BU Research Blog

Bournemouth University is participating in the 2025 ESRC Festival of Social Science (FoSS), with a workshop about the Sonamoni project.  Sonamoni is being coordinated by Bournemouth University (BU) and it is a collaboration with the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research (CIPRB) in Bangladesh as well as the University of the West of England (UWRE), Bristol, the University of Southampton, Design Without Borders (DWB) in Uganda, and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).  Our FoSS event on drowning prevention research will be at the RNLI in Poole on the morning of Saturday 8th November.  Tickets for this free event are available, to book yours, click here!

FoSS is a UK-wide festival that takes place every autumn, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It’s all about sharing social science research with the public in fun and engaging ways—through talks, workshops, exhibitions, performances and more.  The festival consists of a series of events run each autumn, delivered by ESRC’s ‘festival partners’, higher education institutions spread across the UK. Events range from exhibitions, lectures and panel debates through to performances, guided walks and workshops.

The Sonamoni Project is dedicated to reducing drowning deaths among newly mobile children (under 2 years) by working closely with rural communities in Bangladesh. Using human-centred design (HCD) techniques, the project is identifying solutions, developing prototypes, and assessing their effectiveness. The project is funded by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) using UK aid from the UK government to support global health research.  The project has Dr. Aminur Rahman (at CIPRB) as its Bangladesh lead, with BU’s Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen as the UK lead.  It also includes a BU-registered PhD project by Md. Shafkat Hossain. The interdisciplinary team at Bournemouth University covers all three faculties through: Dr. Mavis Bengtsson, Dr. Kyungjoo Cha, Dr. Mehdi Chowdhury, Dr. Yong Hun Lim, Mr. John Powell, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen.