Working within schools has evolved over the past few years and due to pressures on schools and scientists alike, it is imperative that partnership working is effective, rewarding and sustained.
You will hear examples of successful sustained partnerships, whether that is by supporting a school project or by school students actively contributing to your own research.
The session lasts for 30 minutes and will serve as an introduction to the scheme. It is repeated over several dates for convenience.
Please note: the Partnership Grant application must be initiated by the school team, not the STEM partner. For further information about the scheme please see here
Every beat of the heart is finely tuned to eject a certain amount of blood. As we exercise, more blood flows into the heart, the cardiac muscle stretches and this leads to an increased force of contraction. Known as the Frank-Starling law, it is one of the most important aspects of human cardiac physiology but the molecular mechanisms are not entirely understood.
We do know that increases to the calcium levels in the heart cells (cardiomyocytes) support stronger contractions (anyone remember the ‘sliding ratchet model’ from GCSE biology!?) but how this calcium is regulated by stretch is not fully understood. What my colleagues and I have established (to be published in Frontiers of Physiology) is that a ‘mechanosensitive’ protein known as Piezo helps increase calcium when the cardiomyocytes are stretched. A lot of this work was done at BU’s Drosophila (fruit fly) genetics facility in Dorset House, using physiological tests of heart function in flies without the Piezo protein. When stretched, normal hearts respond by releasing more calcium and they continue to beat. In Piezo mutants, there’s no increase in calcium and the hearts often stop beating.
This is an important observation that contributes to our fundamental understanding of cardiac physiology and points to Piezo as a protein of considerable interest when considering the underlying causes of cardiac dysfunction in disease and ageing.
Paul Hartley.
(The image shows the contractile protein ‘scaffold’ within an insect heart)
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.
BRIAN, Bournemouth Research Information and Networking system now allows you to record up to 4 of the most relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals which your work contributes towards. This information from BRIAN will also be displayed on your staff profile page and it will look like this –
To record this information on BRIAN, log into your BRIAN account and choose to add a new “Professional activity”,
Once you have clicked on “+add new”, you will be presented with a menu box. Choose “UN Sustainable Development Goals” as highlighted –
On the next page, you are then given the option to select from the drop down menu, up to 4 UN Sustainable Development Goals which your work contributes towards. Don’t forget to click “save” when you have finished.
To have this newly added information displayed on your staff profile page, you can either choose to wait for the overnight auto-refresh process for the information to be drawn from BRIAN to populate the staff profile page; or you can instantly refresh your staff profile page manually by scrolling to the bottom of your profile page and click on “Refresh now”
Collaborative Futures Academy 2022: Ethics and Equity in Engagement – Applications open.
Over the past two years, more than 100 researchers and practitioners from across the world have explored how to connect research and the public in innovative and meaningful ways.
Are you ready to push the boundaries of your engagement and join others to shape the future of research dialogue? You can now apply to be part of the Collaborative Futures Academy 2022.
The Academy will empower you to develop a bold, creative and innovative engagement practice with integrity and equity at its heart.
Before you start, please read the applicant commitment found here
Prepare a short 1-minute video on the question of “What does a culture of equitable and ethical research engagement look like to you?” More details, including advice on video recording and possible alternative formats, can be found in the applicant guide.
Complete the application form below and submit it together with your video. For reference, the full form is available here.
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: MONDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2022
If you have any questions about the programme or application, please contact BerlinSchool@mfn.berlin
Alternatively, if you would like to discuss your application with the Public Engagement with Research team, please contact Adam Morris at publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.
It’s a crime story fit for the digital era. It was recently reported that a number of restaurants in New York had been targeted by internet scammers threatening to leave unfavourable “one-star” reviews unless they received gift certificates. The same threats were made to eateries in Chicago and San Francisco and it appears that a vegan restaurant received as many as eight one-star reviews in the space of a week before being approached for money.
It’s surprising this sort of thing hasn’t emerged before. An over-reliance on the “wisdom of the crowd”, whereby many people measure things by the approval of the rest of the community, leaves us vulnerable to this kind of fraud.
It’s all about numbers. Products and companies are measured online by the number of stars they get on a five-star scale, influencers are measured by numbers of followers, posts are measured by the numbers of likes or retweets. The satirical Kardashian index provides a quantitative measure for academics by comparing citations of their research papers with their number of Twitter followers.
But why are these systems considered to be of value and why do we consult them almost blindly? In an age of information overload, feedback and reputation systems enable fast decision-making, providing us with the sense (or illusion) that we are in control as the decision taken is perceived to be informed.
Another idea at play here is the “attention economy paradigm”. Under this way of thinking, human attention is a scarce commodity and – as with all resources that are limited on this planet – it is of high value.
Businesses compete for a high as possible place on the first page of Google’s search results in order to capture this attention. And user feedback is one of the many parameters that influence the search engine’s secret ranking algorithms.
The notable success and acceptance of such reputation systems is grounded in the idea of the wisdom of the crowd comes in. If a sufficiently large sample of the population is asked to estimate something, the average of these estimations is expected to be very close to the actual value. This is because any personal bias becomes insignificant when a considerable amount of opinions is collected.
But all systems that come along with successful business models are open to abuse and can attract opportunistic and malicious actors, to an extent that organised criminal groups may form and systematically exploit such systems. For example, business opportunities that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic were instantly matched by an assortment of criminal activities including shopping scams, disinformation, illegal streaming and even child sexual exploitation.
Fake reviews
There are several reasons and motivations for fake reviews. Business competitors may try to flood a business target with negative reviews in order to harm their competitor. Others may attempt, by creating fake profiles or “bribing” customers with free or discounted products, to engineer positive reviews and misrepresent the quality of their products.
Everyone has an opinion, but some people have a vested interest. kheira benkada via Shutterstock
But extortion via threats of negative review is particularly insidious. A surge of negative reviews on a business’s Google profile not only affects its search engine ranking, but significantly influences the potential customers’ purchase decisions.
Although these practices are reported to have been streamlined from organised groups in India, variations of this have also been observed from other countries. Amazon recently sued 10,000 Facebook group administrators exceeding 43,000 members who allegedly solicit fake (positive) reviews in exchange for free products.
What can be done?
The abuse of online feedback and reputation systems has grown to epidemic proportion. Countering it will require the coordination of everyone involved.
Google and other feedback and reputation service providers need to invest more resources into the prevention, detection and removal of fake reviews. Machine learning technologies have made impressive leaps in recent years and could help in weeding out fake content.
Tighter rules governing the selection of reviewers enabling their participation under specific conditions. We’ve seen this with verified buyer schemes that aim to provide assurances that the reviewer has had a genuine experience with the business.
The presentation of the feedback and particularly the star scoring system could also have more contextual information, say through additional colour coding to communicate the sentiment mined out of the textual comments. In this case, highly emotional comments based on less factual or useful information could have a different colour from those trying to be impartial and objective.
Businesses also need to embrace the system for reporting problem reviews and use it responsibly. They should not report negative feedback if it is genuine, as this affects the relationship with the feedback platform, which will understandably be more distrustful to the business.
And consumers should be more alert and educated about this rather than following these rankings religiously. There are many telltale signs of a fake review, including simply checking the language to see if they are generic. It’s also instructive to check whether the reviewer produces a lot of negative reviews across many and seemingly unconnected products in a short time.
We, the crowd should be active participants by being always fair with our purchase experiences and acknowledge and support business when they exceed our expectations – but also provide candid negative reviews and recommendations for improvement. Only then the wisdom of the crowd will truly serve us.
VOICES explores the use of song to teach STEM content at college or secondary school level, and includes reviewed interactive sessions, video-posters, and discussions of interest to both practitioners and researchers.
We asked Dr Panourgia to share a bit about what this study was about, the benefits of making the data open access, and for any advice that can be passed on to help others manage data effectively for deposit in BORDaR.
Q- Tell us about your research – what’s most exciting about it?
A – The current investigation highlighted the vital role of psychology, counselling and psychotherapy practitioners who played and still play an essential part in providing care for people whose mental health has adversely been affected by the pandemic. This study explored self-compassion’s ability to predict approach and avoidance coping in psychology, counselling and psychotherapy practitioners during COVID-19, and whether this differed between genders. The most exciting part of this project is that our findings have practical implications for training, supervision, and clinical practice for practitioners, to ensure they remain competent when faced with extreme stress. This paper is based on the final year project of a former UG Psychology student; working and publishing with one of our students was the most rewarding part of it.
Q – What do you see as being the benefits of making your data available?
A – There are several benefits. Making the data available allows other researchers not only to investigate further research questions but also to check the accuracy of our findings. Furthermore, making data available may lead to potential collaborations.
Q – Do you have any advice you would give other researchers to help them with depositing data?
A – Being organised is the key. When you work on your data, ask yourself “Does my dataset make sense for someone who is not involved in this project?”. Using precise labels for the variables of your dataset, keeping notes about the way that your variables were scored and what these scores mean can be very useful. Also, you need to be prepared to answer any questions about the ethical procedures you followed.
Q – Anything else you want to say about your data or the process?
A – You shouldn’t worry if you haven’t done this before. The process is very straightforward and the BORDaR team is incredibly helpful. When our paper was published and became available on BRIAN, I emailed the BORDaR team who sent me detailed instructions for uploading data to BORDaR. The dataset was processed and published very quickly. The final step of this process includes the generation of a DOI which you can share with the publisher of your paper.
There’s still time to sign up for the NCCPE’s Environmental Engagement in Practice programme: Ethics of engagement and dealing with controversy free, online event on Tuesday 6 September 10am – 4pm.
Join this event for a day of presentations, practical workshops and smaller discussion groups, exploring how to create an ethical engagement practice. Reflect on the role that values play, discuss how to plan thoughtful engagement on controversial research topics and how to engage with the media, and take account of the ethical considerations we need to make along the way.
These events are intended for anyone working with environmental research. This includes researchers, policy makers, artists and community practitioners – if you’re interested in public engagement and knowledge exchange and keen to develop your practice, then please do join.
The UK government has announced an extension of the financial support provided to successful UK Horizon Europe applicants, which will now be in place to cover all Horizon Europe calls that close by the end of this year.
According to UK Research Office in Brussels (UKRO), this new announcement reiterates that association to EU programmes remains the UK’s preferred outcome and extends the scope of the Guarantee to cover additional Horizon Europe calls for proposals while the delay to association continues.
Following the announcement, the relevant UKRI guidance documents have been updated.
Previous versions of this guidance included a list of calls in the annex, but this has been replaced by a comprehensive commitment to include all Horizon Europe calls with a final submission deadline date on or before 31 December 2022 as shown on the EC Funding and Tenders Portal. For two-stage calls, only a final submission deadline on or before 31 December is considered to be in scope.
The MSCA4Ukraine scheme to support displaced scientists from Ukraine is now open to prospective host organisations. Organisations interested in hosting a displaced researcher from the Ukraine can register their interest on the MSCA4Ukraine website by completing the online form. The scheme will fund individual researchers at either the doctoral or postdoctoral level for a minimum of six months up to a maximum duration of two years. The funding rates are in line with the MSCA Doctoral Networks and the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships.
The MSCA4Ukraine scheme has a total budget of €25 million and forms part of the European Union’s collective response to the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Although there is a separate process for registration of interest, please note that applications must be submitted by prospective host institutions on behalf of a named researcher, so the usual BU/RDS processes are in place.
Preliminary information on eligibility criteria and application requirements are available of the call website, and there is a dedicated FAQ page. If you have any additional questions, please contact the MSCA4Ukraine team directly.
Please note that RDS resumes weekly funding briefings on 14 September. You are welcome to participate every Wednesday at 12pm. An overview of Innovate UK SMART Grants is scheduled for the first this season’s briefing session. The first spotlight focusing on Horizon Europe will be on 28 September. You can find link to join briefings and more details in our previous post.
I am delighted to be able to share with you the 2022-23 Researcher Development Programme for PGRs. Bookings for all sessions through to December are now open via the RDP Brightspace! There are 40 different workshops to choose from, with more opening in November!
Following a successful trial, we see the return of the ‘navigating uncertainty‘ and ‘rethinking productivity’ workshops. I am also excited to share with you two brand new workshops to the programme, ‘methodology 1: what is methodology’ and ‘methodology 2: methods chapter’. These new workshops will form part of our research methodology month which will take place in November, more details will follow.
Not sure whether to attend an RDP session?
Feedback across the programme in 2021-22 was again overwhelmingly positive with attendees reporting the following:
96% would recommend a workshop
95% found the workshops relevant and useful
92% found the workshops interesting and engaging
94% had an improved understanding of the subject areas
91% reported an increased confidence in the topics covered
At the end of the month (Friday 30th September) Professor Jane Murphy and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen are both speaking at the Advanced Dementia Research Conference (ADRC 2022). Their participation will be online thus helping to reduce BU’s carbon footprint. Prof. Murphy, Deputy Dean for Research in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) will be talking about ‘Nutritional interventions in ageing’, whilst Prof. van Teijlingen from the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) will be discussing ‘Qualitative Research in Dementia’. The one-day conference has two more BU connections and two further speakers ‘Dr. Brijesh Sathian and Prof. Padam Simkhada are both FHSS Visiting Faculty. The former will be speaking on ‘Complex Innovative trial designs and analyses for Dementia Research’, whilst the latter will be presenting on ‘Mixed-methods research in Dementia’.
For a newcomer to the wonderful world of Middle-earth, the universe created by the British author and academic J.R.R. Tolkien can seem as large and unwieldy as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (currently in Phase Four with more still to come). And, there is a new addition as Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) hits screens.
The series comes eight years after the concluding film of The Hobbit and 19 years after the last Lord of the Rings film. So if you want to watch the series and keep up with inevitable social media debates, here is a guide to this sprawling world to initiate newcomers to Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
A quick catch-up
The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (published between July 1954 and October 1955) were Tolkien’s most successful and famous novels.
The Hobbit follows the adventures of the eponymous creature (short of stature, hairy feet), Bilbo Baggins, on a quest with a party of dwarves to reclaim lost treasure. Along the way, he finds a ring that gives him the power of invisibility.
This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.
The Lord of the Rings picks up the story many years later as Bilbo’s ring is revealed to be the One Ring, forged by the evil dark lord Sauron as a source of power. Bilbo’s nephew Frodo embarks on a dangerous journey to destroy the ring and save Middle-earth. He is aided by his gardener Sam Gamgee as well as representatives of the other chief races of Middle-earth: two further hobbits, the dwarf Gimli, elf Legolas and two human men, Boromir and Aragorn.
Tolkien served during the first world war and his experiences on the battle-field shape the numerous conflicts depicted in the stories as well as the various forms of heroism that are displayed. In Tolkien’s world, moral courage is just as important, if not more so, than physical prowess for the enduring heroes of Middle-earth.
The close bonds between serving soldiers also inform the interpersonal relationships that are central to The Lord of the Rings – it is evident in the devotion between the hobbits Frodo and Sam and the enemies-to-friends narrative of Gimli and Legolas.
What is Middle-earth?
Middle-earth is the fictional setting for Tolkien’s invented mythology, which made its debut in The Hobbit. However, the term Middle-earth was not used in that book – that came later with The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien was a professor of English literature and an expert in language, especially in written and oral histories. His mythology for Middle-earth is filled with poems, songs and oral history traditions that help to build the world of different cultures and races (hobbits, elves, dwarves, men) that inhabit his universe. Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon epic poems, fairy tales and the Finnish mythic poem the Kalevala are all influences on the stories, characters and languages found in Tolkien’s work.
Although The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are the best known stories, they’re not the complete history of Middle-earth. The Silmarillion (1977), which was published after Tolkien’s death and edited by his son Christopher and the fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, outlines the thousands of years of history of Middle-earth.
The book charts the creation of Arda, where the continent of Middle-earth is located, and covers the First and Second Ages of the world (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place in the Third Age). Arda starts as a flat disc and evolves into something more recognisably planet-like over the course of cataclysmic events during repeated battles between forces of good and evil. Further events and characters that shape Arda and Middle-earth feature in Unfinished Tales (1980).
However, as Amazon has only acquired the rights for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, none of the stories from either Unfinished Tales or The Silmarillion will feature in the new series. The extensive appendices to The Lord of the Rings are the source of the material for the new show.
Familiar names
Set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings so there will be few recognisable characters. Sauron, who appeared in The Lord of the Rings as a flaming red eye, is still the big bad.
The creator of the corrupting rings of power and of the infamous One Ring that controls the others, Sauron may not be front-and-centre as an antagonist but his actions and desire for control of Middle-earth will drive much of the action.
The other two familiar names are the elves Galadriel and Elrond, here much younger than they appeared in the films. Galadriel is established as a warrior – which is true to her history as Tolkien wrote it – and there is a lot of scope in the series to see how she develops into the wise ruler of the elven realm Lothlorien.
Elrond Half-elven, the ruler of the enclave of Rivendell, is shown as more optimistic than in The Lord of the Rings and with closer links to the human kingdom of Númenor, whose rulers are descended from his twin brother, Elros.
As the brothers were half-elven, they could choose which of their kindred they would identify as. Elros lived as a mortal and eventually aged and died. Elrond chose to live as an immortal elf and the emotional toll of those decisions will be explored in his story arc.
Fans might be concerned that Tolkien might have disliked some of the liberties taken with his works. While his estate is known to be protective (and litigious) over the original works, Tolkien stated that he wanted other hands to add to his universe. In light of that, he would probably have been delighted to see his creation still so beloved and still expanding.
Please tell us about all your social, cultural and community events for the period 1 August 2021 to 31 July 2022. The deadline is Friday 7 October 2022.
Thank you to everyone who has already provided information via the SharePoint site. This data forms part of BU’s annual Higher Education – Business & Community Interaction survey and is used to calculate our Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) grant. It also feeds into our submission to the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) so it is really important for us to provide a full and accurate picture of all our public engagement.
Which events do I need to report?
Public lectures & talks
Performance arts (music, dance, drama etc)
Exhibitions (galleries, museums etc)
Museum education
Media engagement (TV/radio interviews, podcasts etc)
If you’re not sure if your event is eligible for inclusion, the SharePoint site includes further details and guidance.
What data do we collect?
We collect a wider range of data than is required for HE-BCI, for additional external and internal reporting, e.g. HEIF Annual Monitoring Statement and Athena Swan. For the purposes of the HE-BCI survey, you must record the following:
event dates – to ensure eligibility
whether the event or activity was free or chargeable
the number of attendees (or views/visitors)
the amount of staff time in hours needed for delivery.
Without this specific data, we will not be able to include your event in the survey.
Further information
The SharePoint site provides details about which data is collected and how, including calculating attendee numbers and staff time, and reporting online activities and multiple related events. If you have any further questions about the HE-BCI return, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Prof John Oliver has been appointed to the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology’s new Advisory Board responsible for Horizon & Foresight Scanning. The new board has been set up in response to an inquiry into the effectiveness and influence of the Select Committee system by the 2017–19 House of Commons Liaison Committee.
The advisory board aims to improve the efficacy of horizon and foresight scanning processes to inform the identification of Areas of Research Interest (ARI). ARIs are lists of policy issues or questions used by Select Committees, parliamentarians and by parliamentary staff to produce more research evidence in certain topics to scrutinize the government and to inform future policy work.
The advisory board will also be responsible for developing ‘futures thinking’ capabilities by developing training opportunities and resources for parliamentarians and staff to enable them to think more long-term and manage the uncertainty in policy-making.
Prof John Oliver commented that “the world is becoming more and more uncertain with Covid-19, Brexit, Russia-Ukraine War and global economic uncertainty. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund’s World Uncertainty Index recently reported that global uncertainty has reached “unprecedented levels” in recent years. This makes horizon and foresight scanning more of a priority for many policy-makers and organisations as it helps them manage the uncertainty around future dynamics”.
This new role builds on Prof Oliver’s previous scenario planning research and work with the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology and the House of Commons.
Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.
Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to Research Professional. These can be downloaded here.
Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.
User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using Research Professional.
Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.
In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of Research Professional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional
Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on Research Professional. They are holding two monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with Research Professional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:
Self registration and logging in
Building searches
Setting personalised alerts
Saving and bookmarking items
Subscribing to news alerts
Configuring your personal profile
Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the second Tuesday of every other month. You can register here for your preferred date:
These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you. Previous recordings can be found here if you can’t attend a session.
Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?
By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.
There’s currently a talent crisis in the television industry. As I’ve previously described in this blog, media careers have a ‘shelf-life’ with more experienced talent tending to move on and up elsewhere. This has long been the case, but what’s new is that since 2015 there has been a massive increase in demand for content. It’s sometimes called ‘the Netflix effect’. Suddenly the shortage of experienced skilled workers has been exposed as never before.
In the research we publish this week, Christa van Raalte and I have examined in depth the way in which a problem of attrition within the television industry came to be framed as a problem of recruitment. We explore how and why this came about, despite the implausibility of the idea that getting more young people to come and work in the film and television industries (however vast their numbers) could compensate for the attrition of experienced workers – an idea that has taken root and informed industry policy. Our aim is to help refocus the discussion on the reasons why people are leaving the industry, and the practical measures that need to be taken to nurture careers beyond entry-level. We also highlight the dangers inherent in policy research where there is a gravitational pull for evidence-based policy to be overridden by policy-based evidence.
Rabeea Maqsood is a first year PhD student within the department of Medical Sciences and Public Health. She is exploring the role of serious battlefield traumatic injury and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) in military veterans and personnel in a collaborative project between BU and the ADVANCE study, UK (For more: https://www.advancestudydmrc.org.uk/)
Recently, as a part of her PhD thesis, Rabeea’s study protocol on traumatic injuries and HRV has been published in PloS One with open access. The article has been downloaded and viewed hundreds of times since its publication. Here’s the link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273688
Watch this space for the full systematic review which will address the evidence gap in the field of HRV and combat trauma research.
Following our recent ProGRess is imminent message, we are pleased to announce ProGRess is now live. The new improved online system replacing ResearchPAD is now available to postgraduate researchers (PGRs), supervisors, and administrators.
If you need help, there are lots of places to find it:
ProGRess User Guide – a guide which gives an overview of the system and provides you with support and assistance if you need it.
ProGRess Q&A Document – answers to common questions you may have about the new system.
Attend a drop-in session with a member of the Doctoral College designed to provide an overview of the system and help resolve any ProGRess queries you may have.
For technical support accessing or using ProGRess, you should contact the IT Service Desk.
For all other queries, contact ProGRess@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of the Doctoral College team will be able to assist.
Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the ProGRess launch runs smoothly, if you experience a problem, please log it by emailing ProGRess@bournemouth.ac.uk. That way, any issues can be addressed which will help improve the user experience both now and in the future.
We hope you enjoy using the new system. Please email any feedback you may have to ProGRess@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Kind regards,
The Doctoral College
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According to UK Research Office in Brussels (UKRO), this new announcement reiterates that association to EU programmes remains the UK’s preferred outcome and extends the scope of the Guarantee to cover additional Horizon Europe calls for proposals while the delay to association continues.
The 
Every BU academic has a 
By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a 
Join the 17th Annual Postgraduate Research Conference – Wednesday 3 December 2025
BU Festival of Social Sciences invite at RNLI
MaGPIE Presents at UK Parliament: From Mass Graves to Courtroom
Festival of Social Science: Introducing drowning prevention in Bangladesh
ECR Funding Open Call: Research Culture & Community Grant – Apply Now
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
ERC Advanced Grant 2025 Webinar
Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 Published
Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme pre-Published
Update on UKRO services
European research project exploring use of ‘virtual twins’ to better manage metabolic associated fatty liver disease