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Research impact at BU: digital preservation of human fossil footprints; creating an interactive role for readers

A series of posts featuring BU’s impact case studies for REF 2021. (These are edited versions of the final submissions – the full impact case studies will be published online in 2022.)

Discovering and preserving human fossil footprints at White Sands National Park, New Mexico

The dunes at White Sands National Park, New Mexico

Research areas: Environmental & Geographical Sciences, Data Science, Hominin Palaeoecology

Staff conducting research: Professor Matthew Bennett, Professor Marcin Budka, Dr Sally Reynolds

Background: Fossil footprints are an important, but neglected, part of the palaeontological and archaeological record. Professor Bennett, a recognised authority on human footprints, received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to develop analytical approaches for the capture and analysis of human footprints, and then translate the work into the freeware DigTrace. DigTrace is an integrated software solution for the capture and analysis of 3D data of footprints, and can be applied to both fossil footprints and forensic practice. Along with similar  ‘Structure from Motion’ photogrammetry approaches, DigTrace has revolutionised vertebrate ichnology, providing data for advanced biomechanical analysis, enhanced visualisation, and the preservation of fragile fossil footprints.

Professor Bennett was approached by the US National Park Service (NPS) to help them identify human tracks at White Sands National Park in New Mexico and advise on conservation methods. They had already found the tracks of Ice Age animals such as giant ground sloth and mammoth but wanted to know more about potential human fossil footprints. In collaboration with David Bustos, the park’s resource manager, Professor Bennett quickly confirmed the presence of human footprints. Casts of the fossil tracks are now on display in Harvard University’s Peabody Museum and PLOS SciComm listed the findings as number one in its ‘Top 9 discoveries in human evolution’ in 2020.

The research is ongoing, including the discovery and analysis of the longest known human trackway so far reported, and the team has also pioneered the geo-prospection of human tracks using geophysical methods. The discovery of the footprints was featured in The Conversation, and covered extensively in the media, including: National Geographic, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Atlantic, BBC Radio, New Scientist and many more.

The impact: 

Using DigTrace, and the research findings, Professor Bennett helped the NPS develop conservation management methods and approaches, enabling them to digitally conserve the eroding footprints. Using geophysics, the researchers developed methods for mapping hidden tracks for the NPS staff to use.

The intense media interest generated in the footprints, together with the description of how the humans involved would have been actively hunting giant ground sloth, was used by local politicians to launch draft legislation to re-designate White Sands as a Park and include the words ‘palaeontology’ and ‘archaeology’ in the founding legislation. The legislative process was slow but President Trump finally signed off on the name change and re-designation in December 2019. The NPS acknowledged the importance of Professor Bennett and his team’s track research in bringing about the re-designation and the Smithsonian National Museum confirmed the site’s significance within the Americas.

Independent research undertaken by a non-profit research group at the time suggested that the impact to the local economy of Alamogordo (Otero County) was likely to be worth $6m a year due to an enhanced number of visitors to the park.

Enabling the Genarrator Generation: creating a more active, participatory role for modern readers

The Genarrator website

Research area: Literature

Staff conducting research: Dr Jim Pope, Dr Simon Frost

Background: Too often, readers have seen themselves as mere passive recipients of the outputs from a professionalised corporate literature industry. This view is underpinned by an understanding of literature through the so-called author-centric conduit model, whereby the author transmits a narrative to a single reader who decodes the story.

BU researchers have explored theoretical and practical ways in which the reader is placed closer to the centre of literary practice, creating a collaborative model in which users and producers are co-creators of a narrative experience. Research findings suggested that readers create their texts’ values as an active expression of the desires they see being supported, obstructed or ignored. Because these values are made possible by the intertextuality of other publicly available works, where the meanings and values of works are shaped by one another, they are fundamentally collaborative. This theorisation, especially the social political ambition, was articulated in outputs by Frost and Pope.

BU’s research concluded that the collective interaction between all agencies, technologies and economies enable the reader-user to gain a personalised narrative experience, creating value in relation to the reader’s desires. Dr Pope spearheaded the creation of the web-based app Genarrator, a free space for digital interactive stories, in which readers participate more fully by choosing the direction and outcomes of a narrative. In addition, researchers also set up the open call New Media Writing Prize (NMWP), now in its 11th year. New media industries draw on BU research outputs in their own research and development opportunities, sponsoring collaboration with prizewinners and providing internships.

The impact:

The Genarrator website and app

The Genarrator website operates as a professional publishing platform and is home to more than 2,000 narratives. Available free of charge, and free of advertising, it enables people to produce interactive narratives, with branching pathways and multiple endings, and provides a collaborative online space for the interactive narrative community. It allows readers to connect with storytelling and, crucially, provides authors with new ways to reach their audiences and tell their stories. The NMWP, the first and only global prize of its kind, showcases the best in new media writing with innovative digital fiction, poetry and journalism which integrate a variety of formats, platforms and digital media. Both Genarrator and the NMWP have changed the way participants view their relationship with literature, enabling them to create their own interactive stories, and helping them find and use their voices in ways that were never possible before.

Empowering young people

In 2016, working with AIM Central (a charity sponsored by Children in Need/BCP Council), BU researchers undertook a co-creation workshop with AIM users, young people at risk, and those not in education, employment or training (NEET). Each participant self-designed and created an interactive narrative using Genarrator, which was subsequently published on the Genarrator community site. The workshops improved participants’ understanding of digital storytelling, their creative writing, filming, artistic and technical skills, and enhanced teamwork and cooperation. They also provided acknowledgement of their work, as it was displayed alongside professional outputs, and gave employers a place to see their art.

Between 2018 and 2019, BU researchers held a series of workshops with students aged 14-15 from ‘working class/non-working families’ at Bishop of Winchester Academy. BU students and the school’s sixth-formers mentored participants, and narratives included stories about bullying, racism in football and anxiety. The sense of achievement many students felt was translated into aspiration for higher education, illustrating that Genarrator had provided inspiration and links to university study for disenfranchised young people.

Improving careers of narrative practitioners

The NMWP has contributed to the development and promotion of new media writing over the past 10 years, engaging a range of practitioners including journalists and documentary makers as well as writers and artists. Following the British Library’s public event ‘Digital Conversations’ in 2019, which focused on celebrating the NMWP, national arts charity One-to-One Development Trust praised the impact of the prize, commenting on its “unique” and “cross-discipline” features and crediting it for attracting a broad range of entries and widening the field of new media.

To swim or not to swim: examining the effects of cold-water on brain activity

The positive effect of cold water on health is known since Hippocrates claimed water therapy reduced lassitude, and Thomas Jefferson was a keen advocate of a daily cold water foot bath to maintain his ‘good health’. Surveying a large cohort of outdoor swimmers indicates that cold water immersion is associated with improvements in mental health, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and respiratory conditions. However, the effects of cold water on brain activity are largely unknown.

We hypothesise that short exposure to whole-body cold-water immersion leads to changes in functional connectivity between frontal and limbic areas that are critical for executive control and emotion processing. To test this hypothesis, a collaborative team of researchers from the Department of Psychology Bournemouth University (Professor Hana Burianova, Dr. Ala Yankouskaya, Dr. Marina Kilintari), the Faculty of Science and Health at Portsmouth University (Dr. Heather Massey), UHD (Dr. Ruth Williamson, Deputy Chief medical officer UHD, Visiting Professor Bournemouth University) and Institute for Medical Imaging and Visualisation (John Totman, MRI Business and Operations Manager at IMIV and Dr. Jamie Franklin, Head of Institute For Medical Imaging and Visualisation and Associate Professor) launched a study supported by QR Research fund and IMIV Pump Priming at BU.

The project is the first of a group of feasibility studies looking at fMRI as a tool to assess the impact of various interventions in brain function. Originally framed around the described mental health benefits of cold water swimming, the team is also interested in developing protocols to assess interventions in a variety of conditions affecting mental wellbeing with consideration of it providing a quantifiable research methodology for future studies.

The team is looking for healthy volunteers aged 18-45 to take part in the study. Please contact ruth.williamson@uhd.nhs.uk for more information.

HEIF Small Fund Research Project: Virtual Reality Chillout

Using immersive and non-immersive virtual reality to distract children with moderate to severe eczema from itching.

Project team: Dr Heidi Singleton, Professor Steven Ersser, Professor Debbie Holley. Associate Professor Xiaosong Yang. Dr Emily Arden-Close. Yaqing Cui- (Research Assistant and software developer), Professor Liz Falconer (Virtual Heritage Ltd), Dr Sarah Thomas, Amanda Roberts (Nottingham Support Group for Carers).

Child aged 5 years using Oculus Quest 2™ Headset

The aim of this project was to co-create immersive and non-immersive VR based on the guided imagery approach to managing moderate to severe eczema, targeted at children aged between 5 and 11 years of age.

Co-creation and Evaluation

Through online surveys (n=6) and semi-structured interviews (n=6), children worked with software developers to codesign the VR Chillout software. Children selected settings, interactions, music and sound effects that they felt would best help them relax and be distracted from their eczema.

 

Two resources were developed for evaluation: a relaxing 360 video of a woodland scene (click the image to view the interactive video on Youtube) and immersive VR mobile phone games:

 

Games for mobile phones – (a) Lobby  (b) Snowy World (c) Flying over Sakura

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Oculus Quest 2™, three games were developed. The first game ‘Lovely Fruit Grocery’ provides an immersive interaction experience with cartoon animals, via haptic controllers. The second game is ‘Hand Jet Flying’, which not only keeps the subject’s hand busy but also produces a highly immersive VR experience. The third game is ‘Nature Wonderland’, which focuses on presenting a visually and acoustically immersive and peaceful VR environment with animals, water, and natural elements.

Key findings

  • Evaluation of 360 woodland scene, via low-cost VR headsets: children found the experience relaxing and felt they were transported to a different space.
  • Evaluation of mobile VR software: children appreciated additional interactivity offered by the Snowy World animals and flying over Sakura landscapes.
  • Evaluation of Oculus Quest 2™software (VR game useability survey – n=10 and Children’s Dermatology Life Quality Index survey- n=4): children had the opportunity to use haptic hand controllers and reported that this enhanced the distraction from their eczema. Children felt that the Oculus VR Chillout games were very immersive.

“The animals were very realistic. I enjoyed playing with them and giving them food to eat. I loved the VR games; I feel they helped me to forget my itching.”

(Child aged 11)

Next steps

  • We have started discussions with the clinical eczema teams in the South of England and RDS regarding future bidding to proceed to clinical trials.
  • We aim to build upon this work with subsequent HEIF calls.

Links

Interactive 360 Video 

VR Chillout Software Show Reel

 

Student nurses experience ‘DEALTS2’ dementia training

On 8th July a group of 33 first year undergraduate nursing students attended a dementia themed workshop, led by Dr Michelle Heward from the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC), to gain insight into the lived experience of dementia. The day included an Alzheimer’s Society Dementia Friends session and simulation activities from the Dementia Education And Learning Through Simulation 2 (DEALTS2) programme, including the A Walk Through Dementia virtual reality app.

DEALTS2 uses an experiential learning approach to put trainees into the ‘shoes of a person with dementia’ to gain an insight into how the condition impacts on the person. In 2017, Health Education England commissioned the ADRC team to replace their original DEALTS programme with a new and improved version aligned to the learning outcomes of the national Dementia Training Standards Framework. Our research demonstrates that the training programme is being used nationally in acute care settings and has effectively increased trainer knowledge of dementia and confidence to utilise innovative training approaches (Heward et al., 2021). On the day it was great to see the students engaging positively with the innovative training approaches to gain a unique understanding of the lived experience of dementia.

The dementia day is part of a simulation programme being delivered by the Clinical Skills Nursing team at Bournemouth University. The simulation programme has been designed and created in response to a current shortage of nursing placements due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The placement has allowed the students access to varying specialist nurses and healthcare providers, from Nutrition Nurse specialists to Advanced Clinical Practitioner nurses working within the Air ambulance service, giving the students access that they may not have encountered within their practice.

New paper on student recycling behaviour with former BU Sociology student!

I am really pleased to announce the publication of our paper ‘Don’t be a waster! Student perceptions of recycling strategies at an English University’s halls of residence’ in the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. Joseph Dixon, a former sociology student at Bournemouth University, worked alongside myself to publish research that he undertook concerning recycling behaviours among students. The paper can be accessed at Emerald EarlyCite https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJSHE-10-2020-0383/full/html.

Prof Jonathan Parker

NIHR Bulletin

NIHR News

UK government’s innovation strategy: Intellectual property

eBulletins and Newsletters

RDS Blog

NIHR News and Research July 2021

NHS England and NHS Improvement – In Touch

South West AHSN – July 2021

Funding Opportunities

Latest NIHR funding calls

Evidence Synthesis Programme
Incentive Awards Scheme 2021

Programme Development Grants
Competition 31

 

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

BRIAN unavailable due to upgrade – 2nd & 3rd August!

Just a reminder that BRIAN will be unavailable to users today and tomorrow, Monday, 2nd August and Tuesday, 3rd August for a scheduled upgrade.

If you need any help using the new system or if you encounter any problems after the upgrade, please do send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.

In the meantime, if you do have general queries relating to the upgrade, please get in touch with BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

Further information will be available once BRIAN is up and running again following the scheduled upgrade.

Research Professional – all you need to know

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 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 each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

14th September 2021

9th November 2021

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.

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.

Horizon Europe – July Update

Draft of the Annotated Grant Agreement published

The European Commission (EC) has published the draft of the Annotated Grant Agreement, which includes additional explanations for each article of the corporate Model Grant Agreement. It reflects the new corporate structure of the General Model Grant Agreement and equally will be used for all centrally managed EU programmes that have already migrated (or will soon migrate) to the Funding & Tenders Portal.

HEU Work Programme published

EC adopted the main Horizon Europe (HEU) Work Programme for 2021-2022 in mid-June and consequently published the final version on the Funding & Tenders Portal. Consequently, many of the first calls for proposals, worth €14.7 billion, have already opened. There are several updates planned to the Work Programme, in particular in the autumn, to clarify the eligibility conditions for topics that were under discussion in Cluster 4 ‘ Digital, Industry and Space’ where some restrictions to protect the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy or security apply.

HEU Info Days

Following the recent Horizon Europe Cluster 4 Digital Brokerage Event held by Ideal-ist, the network of National Contact Points for ICT research and the Enterprise Europe Network, the online partnering system remains open to book scheduled and ad hoc meetings until the first call deadlines (21 October 2021). In addition, resources from the European Commission’s Horizon Europe information events are available online: Cluster 1 Health Info Day, Cluster 2 Culture, Creativity & Inclusive Society Info Day, Cluster 5 Climate, Energy & Mobility Info Day and Cluster 6 Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture & Environment Info Day.

Swiss participation in HEU

As of 30 July 2021, Switzerland is treated as a non-associated third country in Horizon Europe. Consequently, researchers based in Switzerland are currently only able to participate in a Horizon Europe, the Euratom programme and the Digital Europe Programme proposal as an associated partner from a third country.

Funding for researchers and innovators based in Switzerland for their participation in collaborative projects will be provided by the Swiss Government for all 2021 calls of Horizon Europe and the Euratom programme. The State Secretariat for Research and Innovation (SERI) has published a financial guarantee on their website.

So, a Swiss partner is eligible to participate in collaborative projects, though the consortia have to make sure that the minimum eligibility criteria, excluding Switzerland, is met for each proposal.

You can find the most recent information on the current status of Switzerland within HEU and relevant materials for researchers on the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation website.

Association to HEU

According to Research Professional, EC has completed its second round of talks on association to Horizon Europe with a group of non-EU countries. Armenia, Georgia, Israel, Moldova, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey and Ukraine have all now completed their second round of talks. The final round of negotiations is expected to take place from the end of August to mid-September, with a target of signing association agreements by the end of 2021.

On 17 June, the EC announced it had given provisional associated access to Horizon Europe to the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Morocco, Norway and the UK.

Negotiations on UK association have already been concluded as part of a broader agreement on trade and other relations with the bloc.

Funding opportunities

As it was announced earlier this week, there will be no funding briefings in August with those returning in September. However, RDS Research Facilitators will continue updating the Major Opportunities pipeline on a weekly basis, so you have access to the latest funding opportunities. The pipeline is available on the I Drive at RDS\Public\Funding Pipeline.

Let me wish you all to enjoy the rest of the summer and do not hesitate to contact me with questions related to EU and international funding.

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset Integrated Care System (ICS) Innovation Hub: Open call for priority support

Dorset ICS Innovation Hub

To help improve health and social care outcomes, equity and accessibility across Dorset, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust is implementing a Dorset Innovation Hub. It will seek to address the unique challenges of caring for the population of Dorset, and the need to innovate and transform care.

The Hub will support adoption of proven innovations across the Dorset ICS. It will coordinate horizon scanning approaches and prioritise which innovations to bring to Dorset for rapid adaptation and adoption, at scale. A core project team of innovation multidisciplinary professionals will be assisted by a wider well-established network of subject matter experts.

Details of the Call

The Innovation Hub recognises that there is a plethora of improvement, transformation and innovative workstreams being undertaken and it has therefore been agreed that an open call would be made to partner organisations such as Bournemouth University so that each could made one request for priority support.

Priority Support Available

The Innovation Hub is seeking to support a range of local priorities across health and social care in the process towards implementation and adoption via the following ways:

  • Project management and oversight
  • Horizon scanning
  • Implementation
  • Training and education
  • Benefits realisation including evaluation
  • Finance, commission, and procurement advice
  • Quality and risk advice
  • Patient, public engagement advice

Therefore, if you have a health or social care related project that supports these local priorities and which would benefit from additional priority support to speed its implementation and adoption, you are strongly encouraged to submit your project for nomination.

 

 

Eligibility

Bournemouth University will nominate one project to go forward for priority support consideration by the Innovation Hub core project team.

Nomination assessment criteria

All projects submitted before the deadline will be evaluated using the following scoring criteria:

  • The project provides a solution to a problem in one of the following areas: Health inequalities/Population health management/Place based interventions/Workforce/Winter planning/Implementing clinical services review/Digital/COVID recovery
  • Novelty (Score 1-5): Projects should be novel and highly innovative in their support of local health or social care priorities.
  • Alignment with SIAs (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate alignment to the scope of one or more of the SIAs.
  • Interdisciplinarity (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate how they will secure interdisciplinary working that will achieve stronger outcomes than disciplines working in silos.
  • The potential for medium/long-term development and impact across Dorset (Score 1-5): Projects that are nomination worthy will demonstrate potential to secure societal impact with extensive reach and/or significance.

Application Process and Timescales

To apply, please complete and submit the application form to Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk by 17:00 Friday 20 August 2021. Applications submitted after this time will not be considered.

Completed applications describing eligible projects will be reviewed by BU members of the Dorset Innovation Hub and the DDPPRs after the application deadline.

The nominated project will be informed and announced on the BU Research and Faculty blogsBU’s nomination will be submitted to the Dorset ICS Hub for consideration on or before Tuesday 31 August 2021. 

The Dorset Innovation Hub core project team will then approve which projects will be taken forward in their Tuesday 28 September 2021 meeting. If selected by the Innovation Hub, the BU nominated project’s Principal Investigators will be notified shortly thereafter.

Important: The Dorset ICS Open call for priority support may be promoted elsewhere. Please do not submit your application to any of these other portals as it will not be eligible for nomination. BU applications should only be submitted to innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

Find out more

If you have any questions, please email Lesley Hutchins (Research Commercialisation Manager) at innovate@bournemouth.ac.uk

Producing FAIR research data – Reusable

Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable

FAIR guiding principles for data resources (SanguaPundir 2016) CC-BY-SA

FAIR aims to improve the value and impact of research data by ensuring it is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-useable. All data produced by researchers at BU should be FAIR, and many journals and funders have made it a condition for successful submission or grant applications. Over a series of posts I will look at each one and explain what this means for the data you produce. Click here if you want to read the previous posts on FindabilityAccessibility and Interoperability. 

Reusable

Imagine you have found a promising dataset to use in a study. It is freely available to download, and it is in an open format you can use. However, your heart sinks when the spreadsheet opens only to discover that it makes no sense! The column headings are in code, and the figures in the table are meaningless…  

Most data are only reusable if they come with appropriate labels or documentation. Most repositories require a READ ME file to be deposited along with the data. The question you should ask is:  

If I were to access this dataset as someone with no prior association with the project, what information would I need to make sense of the data and to use it in my own study with confidence”?   

The answer to this question will vary from project to project. Examples include: 

  • Descriptions of the column headings found in spreadsheets. 
  • The coding schema used to analyse interview transcripts. 
  • Descriptions of how data was collected (if more detail is needed for someone to replicate a study). 
  • Details of any changes made to the data. 
  • An annotated bibliography listing and describing any code/algorithms (particularly helpful if a lot of separate files containing code/algorithms were deposited). 

In addition to this sort of contextual information, an appropriate license should be applied to your data when it is deposited. The license will make clear under what conditions the data can be re-used. Creative Commons licenses are the most common. The CC-BY license, for example, will allow re-use for any reason provided the data creator is acknowledged (cited).    

 

For more information visit the Library’s Research Data Management guide or email bordar@bournemouth.ac.uk. 

 

Dan Bailyes 

Faculty Librarian (FMC) and LLS lead for Research Data Management (RDM) 

 

References

SanguaPundir.,  2016. FAIR guiding principles for data resources [image]. Wikimedia Commons. Available from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FAIR_data_principles.jpg [Accessed 08 July 2021].

New PhD Studentship: Cancer & Sexuality

Professor Sam Porter, Dr Sally Lee, Dr Zoe Sheppard and Tracy Glen are the supervisory team supporting Suzanne Sheppard in a new project on cancer and sexuality.  This project is aiming to develop an intervention to support healthcare professionals along with patients and their partners discuss sexual concerns following cancer treatment.  This mixed methods study will take place at Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

The PhD is part funded by Fortuneswell Cancer Trust, Bournemouth University and the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Wessex.

Newsletter No. 1

BU conference presentation on migration and COVID-19 in Nepal

Yesterday Dr. Pramod Regmi, Dr. Shovita Dhakal Adhikari, Dr. Nirmal Aryal and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen, all based in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, presented at the tenth Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal & the Himalaya.  Their paper ‘Moral panic and othering practices during Nepal’s COVID-19 Pandemic (A study with returnee migrants and Muslims in Nepal)’ was co-authored by Dr. Sharada Prasad Wasti from the University of Huddersfield and Shreeman Sharma (Department of  Conflict, Peace & Development
Studies, Tribhuvan University, Nepal).  The presentation was partly based on research funded by the British Academy.