Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery and Research Governance Teams
    • Research Excellence Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • Post-REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

July 7, 2022

Can you help, sir?

BU research, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, Uncategorized Edwin van Teijlingen

Working in South Asia over the past two decades I have learnt to expect emails asking for help.  Often from people I have met perhaps just once or twice or who are my friends on Facebook or LinkedIn. I tried to help if I can, but often I can’t.  My friends and colleagues in Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have a slightly different idea of how UK officialdom works.  Perhaps they have a better and more realistic idea than I have, but that’s a different blog one day.

This week I wrote a reference for an employee of Green Tara Nepal, a charity we have been collaborating with for decades.   This is someone I have had general dealing with, not someone who work on one of our projects.  I have had interesting research discussions with her in  Kathmandu, so I was happy to write her a reference.  This morning I received a request via Facebook from someone from Nepal whom I have been advising on a number of job applications in Australia and the UK.  On my advice, he had recently applied to a post at a university in London.  Yesterday I asked me what to do as he had not heard from them.  I advised him to email HR at that university and ask for an update.  This morning his question was: “Can you ask them on my behalf, Sir”.  I kindly replied: “Sorry, not my university”, not going into confidentiality issues, the data protection act, etc.

What I find fascinating as a sociologist is the ‘traditional society’ thinking behind these questions, which must be something along the lines of: “Edwin is in a senior position, he must be powerful, hence, he has influence in high places.  I know him so he can help me achieve my goals.”   The interesting other side of the coin is, of course, that if I do something, speak to someone on their behalf, write a reference or recommendation, etc. and the person is successful this success is (partly) attributed to me.  And when I say that that’s not the way decision-making works in the UK, it is likely to be regarded as false modesty.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH)

Tags: advice Bangladesh Edwin-blog-post india Nepal Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen Professor research support sociology South Asia

Related Posts

  • What makes a Bournemouth University publication?November 12, 2019
  • 2021: More COVID-19 publicationsJanuary 13, 2021
  • Latest Nepal publication CMMPHDecember 7, 2019
  • New paper on federalisation of health system in NepalJune 17, 2022

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • First FHSS PGR Student ConferenceJune 7, 2023
  • An image of the Fusion Building on BU's Talbot Campus BU Research Conference – one week to go!June 7, 2023
  • BU and University of Cambridge Collaboration on Traffic PredictionJune 6, 2023
  • Centre for Midwifery & Women’s HealthJune 6, 2023
  • June 1, 2023 (Post-)war memory & media politics, Kosovo – international guest lecture, Wed 7th JuneJune 5, 2023
  • YMCA Bournemouth to present at Community Voices webinar June 14th 12-1pmJune 5, 2023
  • RIPEN Hub Funding Calls LiveMay 30, 2023
  • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 Call Information WebinarsMay 29, 2023
  • RDS Funding Development Briefings- AHRC focus 24th May 2023May 19, 2023
  • British Academy Funding for public engagement for humanities and social sciencesMay 16, 2023
  • Funding Opportunity – Interdisciplinary Assessment CollegeMay 5, 2023
  • Horizon Europe MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships – Internal DeadlineMay 4, 2023
  • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023 Call Information WebinarsMay 29, 2023
  • BU Team visit Esslingen University for one last ERASMUS opportunityMay 5, 2023
  • Horizon Europe MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships – Internal DeadlineMay 4, 2023
  • HE policy update for the w/e 28th April 2023May 2, 2023
  • Funding Development Briefings and UKRO visitApril 24, 2023
  • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023April 18, 2023

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Dr. Pramod Regmi Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HE-BCI
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • research governance
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • research methods
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2023. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use