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HE Policy Update for the w/e 14th February 2020

The government has been reshuffled and we have a new Minister for Universities, Michelle Donelan. Chris Skidmore was liked in the sector but has not had the role long, either time.

Reducing bureaucracy in research

After recent stories about plans to reduce bureaucracy in research bidding by removing a section on impact (later it was noted that impact should be covered in a different section instead!), UKRI are trialling a new “streamlined” process.

  • The review will involve removing unnecessary paperwork like arduous funding applications and will examine research selection processes and research approaches and methods.
  • As part of this, the government will be consulting with world-leading scientists, researchers, academics and others in the coming weeks on what more can be done.

The two calls are:

EPSRC New Horizons

EPSRC’s £10 million New Horizons fund will support up to 50 highly transformative research projects across mathematics and the physical sciences. The projects will be funded via a streamlined process, with a focus on the transformational potential of the research. Applications will be invited up to a value of £200,000, for a duration of two years, without costing required in the application. The proposal paperwork submission will only consist of an anonymous four-page case for support, with a further two pages outlining the team’s ability to deliver. Successful projects will provide detailed costings after a decision has been made. Proposals are welcomed across two broad areas:

  • Novel physical sciences research aimed at new approaches for understanding fundamental Physics, Chemistry and Materials Science, the creation of new experimental approaches and the discovery of new molecules and materials.
  • Novel advances in mathematical sciences research across the breadth of pure and applied mathematics as well as in statistics and operational research.

NERC Pushing the Frontiers of Understanding

The Pushing the Frontiers pilot will support the very best individual researchers in the environmental sciences to push the frontiers of knowledge with ground-breaking, risky, innovative scientific discovery. NERC £10 million Pushing the Frontiers pilot will fund successful proposals at the level of award to facilitate ground-breaking discovery over a period of three to four years. NERC will fund projects via a streamlined process, with focus on the proposed transformational research (five pages), and the skills and track record of the individual (two pages). Successful proposals will be asked for a justification of resources after a decision has been made. Proposals are welcomed across the environmental science remit.

Full guidance will be available when the calls are published in the coming weeks on the EPSRC and NERC websites.

Parliamentary News

Local MP Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) has introduced 41 Bills to the Commons. Chope is well known for filibustering (talking a lot so that Bills run out of parliamentary time and fail) and for objecting to private members’ bills so they do not have the chance to become law. It is likely he is playing a parliamentary game here (he has done this before) and none of his Bills will go anywhere. They look designed to provoke.  One Bill he has introduced does touch on HE – student loan interest rate levels.  This is a theme he has touched on before – we’ll be watching just in case the Bill does proceed.

And the reshuffle:

The Institute for Government has a summary:

  • The full cabinet has now been appointed. There is one fewer cabinet minister, given the abolition of DExEU at the end of January, although Steve Barclay will still be in cabinet meetings as the new chief secretary to the Treasury.
  • There are also fewer ministers ‘attending’ cabinet without having full cabinet posts. Under David Cameron and Theresa May, there were many of these ministers attending – but Boris Johnson has now reduced that to just four roles. Two of those who previously attended cabinet – Kwasi Kwarteng at BEIS and Lord Goldsmith at DfID, Defra and the FCO – are still ministers but no longer attend cabinet.

Student NDAs

The BBC has reported on 45 universities using NDAs to stop students publishing details of their complaints of harassment or bullying, amongst other things.

The story provoked outrage from the (then) Minister who called it “an abuse of power”. The BBC says: “The student complaints regulator, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, said the use of NDAs was “not appropriate” and advised against the practice.”

Mobility

The PM intends to reduce the salary threshold for skilled migrant from £30,000 to £25,600 after Brexit. The detail of these plans will be confirmed following Friday’s cabinet meeting. This change follows substantial lobbying from several business sectors including the NHS and schools who rely on non-UK talent in lower paid job roles. The Migration Advisory Committee have been central to the immigration decisions over the last few years and have stepped down from their previous position to implement an across the board (all regions) higher salary threshold. In announcing this change the Government estimates that under the proposed Australian-based points system there will be a cut of 90,000 unskilled EU migrants coming to the UK a year, and an increase of 65,000 skilled workers from Europe and further afield. The new threshold is expected to be introduced for January 2021.

Yet to be discussed with the EU are the potential changes to fees for EU students to attend British universities after the end of the Brexit transition period.  It is expected that EU students will be expected to pay international student fees.  One thing to note is that there is a double impact here – not only will fees go up, but the students will no longer be eligible for student loans for tuition or maintenance.

And we’re waiting for a response to this parliamentary question raised by Daniel Zeichner MP:

  • To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to create new endorsing bodies for the new global talent visa to enable science and technology companies in (a) Cambridge and (b) the UK to access the global talent that they need to innovate and grow. [624]

Role of feedback in well being

HEPI have published Students with few or no helpful teachers are 146% more likely to report a high level of dissatisfaction with life which highlights the factors most affecting student wellbeing following statistical analysis of the previous HE Student Academic Experience Survey results.

The key findings in What affects student wellbeing? (HEPI Policy Note 21) include:

  1. a relationship between ethnic identity and dissatisfaction with life, with life satisfaction scores of under 7 (on a 0-to-10 scale) varying from 42% among Bangladeshi students to 28% among White students
  2. a similar relationship between ethnic identity and anxiety, with anxiety scores of 7 or more ranging from 27% among Mixed identity students to 21% among Black African students
  3. more dissatisfaction with life among students from the lowest participation quintile than from the highest participation quintile (35% vs 30%)
  4. higher dissatisfaction with life among students who live at home while studying and who commute more than five miles (37%) than among those who have relocated to their place of study (30%)
  5. only 12% of students who relocate to study work 12 or more hours a week compared to 25% of students who continue living at home – but longer working hours have no significant effect on anxiety and only a small negative effect on life satisfaction
  6. 62% of students think all or most staff are helpful and supportive, while 22% say half and half are and 7% say few or none are
  7. as the proportion of staff experienced as helpful and supportive declines, the proportion of students reporting high anxiety rises, from 22% to 33%
  8. dissatisfaction with life is reported by 24% of students who feel all or most staff are helpful and supportive, but this rises to 49% among students who feel few or no staff are helpful and supportive
  9. when logistic regression is applied to the data to find out the actual independent effect of each variable, students who say they experience few or no helpful teachers are seen to be 146% more likely to report a high level of life dissatisfaction than students who report all or most teachers are helpful
  10. logistic regression also shows students who report few or no helpful teachers are 65% more likely to report a high level of anxiety than students who report all or most teachers as helpful

Tim Blackman, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University and the author of the report, said:

  • ‘Student wellbeing is often seen through the lens of counselling and mental health support. This new analysis identifies other possible factors that may increase the risk of particularly high levels of anxiety and dissatisfaction with life among higher education students. 
  • Can some of the drivers of high levels of poor wellbeing among students be the way that we as universities and a sector undertake teaching and assessment? Can we look at student wellbeing and learn from good practice in the workplace, where stress is often seen in terms of how work is organised?
  • … the statistical evidence found…suggests a wellbeing gain from improving teaching and feedback. Higher education institutions should see increasing their students’ experiences of helpful teachers and useful feedback not just as important to student achievement but also as part of their wellbeing strategies.’

Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said:

  • ‘This new analysis…proves beyond reasonable doubt that there is a close link between teaching quality and student wellbeing. You cannot choose to focus on one or the other.
  • Any institution that wants to raise its levels of student wellbeing should invest in teaching staff who know how to interact with students effectively and have the time to do so.’

Parliamentary questions

A parliamentary question on easier home/university student access to GPs.

Q – Dame Diana Johnson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of enabling students to register with a GP at home and at university.

A – Jo Churchill:

  • Anyone who requires treatment that a general practitioner (GP) or healthcare professional regards as an emergency, or as immediately necessary, should be provided that treatment free of charge, regardless of whether they are registered with a GP.
  • It is not possible for patients to register with two GP practices at the same time. However, we recognise that students registered with a university GP practice may wish to access treatment from another GP when returning home or when away from university. Students can therefore register as a temporary resident at another GP practice. Temporary residence applies where a person intends to be in an area for more than 24 hours but less than three months. Once registered, patients can receive treatment in the same way as other patients. Details of a patient’s treatment whilst at their temporary practice will be passed to their permanent practice.
  • Inquiries and Consultations

Click here to view the updated inquiries and consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Recess

The Houses of Parliament have entered recess and there will not be a policy update next week.

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JANE FORSTER                                            |                       SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor                                                                     Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter                   |                       policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

 

BU Research with people sleeping rough locally

Homelessness in the UK is a massive issue, with numbers increasing year by year. The South West region had the third highest number of rough sleepers in England in 2018.  Bournemouth is within the top 24 local authorities for highest numbers of homeless individuals.

There are big health inequalities for people who are homeless. The mean age of death for a woman living on the streets is 43 years and for a man 45 years.  This is almost half of the mean life expectancy of those living in homes. Yet people who are homeless, especially those living on the streets, find it incredibly difficult to navigate and access health and social care.

Drs Vanessa Heaslip, Sue Green, Bibha Simkhada (Department of Nursing Science) and Huseyin Dogan (SciTech) have been awarded a grant by the Burdett Trust for Nursing to identify potential technological solutions to promote self-care of people sleeping rough.  They aim to develop a freely available app, enabling navigation and access to resources to manage complex health and social care needs. The team from Bournemouth University will be working in partnership with a local GP from Medicine Providence Surgery, Street Support, Big Issue and Dorset Healthcare NHS Trust on this project.

If you would like any further information – please contact the lead researcher Dr Vanessa Heaslip on vheaslip@bournemouth.ac.uk or 01202 961774

SciVal – Research Performance Tool Training

Elsevier, the manufacturers of SciVal, will be coming to BU to deliver a number of workshops on their research performance online tool.

SciVal shows bibliometric data for individuals and organisations and is used by some funders and organisations when assessing research grants, informing research evaluation and identifying collaborators worldwide.

27th February 2020 at Talbot Campus

There are two sessions running during the day as follows:

09:30 – 11:00 SciVal for REF purposes

11:30 – 12:30 SciVal Introduction (for Researchers and Professional Support Staff)

13:30 – 14:30 SciVal Introduction (for Researchers and Professional Support Staff)

15:00 – 16:30 SciVal for REF purposes

To register book your place for one of these workshops, please e-mail Organisational Development stating which session(s) you wish to attend.

If you have any queries, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

 

New BU diabetes research

Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Collard in the Department of Psychology, Dr. Pramod Regmi in the Department of Nursing Science and FHSS Visiting Professor Katherine Barnard-Kelly on their publication: ‘Exercising with an automated insulin delivery system: qualitative insight into the hopes and expectations of people with type 1 diabetes’  [1]. This paper in Practical Diabetes is a joint publication with several North American scholars.

The authors of this qualitative paper distilled three themes related to the benefits of automated insulin delivery systems: (a) more freedom and spontaneity in the individual’s ability to exercise; (b) relief
from worry of hypoglycaemia as a result of exercise; (c) removing the ‘guesswork’ of adjusting insulin for exercise, as well as two further themes relating to potential concerns with regard to safely exercising while wearing an automated insulin delivery system.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Collard, S.S., Regmi, P.R., Hood, K.K., Laffel, L., Weissberg-Benchell, J., Naranjo, D., Barnard-Kelly, K. (2020) Exercising with an automated insulin delivery system: qualitative insight into the hopes and expectations of people with type 1 diabetes, Practical Diabetes 2020; 37(1): 19–23

Preparing Practice-Based Research Outputs for Assessment

Tuesday 18th February 13:00 – 17:00 Talbot Campus

This session is for all authors or producers of research outputs in non-traditional formats to work through the key information required and make a start in preparing this ready for submission to a future REF mock exercise. The topics covered will be :

  • What information authors/producers of practice-based research outputs should include in their submission
  • How this information should be presented
  • Looking at worked examples – good and bad practice
  • Working with individual staff to develop the presentation of their research

See here for more information and to book. Contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk if you have any queries.

 

Safeguarding Researchers: Preparing & Supporting PGR Fieldwork

GOOD-PRACTICE SHARING

Safeguarding Researchers: Preparing & Supporting PGR Fieldwork

Discover effective practices and contribute to a sector-wide standard for support and guidance in safeguarding postgraduate researchers undertaking fieldwork.

8th March 2020. University of Glasgow

This workshop will explore effective practices in, and opportunities to enhance, the support for researchers undertaking fieldwork, during the preparation phase, whilst they are away and on their return.

What to Expect
This workshop will consider:

  • Pre-departure training, including personal safety, travel health, first aid, data security and special considerations for working in conflict zones
  • Mental health support and training
  • Peer networks
  • Strategies and technology to keep in touch and provide support and connection to researchers in the field
  • Post-fieldwork debrief and support.

Date & Venue                                        Cost
18th March 2020.                                  UKCGE Member: £195
University of Glasgow.                          Non-member: £295

Find Out More >

 

Wessex Brain Ageing and Dementia Research Meeting

Members from the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre were invited to present at the Wessex Brain Ageing and Dementia Research meeting on 4th February, St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton. Hosted by IDeAC, NIHR CRN and ARC Wessex, the event showcased dementia research in Wessex, linking dementia researchers across Wessex and grow the network for clinical trials.

PGR Raysa ElZein presented a poster on research on dietary fat interventions in cognitive impairment and older people, Dr Michele Board on research using the ‘A Walk Through Dementia’ app, Dr Samuel Nyman presented his research on Tai Chi  (The TACIT Trial)  for people with dementia and Prof Jane Murphy gave an overview of the ADRC’s research and a workshop on PPI and dementia research with Dr Michelle Heward. It was a great opportunity to share research and grow opportunities to collaborate on projects across Wessex and cross disciplines with academics and stakeholders attending.

Writing Day for Systematic and Scoping Reviews

Thursday 13th February 09:30 – 16:00 Poole House

Systematic and scoping reviews are a great way of publishing quality publications. They are also highly valued as REF submissions, especially in the health field.

One of the most important aspects for a systematic review is to create an effective and professional search strategy.

This session will provide information on effective search strategies – with advice from the library to specific researchers, as well as advice on writing scoping and systematic reviews from academics with experience in this field.

Both staff and postgraduate students should consider writing up their literature reviews as journal articles. For more information about how scoping and systematic reviews can help improve your academic career please see the blog.

Click to book. Any queries, please contact RKEDF@bournemouth.ac.uk.

New publication by NCCA academics and students in the top journal

The SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences (“SIIMSa broad authoritative source for fundamental results in imaging sciences, with a unique combination of mathematics and applications”), an influential Q1-journal with a significant Impact Factor and SJR indicator, has just published the paper “Automatically Controlled Morphing of 2D Shapes with Textures” authored by NCCA academics and students. This multidisciplinary paper proposes a novel theoretical and practical framework resulting in a suite of mathematically substantiated techniques important in the context of 2D imagery, artistic design, computer animation, and emerging streaming and interactive applications.

The paper has a rather long and non-trivial history related to the fusion of academic and student research. Initially, NCCA UG student Felix Marrington-Reeve (“Computer Visualisation and Animation” course, Level 6) undertook his R&D project within the “Innovations” unit and got some interesting results. The 8-page paper written on the basis of his project and co-authored with his supervisors Dr Valery Adzhiev and Prof Alexander Pasko, was, however, rejected in 2017 by two international conferences (they were prepared to accept a short version but the authors thought the work deserved a better fate).

After Felix’s graduation (he started working in a leading production company Framestore) Dr Oleg Fryazinov and PhD student Alexander Tereshin joined the project team. A lot of additional theoretical and practical work had been done, and in February 2019 the radically modified and extended 30-page version was submitted to SIIMS. After two-stage rigorous peer-reviewing process, in October 2019 the paper was accepted by this prestigious journal.

References:

  • Tereshin, A., Adzhiev, V., Fryazinov, O., Marrington-Reeve, F., Pasko, A. (2020). “Automatically Controlled Morphing of 2D Shapes with Textures”, The SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 78-107. DOI: 10.1137/19M1241581
  • Full text of the paper: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/33366/

Research Development & Support Pre-award Timeline

The Research Development & Support RKE Application timeline is your ultimate guide to applying for external R&KE funding. The timeline guides you through all the necessary steps, procedures and processes involved, including navigating through all the requirements of the internal quality approvals, costing preparations, legal and finances approvals, faculty approvals, etc.

The R&KE timeline also provides helpful guidance in the time needed in preparing and finalising external funding applications, taking you through initial planning, the submission preparation processes, legal and finance approval processes and to the submission to funder process.

You can also find useful links and information, as well as your Funding Development Team contacts on this timeline document.

Performative Social Science reaching wider audiences

A Chapter on Performative Social Science for the International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods by BU’s Dr Kip Jones has achieved 1500+ reads on ResearchGate.

Performative Social Science (PSS) is an arts-led method of research and dissemination developed by Jones at Bournemouth University over ten years and is recognised internationally. Recently lauded by Sage Publications, they described PSS as pioneering work that will ‘propel arts-led research forward’ and be a ‘valued resource for students and researchers for years to come’.  

Performative Social Science (PSS) is positioned within the current era of cross-pollination from discipline to discipline. Practitioners from the Arts and Humanities look to the Social Sciences for fresh frameworks, whist Social Science practitioners explore the Arts for potential new tools for enquiry and dissemination.

‘Kip Jones brings the genre of what he calls performative social sciences forward with wide-ranging theoretical, academic, and artistic products in a various media that takes up how social scientists can use art for investigation and dissemination.’ —“Embodied Methodologies, Participation, and the Art of Research” by Madeline Fox  

Dr Kip Jones, Reader in Qualitative Research and Performative Social Science retires from Bournemouth University at the end of February, but will continue with PhD supervision on a part-time basis. He has four potential publications in discussion with publishers, including a volume on PSS.