Yearly Archives / 2017

How to Write a 4* Article

BRIAN, Publishing, writing

mark-reedIn December, Prof Mark Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and the man behind Fast Track Impact, tweeted some thoughts on how to write a 4* paper for the REF. He went on to explain his thinking in more detail in a guest post on the Research Fundementals blog, the post is published here with the authors permission.

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How do you write a 4* paper for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)? It is a question I’ve asked myself with some urgency since the Stern Review shredded my REF submission by not allowing me to bring my papers with me this year to my new position at Newcastle University.

Obviously the answer is going to differ depending on your discipline, but I think there are a few simple things that everyone can do to maximize their chances of getting a top graded research output.

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’ve actually done original, significant and rigorous work – if you haven’t then there is no point in reading any further. However, as I am increasingly asked to pre-review papers for colleagues across a range of disciplines, I am seeing examples of people who write up work as a 2* or 3* paper that has the potential to get a better score. I should point out that I believe that there is an important role for 1* and 2* papers, and that I regularly write these on purpose to address a problem of national significance and frame it for the specific, narrow audience that is likely to be able to benefit most from my work. However, whether I like it or not, as a Professor in a research-intensive University, there is an expectation that I will be submitted as a 4* researcher, which means I need a few 4* papers as well.

You can see some more detailed thoughts on what I think makes 4* for different types of paper in this Tweet:

As you’ll see from the discussion under that tweet though, my more detailed thoughts probably only apply to Units of Assessment across panels A-C, and probably isn’t relevant to the arts and humanities.

Having said this, I think there are a number of things we can all do to maximize the chances of our work being viewed favourably by REF panelists.

  1. Write to the criteria: when I was learning to drive, my instructor told me that in the test I should make sure I moved my head when I was looking in the rear view mirror, to make sure the examiner noticed I was using my mirrors. We’re all used to writing to the criteria of funding calls, and in fact we are all perfectly used to writing papers to the criteria of our target journals. In the last REF, research outputs were judged against three criteria: originality, significance and rigour. Whatever the interpretation of these criteria in your discipline, have you made it explicit to REF panelists reading your work exactly what is original, and why it is so original? Have you explained and effectively justified the significance of your work? And have you included evidence that your methods, analysis and interpretation is rigorous, even if you have to use supplementary material to include extra detail about your methods and data to get around journal word limits?
  1. Get REF feedback before you submit your work for publication: find out who is going to be reviewing research outputs for REF internally within your Unit of Assessment at your institution and ask them to review your work before you submit it. They may be able to make recommendations about how you might improve the paper in light of the REF criteria. Sometimes a little bit of extra work on the framing of your research in relation to wider contexts and issues can help articulate the significance of your work, and with additional reading and thinking, you may be able to position your work more effectively in relation to previous work to demonstrate its originality more clearly. Adding a few extra details to your methods and results may re-assure readers and reviewers that your approach is indeed rigorous. This is not just about doing world-leading research; it is about demonstrating to the world that your work is indeed world-leading. For me, these criteria are nothing new and are worth paying attention to, whether or not we are interested in REF. Meeting these three criteria will increase the chances that you get through peer-review and will increase the likelihood that your work gets cited.
  1. Analyse and discuss good practice in your own area: the only way to really “get your eye in” for REF is to actually look at examples of good and poor practice in your own area. Below, I’ve described how you can design an exercise to do this with your colleagues. You can do it yourself and learn a lot, but from my own experience, you learn a lot more by doing this as a discussion exercise with colleagues who work in your area. If you can, take notes from your discussion and try and distill some of the key lessons, so you can learn collectively as a group and more effectively review and support each others’ work.

How to organize a discussion to work out what makes a 4* paper in your area:

  • Identify top scoring institutions for your Unit of Assessment (UOA): download the REF2014 results, filter for your UOA (columns E or F), then filter so it only shows you the outputs (column J), and then filter for 4* (column L), showing only the institutions from your UOA that had the highest percentage of 4* outputs. Now for those institutions, look across the table (columns L-P) to see which has the highest proportion of outputs at either 3* or 4*. For example, an institution may have 80% of its outputs graded at 4* and 15% graded at 3*, meaning that 95% of its outputs were graded at 3-4*
  • Download a selection of papers from the top scoring institutions: go to your UOA on the REF website, find and click on the institutions you’ve identified in step 1, under “view submission data”, click on “research outputs”, copy and paste output titles into Google Scholar (or your search engine of choice) and download the articles. You may want to select outputs randomly, or you may want to go through more selectively, identifying outputs that are close to the areas your group specialize in
  • Repeat for low scoring institutions so you can compare and contrast high and low scoring outputs
  • Discuss examples: print copies of the high and low scoring outputs, labeled clearly, and in your next UOA meeting, let everyone choose a high and a low-scoring example. Given them 10-15 minutes to quickly read the outputs (focusing on title, abstract, introduction, figures and conclusions so you’re not there all day) and then ask the group (or small groups if there are many of you) to discuss the key factors that they think distinguish between high and low scoring outputs. Get your group(s) to distill the key principles that they think are most useful and disseminate these more widely to the group, so that anyone who wasn’t present can benefit.

It would be great if I could tell you that these are my “three easy ways to get a 4* paper” but doing work that is genuinely original, significant and rigorous is far from easy. If you have done work that is of the highest quality though, I hope that the ideas I’ve suggested here will help you get the credit you deserve for the great research you’ve done.

Prof. Matthew Bennett – My publication story so far…

BRIAN, BU Challenges, Guidance, Publishing, writing

writingOn Wednesday 29th March, the Writing Academy will be hosting a Lunchbyte session with Matthew Bennett. During the session Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, his tips on developing a publication strategy and working with co-authors, reviewers and editors. He will talk about all types 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

Click here to book on!

Blog by the Vice-Chancellor – what next for the Teaching Excellence Framework

Fusion, Research assessment

The BBC 2 series “Meet the Lords” could not have been better timed. The House of Lords has flexed its muscles on the Article 50 Bill and this week’s episode coincided with them passing an amendment to the Higher Education and Research Bill (HE Bill) that breaks the link between the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and fees. Since then another amendment has been passed that would change the nature of the TEF, and bring it under Parliamentary scrutiny.

It would be easy to dismiss these (as some have done) as acts of rebellion by a non-elected chamber that is in the case of the HE Bill, representing vested interests in the face of a genuine government attempt to reform a sector that is badly in need of it. The Department for Education could be forgiven if they had thought that the HE Bill was nearly home and dry. They had published a long list of amendments which had been largely welcomed by the sector. The TEF does not require Parliamentary approval. Universities UK and GuildHE, amongst others, had expressed support for the HE bill as amended and expressed support for the TEF – opposing the addition of more detail as it would reduce flexibility in future negotiations on the detail. But the House of Lords did not agree – they have not sought to add more detail in the TEF, but to change its nature completely. Reading the debates, it is clear that members of the House of Lords, like most of the sector, generally support the objectives of TEF in bringing focus on the quality of education and student outcomes. They support the provision of more and better information about universities for applicants and others. They, like many in the sector, also generally support an inflationary increase in fees.

In the latest amendment, the provisions for the TEF in clause 26 have been removed and the new clause instead requires the Secretary of State to bring forward a scheme to identify whether an institution meets or fails to meet expectations based on quality standards but it “must not be used to create a single composite ranking of English higher education providers”.  The arguments are neatly summarised by Lord Lucas: “Bronze will be seen as failing because these universities will be marked out as the bottom 20%. This is just not necessary. We have succeeded, in our research rankings, in producing a measure of sufficient detail and sophistication for people to read it in detail. It produces quite marked differences between institutions, but nobody reads it as a mark of a failing institution. It is information, not ranking…”.

An earlier amendment removed the differentiation between fees based on different ratings. The speeches in the House of Lords demonstrate that they are opposed to this link for different reasons, for example:

  • Baroness Deech “If we detach fees from gold, silver and bronze, we stand a chance of increasing social mobility under the amendment. If we do not, social mobility will be frozen and ghettoisation will increase.”
  • Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: “I want to cite three groups of academics ….all of which feel, as do students, that in their current state the TEF metrics are not up to the job of determining fee levels and that, until we are sure that we have valid and reliable measures, we should not do this.”
  • Lord Lipsey : “… what seems knocking on bizarre is to plough on with bringing in this link between fees and the TEF before we have got the TEF right….The Government would give themselves the best chance of proving themselves right and the sceptics wrong if they gave time for the TEF to settle down before they brought in the fees link.”
  • Lord Kerslake: “My second reason for not making the link is that the TEF rating will relate to the university, not the subject or course. We will not see subject-level ratings until 2020 and yet we know that it is perfectly possible to have a mediocre course in an otherwise excellent university, and indeed vice versa. It can be argued that the TEF ranking gives an indication of the overall ​student experience at a particular institution, but the variation which so obviously exists within institutions makes that argument quite unconvincing.”

Except for the subject level fee point (which has not become a topic of debate yet), these are all arguments that were made by the sector in responding to the Green Paper and the TEF consultation. These are all things that we have continued to raise as we discuss the implications of subject-level TEF.

So as it stands, the TEF has lost both of its “incentives” – aka its carrot and its stick, which were both in the form of the impact on fees and reputation. It is not at all clear what will happen next – some ideas are given in this Wonkhe blog. In blogs on the Times Higher Education, Maddaleine Ansell of the University Alliance and Sorana Vieru gave very different perspectives.

So what compromise could there be to address all the concerns and yet still preserve the positive aspects of the TEF – i.e. the increasing focus on education and outcomes? I go back to BU’s response to the Green Paper, when we said that the TEF should model itself on the REF.. It should celebrate excellence wherever it is found, there should not be a link with tuition fees and there should be no forced ranking. To achieve that now, a remodelled TEF could include the following features:

  • no link to fees
  • have two rather than three levels of award – perhaps indicating good and outstanding. The last category is those who fail their quality assessment and don’t qualify for TEF.
  • take a different approach to benchmarking that does not force differentiation
  • include a place for commendations

I am not convinced by the argument that no-one would participate in the TEF without the direct financial incentive. That does not hold true for the REF. The REF has increased the focus on impact and had a beneficial impact on research. (We have some reservations about the changes proposed in the latest REF consultation, but that is a separate issue.) The concerns about the TEF would be mitigated substantially if the Olympic rating system and the link to fees were dropped. The sector would be able to engage in a much more constructive debate about subject-level TEF.

The TEF does not need to be thrown out completely – but this is an opportunity to go back to where this started from and ensure that the TEF brings focus on the quality of education and student outcomes.

Congratulations to your winners of the 2017 Research Photography Competition!

PG research, Student Engagement, student research

Bournemouth University researchers have given us a glimpse into some of their fantastic research, for the Research Photography Competition. The competition which ran in its third year challenged BU academics and students to capture the impact of their research in a single image.  Researchers from across BU and all its faculties entered the competition.

Entries to the competition demonstrated some of the research taking place both here at BU and across the globe from forensic investigation, midwifery in Nepal, meeting the identity needs of older people and looked at repairing trust in the service sector.

The competition saw an overwhelming response with close to 1000 votes from BU staff, BU students and the wider BU community.

Vice Chancellor John Vinney congratulated the winners on 9 March in the Atrium Art Gallery.

“It’s been brilliant to be able to announce the winners. There’s a great diversity of winners that really encapsulate the range and impact of research here at BU,” commented Vice Chancellor John Vinney.

Below are your winners:

 1st Place- “This is Me. I am Ron” by Chantel Cox

Chantel Cox, PhD Student, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Chantel is a PhD student from the Faculty of Health and Social Science. She is looking at the cultural processes that underpin healthcare professionals meeting the identity needs of frail older people.

On winning first prize Chantel commented,

“It’s very exciting to win. It’s really good to get your research known about and out there in a different format. I’d like to use photography somehow in my research, so it’s really inspired me.”

2nd Place- The Compound Eye of Calliphora Vomitoria (Bluebottle fly) by Christopher Dwen

Christopher Dwen, Forensic Research Assistant, Faculty of Science & Technology

Christopher is a Forensic Research Assistant from the Faculty of Science & Technology. He’s been looking at the blood feeding activities of flies at crime scenes, as these can often be confounding. These patterns can help in instances of violent assaults.

3rd Place- A Concerted Effort to Repair Trust by Samreen Ashraf 

Samreen Ashraf, Lecturer in Marketing, Faculty of Management

Samreen is a Lecturer in Marketing from the Faculty of Management.

Samreen is a Lecturer in Marketing from the Faculty of Management. Samreen has been looking at the service sector and examining trust repair endeavours from various stakeholders’ perspective related to three different contexts: mis-selling financial services (e.g. PPI); HR issues in the retail sector (e.g. Sports Direct) and safety issues within the leisure sector (e.g. Alton Towers).

All entries from this year’s Research Photography Competition are currently being exhibited in the Atrium Art Gallery until 22 March.

FACETS research featured on MS Society blog

FACETS

BU’s FACETS project, which focuses on managing fatigue in people with MS has been featured in a blog post by the MS Society.  Fatigue is one of the most commonly reported and debilitating symptoms of MS and can have a real impact on people’s lives.  It’s the main reason why people with MS eventually give up work.

Research from Professor Peter Thomas and Dr Sarah Thomas from BU’s Clinical Research Unit have developed a group based fatigue management programme called FACETS.  The programme helps to equip people with the tools and strategies they need to effectively manage their energy and cope with fatigue.  Below is an expert from the blog.

Mind the gap – getting care and services research to the clinic

It can sometimes take years for research findings to be rolled out in clinics. The gap between clinical trials and the clinic means that people often miss out on services that were developed with them in mind.

We want to make sure that everyone has access to the therapies, services and support that are right for them. And we’re working hard to make sure that happens.

Managing MS fatigue effectively

‘FACETS’ is a group-based fatigue management programme for people with MS. FACETS stands for Fatigue: Applying Cognitive behavioural and Energy effectiveness Techniques to lifeStyle.

During the programme, people learn strategies to help them manage their energy levels more effectively and explore different ways of thinking about fatigue.

The programme was shown to reduce fatigue and improve quality of life for people with MS in a 2013 trial we funded.

Since then we’ve supported the research team to roll out FACETS, via training days for health care professionals so they can deliver the programme in their practices.

Over 200 health professionals have been trained so far. And a recent survey suggested that more than 1,500 people with MS have already attended a FACETS programme.

Dr Sarah Thomas, who developed the programme, said “One of the most rewarding aspects of carrying out this work has been seeing FACETS rolled out into clinics and, we hope, making a difference to people’s lives.”

The blog can be read in full here.

Chancellor announces first round of Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund funding in Spring Budget

Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

money and cogs

The first tranche of challenges supported by the Industrial Strategy Challenge fund (ISCF) has been welcomed by research and innovation leaders. The spring budget announced an initial investment of £270 million in 2017 to 2018. This is to kick-start the development of disruptive technologies that have the potential to transform the UK economy.

First announced by the Prime Minister at the 2016 CBI Annual Conference, the ISCF will help identify and develop UK industries that are fit for the future, driving progress in technologies where the UK can build on our existing areas of industrial and research strength.

In his Budget speech  earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond announced funding for the first three competitions in the ISCF:

  • Leading the world in the development, design and manufacture of batteries that will power the next generation of electric vehicles, helping to tackle air pollution
  • Developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence and robotics systems that will operate in extreme and hazardous environments, including off-shore energy, nuclear energy, space and deep mining
  • Accelerating patient access to new drugs and treatments through developing brand new medicine manufacturing technologies, helping to improve public health

Read in full.

 

BU Postgraduate Conference 2017 – Prize Winners

PG research

PG Conference 2017

BU celebrated some of the best current PhD, Master’s by Research and MSc postgraduate research at its Postgraduate Conference 2017 yesterday. Winners of the oral presentations and academic poster and photography exhibition were announced at the end of the conference, listed below. Congratulations to everyone who participated.

 

Oral Presentations:

1st Prize Samantha Prince, PGR Faculty of Management

2nd Prize Magnhild Sletten, PGR Faculty of Science and Technology

3rd Prize Clare Gordon, PGR Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Commended Prize Sara Glithro, PGR Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Poster Presentation Winners: Paul Leal PGR FHSS, Maria Musarskaya PGR FoM, Walaa Naji Bajnaio PGR FMC, Sarah Hodge FST

Poster Presentation Commended: Lauren Bishop PGT FHSS, Tahani Mohamed PGR FoM, Phil Mathews PGR FMC, Dan Carter PGR FST

Photography Presentation Winner: Phil Mathews PGR FMC Commended: Resh Samauroo FMC

Enquiries to Debbie: pgconference@bournemouth.ac.uk

Vernissage and Opening of the Exhibition EMANUEL GOLDBERG – ARCHITECT OF KNOWLEDGE

Vernissage and Opening of the Exhibition EMANUEL GOLDBERG – ARCHITECT OF KNOWLEDGE

at the Museum Technical Collection Dresden, Germany.

curated by Roland Schwarz, Kerstin Stutterheim, Albert Lang, Julia Blume, Rene Patzwald and a group of students from TU Berlin.

http://www.tsd.de/en/mm/exhibitions/special-exhibitions/preview-exhibitions/

On the occasion of the opening the documentary will be shown as special screening premiere Friday and Saturday

photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GOLDBERG-CONDITION — More to see than can be seen

by Kerstin Stutterheim & Niels Bolbrinker

D 2017, 76 min, HD

A poetic search and scouting about a sorrowly nearly forgotten man and his fate. He was a visionary, migrant, Jew, teacher, researcher, inventor, husband, scientist, father, manager, founder, and much more.

In a dialog between memories of his family, a poetic and academic research about him and his importance one can understand not only his importance for the development of visual-optical technique and media but as well how history is influencing biographies and thus, technical and scientific advances.

 

 

Featured Student Project Bank partner of the week: Help-in

Help-In Logo

In the first of our weekly spotlights, Richard Hawkesford, CEO of the charity Help-in, tells us more about his organisation and what he hopes to achieve by working with the Student Project Bank.

Help-in will be the first social media platform of its kind: a non-profit social media platform that will connect anyone who needs help to anyone anywhere in the world that is willing to give it. I want to offer the opportunity for BU students to help me build this platform and to become part of the Help-in vision.

I came up with the Help-in idea while I was travelling. I wanted to volunteer as part of my experience but found the internet to be a frustrating place to find opportunities that didn’t cost the Earth. In fact, on talking to others, an overwhelming majority agreed the whole process should be easier.

60% spent 10-50 hours looking online and 15% spent over 50 hours. Some paid large amounts of money with no transparency about where the money went, and a quarter gave up because they found it so time consuming or difficult to find anything online.

I never want anyone to give up when they have good intentions to help others.

When I was able to volunteer I realised it was equally as frustrating for the grassroots good causes I wanted to help. They spend up to half their working week looking for volunteers, funding and other help.

I have faith in humanity, but I don´t always think we’re given the right tools to make the most of our giving nature. This is where the Help-in idea evolved.

I want to live in a world where people are able to ask for help, and be connected to people all over the world that are willing to give it out of love and compassion.

Do you want to get involved? The following projects are available:

SPB044: Crowdfunding feasibility study and campaign design for charities

Help connect millions of people to the help they need when they need it and allow millions to offer their help to those less fortunate or in need. Help-in is a charity that aims to create a new social media platform designed to increase volunteering both hands on and virtually. Carry out a feasibility study into crowdfunding models for charitable organisations and use your findings to design a three week campaign with a soft launch. There will be the opportunity to implement the campaign if desired.

SPB045: Social media marketing and management plan for a local charity

Help connect millions of people to the help they need when they need it and allow millions to offer their help to those less fortunate or in need. Help-in is a charity that aims to create a new social media platform designed to increase volunteering both hands on and virtually. Design a social media marketing plan for a crowdfunding campaign and create a management plan for the marketing plan.

SPB046: Brand development for Help-in

Help connect millions of people to the help they need when they need it and allow millions to offer their help to those less fortunate or in need. Help-in is a charity that aims to create a new social media platform designed to increase volunteering both hands on and virtually. Work with Help-in to develop their brand. This will be used to influence the look and feel of their platform and across social media, the website and any printed materials.

SPB047: Social media platform prototype development for Help-in

Help connect millions of people to the help they need when they need it and allow millions to offer their help to those less fortunate or in need. Help-in is a charity that aims to create a new social media platform designed to increase volunteering both hands on and virtually. Work with Help-in to develop the above social media platform. All aspects must be scalable to cope with additions to details, projects, tick boxes and ultimately users. The Platform will be global, so there is a need to search for companies or project types in any part of the world.

Find out more and apply.

Research Photography Competition- Your winners announced today!

Student Engagement

Find out who you voted to be your winner of 2017’s Research Photography Competition.ResearchPhotographyCompetitionintranet1

Come along today at 2-3pm, in the Atrium Art Gallery, where Vice Chancellor John Vinney will be announcing the three winners.

The Competition is in its third year and saw 26 entries from across all faculties. The images give us just a small glimpse into some of the fantastic work our researchers are doing both here at BU and across the globe. These images will be displayed in the gallery and the researchers  will be on hand to to talk about their research and the inspiration behind their photographs.

If you would like to come along to congratulate the winners please register here. 

Staff and students are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided!

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Early access to EU referendum data competition

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

This enables researchers to access early EU referendum data to understand why Britain decided to leave the EU.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 13 Mar 17 Closing soon

Industry fellowships

Royal Society, GB

These enable academic scientists to work on collaborative projects with industry, or individuals employed in industry to work on collaborative projects with university departments or non-profit research organisations. Fellowships support a period of up to two years and cover fellows’ basic salary during the secondment as well as research expenses of up to £2,000 per year.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 13 Apr 17

BBSRC enterprise fellowships

Royal Society of Edinburgh, GB

These enable an individual to advance the commercialisation of existing research and outcomes or technological developments, whilst also receiving formal training in relevant business skills, with the objective to increase exploitation of ideas with commercial potential from BBSRC-funded research programmes. Fellowships are tenable for one year, and provide up to £37,000 in salary support and up to £10,000 for direct costs

Maximum award: £47,000

Closing date: 26 Apr 17 (recurring)

Satellite applications catapult – knowledge exchange fellowship

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

This supports proposals that consider the role of satellite applications and services in addressing environmental issues and challenges faced by urban leaders, government organisations, planners or businesses, in towns and cities. The budget is worth £60,000 for salary costs and up to £8,000 for travel and subsistence per year.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 27 Apr 17

Emerging and enabling technologies competition – round 2

Innovate UK, GB

Funding aims identify and invest in new technologies and the underpinning capabilities that improve existing industries by inspiring the products, processes and services of tomorrow. The total budget is worth £15 million. Projects should last between six months and three years and are expected to range in total costs between £35,000 and £2m.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 03 May 17

Parliamentary academic fellowship scheme – open call

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

This enables researchers from different subject areas and at any career stage to forge useful and lasting connections with decision makers in parliament. Successful fellowships will be funded through IAA. Fellowships should have a minimum of one month in duration and not exceed one year.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 30 Jun 17

Healthcare technologies discipline hopping

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, GB

This provides researchers with an opportunity to spend time in a different research or user environment in order to better understand the need for and potential of research in engineering, physical sciences, mathematical sciences or information and communications technology to have an impact in addressing health challenges. The awards are tenable for between three and 12 months and cover 80 per cent of the salary cost for the principle investigator, travel, subsistence and resources for the specific activities.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: None

POSTPONED: Public engagement training courses

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

*** This opportunity is temporarily closed. The following information is subject to change. The training is being reviewed and there will be further information to come in early or mid 2017. Courses are free and include overnight accommodation and evening meals between days one and two. ***

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: Not known

Find more funding opportunities

Search all the latest calls

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

 

So what?

Guidance

so whatRKEO have hosted two funder visits in the past three weeks (Interreg and Medical Research Council).  Both funders highlighted the ‘So what?’ principle in terms of research ideas, i.e. what is the consequence of your work; who can benefit from your work in the long-term and what can be done to increase the chances of the work reaching those beneficiaries.  Even if your proposal doesn’t directly address economic or societal impact you should be able to explain the pathway that links your work to – using the example of MRC – improving human health.

In order to describe the impact of your work, keep asking yourself ‘so what?’ or even better, describe your research idea to a colleague (or to take a step further, a member of the public) and get them to ask ‘so what’ at each point when you think you’ve finished explaining. RKEO had another funder visit today, the British Academy, and they used the phrase ‘Try not to be Gollum’, i.e. don’t be precious about your research and invite comments from others, share it and make it interesting.

Being able to fully explain the impact of your research will obviously increase your chances of being successful when applying for external research funds.

impactThere are a vast number of resources available on strengthening your research proposals and developing impact.  Most funders will have guidance on impact, for example, section 2.2.5 of the MRC funder guide provides tips on articulating potential impact.  They may also have impact reports; links to all of the research councils impact reports can be found in the BU research blog’s Research Funder Guide.  BU has an online toolkit to help support the development of your research impact.  The toolkit explores what impact is, how you can go about creating an impact strategy, and looks at some commonly used pathways to impact, as well as examples of outstanding impact case studies.

For more information about impact, please contact the RKEO Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team or if you’re putting an application together and want advice on the impact sections, please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team.

Letting the Pigeons Fly Free!

Professor Matthew Bennett, Professor Of Environmental & Geographical Sciences, will be presenting a ‘Leading Innovation’ masterclass on Wednesday 22nd March.

‘Silos destroy the collective power of innovation that comes with inter-disciplinary collaboration and an ability to seek research funding, impact and success flexibly both as individuals and as teams.  In this master class using personal examples and reflections we will discuss the concept of transferability of research skills, of how to create a sense of confidence and how to inspire a can-do spirit that conquers all.’

It will take place 10.00 – 11.30 on Talbot Campus.  Please email od@bournemouth.ac.uk to book a place

Future sessions in this series include:

  • An innovative approach to setting up a Research Hub
  • Developing Interdisciplinarity
  • The clinical doctorate model – enabling Practitioner Research

For more details please visit the Staff Intranet

BU Guide to Full Economic Costing

Guidance

father tedLast year, RKEO revised and re-published the BU guide to full Economic Costing, know as fEC (which some people choose to pronounce in a ‘Father Jack’ style).  The full guide can be found on the BU intranet.

If you are applying for external funding for your research and knowledge exchange activities then you need to read the guide and understand what makes up the costs of a project.  The guide fully explains what fEC is, how it’s calculated, the difference between cost and price, estimating staff time, and explanation of the terminology, i.e. what is directly incurred, directly allocated, estates, indirect costs, and exceptional items.

For more information and assistance with costing your external research or knowledge exchange application, please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer.

Early Intervention in Eating Disorders Conference

Bournemmouth University  and Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust have organised an ‘Early Intervention in Eating Disorders Conference.

Event Date: 10 May 2017
Time: 9:00-16:00
Venue: 2nd floor of the Executive Business Centre (EBC), Lansdowne Campus, Bournemouth University, BH8 8EB

The event has a host of speakers and workshops.  If you are interested in seeing the conference agenda and booking on to the event then please click here.