuesday, 18th October 2016 on the 4th floor of Melbury House.

Title Date Time Location
Research & Knowledge Exchange Office (R&KEO) Research Induction Tuesday 18th October 2016 9.00 – 12.00 Lansdowne Campus

9.00-9.15 – Coffee/tea and cake/fruit will be available on arrival

9.15 – RKEO academic induction (with a break at 10.45)

11.25 – Organisational Development upcoming development opportunities

11.30 – Opportunity for one to one interaction with RKEO staff

12.00 – Close

There will also be literature and information packs available.

If you would like to attend the induction then please book your place through Organisational Development and you can also visit their pages here. We will directly contact those who have started at BU in the last five months.

We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you.

Regards,

The RKEO teamRKEO

Research on digital consumption makes the Journal of Marketing Management Editor’s Choice List

Two papers on digital consumption co-authored by Dr Janice Denegri-Knott have been selected to appear in the Journal of Marketing Management’s new Editor’s Choice collection on digital consumption, and will be available free online until the end of November, 2016.

Redistributed consumer desire in digital virtual worlds of consumption

In this paper we discuss and illustrate how the use of software available in digital virtual worlds of consumption, including wish lists, watch lists and digital virtual goods (DVGs) interact with consumer desiring practices. We draw on a data set of three interpretative studies with technology users living in the South of England. We note the emergence of software-human desiring hybrids where various aspects of competence in and commitment to desire construction, maintenance and actualisation are distributed between subject and software, leading to new configurations of consumer desire. We bring to the fore the often neglected role of nonhuman agents in the practice of consumer desire and highlight the potential breaks caused in the assemblage of the practices unfolding in digital virtual worlds of consumption. Our study shows new ways in which consumer desire practices are re-assembled in software-human hybrids, thereby enhancing our understanding of the role of nonhuman agents (software) in consumer desire practices. It also contributes a finer understanding on how software used in the construction and actualization of desire ultimately reconfigure consumer desire practices into a management process, where the focus is not daydreaming activity or material commodities per se, but rather the software itself. Here, the software not only presents things to be desired, but also absorbs some of the skill and competence needed to conjure up desire. Ultimately these configurations appear to create breaks in the experience of desire that weaken the hold previously binding consumers to objects of desire.

The relationship between ownership and possession: observations from the context of digital virtual goods

This theoretical article highlights limitations in the current trend towards dichotomising full ownership and access-based consumption by recognising a broader, more complex array of ‘fragmented’ ownership configurations in the context of digital virtual goods (DVGs). In challenging this dichotomy, we recognise that the relationship between ownership and possession becomes particularly significant. We therefore consider how prominent DVG ownership configurations may shape the way in which possession is assembled, potentially reducing consumers’ scope of action relative to DVGs and leaving possession susceptible to disruption. Conversely, we acknowledge ways in which consumers’ continued attempts at possession may impinge upon the agency of ownership mechanisms within the market. Our analysis ultimately builds upon existing understandings of both ownership and possession, theorising their often overlooked relation in consumption.

New THET project paper published

international, open access, Publishing, Training

thet-needs-assessmentToday saw the latest publication on our BU-led THET in Nepal.  The paper ‘Needs assessment of mental health training for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives: a cross-sectional survey’ was published the Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences [1].   This paper reports on a quantitative survey with nearly all Auxiliary Nurse Midwives in Nawalparasi District in the southern part of Nepal. The findings illustrate the lack of training on mental health issues related to pregnancy and childbirth in this group of health workers. Thus the paper’s conclusions stress the need for dedicated training in this field.logo THET

This is the third publication linked to our mental health and maternity care project. In Nepal mental health is generally a difficult to topic to discuss. THET, a London-based organisation, funded Bournemouth University, and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and Tribhuvan University in Nepal to train maternity workers on issues around mental health.  This latest paper and the previous two papers are all Open Access publications.  The previous two papers raised the issue of women and suicide [2] and outlined the THET project in detail [3].

np-thet-2916-jilly

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

  1. Simkhada, B., Sharma, G., Pradhan, S., van Teijlingen, E., Ireland, J., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B. & the THET team. (2016) Needs assessment of mental health training for Auxiliary Nurse Midwives: a cross-sectional survey, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 2(1): 20-26. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/15793/12738
  2. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Winter, R.C., Fanning, C., Dhungel, A., Marahatta S.B. (2015) Why are so many Nepali women killing themselves? A review of key issues Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 1(4): 43-49. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/12001
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Devkota, B., Fanning, P., Ireland, J., Simkhada, B., Sherchan, L., Silwal, R.C., Pradhan, S., Maharjan, S.K., Maharjan, R.K. (2015) Mental health issues in pregnant women in Nepal. Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 5(3): 499-501. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/13607/11007

Fair Access Project Fund

Funding opportunities

BU’s Fair Access Agreement includes a project fund to support Fair Access and Widening Participation projects. Faculties and Professional Services are invited to bid for funding for targeted projects which focus on one or more of the below listed BU’s Fair Access priorities. Please note that projects are expected to commence in January 2017.

Priorities

Projects must address one or more of the below priorities to bid for funds.

  1. Intersectional issues relating to race, alongside other WP Indicator Groups and Protected Characteristics in respect to access, student success and attainment.
  2. Innovative initiatives which contribute to the engagement of disadvantaged students outside of BU’s traditional target outreach geographic areas.
  3. Initiatives leading to successful employment or progression to post graduate study of undergraduate WP students. This can include working directly with employers.
  4. Initiatives improving the access, success or progression of white working class boys.

Projects that do not directly address a listed priority will be unsuccessful.

How to apply? To apply for funding, please complete the Project Proposal Grant Application form and email it to Lukasz Naglik by Friday 18 November 2016.

Please also contact Lukasz if you would like to discuss this opportunity further or if you would like to find out about current Fair Access and Widening Participation projects.

 

BU researcher speaking at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw

On 19th September, 2016 Dr Paweł Surowiec from the Faculty of Media and Communication’s Corporate and Marketing Communication Group delivered a guest lecture to diplomats and public diplomats at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

Following the publication of his research monograph entitled ‘Nation branding, public relations and soft power: corporatizing Poland’, this lecture was an excellent opportunity to share academic insights to Poland’s soft power, analysis emerging for this study, and to engage this key audience in the research produced by the Centre for Politics and Media Research.

Soft power and its communicative resources such as public diplomacy or nation branding continue to be of interest to diplomatic networks world-wide. Its local characteristics, however, the utilized media strategies, levels of professionalization as well as forces in global and regional politics shaping soft power capabilities are themes of professional discussions among diplomats.

The lecture session delivered by Paweł opened up a debate about the impact corporate resources have on Poland’s soft power as well as addressed questions concerning limitations of nation branding as a media strategy and a means to the advancement of influence in international relations.

“What is the internet hiding from you?”

Our ESRC Festival of Social Science event proposal has been accepted! We will be running focus groups and an information session on the topic: “What is the internet hiding from you?” on November 8th, 2016. Event held at the Executive Business Centre. Afternoon session 2.30-5pm, OR Evening session 6-8:30pm (two slots of the same sort of session).

Most of us know that our personal data is being used to filter our Facebook `timeline’ or that Amazon personalises which items it shows to us. However, as users, we have not always agreed to that personalisation, and do not know how our personal data is being used. It’s not surprising that many of us are unsure whether we can trust the internet and how our information is shared.  This workshop gives members of the public a chance to find out more about the issues and share their views, potentially shaping the future of big data research.

More details and registration here:

Afternoon: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/event/what-is-the-internet-hiding-from-you-afternoon-session1/

Evening: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/event/what-is-the-internet-hiding-from-you-afternoon-session2/

Fusion Investment Fund – BU research collaboration with the University of Utah

Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, international, PG research

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This year, I was awarded the Fusion Investment Funding which sponsored me and my research team to establish the collaboration between National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA, BU) and Simulation & Electronic Animation Lab (SEALAB, the University of Utah). The purpose of this collaboration is to publish high quality papers, exchange innovative ideas and explore the potential of improvement and commercialization of our surgery simulator.

Throughout the year, the collaboration progressed smoothly and obtained significant results. We kept in touch regularly with our partners, shared various interesting and inspiring ideas on the topic of physically based soft tissue simulation, collision detection and the development of surgery simulator. Inspired by the insightful discussion with our partners, we have published two journal papers and two conference papers. My PhD student Kun Qian, as the main participant of this project, has benefited a lot from it. His work was awarded the winner of British Computer Society Animation and Games Development 2016 Competition. We have also exchanged ideas on funding application, teaching and research team management. The most impressing experience was the attending of their internal computer graphic research seminars which aims to promote the idea exchange and potential cooperation between different research groups. It is quite useful for us to improve the efficiency and quality of the similar seminar we held at BU. Besides SEALAB, we also visited the world leading medical visualization research group of the University of Utah: Scientific Centre of Visualization (SCI) and University of Utah Medical Centre. Those two organizations demonstrated the state of art of medical visualization and simulation, provided practical and valuable suggestion on the future direction of surgery simulator.

Although this fusion project finished, our collaboration has never stopped. We are continuing working on the topic of biomechanical based soft tissue simulation and exploring potential opportunities for joint research funding application. The following are selections of some pictures of the beautiful view of the state of Utah, main campus of University of Utah and the award we achieved.

Dr. Xiaosong Yang

National Centre for Computer Animation, Faculty of Media and Communication

bcsaward img_20160830_145313 img_20160816_085632 img_20160815_091353

EPSRC seeks strategic advisers

epsrcW86The EPSRC is re-opening its search for applications to join two of our Strategic Advisory Teams (SATs). The SATs seeking further applications are:

  • Manufacturing the Future
    • Automotive – Industry Member
    • Food – Sustainability/Processing
    • Digital Manufacturing
    • New Industrial Systems
    • Chemistry/Biochemistry with a focus on manufacturing research challenges
  • Research Infrastructure – Capital
    • Industrial Facilities user
    • Person experienced in Managing Institutional/Regional Facilities

Following the internal shortlisting process, they have judged that these vacancies would benefit from a wider pool of applicants. To apply, please fill in an application form by 21 October. If you have applied previously in this round, please do not re-apply.

For more information and contact details please see the vacancies page.

EPSRC is committed to a policy of equal opportunities. Appointments to the Strategic Advisory Teams are made on merit. However, they are keen to obtain greater diversity in SAT membership. Applications from women, those with a disability and members of minority ethnic groups, who are currently under-represented on the SATs, are therefore especially welcome.

Bournemouth University (BU) rises 20 places in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017

Fusion Building - ST league table Bournemouth University (BU) has leapt 20 places in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017.

BU is now 62nd in the league table, published today, which is based on performance in nine key indicators – including student satisfaction, research quality, graduate job prospects, service and facilities spend, and teaching and academic feedback.

The result underlines BU’s strong graduate employability – including 2016 Visual Effects Oscar and BAFTA winners – and placement opportunities for all honours degree students.

Other highlights include investments in academic appointments, increased student satisfaction, and BU’s results in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), where 62 per cent of research submitted was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

BU is also investing £250 million in its estates infrastructure and facilities by 2019, constructing new buildings and redesigning both Lansdowne and Talbot Campuses.

Professor John Vinney, Vice-Chancellor of Bournemouth University, said: “The 20 place rise in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide is a significant achievement, and recognises the great work taking place at Bournemouth University.

“We are delighted that our research, education and professional practice are all highlighted as areas of particular strength.  The fusion of these elements is key to creating a fantastic student experience at BU and making our graduates extremely employable.

“This result recognises the hard work and commitment of all of the BU community.  We will continue to build on this success with ongoing investment in our staff and students, as well as our facilities, to ensure BU keeps getting better.”

This is the latest of several league table successes for Bournemouth University this year.

BU was also recognised as one of the world’s best new universities in the Times Higher Education (THE) Top 150 Under 50 rankings of universities under 50 years old, and in the THE’s top 200 most international universities in the world.

Call for abstracts – Marine Protected Areas: Science, Policy & Management

conferences

Climate change, policy developments such as Brexit and progress in marine science all contribute to a fast changing context for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). This conference aims to examine the current issues from a variety of perspectives at a time when questions on the future approaches to MPA’s are the subject of policy development. Contributions are welcome from individual practitioners, NGOs, statutory and governmental organisations as well as from academia.

Abstracts of papers and posters are invited ranging from original scientific research reports through reviews to policy analyses, critiques and management practice innovations. Both UK and comparative international perspectives are welcome on all forms of Marine Protected Area.

While abstracts may focus on specific MPAs, especially when the subject matter is of wider relevance, submissions which examine or exemplify general issues such as the relationship between scientific evidence, policy and management, or the balance between conservation and socio-economics are also encouraged. The conference will result in a published proceedings volume with the prospect also of themed journal publication for suitable peer reviewed papers.

The Estuarine & Coastal Sciences Association and Poole Harbour Study Group are jointly organising the conference on ‘Marine Protected Areas: Science, Policy & Management’ from Monday 15th – Wednesday 17th May 2017 in Poole. This will also coincide with a week of European Maritime Port festivities and culminate in Poole Boat Show.

Full details about abstract submission can be found here.

Conference themes

  • The science of Marine Protected Areas
  • MPA’s and fisheries: Policy & practice
  • Climate change, non-indigenous species and marine conservation
  • Post Brexit UK policy and European Marine Sites
  • Recreational & commercial pressures: Impacts & solutions
  • Water quality, nutrients, and eutrophication

For more details, contact Dr Roger Herbert.

Congratulations to BU Visiting Faculty Dr. Sam Rowlands

Publishing, writing

sam-rowlandsDr. Sam Rowlands, FHSS Visiting Faculty, has just published an interesting article on ‘On being an expert witness in sexual and reproductive health’.   The paper will appear in the Journal of Family Planning & Reproductive Health Care [1].  In this article Sam highlights that expert witnesses need to be able to apply appropriate legal tests to the evidence, to deal with the range of expert opinion on a matter, and explain clearly what constitutes an appropriate standard of care for a clinician in their discipline and specialty. They must be aware of pitfalls such as being sued for substandard work and being reported to their professional regulator for straying outside their area of expertise. Expert witnesses must be truly independent and ideally their reports should be the same whoever they receive their instructions from.

 

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

Rowlands, S.  ‘On being an expert witness in sexual and reproductive health’. J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care doi:10.1136/jfprhc-2015-101385 (forthcoming/online first)

Student Engagement Toolkit

Student Engagement, student research

If you’re looking to engage more students with your research, then the Student Engagement Toolkit is the easiest way to demonstrate how to do this. This presents the different methods available to you to communicate your research across the student community, including how to take part in the assortment of events taking place across BU, such as 14: Live. As well as this, it provides information on how to engage students in a online context by pushing through news and press releases through our various external and internal comms. Have a go at encouraging students to take part in our Undergraduate orientated events taking place, such as SURE or BCUR which BU is hosting in April 2017.  Why is student engagement with research so important? Well, it’s a great opportunity to broaden your research audience and even inspire undergraduate students to partake in their own research route.  Many academics have successfully taken part in student engagement activities, including Dr Sean Beer, Dr Anna Feigenbaum and Dr James Gavin, in the past. Take a look at their thoughts surrounding events/activities they’ve taken part in.

Take a closer look at the Student Engagement Toolkit here.

Want to get involved or have some ideas of your own? Send in your idea for a 14: Live session or any other ideas you may have to the Student Engagement Coordinator

Event 14th October: Sisterhood, Solidarity & Self-Empowerment

Black Sister Network is a dedicated resource within the Black British Academic Network created in 2014 to support women of colour in higher education.

Sisterhood, Solidarity & Self-Empowerment for Women of Colour in HE, is a ground-breaking event jointly hosted by Black British Academics and Shades of Noir at University of the Arts London. It is aimed at staff and students and includes:

  • Audience discussions on issues related to race and gender,
  • Presentations by graduates on dissertation projects focused on issues around race, ethnicity and culture,
  • A presentation by women academics of colour on a research project exploring strategies for survival and success,
  • resistance poetry on the theme of the event.

People of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds are welcome to attend. A buffet lunch and drinks reception are provided. Attendance is free but registration is required via Eventbrite.

For more information, contact Darren Lilleker.

Bournemouth University researchers shortlisted for AHRC’s Research in Film Awards

Two of Bournemouth University’s researchers – Dr Sue Sudbury and Dr Roman Gerodimos – have been shortlisted for the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Research in Film Awards. The awards are designed to reward and recognise the best of the year’s high quality short films linked to arts and humanities research.

The films selected for the shortlist cover a wide range of topics, from landscape and environmental change to capital punishment, people trafficking and poverty. Some have been developed as a means of disseminating results, while others are forms of practice-based research or records of research undertaken.

Village Tales

Dr Sue Sudbury, a Senior Lecturer in Television and Film Production, has been shortlisted for the Innovation Award for her film Village Tales. Her work tells the story of a group of women in rural India, who have been trained as video reporters as a means of giving women a voice.

Dr Sudbury explains, “Participatory visual research methods are increasingly being used as a way of generating new forms of knowledge and challenging the power differential between the researcher and ‘the researched’. I worked with a group of women in rural India who were being trained by the Indian government as video reporters, giving a voice to women.”

“In ‘Village Tales’, I used observational documentary techniques to film the women as they made their own film and to discover how this Indian government project was changing their lives. However, I also asked four of them if they would use their cameras to film their everyday lives and developed the use of video diary interviews to access the women’s thoughts and feelings.”

“My intention was to locate the ‘third voice’, which is found in participatory research by combining the ethnographer’s view and the subject’s contributions. Through this layering of footage from our different cameras, the audience is given a unique insight into the lives of women in rural India today.”

At the Edge of the Present

Dr Roman Gerodimos, a Principal Academic in Global Current Affairs, has been shortlisted for the Utopia Award: Imagining Our Futures, for his film At the Edge of the Present. The film seeks to understand how we engage with the urban landscape and with each other in public space, and how we can facilitate coexistence in increasingly diverse and dynamic urban communities.

“At the Edge of the Present looks at how we experience the city. It has three acts – Tribes, Lights, and Time – breaking down the concept of a city, looking at its core elements, and what you get is its building blocks. It’s the passage of time, a diversity of people coming together, the creation of identity and community, with boundaries of exclusion and inclusion”, says Dr Gerodimos. The film combines interviews with architects and public space experts, personal reflections and visual material from over 20 cities in Europe and the United States. It is narrated by actor Sam Booth.

“The film is not conventional – we didn’t start with a script and then look for locations; it was completely the other way around! I started with the visuals, ideas and concepts and then built the script around that. You could almost compare the process to sculpting – you realise what it is you want to do and then you dig down through the material until you reach a point where you finally feel you’ve materialised your vision.”

Alternative paths to access finance for small and medium scale enterprises in the UK

conferences, Funding opportunities

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) form a crucial part of United Kingdom’s (UK) economy. However, limited/or lack of access to finance continue to hinder the growth of SMEs in the country. This situation has been the compelling factor behind Bournemouth University’s seminars series on “Access to Finance for SMEs”, of which the last was held at Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, London on 13 September, 2016. This final part of the seminar series was aimed at identifying alternative sources of finance for SMEs in the UK.

professor-stella-fearnley-first-from-left-with-the-keynote-speaker-sir-john-bourn-middle-and-the-principal-investigator-professor-jens-h%d3%a7lscher-first-from-right

Professor Stella Fearnley (first from left) with the keynote speaker Sir John Bourn (middle) and the Principal Investigator professor Jens Hӧlscher (first from right)

Experts at the seminar identified the following as the reasons why there is limited/or lack of access to finance for SMEs in the UK:

  • Lenders face difficulties in accurately assessing the viability of SMEs with limited track records because of information asymmetries between borrowers and lenders. This makes it difficult for lenders to secure the appropriate information they require to make an informed decisions on SME loan applications,
  • New SMEs often end up defaulting in debt repayment,
  • There is regional bias when it comes to SME access to finance in the country. For instance, London and the South-East often obtain disproportionately more funding than SMEs in other parts of the UK.

Are there alternative sources of funding for SMEs?

Consensus was broad-based among participants that alternative sources of finance for SMEs is growing in the UK —it grew by 75% to £1.26bn in 2015—despite the fact that only 3% of SMEs are aware of these other sources. Some of the alternative funding sources that were suggested include:

  • Equity finance

This is a method of raising capital through the sale of shares in an enterprise. A presenter at the seminar showed that equity funding has improved significantly in the UK, with seed stage flows growing 48% p.a. since 2012. Other participants also observed that SMEs are often skeptical of equity finance for fear of loss of control. But the fact remains that most of them use equity finance without even realising it. For instance, SMEs often rely on angels and venture capital to raise funds for their businesses.

  • Angels and venture capital

This form of equity finance may be undertaken directly by individuals or industrial companies; and indirectly through financial institutions or government agencies. Venture capitalists on the other hand usually invest in SMEs with high return prospects. Though SMEs’ awareness about venture capital in the UK continue to increase, only 22% of them know of a specific fund to approach.

  • Business Angels

They are private individuals who invest in new SMEs with good growth prospects, in exchange for a share of the company’s equity. Business angels often invest in business start-ups and also provide assistance in the form of consultancy (sometimes free) to the SMEs.

  • Family and friends

This source of finance has long been an important route for start-ups. However, there is always the need to maintain professionalism and a formal environment for business growth which may stand against the business owner’s informal relationship with the financiers. The big mistake many companies make is that they fail to formalise the funding arrangement with friends and family.

  • Crowdfunding

This is a method of raising finance by asking a large number of people to individually contribute a small amount of money to fund a project or venture, typically via the Internet. Though it is becoming the new ‘buzz’ going around in the investment game, existing SMEs, individuals, and startups are increasingly looking to raise funds through this method. One of the participants indicated that it is cheaper, faster and easier to access finance through this source. Another participant at the seminar showed that crowdfunding in 2015 amounted to 2.5 billion pounds in the UK.

Road map to SME access to finance

On the various alternative sources of SME funding identified, seminar participants were of the view that there is the need to critically examine each of them since it will unpack their appropriateness to different economies. You can check gold price today from the reliable sources and buy them from such sources. You will get immediate cash when you sell gold Adelaide in the market through the local jewellers or traders.

Apart from individual publications, there were also proposal for pathways to impact which will include one or two edited books and potentially a Special Issue of the International Small Business Journal, the leading UK and European Entrepreneurship journal, as deliverables.