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The Research Impact Fund is open for applications for 2019/20 – strand 3

Demonstrating impact is becoming an increasingly normal part of academic life, with changes in the external environment underpinning the need to show how research is making a difference beyond academia. As well as forming a significant part of a university’s REF submission, impact pathways are often included as a routine part of funding applications.

In order to support impact development at Bournemouth University, an impact fund was established in spring 2019, overseen by the Research Impact Funding Panel. The first call for applications was launched in March 2019 for the remainder of the 2018/19 academic year. This call is now closed.

For 2019/20, the Research Impact Fund has been split into three strands:

  1. To support the development of new research partnerships and networks, to lay the groundwork for future research projects (£17,500) – now closed.
  2. To provide support for emerging impact from existing underpinning research (£17,500) – now closed.
  3. For the development of impact case studies for REF2021 (£15,000) – open.

We are pleased to announce that the fund is now open for applications for strand 3.

Eligibility

 This strand is open only to those developing an impact case study for REF2021. It is expected that those who are applying for the fund will have previously submitted a draft case study for review through mock REF exercise. If you are yet to submit a draft case study, but believe you have a potential impact case study for REF2021, please speak to your Faculty Impact Officer in the first instance:

 Application process

To apply, please read the application form and policy document. To apply, please read the application form and guidance. Applications must be submitted by your Impact Champion or UoA Lead to researchimpact@bournemouth.ac.uk by Friday 20 September.

 If you have any questions about your application please email either Rachel Bowen (for HSS or FM queries) or Genna del Rosa (for FMC or SciTech queries).

You can also seek advice from the following RDS colleagues when developing your application:

BU’s Research Principles

Putting the Research Impact Fund into strategic context, under BU2025, the following funding panels operate to prioritise applications for funding and make recommendations to the Research Performance and Management Committee (RPMC).

There are eight funding panels:

  1. HEIF Funding Panel
  2. GCRF Funding Panel
  3. Research Impact Funding Panel
  4. Doctoral Studentship Funding Panel
  5. ACORN Funding Panel
  6. Research Fellowships Funding Panel
  7. Charity Support Funding Panel
  8. SIA Funding panel

Please see further announcements regarding each initiative.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles.  Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the Research Impact Funding Panel, please refer to:

  • Principle 5 – which sets of the context for such funding panels,
  • Principle 6 and Outcome 9 – which recognises the need for interdisciplinarity and the importance of social science and humanities (SSH).

 

Open Access stories – Open Access in developing countries

open access

Sometimes Open Access is viewed as an administrative requirement for the REF, but it is more than that: it is a way to ensure that research outputs are available to the wider world, even in developing countries, where universities cannot always afford  prohibitively-expensive subscription costs.

For example, Professor Edwin van Teijlingen, alongside other BU academics, has built close research links with Nepal. This has resulted in his collaboration on several papers and projects with Nepalese academics and health professionals. He gives an insight into access to research in Nepal in this article. This blog post is an excellent glimpse into the world of academic publishing and Open Access in Nepal.

Organisations such as INASP or AmeliCA are providing a platform for scholarly publishing and Open Access in Africa, Oceania, Asia and Latin America, to ensure that research from those regions is available.

This shows the wider implication of Open Access to the world-wide community.

More information about Open Access can be found in this library guide.

Remember that your faculty library team is always happy to help you with any enquiries about Open Access.

Jose

HSS Faculty Librarian

Emerald Literati Highly Commended award for BU paper

Former PhD student, Dr Andy Harding, now at Lancaster University, and BU Professors Jonathan Parker, Sarah Head and Ann Hemingway have been highly commended for their paper Supply-side review of the UK specialist housing market and why it is failing older people published in Housing, Care and Support.

As a result, this paper has been made available on OpenAccess on the Emerald website for the next six months.

ECREA Doctoral Summer School 2019 | Report by FMC PGR Daniel Hills

PG research

Daniel Hills (FMC PGR) has recently returned from the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School. This year it was held at Tartu University, Estonia between 9th to 16th July. 

Taken from the ECREA website, the summer school brings together members of the European research community to this summer school in order to debate contemporary issues in media, communication and cultural studies. The summer school aims to provide a supportive international setting where doctoral students can present their ongoing work, receive feedback on their PhD-projects from international experts and meet students and academics from other countries, establishing valuable contacts for the future.

It is a full on conference including a variety of back-to-back workshops, lectures, group feedback sessions and consultation every day for 8 days, and is extremely intense. To qualify for this conference, I had to supply an initial 500 word abstract of my PhD, and following being successfully shortlisted for the next round, produce an expanded 3,000 word introduction and summary of my research project, as well as a 10 minute presentation summarising my research plans as they were prior to the summer school.

There were 40 delegates selected and I was lucky enough to be one of them. The conference commenced at 09:30 on the 8th with a half day meet and greet so we could all get to know one another and our personal areas of research. This was followed by lunch and then into an afternoon of interactive workshops taking us to 6PM. This was followed by a welcome drinks party where we could discuss our first day over a glass of wine and provided a great opportunity to bond with my new peers. Over the following days, we would cover a further 16 workshops, 5 lectures and most importantly for me, individual feedback sessions. Our large group was broken into 2 groups or 14 and 1 or 13, and over the course of the work were give an hour dedicated to presenting our research (10 minutes) maximum and then to receive a structured feedback from lecturers and peers whom had already read my 3,000 word paper. This delivered invaluable feedback for me and gave me a plethora of new perspectives which I had hitherto not considered.

I gained a great deal of insights, useful techniques and a re-ignition of enthusiasm towards my research throughout the 8 days, and would encourage anybody whom is more than a year into their research to apply for the 2020 version. I graduated with 10 ECTS points on the final day, but more importantly new-found knowledge and a new direction to progress with my PhD, and a whole lot of new friends and peers. I am planning on writing a paper with one of my new friends whom is interested in a similar field to my own. All in all, the ECREA European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School has been one of the most useful academic experiences of my career to date.

Daniel Hills is a PhD researcher in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, and is focusing his research in advertising planning and practice theory, aiming to complete in 2020.

BU Academic Targeted Research Scheme – closing this week

BU2025 sets out ambitious plans and targets for research at BU. In support of these, an exciting new opportunity has been developed.

In recognition of the important contribution that early career academics play in driving research for the future, we are delighted to be launching the BU Academic Targeted Research scheme to attract and recruit talented individuals in targeted research areas. We will employ up to six new Senior Lecturers with significant postdoctoral expertise (or of comparable experience) with outstanding potential in alignment with one of six targeted research areas:

  • Technology for behavioural change
  • AI – with a focus on medical imaging
  • Evidence-based persuasive communication for public health
  • Immersive environments for disaster
  • Sustainability consumption and impact
  • Sport and Sustainability

We wish to recruit a diverse cohort of individuals with the motivation to become future academic leaders in their field. As an academic at BU, successful candidates will develop their career in exciting work environments, be provided with a high level of dedicated time to drive research activity and build capacity, and have the freedom to develop their research interests within the targeted areas. BU is committed to Fusion and as such successful candidates will also have the opportunity to contribute to the education and professional practice activities within their Department.

To support these roles and accelerate their careers, BU will provide three years of full-time salary (or part-time equivalent) and reasonable costs directly related to the proposed programme of research activities (up to £10k per year). The standard Academic Application Form must be completed and in all cases accompanied by the BU Academic Targeted Research scheme application form, which will propose the research activities and request funding.

To find out more about these exciting opportunities, please read the scheme guidance and visit the BU website.

Any enquiries about the scheme should be directed to researchfellowships@bournemouth.ac.uk. If your enquiry is about applying under one of the targeted research areas and you want to know more about this then please go to our website to find the academic contact for each area.

Please note that the closing date is 11th August 2019. No late applications will be accepted.

Promoting Nursing CPD in Nepal

Fusion, international, writing

Bournemouth University facilitated a Strategic planning meeting to develop a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Framework for Nepal last week in Kathmandu. The planning meeting was held on 30th July 2019 at the Institute of Medicine IOM Maharajgunj Nursing Campus.  Midwifery is not formally recognised in Nepal, i.e. as a profession separate from nursing, therefore when refer to nursing CPD in this blog we mean both ‘nurses’ and ‘nurse-midwives’.

Bournemouth University is collaborating in this project with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in the UK, the IOM Nursing Campus, the Nursing Association of Nepal (NAN), MIDSON, the Nepal Nursing Council (NNC) and several other key stakeholders in Nepal to support nursing regulatory bodies to establish mandatory CPD and/or post-registration training programmes relevant to their current practice in nursing. 

The Bournemouth team (led by Dr. Bibha Simkhada with Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and Dr.Pramod Regmi) argued that CPD offers nurses the opportunity to maintain, improve and broaden knowledge, expertise and develop their personal and professional qualities to enhance practice and career development. Nepal has had limited process and progress in ensuring CPD for nurses and the uptake of post-registration education and training  programmes or CPD tends to be ad hoc.  Generally, CPD in Nepal remains under-developed as showing evidence of having received CPD is not currently a requirement of nurses when they re-register every five year.

This project is a good example of a BU FUSION project as our earlier Research in the form of a needs assessment will to the introduction of CPD which is of course, post-registration Education in nursing, helping to improve Practice in a low-income country.  We think we have had at least some impact on nursing in Nepal as the general feeling of our strategic planning meeting positive towards introducing CPD in the near future in Nepal.

 

 

NIHR-CRN podcast – Research Ethics Committees

Guidance, NHS, Research Ethics

The latest podcast from the National Institute for Health Research is available and this time concentrates on Research Ethics Committees.

All research with human participants should have appropriate ethical reflection – the podcast this month contains the thoughts and guidance of Dr Hugh Davies who is an established Research Ethics Committee Chair and former Ethics Advisor for the Health Research Authority.

If you are interested in learning more about NHS Research Ethics Committees you can view the dedicated section on the HRA website here, and even register your interest to sit as an observer at a committee meeting.

Happy listening!

Training opportunity – completing and submitting your IRAS application

NHS, Research Ethics, Training

Are you currently in the process of designing, setting up or planning your research study, and would like to extend your project into the NHS?

Yes? Then you may want to take advantage of this training opportunity.

Oliver Hopper (Research & Development Coordinator, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital) and Suzy Wignall (Clinical Governance Advisor, RDS)  will be running a training session on how to use, and complete your own application within the IRAS system.

IRAS (Integrated Research Application System) is the system used to gain approvals from the NHS Research Ethics Committee and Health Research Authority, before rolling out your study to NHS Trusts. To support this, the session will include the background to research ethics and the approvals required for NHS research.

The session will also be interactive, and so as participants, you will have the opportunity to go through the form itself and complete the sections, with guidance on what the reviewers are expecting to see in your answers, and tips on how to best use the system.

The training will take place in Studland House – Lansdowne Campus, room 103 Tuesday 20th August at 09:30am – 12:30pm.

Get in touch with Research Ethics if you would like to register your interest and book a place.

BU PhD student Peter Wolfensberger has article accepted in Brit J Mental Health Nursing

Centre for Excellence in Learning, international, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to FHSS PhD student Peter Wolfensberger whose article ‘Uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health – a mental health nursing perspective’ was accepted yesterday by the British Journal of Mental Health Nursing [1].   The paper introduces the concept of ‘uncertainty in illness’, which is a well-known concept in health care literature  and a considerable volume of research has investigated how people adapt to different health conditions and how the concept of uncertainty in illness relates to those populations. However, while there is substantial literature focusing on coping strategies and personal recovery, there is a paucity of research about uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health. 

This paper therefore, explores uncertainty in illness among mental health nurses and to provide an understanding of its relevance to people living with mental ill health.  The paper concludes that even though mental health nursing does not directly address uncertainty, the concept and its implications need to be considered and raised further among mental health professionals in order to improve support for people living with mental ill health in their process of personal recovery.

This paper originated from Peter’s PhD research on insights into mental health nursing in Switzerland, which has had input from Prof Fran Biley (before he passed away) and Dr. Zoe Sheppard (before she moved to her new job in Dorchester).  His current BU supervisors are: Dr. Sarah Thomas and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen and his Swiss supervisor is Prof. Sabine Hahn (Berner Fachhochschule/ Bern University of Applied Sciences).

 

Reference:

  1. Wolfensberger P. Thomas, S., Sheppard, Z., Hahn, S, van Teijlingen, E.  ‘Uncertainty in illness among people living with mental ill health – a mental health nursing perspective’  British Journal of Mental Health Nursing (Accepted)

 

 

 

 

Congratulations on academic paper by BU PhD student Orlanda Harvey

open access, PG research, Publishing, student research, writing

Congratulations to Orlanda Harvey, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences on her PhD publication “Support for people who use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids: A Systematic Scoping Review into what they want and what they access” in the Open Access journal BMC Public Health [1].  Since there is a paucity of research on support for people using Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS), this article searched and synthesised the available evidence in this field. Gaining an understanding of the support both accessed and wanted by recreational AAS users will be of use to professionals who provide services to intravenous substance users and also to those working in the fields of public health and social care, with the aim to increase engagement of those using AAS.

This systematic scoping review identified 23 papers and one report for review, which indicated that AAS users access a range of sources of information on: how to inject, substance effectiveness, dosages and side effects, suggesting this is the type of information users want. AAS users sought support from a range of sources including medical professionals, needle and syringe programmes, friends, dealers, and via the internet, suggesting that, different sources were used dependent on the information or support sought.

The authors argue that AAS users tended to prefer peer advice and support over that of professionals , and access information online/specialist fora, reflecting the stigma that is experienced by AAS  users. These tendencies can act as barriers to accessing services provided by professionals.  The paper concludes that support needs to be specific and targeted towards AAS users. Sensitivity to their perceptions of their drug-use and the associated stigma of being classified in the same sub-set as other illicit drug users is relevant to facilitating successful engagement.

 

Reference: 

  1. Harvey, O., Keen, S., Parrish, M., van Teijlingen, E. (2019) Support for people who use Anabolic Androgenic Steroids: A Systematic Literature Review into what they want and what they access. BMS Public Health 19: 1024      https://rdcu.be/bMFon

 

 

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

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

27th August 2019

10th September 2019

12th November 2019

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.

Hair Rollers!

The service assessment sequence

The research

Dr Sae Oshima, a Senior Lecturer in Corporate Marketing and Communications, is researching the awkward moments at the end of a haircut: when the customer must give their feedback.

Dr Oshima calls these moments the ‘service assessment sequence’, a period where honest opinion is often suppressed by social rituals. To her best knowledge, no previous study explored this interaction between customer and stylist. Dr Oshima aims to both inform customers on ways to ask for the best haircut, and educate stylists on communicating with customers to ensure they’re satisfied.

During her MA studies at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr Oshima focused on examining video-recorded, naturally occurring interactions. Continuing to develop her interest in the micro-foundations of professional tasks through her PhD studies, she decided to investigate an interaction close to her heart.

“How do we end up with good and bad haircuts? Some have brought pure joy and happiness, and others even made me cry for an entire week! We tend to credit the quality of the service (good/bad haircuts) to the stylists’ skills alone, but becoming a student of social interaction has enabled me to question this assumption,” explains Dr Oshima.

The importance of this interaction analysis extends further than the hair salon. This research applies to any social interaction where work or services require evaluation. While some services may be assessed by a clear measure of whether something works or not, other service evaluations involve people’s perspectives. This work therefore has far reaching implications on how communication can impact final outcome.

The findings

Dr Oshima video-recorded 60 haircutting sessions in various types of salons in USA and Japan, ranging from slow-paced salons that offer complimentary alcoholic drinks, to high volume/low profit margin chain salons with their value-oriented pricing and speedy service.

Her research has found that many small actions, such as a pause of 0.7 seconds, a shift of gaze, or a slight head movement, can all change the outcome of a haircut, and subsequently affect whether the salon business succeeds or fails.

Above is the ‘Hair Rollers!’ board game which aims to present the variance in haircut outcome due to small actions and responses by a customer. It also highlights the importance of feedback in a service assessment sequence and how this can change the interaction.

HAIR ROLLERS!

The negotiation of professional identities and power is one uncovered issue, present in ‘Hair Rollers!’ Stylists juggle the roles of service-provider and hair expert. Dr Oshima believes that in caring for both body and minds of customers, stylists may yield to customer’s opinions which undermine their role as a professional – see tiles E2, E4 and E6, where the customer hints at an upcoming revision of the cut. Her video evidence and research paper shows how stylists and customers may harmonise the sometimes conflicting responsibilities of ‘service-provider/patron’ and ‘expert/novice’ through a combination of verbal and nonverbal communication.

She was surprised to find just how much work the customers are doing in this sequence to give an “authentic” assessment of the cut which the stylist will believe. For instance, as seen in tile C4, customers perform a physical inspection prior to verbal assessment. Conversely, when the customer says they like the cut too soon, without physical inspection, the stylist may ignore their response – as seen in tile D3. Findings also suggest stylists and customers are constantly dealing with the issue of when it is good enough, and how they can take enough time for inspection without taking too much time. This issue is addressed in this research paper.

A third research paper tackles an ever-challenging topic in the field of social interaction: the complex relationship of practical action and speech. Dr Oshima worked with Professor Jürgen Streeck, of the University of Texas at Austin, to examine how a customer’s physical inspection is coupled with verbal responses.

Finally, this research paper assesses the role of a specific action present during most assessment sequences – nodding. Video data was collected during Dr Oshima’s research in Japan where it is commonly thought that Japanese people are good at reading each other’s minds and nonverbal acts. Dr Oshima challenges this notion to further analyse mechanisms of synchronised nods and how they contribute to satisfactory closure of business.

The impact

Dr Oshima has shared her findings with the stylists and clients who participated in the study, to help improve the quality of service. Her findings have also been shared with organisations and publics in the USA, Denmark and the UK. She has showcased not only hair salon data, but also various other video recorded data from other interactions (such as lunchroom gatherings, flamenco rehearsals or start-up project meetings) to reveal how the small things that people do drastically change what happens next in their interactions with others, and impact outcome.

Dr Oshima concludes: “If we start seeing these micro moments as the opportunity to make choices, then we can turn unconsciousness into consciousness. This is what I want to continue doing with my research – to spread awareness and appreciation for the massive power of micro-actions.”

The future

Dr Oshima currently has two research papers in progress. The first is on the role of emotion in service evaluations. This paper will have a particular focus on the customer’s presentation of surprise, which Dr Oshima finds to be a key form of emotional display in service evaluations. The second paper will include an analysis of service-assessment sequences between a software designer and his clients. This research will aim to address a common problem feared by design practitioners termed the ‘design-by-committee pitfall’. Dr Oshima has collected around 15 hours of video-recorded interactions between a designer and his clients with which she will now determine how verbal and nonverbal practices shape design outcome.