Are you continuing to suffer from long term symptoms of COVID-19?
We are looking for participants to take part in two separate COVID-19 studies, examining things like symptoms and daily activities and memory loss and concentration.
We would like to hear from those with continued symptoms of COVID-19 who have interests in one or both of the following:
1 – Tracking symptoms of COVID-19 and how they impact daily activities (remote study with 2 face-to-face assessment visits on campus).
BU Lecturers in Law Jamie Fletcher and Karolina Szopa write for The Conversation about the legal status of abortion in the UK, following the overturning of Roe v Wade in the US…
UK abortion laws are more precarious than they seem – replacing the Human Rights Act could unsettle them further
The state of abortion laws in the US has many in the UK wondering about reproductive rights in their own country. While abortion is largely accessible in the UK, its legal status is more precarious than many understand. Whichever government is in power next, it has the ability to either solidify abortion access or put it further into jeopardy. With this in mind, the next prime minister should reconsider plans to replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with the proposed bill of rights.
In June 2022, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab introduced the bill of rights bill, which, if passed, will repeal and replace the Human Rights Act. When asked about inserting a right to abortion in the bill of rights, Raab said this wasn’t necessary, claiming that abortion is “settled in UK law”. Without the Human Rights Act, however, abortion in the UK is far from settled.
This is because no law created by parliament is ever truly settled. This is a principle of the British constitution known as parliamentary sovereignty. Parliament is free to pass laws on any issue without being limited by an existing law created by a previous parliament, or any court. This differs from the US, where courts can strike down laws if they conflict with the constitution.
Applied to abortion, this means parliament can legislate any new abortion laws it desires. No court of law or authority could prevent parliament from arriving at a new legal position that would restrict or prohibit abortion access.
The legal status of abortion access in the UK, through the Abortion Act 1967, is more precarious than common understanding. Having an abortion is still a criminal act. A 19th-century law, which remains in place, states that any woman who intends to cause her own miscarriage commits a criminal offence that can result in life imprisonment.
The Abortion Act merely creates a limited exception when two doctors agree that the abortion is necessary and approve the procedure within 24 weeks of conception. At least two women in England and Wales are currently being prosecuted for illegally procuring abortions.
Separate legislation, passed in 2019, removes criminality for abortion in Northern Ireland. Still, due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, this legislation lacks any degree of permanency. The right to access abortion in Northern Ireland remains as fragile as in the rest of the UK.
The law granting a right to abortion access in Northern Ireland is re-voted on every year in the House of Commons. Votes in 2020, 2021 and 2022 show that around 25% of MPs are consistently opposed to abortion rights. If political winds change in the future, this percentage might increase and bring forward the true extent of this fragility.
Abortion and the Human Rights Act
Raab’s claim that abortion law is settled might have been based on European human rights law, which applies in the UK through the Human Rights Act. However, this would be incorrect – European human rights law, so far, has offered only minimal protection to abortion access. The right to private and family life enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) protects personal autonomy and bodily integrity.
Because the issue of abortion raises difficult moral questions over when life begins, the European Court of Human Rights has left it to each country to determine its own laws on abortion. This approach has been applied to other issues including same-sex marriage. Baroness Hale, during her time on the supreme court, remarked that the European court has given countries an “unusual” amount of leeway to determine their abortion laws.
The European court has made it clear that where a pregnancy would directly endanger a pregnant person’s life, their safety must take priority over the life of the foetus. Nonetheless, the court has yet to intervene in countries with restrictive abortion laws, such as Malta, Liechtenstein or Poland.
Domestic law and the power of the courts
Domestic human rights law, on the other hand, offers some support to Raab’s claim of abortion being settled. In a 2018 ruling, the UK supreme court held that domestic laws restricting access to abortions in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality would be interpreted as being incompatible with the ECHR right to private and family life.
This interpretation of the right to privacy effectively limited Parliament’s ability to pass more restrictive abortion laws. But it was only possible due to the Human Rights Act, which grants UK judges interpretive powers when it comes to human rights law.
The new bill of rights purports to enhance UK courts’ ability to make judgments like the one described above, by declaring that European Court of Human Rights case law will no longer be “part of domestic law”.
But what it actually does is restrict the courts’ powers when it comes to the European Convention on Human Rights. The bill only permits the creation or expansion of new rights when domestic courts view it as being “beyond reasonable doubt” that the European Court will change its previous decided position on the issue.
There is presently not enough evidence to suggest “beyond reasonable doubt” that the European court will change its current legal framework on abortion. This would mean that under the bill of rights, a future UK supreme court would be prevented from reading Article 8 as requiring access to abortion in certain cases, as it did in 2018. Domestic courts would no longer be able to protect access to abortion in the UK and would return the issue almost entirely to parliament and political winds.
While there might be some support for the claim that abortion is sufficiently protected in law, this will be greatly undermined if the Human Rights Act is repealed. The next prime minister could commit to including a provision within the Bill of Rights specifically aimed at protecting abortion rights – or even better, reverse course entirely and keep the Human Rights Act in place.
If you’re interested in sharing your scientific research with a friendly public audience – complete our form.
We’re currently organising our series of Café Scientifique events for Sept 2022 – July 2023 and we’re looking for people interested in getting involved. Café Scientifique is a public event format, popular around the world, where anyone can come along to explore the latest research in science and technology in a casual café setting. Following a short presentation by a researcher, there is plenty of time for questions and discussion from a varied public audience.
Taking place on a weekday evening, Café Scientifique events run monthly from June (excepting August and January). They’re organised centrally by the BU Public Engagement with Research Team, part of Research Development and Support (RDS). It’s a fantastic opportunity to get experience in engaging with the public in a friendly atmosphere and gain surprising insights into your own work.
We welcome academics at all career stages, although this is particularly valuable for those just getting started in engaging with the public. We also encourage collaboration between less experienced and more experienced public speakers – to provide a valuable learning experience with the support to keep things going smoothly.
Regarding your research – although we use a broad definition of ‘science’, the audience do have certain expectations from the name, so we do not tend to feature research outside of the broad ‘science’ theme.
Whether we will be able to host your talk, and at the time you want, depends on several factors including the subject matter, timing and other events, so completing this form does not guarantee you will be able to take part. If everything does align, we will be in touch to invite you to speak at an upcoming event.
Other ways to get involved
We’re looking to involve a wider range of people from across BU to make our Café Scientifique series a success and a true BU community project. As well as speaking, you could get involved in a number of flexible ways;
Hosting events – every Cafe Sci event needs a host – to welcome the audience, introduce the speakers and keep the questions flowing. This is a great opportunity for someone to develop skills and experience interacting with the public, as well as being an enjoyable way to meet other people.
Helping to organise events – whether it’s finding speakers, helping polish a presentation, promoting these events far and wide and more – we’d welcome any BU staff or students who’d like to help out with various bits behind the scenes on these events. This is a great way to dip your toes in the world of public engagement, gain experience in organising events and work on a fun project with others across BU.
If you have any questions about speaking at, or are interested in helping to host or organise these events, then please get in touch with the public engagement team at publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk. There’s no commitment, we can start from there and see what would work best for everyone.
Please join us for the first Community Voices webinar to consider the inequalities in South Dorset where much of our practice and research is conducted.
Part of our role within the Centre for Seldom Heard Voices is to use our platform to amplify seldom heard voices. In collaboration with the BU PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership, we engage with many community groups, organisations, activists and campaigners who are conducting some wonderful work to promote inclusion and advance social justice across our region and further afield. In the first of our Community Voices Seminar series, we welcome the South Dorset Research Group to share and discuss their Forgotten Towns report (flyer attached)
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Kate Jupp and I have recently been appointed as the new PIER Officer. Although the PIER (Public Involvement in Education and Research) partnership sits within HSS, my new post, focussing on research, is BU wide.
My clinical, research and education experience is as a physiotherapist and rehabilitation specialist in long-term, complex neurological disability. My particular interest is the impact the need to use augmentative and alternative communication has on the individual, and those important to them.
I am passionate about enabling meaningful public involvement in research, education, practice, and service development. I have led projects in primary, secondary and higher education, as well as social and health care settings.
I am delighted to be joining Mel, Pete, and Angela, at what is an exciting time for advancing meaningful public involvement in research across the university; supporting researchers to build and nurture relationships with individuals with lived experience, and community organisations to enhance the impact of their work. I look forward to meeting and working with you.
The Doctoral College team have been delighted with the nominations that have come in recently for the ‘Doctoral College Outstanding Contribution Awards’. We wish to extend our congratulations to all recipients who have recently received their award certificate.
Here are some of the heartfelt nominations we have received:
“She is an outstanding supervisor, superb at challenging me, supporting the development of my research/critical thinking skills. She is incredibly knowledgeable and has provided me with outstanding levels of support and stellar guidance during my PhD journey so far.”
“He truly is outstanding, not only for being an inspiration, but also for exceeding the dedication and work he puts forth for all his students. He is very engaging, encouraging and a brilliant well of knowledge; I am honored to have been under his supervision as a mentor to look-up to academically, professionally and as a person.”
“From his vast knowledge and perception to his motivation and dedication, he truly is an outstanding supervisor and role model.”
“Demonstrating extraordinary support and assistance towards students, faculty and staff, she is the go-to person, a true ambassador of the University. Resourceful, caring and dedicated, she goes above and beyond to create the best experience and environment for all.”
“It has always been a pleasure working with her as a PGR and as an academic staff member. She provides the best advice in the most difficult situations.”
Why not make someone’s day and take five minutes and nominate a PGR, academic or professional staff member for a Doctoral College Outstanding Contribution Award to say thanks and give recognition for their hard work?
These awards recognise the outstanding contributions to postgraduate research degrees at BU by any PGR, academic or professional staff member. They can be nominated throughout the year by any member of the postgraduate research community to anyone that they feel is exceptional, has exceeded expectations, and has had a positive impact on the postgraduate research culture at BU.
Eligibility
You can nominate anyone involved in postgraduate research at Bournemouth University to receive an award certificate. There are no award criteria, as long as the submission falls within the guidelines, whoever you’ve selected will receive a Doctoral College Outstanding Contribution Award!
How to nominate
We’ve made it really easy for you to nominate someone for a Doctoral College Outstanding Contribution Award – it’s just a short online nomination form!
The UK Research Office (UKRO) have shared information about UK success rates in 2021 MSCA Staff Exchange Call, which closed on 9 March 2022. The Research Executive Agency (REA) has confirmed the number of successful UK-led proposals.
This is especially interesting because BU has excellent news – Associate Professor Jeffery Bray has been successful with his submitted proposal FoodMAPP (Local Food supply communicated through a transactional searchable MAP based APPlication). This proposal was submitted to Economic Sciences Panel and was the only UK-led proposal awarded by this panel.
FoodMAPP involves 8 organisations from 7 countries. Congratulations Jeff!
A total of 209 proposals from 28 countries were submitted in response to this call.
UKRO understands that UK organisations submitted 29 applications, of which 9 applications were retained for funding. This corresponds to a success rate of 4.31%. The successful applications have been submitted to the following panels:
Information Science and Engineering (ENG): 6
Economic Sciences (ECO): 1
Physics (PHY): 1
Environment and Geosciences (ENV): 1
In addition, UK institutions participated in 141 evaluated proposals, out of which 52 were retained for funding.
REA is expected to sign the grant agreements with successful applicants by November 2022.
The 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) Call deadline is approaching (14 September 2022).
As announced earlier, BU internal deadline for submission of e-ItB forms for this year’s call is this week – 15 July 2022.
The Guide for Applicants and other related guidance documentation can be found in the ‘Conditions and documents’ section of the call page.
With queries related to MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 Call please contact Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums. My colleague Sara will support majority of BU academics with costing and other services provided by Funding Development Officers.
My name is Sulochana Dhakal-Rai. I am a final-year PhD student at Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS). My PhD research is related to factors affecting the rising rate of CS in urban hospitals in Nepal. There are several reasons to choose BU to do PhD study. Firstly, this university offers strong professional orientation with focus on academic excellence and employability to multinational students from multicultural background. Secondly, it provides opportunities to students for undertaking different activities, for example – international student exchange programme. I am always keen to be involved in such types of activities for my personal and professional development.
I applied for Turing Scheme Fund to do research activities in Nepal. The application process was very easy. I had received positive support from my supervisors and team of international grants. I was delighted to participate in international mobility, because I had a chance not only sharing my research experience to student and teachers at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS), Kathmandu, but also to do my own research activities (secondary data verification and analysis).
Although, it was hot weather, polluted and over-crowded in Kathmandu, I enjoyed eating Nepali cuisine, meeting own people and speaking Nepali language. For me, there was not any problem in local language and culture. However, it was uncomfortable using public transport at times. I had suffered from of an episode of indigestion problem as well.
I loved meeting students and teachers of MMIHS. During my stay in MMIHS, I had the opportunity to share experience about my research study, using mixed methods in research study and my experience working as a foreign nurse in UK to relevant teachers and students. They were really good and inspiring people. I always received respect and support from them while I was there.
After this international activity, I have learnt how to work with people from different organisation and different place. I have developed my confidence in employability and career skills. I would like to express my thanks to Bournemouth University for providing me such a golden opportunity. I strongly recommend to other student at Bournemouth University to participate these kinds of international mobility programmes.
The purpose of the study was to present the first stage of work being undertaken to develop and evaluate a maturity framework designed to assess and benchmark the effectiveness, ability to achieve continuous improvement, and optimise processes and functioning of food safety regulatory and enforcement agencies across the world.
To achieve this aim, a comparison of global food safety regulations (desk review), and Delphi-interviews with stakeholders of food safety regulatory and enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, Ireland, and USA were carried out. There were 4 members in the panel – each member had a minimum of twenty years of experience in the food regulatory world. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic-related lockdown, the panel was interviewed individually using MS Teams. 2 rounds of interviews were carried out. At the end of the first round, data was analysed using inductive, textual data analysis. A report was presented to each panel member, following which, a second round if individual interviews were carried out. This enabled us (the research team) to overcome the limitations posed by global lockdowns and social distancing measures, while carrying out a robust iterative process. Through inductive, textual data analysis, three dimensions and thirteen sub-dimensions were identified that covered cultural and systems elements influencing the quality and impact of food safety regulations across the world as well as the gaps identified by the stakeholders.
The conclusions of the study were that whilst there was broad support by food safety regulators for developing a benchmarking and evaluation framework for food safety regulatory and enforcement agencies, there were also some outstanding challenges such as defining globally applicable measures, buy-in from specialised agencies and senior management to adopt a maturity framework to change the culture within regulatory agencies, and the role played by governments in influencing the efficiency and functioning of regulatory systems.
Last month Ph.D. student Sulochana Dhakal-Rai in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) returned from her successful trip to Nepal. Sulochana was awarded funding for her traineeship ‘Induction and sensitisation to field research health in Nepal.’ She presented at sessions organised for M.Sc. Nursing students at Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Science (MMIHS) in Kathmandu. The feedback she received helped her prepare for her fieldwork in Nepal, moreover it was especially helpful in focusing her qualitative analysis of the thesis data. Soluchana also met with various academics at MMIHS to exchange ideas and research plans. Sulochana also took the opportunity to visit staff in maternity hospitals which are taking part in the Ph.D. research study which focuses on ‘The Rising Rates of Caesarean Section in Urban Nepal’. Sulochana has three FHSS supervisors, Dr. Juliet Wood, Dr. Pramod Regmi and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as well as Nepal-based supervisors Dr. Ganesh Dangel (FHSS Visiting Faculty) and Dr. Keshar Bahadur Dhakal.
Sulochana also contributed to a one-day workshop introducing systematic reviews as a methodology which ran on Sunday 29th May. This event was jointly organised between MMIHS and Bournemouth University as part Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen’s visit to Nepal.
Are you thinking about being a peer reviewer but aren’t sure where to start? Are you concerned that you don’t have enough experience to review a manuscript for a journal?
Click on the link below to find out the ten easy things you can do to prepare to be a reviewer and put yourself in a position to start reviewing. Some of these are so simple you can do them in the next five minutes. Get started now!
Are you interested in Mental Health Research and engaging with researchers across Wessex?
Join us for a seminar (6 October 2022) given by Professor Sam Chamberlain, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Southampton and NIHR ARC Wessex Mental Health Research Hub Lead.
He will highlight projects currently supported through the Mental Research Hub, as part of the NIHR ARC Wessex. The Hub aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines and partners throughout the region to plan and conduct research and look at ways to implement findings at the point of care. It also encourages and support new research talent through mentorship, internships, a summer school, and new post-doctoral positions.
This seminar will provide a valuable opportunity to find out more about the Mental Health Research Hub, engage with researchers in Wessex to develop new research and potentially be involved with current projects.
Please sign up asap using this Eventbrite link (venue to be confirmed)
Postgraduate researchers and supervisors, hopefully you have seen your monthly update for the researcher development e-newsletter sent last week. If you have missed it, please check your junk email or you can view it within the Researcher Development Programme on Brightspace.
The start of the month is a great time to reflect on your upcoming postgraduate researcher development needs and explore what is being delivered this month as part of the Doctoral College Researcher Development Programme and what is available via your Faculty or Department. Remember some sessions only run once per year, so don’t miss out.
A 3-day training on the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) technique has recently taken place, led by Dr Gonzalo Nápoles of Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Five BUBS academics belonging to the Digital Marketing Research Group participated in the training: Dr. Miguel Moital (organiser), Dr. Elvira Bolar (Leader of the group), Dr. Ediz Ackay, Dr. Danni Liang, and Dr. Kaouther Kooli. The training was funded by QR funds and was an opportunity to develop skills on a versatile and upcoming research technique, which is expected to be welcomed by high quality journals.
The FCM technique is a cause-effect relationship knowledge-based method for modelling complex decision-making systems of humans. It emerges from a combination of cognitive mapping and Fuzzy logic and artificial neural network, and this method is increasingly used in social sciences and humanities research. FCM is suitable to both data generated by the researcher as well as big data. The technique can be applied to a variety of research settings, such as consumer behaviour, organisational decision making and social/public policy decision-making.
Participants unanimously considered to have learned a lot over the three days. Dr Nápoles was able to explain the complexity of FCM principles in an accessible way, with engaging discussions taking place around how the technique can be used in social sciences / marketing research. Participants agreed that the ability of FCM to answer different research questions while enabling looking at the data in different ways opens up many opportunities for research. Plans for future collaboration with Dr. Nápoles at both individual and institutional level were discussed.
Dr Gonzalo Nápoles, from the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences (Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence), is a leading contributor to the development of the technique, having several publications on it. He is the lead developer of the FCM EXPERT software tool which can be used to carry out FCM analysis.
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)
The workshop INDIA@75 celebrates the 75th anniversary of Indian independence and the myriad facets of the UK-India bilateral relationship, which is poised at a critical point this year with the Free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations going ahead towards a Diwali timeline.
The workshop also examines the growing role and importance of India at the Commonwealth and the multilateral level at the WTO. The FTA talks are expected to the central to the wide ranging deliberations and interactions but will also touch on the trade and economic exchanges that touch on all areas of lives from the cultural and creative collaboration in crucial sectors such as climate change, healthcare, technology, innovation and much more, with the Indian diaspora in the UK acting as the living bridge of this deep bond.
For this event, the keynote speakers and members of the panel include specialists from international trade, UN Sustainable Development Goals and IB fields. The workshop will include both academics and practitioners, and provide meaningful insight and impact, for fusing policy, business and trade within the context of ever growing UK-India relationship.
We also invite researchers, doctoral research students and collaborators, who will pick up key themes and findings from the workshop, to attend and facilitate research culminating in a series of Policy Briefs and research papers for submission to appropriate 3-star journals.
Refreshments will be provided, including lunch.
Host institution: Centre for Trade, Development and Transition Economics, Bournemouth University
The 
The 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) 
New weight change BU paper
One week to go! | The 16th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference
Geography and Environmental Studies academics – would you like to get more involved in preparing our next REF submission?
Congratulations to three former BU staff
MSCA Staff Exchanges 2024 Call – internal deadline
Applications are now open for 2025 ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships!
Horizon Europe – ERC CoG and MSCA SE webinars
MaGMap: Mass Grave Mapping
ERC grants – series of webinars