Yearly Archives / 2022

Conversation article: Mosquitoes might be attracted to certain colours – new research

Dr Cassandra Edmunds writes for The Conversation about new research which explored mosquitoes’ attraction to different colours…

Mosquitoes might be attracted to certain colours – new research

Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

Cassandra Edmunds, Bournemouth University

There’s no question that finding yourself covered in mosquito bites quickly takes the shine off a pleasant summer evening. But mosquitoes are more than a nuisance. They’re also the deadliest creatures on Earth, owing to the diseases they spread.

A lot of research on mosquitoes is dedicated to understanding their behaviour and preferences for who they bite. Vision is an important sense in biting insects, including mosquitoes. Although they don’t rely on their vision alone – smell and temperature work with visual cues to help mosquitoes locate a host.

Previous research has sought to link particular colours (or the wavelengths of light which we see as distinct colours) to mosquitoes’ host-seeking behaviour. However, the results have been mixed, with the same mosquito species showing preferences for different colours in different studies.

A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications is the latest to explore mosquitoes’ attraction to different colours. Could this research tell us how to avoid being bitten simply by adjusting the colours we wear? Let’s take a look.

The researchers conducted a series of experiments on three disease-spreading mosquito species: primarily Aedes aegypti, but also Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus.

In one experiment they used a wind tunnel equipped with cameras to track the mosquitoes’ flight patterns. The tunnel was designed to encourage them to behave as naturally as possible.

On the floor of the tunnel were two small coloured spots; one to represent the colour (wavelength) of interest and a control (white). Some of the colour samples were chosen to mimic different skin tones, including one to represent the colour of tanning lotion.

In mosquitoes, only the females bite, because in most species they require a blood meal to complete the reproductive process. So 50 mated but unfed female mosquitoes were released into the wind tunnel, where they would naturally search for a host.

After an hour carbon dioxide (CO₂) was released into the wind tunnel. CO₂ is exhaled by humans and other mammals. While it’s odourless to us, mosquitoes can smell it and use this scent to help guide them to a source of blood.

Seeing red

Before the odour stimulus was released, the Ae. aegypti mosquitoes largely ignored the coloured circles on the floor, instead exploring the ceiling and the walls of the tunnel. But once CO₂ had been introduced they started to investigate the coloured circles, particularly as the wavelength increased from 510 nanometres (nm) to 660nm.

These longer wavelengths represent colours in the orange and red end of the spectrum, though the Ae. aegypti mosquitoes were most attracted to the red, and then black. Notably, these orange to red wavelengths are the same as those given off from human skin tones. Blue, green and violet weren’t any more attractive to the mosquitoes than the control.

When the skin tone spots were used, they were more attractive to the mosquitoes than the control, but no preference was observed for any particular skin tone.

A mosquito on skin.
The researchers wanted to explore the role of colours in attracting mosquitoes.
nechaevkon/Shutterstock

Previous experiments have shown mosquitoes are more attracted to contrasting colours, like a chequerboard pattern, than one solid colour. The researchers also showed the mosquitoes different spots against both similar and contrasting backgrounds. Ae. aegypti were more interested in spots with a high contrast to the background. Scientists believe this helps the mosquitoes distinguish between an object (person) and the background, even in low light. The contrast was more important in attracting the mosquitoes than the colour itself.

Similar to Ae. aegypti, An. stephensi were attracted to black and red, with little interest in the lower wavelengths. Cx. quinquefasciatus showed interest in violet/blue and red (interestingly, opposite ends of the tested spectrum).

The researchers conducted a separate experiment in insect cages to explore the mosquitoes’ attraction to real skin tones. Six volunteers from different ethnic backgrounds were recruited to help with this test. The control was a white glove in one window and the volunteers’ hands were held one at a time in the other window to see if the mosquitoes were attracted to any particular skin tone.

The mosquitoes were more attracted to the hands than the white glove, but as with the dots, there wasn’t a preference for a particular skin tone.

What does this all mean?

This study shows that mosquitoes are attracted to the colours found in human skin, but only in the presence of CO₂, suggesting the smell of human or mammal respiration may act as the initial cue. This confirms previous research which has found CO₂ attracts mosquitoes.

The researchers found that colour and contrast were important factors for Ae. aegypti who showed a preference for red, then black. An. Stephensi were interested in colours similar to Ae aegypti, though preferring black over red. Meanwhile, Cx. quinquefasciatus were interested in a range of colours.

As the researchers recognised, their experiments didn’t account for some of the other factors that affect mosquitoes’ choice of host. These include chemicals released from human skin, the temperature of the skin, and sweat on the skin. It would be interesting for future experiments to include these factors.

So what does this mean for the average person who doesn’t want to get bitten? You could try wearing white, blue or green and avoiding black, red and orange. Definitely avoid red and black checked patterns. If there are plenty of mosquitoes on your property, pest control experts wisconsin can help.

While adjusting your clothing may reduce your risk of being bitten, there’s no guarantee it will, or how effective this will be, particularly given the apparent variation in colour preferences between species. But these findings do suggest that with more research, colour could potentially be used as a tool in mosquito control.The Conversation A professional from Moxie Pest Control Tulsa will be able to tell you what exact issue you have and can come up with a customized solution as well.

Cassandra Edmunds, Lecturer in Forensic Biology, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

English Language Support

Student Engagement, Training

English Language Support

We are delighted that Kevin Hunt has joined BU as Language Learning Manager & EAP Tutor until the end of June 2022.  All English Language Support services have resumed, and students can register and book via the Languages@BU area in Brightspace:

Please encourage your international students to make use of these excellent services to support their studies. The first workshop is on Tenses, with more to follow in the coming weeks.

PGR Supervisory Lunchbites | UKCGE Route to Recognition for Supervisory Practice

PG research

Hosted by the Doctoral College, these one hour online lunch bite sessions supplement the regular New and Established Supervisory Development Sessions and are aimed at all academic staff who are new to, or experienced at, supervising research degree students and are interested in expanding their knowledge of a specific aspect or process in research degree supervision.

Each session will be led by a senior academic who will introduce the topic, and staff will benefit from discussions aimed at sharing best practice from across BU. Bookings are arranged by Organisational Development.

This session provides an introduction to the UK Council for Graduate Education’s (UKCGE) Good Supervisory Practice Framework and the Research Supervision Recognition Programme which allows established supervisors to gain recognition for this challenging, but rewarding, role.

This discussion will be led Dr Martyn Polkinghorne, UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor, BUBS: Principal Academic, FLIE: Education Excellence Theme Leader, TeachBU: Academic Lead.

Staff attending will be able to: 

  • use the Framework to navigate the wide-ranging, highly complex and demanding set of roles that modern research supervisors must undertake to perform the role effectively
  • reflect on their own practice, compared to a benchmark of good practice
  • identify strengths and weaknesses and build upon the former and address the latter with targeted professional development
  • work towards recognition of their expertise by a national body.

Further details on the session as well as information on future lunchbite sessions can also be found on the staff intranet.

Date: Wednesday 2 March 2022

Time: 13:00 – 14:00, Teams

To book a place on this session please complete the booking form.

Further details and future sessions can also be found on the Supervisory Development Lunchbite Sessions staff intranet page.

FHSS PhD Student on BBC’s ‘The One Show’

PG research

FHSS postgraduate research student, Shel Silva, will be featured on BBC’s ‘The One Show’ from 19:00 on Thursday 24 February 2022 as part of the ‘One Big Thank-You’ piece.  

Shel has nominated Dr Ian Mew from DocBike for the ‘One Big Thank-You’ for his service to DocBike and the motorcycling community. This piece will shine a spotlight on the research project Shel Silva is completing at BU with match-funder DocBike exploring motorcycle collisions and injury prevention.

 

Understanding and benefiting from EU evaluation reports

This post continues series of blog posts on institutional learning from funder feedback. Today’s topic – understanding and benefiting from EU evaluation reports.

EU’s Horizon Europe, as well as previous framework programmes, stands out by always providing useful funder feedback known as Evaluation Summary Report (ESR). This document is available on EU Funding and Tender opportunities portal for all registered applicants at any time regardless of the outcome of their application.

If rejection decision has been made, the Commission will notify proposal coordinator if their proposal has been rejected because:

  • it is found to be inadmissible or ineligible (before or during the evaluation)
  • it falls short of the relevant thresholds
  • it is too far down the ranked list to qualify for the limited amount of funding available
  • if it fails to obtain ethics clearance, following an ethics review, or
  • it raises security concerns.

After the finalisation of the evaluation, all applicants will receive the ESR (they may also call it Proposal Evaluation Form). The layout of provided feedback may differ depending on particular funding stream you have applied for. However, there are common features applicable to all ESRs containing general information related to the call and your application, abstract, total score, scoring by each criterion and evaluators’ comments indicating strengths and weakness of the proposed project.

If you decide to resubmit your proposal to another call, considering the feedback provided in ESR will be extremely important because funders may expect a substantial change to your application. More about resubmissions you may find in our blog published on Tuesday this week.

Professor Jian Chang has been successful in submitting applications as a supervisor to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, here is what he says about ESR: ‘Evaluation Summary Report is really useful document, especially if you resubmit your application to repeating call. Information provided in this document explains both strengths and weaknesses of your proposal, so you can focus on necessary improvements and save a lot of time for developing successful application.’

BU academics can find real-life example of the EU Evaluation Summary Report on Brightspace. RDS has a practice to analyse examples of feedback from funders during workshops dedicated to specific funding calls as well as supporting academics individually to facilitate improvement and resubmission of rejected applications.

For further support, feel free to get in touch with your Research Facilitator.

NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 31st March 2022

Funding opportunities, NHS, writing

  

Dear colleagues

– Do you have a great idea for research in health, social care or public health?
– Are you planning to submit a grant application to NIHR?

Our popular seminar continues online and will take place on Thursday 31st March 2022 from 10.00am – 12.30pm.

The seminar provides an overview of NIHR funding opportunities and research programme remits, requirements and application processes. We will give you top tips for your application and answer specific questions with experienced RDS South West advisers.

We will also be joined by colleagues from the NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme. They will be talking about the HTA programme, the nature of the projects that it funds, tips for success and any upcoming changes.

We also have a limited number of 20-minute 1-to-1 appointments available after the seminar should you wish to discuss your proposed study with an RDS adviser.

Find out more and book a place.

Your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

We can help with your application. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.

Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice

Feel free to call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

Rejection is the norm

In academic life rejection is the norm, for both journal articles and grant applications, the average academic is more likely to fail than to succeed at any time.  This can also be true, although to a lesser extent, for applications to present at academic conferences.  At the time of writing this blog (12 February 2022), I have 299 published papers listed on the databases SCOPUS.  Of these nearly 300 papers only two papers ever were accepted on first submission as submitted.  Most papers went through one or two rounds revision in the light of comments and critique offered by reviewers, and sometimes also additional feedback from the journal’s editor.

After rejection by the first journal, your paper needs to be rewritten before submitting it to another journal.  Obviously, this process of rewriting and resubmitting takes time as different journals have different styles, lay-outs, sub-headings, audiences, and often peculiar ways of referencing.  I would guess more than half of my papers have been through the review process of at least two journals.  Quite a few of my published papers were accepted by the third or even fourth journal to which we had submitted them.  Persistence is the name of the game.   Some paper fell by the wayside often after second submission, if especially if review process had been time-consuming and the reviewers very critical and demanding too many changes.

Peer review can be very good and constructive but also brutal and destructive.  Blind peer-review is a fair process as it means the quality of the paper is all that counts in getting accepted.  I have had the pleasure of being co-author on papers rejected by journals for which I was: the book review editor at the time (Sociological Research Online), on the journal’s editorial board at the time of submission (e.g. Midwifery, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology), one of journal’s Associate Editors (BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth) and, to top it all, on which I was one of the two editors (Asian Journal of Midwives).   

Grant applications in the UK have a one in eight to one in ten chance of success.  Most of our successful grant applications have been resubmissions, with attempts to improve the application each time in the light of reviewers’ comments.  For example, our successful application to THET (Tropical Health & Education Trust) resulted in the funded project ‘Mental Health Training for Rural Community-based Maternity Care Workers in Nepal‘ [1], led by Bournemouth University (see picture).  This THET project was organised by Tribhuvan University in collaboration with Bournemouth University and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).  However, I was only successful during our second submission.  Our first submission was rejected the year before with feedback that our partner organisation in Nepal was deemed to be too small.  In the resubmission we changed to work with colleagues at Tribhuvan University, the oldest and largest university in Nepal. Apart from some further, but minor changes, this was really the main change between the rejected and the successful application.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The situation for conferences is slightly better, the success rate for an application to present a paper or poster are higher. This is partly because conference organisers realise that most academics are unlikely to get funding from their institution unless they present something.  Conferences are often themed and submitted abstracts are peer-reviewed.  This makes in important to write a clear abstract, focusing in on the conference theme.[1]  In the past I have had the honour of being rejected to present a paper at a BSA Medical Sociology Conference, whist I was on the organising committee.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

References

  1. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen E., Hundley, V., Simkhada, BD. (2013) Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Kathmandu University Medical Journal 11(3): 262-65. http://www.kumj.com.np/issue/43/262-265.pdf

 

 

 

Apply now for a cluster of postgraduate researchers and postdoctoral research fellows

Funding opportunities, PG research

RESEARCH CAPACITY TRANSFORMATION SCHEME – Call for expressions of interest

Apply now for a cluster of postgraduate researchers and postdoctoral research fellows – closing date for EoIs on 7th March

Bournemouth University’s (BU) recognises that postgraduate researchers (PGRs) and postdoctoral research fellows (PDRFs) are critical to a high performing research environment. Working under the direction of academic research leadership, they provide academic staff with research capacity, which enables the production of research outputs, strengthens research impact, and increases grant bidding.

 

Key information

The Research Capacity Transformation Investment Scheme is focused on building capacity to undertake cutting-edge research securing external research funding. A cluster hiring approach will be used to appoint inter- and/or multi-disciplinary teams of PDRFs and PGRs that focus on a common theme to create “clusters” undertaking strategically important and targeted research. The scheme will invest in:

  • 10 PDRFs and 10 PGRs in September 2022, across 2-5 clusters
  • 5 PDRFs and 5 PGRs in September 2023, across 1-2 clusters.

The clusters need to build critical mass in areas of research strength and provide a team-based, fused experience for PDRFs and PGRs that is anchored in one or more existing high performing entities, such as Research Centres or Institutes. Applications must include external match-fund partners for the PGR studentships.

Full details of the scheme, including the policy document, can be found on BU’s staff intranet.

Application Process

The application process will be in two stages:

To ensure there is timely progress, Research Development & Support and the Doctoral College will manage the funding application process 2022, with oversight of the recruitment process.

The indicative timetable for the 2022 allocation and recruitment is as follows:

Date Action
Monday 7th March 2022 Closing date for submission of EoIs (see Appendix 1) at 12 noon
Monday 21st March 2022 Successful applicants invited to provide a full application form (see Appendix 2)

Unsuccessful applicants notified
Monday 25th April 2022 Closing date for submission of full applications at 12 noon
w/c Monday 16th May 2022 Successful outcomes announced and recruitment to commence

Unsuccessful applicants notified
June 2022 Adverts for positions to close
July 2022 Interviews and selection
From 1st September 2022 Successful PDRFs to start (funding available from 1 September 2022)
From  26 September 2022 or 23 January 2022 Successful PGRs to start (funding available from 26 September 2022 with an alternative start date of 23 January 2023)

 

Submission Deadline:

Before completing the EoI or full application form, please ensure that you have read all the relevant guidance (including the policy document) and information available on the Staff Intranet.

Applications should be emailed to researchcapacitytransformation@bournemouth.ac.uk before the following deadlines:

Monday 7th March 2022          Closing date for submission of EoIs at 12 noon

Monday 25th April 2022          Closing date for submission of full applications at 12 noon

 

Supporting Documentation

Recruitment of PGRs will be in line with the BU Match-Funded Studentship Allocative Process .

For additional queries, please email researchcapacitytransformation@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

FAQs

  • What can I request?
    • Each proposal should contain a request for a minimum of 2 PGRs and 2 PDRFs, to a maximum of 5 PGRs and 5 PDRFs, or any combination.
  • Do I have to find a match-funding partner for the PGR element of the scheme?
    • You must be able to produce evidence of external partners providing match-funds at the full application stage.
  • Why can’t I request funding for one PDRF or one PGR?
    • This scheme is intended to provide investment into research teams, rather than discrete pockets of activity.
  • What type of proposal is likely to be supported?
    • It is recommended that you review the criteria against which applications are assessed against to ensure that you demonstrate how your proposal meets the criteria.
    • Colleagues are reminded that reviewers of concepts are likely to be from a wider range of disciplinary areas. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you write your proposal is a way which is clear for all to understand and avoids highly technical or discipline specific language.
  • I’m still confused. Where do I go for help?

Managing rejection – part two

In yesterday’s post, we looked at the initial moment your application is rejected, and how to digest what’s happened. Today’s post will look at what to do once you’ve reflected on the feedback.

For your own sanity, the first thing to consider is whether it is worth pursuing further, or if time has moved on and it’s time for something new. Whatever, you decide, you know that time and planning is a big factor. Like a research project, you also need to map out your application preparation as a project, to ensure you have sufficient time to craft it into a fundable bid. If you need partners, this needs even more time to find the right ones, develop the relationship, and ensure it’s trusted and beneficial to the research.

Resubmissions

To be blunt, most funders will not accept a resubmission. Funder success rates are low enough without old applications being repeatedly submitted. You also shouldn’t expect a different result from doing the same thing. Funders will expect a substantial change to an application if you’re going to submit the same research as a new bid. If the only changes you make are in response to the reviewer comments then you’re 99% more likely to be rejected again, and possibly before it’s even gone to reviewers. If a funder has a ‘no resubmission’ policy, they will chuck out anything that looks like one (they know the tricks too, and so you can’t fool them by swapping personnel or changing the title).

If a funder does allow resubmissions or has invited one, you’ll need to declare this upfront. If you thoroughly revise the application, take the advice of your peers, and resubmit, you could be successful.

Submit to different funders

You may be tempted to submit to another funder. However, beware! The funder may have a whole different approach, criteria, priorities, and schemes. Remember that you tailored your application originally for a specific funding call or a funders priorities. You will still need to substantially revise your application. If you start moving sections to fit into new ones, you may undermine your message, and your research becomes unclear. We’re back to using the crowbar again.

New idea

If you decide that you want to make a fresh start, do think about the tips given above and in yesterday’s post, and employ these to your next bid.

Alternative funding opportunities can be found on Research Professional. All BU academics have an account.

In RDS, we can help you review your feedback and determine what steps you should take next. We’re building a bank of funder feedback and ensuring that our training and development for research reflects the most common weaknesses identified. More information will be provided in Friday’s post, written by Research Facilitator, Alex Pekalski.

This week’s research process seminar. Self-Reflexivity and co-presence in the affective research space. Tuesday 22nd Feb at 2pm on Zoom

You are warmly invited to this week’s research process seminar. Hosted in FMC but open to anyone interested: staff or research student.

Self-Reflexivity and co-presence in the affective research space by Dr Christopher Pullen (BU).

This session is about ‘immersion’ within research, or at least thinking about research.  It’s about crossing boundaries, if not borders, that divide the self from the research subject. Framing the notion of self reflexivity, I hope to make sense of moments, encounters, and unusual linkages, while crossing time and space.  When we place ourselves within the research frame, remembering different times, visiting different places, and seeing ourselves in counterpoint or in context to the subjects that we research, we attempt to understand, our motives, our commitments, and essentially ourselves.

Tuesday 22 Feb at 2pm on Zoom

https://bournemouth-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/9292103478?pwd=UzJnNTNQWDdTNldXdjNWUnlTR1cxUT09

Meeting ID: 929 210 3478

Passcode: rps!4fmc

Klaus Gramann giving a talk on 23 February

At 3pm on Wednesday this week (23 February), Prof Klaus Gramann will give a talk in Psychology’s research seminar series. Klaus is based in Berling Institute of Technology and is a world-leading expert in mobile brain/body imaging. In this talk, Klaus will inspire us with his recent research using mobile EEG in virtual reality (VR) to study naturalistic human behaviour and neural processing. Klaus was invited by Dr Xun He (Head of Bournemouth EEG Lab, Psychology). Klaus’s expertise and research are perfectly aligned with the work we are doing at BU’s strategic research cluster Multimodal Immersive NEuro-sensing (MINE). If you are interested in mobile brain/body imaging and our MINE initiative, please do come along and join us in hearing Klaus’s talk by following this link.

Note: Earlier I said 23 March. It should be February. How could I fast forward the time by a month! Sorry about this mistake.

Doctoral College Newsletter | February 2022

PG research

The Doctoral College Newsletter provides termly information and updates to all those involved with postgraduate research at BU. The latest edition is now available to download here. Click on the web-links provided to learn more about the news, events and opportunities that may interest you.

If you would like to make a contribution to future newsletters, please contact the Doctoral College.

Managing rejection – part one

This week, we’ll be running a series of blog posts on managing rejection. These will include experience from academics, advice on what to do next, tips of understanding EU evaluation reports, and what support is available for you to take the next steps. Leading on from this, next week, we will run a series of posts on institutional learning from funder feedback, and so make sure you’re glued to the research blog for the next couple of weeks. The first and second posts are about managing rejection.

Unfortunately, rejection is part and parcel of academic life. If you watch the TV series ‘Ozark’, rejection can feel like Darlene Snell offering to get the lemonade. You need to try not to take it personally, no matter how hard that is given the weekends and evenings you may have given up to craft your bid. There may be many factors as to why you didn’t get funded, and hopefully, you’ve been provided with feedback from the funding panel (not all do, sadly). The most frustrating feedback is when you were deemed fundable, but there wasn’t sufficient budget.

When a funder doesn’t provide panel feedback, you should at least receive the reviewers’ comments (note that research councils will send these to you in advance of  the panel so that you have a right to reply). These can be a mixed bag, and so don’t focus on the odd sentence that stands out (there is always one), but look collectively at what the reviewers’ are saying.

All is not lost! A huge amount of work goes into the development of a proposal. It is a great shame to park your idea, when it could be re-worked, and submitted to an alternative funder. Alternatively, it might be time to develop a new project idea. Before you decide, you need to take time to reflect on the failed application.

After you’ve given yourself a couple of days to get over the shock, grab a cuppa and revisit the feedback, together with your application, and the funder guidance. This will give you an opportunity to reflect on what you would do differently. This might involve having the right networks in place; did you really meet the call criteria or did you crowbar your research to fit; did you articulate well enough in the sections of the application; did you use the right research methods, was your research really state of the art? Ultimately, did you leave enough time to plan out the application and submit a high-quality bid?

Once you’ve digested all of this, it’s time to think about what to do next. Tomorrow’s post will explore this in more detail.

Up and coming Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework events


Every year, the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office, along with internal and external delivery partners, runs over 150 events to support researcher development through the Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework (RKEDF).

Responding to your feedback and by popular request, below are the main events coming up over the next six months – please click on the ‘details and booking information’ link to find out more and reserve your place as soon as possible:

Date Start and End Time Event Title Details and booking information link
28/02/2022 09:30-12:30 Fellowships: Being Strategic Fellowships: Being Strategic – Bournemouth University Intranet.
07/03/2022 9:30-11:30 Unsuccessful Applications Repurposing workshops Repurposing Your Unsuccessful Grant Applications – Bournemouth University Intranet.
24/03/2022 09:30-12:30 Refining your research idea Fellowships: Refining your Research Ideas – Bournemouth University Intranet.
13/04/2022 11:00-13:00 British Academy Mid-career Fellowship and British Academy/Leverhulme Senior Fellowship – (Mid-career Fellowships outline stage will likely open in July 2022; Senior Fellowships in October 2022) British Academy Mid-career Fellowship – Bournemouth University Intranet.
27/04/2022 11:00-13:00 British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (BAPDF) and Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (LECF) (BAPDF will likely open for outline stage in July 2022; LECF in January 2023) British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship – Bournemouth University Intranet.
05/05/2022 09:30-12:30 Fellowship Interviews Techniques Fellowships: Interviews – Bournemouth University Intranet.
11/05/2022 11:00-13:00 Leverhulme Research Project – Outline – Leverhulme Research Project Outline Stage – Bournemouth University Intranet.
20/05/2022 09:30-11:30 Unsuccessful Applications Repurposing workshops Repurposing Your Unsuccessful Grant Applications – Bournemouth University Intranet.
25/05/2022 11:00-13:00 AHRC Research Development and Engagement fellowships workshop (ECR and Standard) – AHRC Leadership Fellowship – Bournemouth University Intranet.
08/06/2022 11:00-13:00 ESRC New investigator ESRC New investigator – Bournemouth University Intranet.
04/07/2022 09:30-11:30 Unsuccessful Applications Repurposing workshops Repurposing Your Unsuccessful Grant Applications – Bournemouth University Intranet.

The Friday Prof-ile: Mel Hughes

Welcome to our new series, The Friday Prof-ile – a chance to get to know some of our recently appointed Professors and Associate Professors a little better. Every Friday, we’ll be asking a different person the same set of questions to get an insight into their life, work and what makes them tick. 

This week, we’re chatting with Associate Professor in Social Work, Mel Hughes.

Mel Hughes

Mel Hughes

What are your research interests? What made you want to study these areas?   

As a social worker, I am interested in marginalised groups and communities currently under-served by health and social care research. My main interests in both education and research are in valuing the expertise of people with lived experience and using my platform as an educator and researcher to amplify these voices through co-produced and participatory methods.

What has been your career highlight to date?   

There are two that immediately come to mind. The first was seeing a copy in print (and on Amazon!) of the book I co-authored and edited with people with lived experience and social work colleagues on Statutory Social Work Interventions: The lived experience. It was a genuine collaboration, and it was exciting hearing from all the contributors as they received their copy in the post.

The second was receiving a phone call (whilst walking on the beach) from Advance HE to say I had been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. As an Associate Professor I am as passionate about education and the student experience as I am about professional practice and research. It felt like acknowledgment of my value as an educator.

What are you working on at the moment?   

I am co-authoring and editing a textbook on Social Exclusion in the UK: the lived experience and leading on a special issue of the British Journal of Social Work written by people with lived experience rather than about people with lived experience. I am also leading on an ESRC research bid on democratising public involvement in research, where we are seeking to build capacity of researchers to work alongside marginalised communities currently under-served by health and social care research.

If you weren’t an academic, what would you be doing? 

I started my career as a social worker in substance use and mental health services. I would like to think I would still be in practice. I secretly crave the idea of being in the great outdoors on some sort of community project or farm.

What do you do to unwind?  

Walking, walking and walking (usually with a dog pulling me along)

What’s the best thing about Bournemouth?  

The BU Social Work and PIER Partnership teams. I can honestly say I have never worked with a more supportive group of people.

If you could pick any superpower, what would it be and why?   

Invisibility. The quality that best combines the social work and academic role is curiosity (or being nosey). Oh to be a fly on the wall!

If you were stranded on a desert island, what one luxury item would you take with you?  

A comfy bed.

What advice would you give to your younger self? 

Stay true to your values.

If you’re a recently appointed Professor or Associate Professor and you’d like to be featured in the series, please contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk to find out more and get involved.