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BU successful in retaining EC HR Excellence in Research Award!

 

Good news – BU has been successful in retaining the European Commission HR Excellence in Research Award  and is now one of 97 Vitae UK member institutions in the UK who hold this award. In this current round of assessments, BU is one of four universities who have retained their award following the 6 year review. We offer our congratulations to all the other universities who have retained their award during this round.

The Award demonstrates BU’s commitment to aligning process and practice to the UK Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and, therefore, improving the working conditions and career development for research staff. In turn, this will improve the quantity, quality and impact of research for the benefit of UK society and the economy. The six year review required BU to highlight the key achievements and progress we have made since we first secured this Award in January 2013 and the reviews in 2015 and 2017. The submission also outlined the focus of our strategy, success measures and next steps for the next two years, with much of this pertinent and aligned to BU2025 plans.

Key achievements made at BU since 2017, in support of this agenda include:

You can read our progress review and future action plan (2019-2020) in full on BU’s web pages dedicated to the Research Concordat.

In 2018, the Concordat was reviewed, and we eagerly await the outcome of this review and the subsequent sector consultation.

Read the full announcement on the Vitae website.

Please note that not all links in this post can be accessed outside Bournemouth University. 

The ACORN Fund is now open for applications!

Funding opportunities

The ACORN Fund (Acceleration Of Research & Networking) for Early Career Researchers is now open for applications.

This year’s closing date is Thursday, 18th April 2019 and all applications must be submitted to the email account: acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk.

This scheme will provide c. five awards, of up to £5,000 each, to support BU’s ECRs, with the most promising talent, to gain experience of managing and leading their own pilot research projects. These award support BU’s commitment to the Concordat to Support to Career Development of Researchers and is made possible by BU’s QR (Quality Research) allocation.

There is a strong link to BU’s ECR Network and the forthcoming 2019 ECR Showcase event. In this way, those who do not benefit directly from the ACORN Fund scheme by receiving funding, will benefit indirectly though interaction with those ECRs who receive support via the scheme.

For eligibility, an ECR in this case is defined as someone who started their research career on or after 1 August 2014. This is the point at which they held a contract of employment of 0.2 FTE or greater, which included a primary employment function of undertaking ‘research’ or ‘teaching and research’, with any HE or other organisation, whether in the UK or overseas. 

Within the Research > Pre-award area on the staff intranet, you can find out more by reading the ACORN Fund Policy (2019) and apply using the Application Form for this round (2019). In addition, to assist with the budget section, please refer to the RKE Sample Costs . As this does not require Full Economic Costing, you should not contact your faculty’s Funding Development Officer to complete the costing for you. Please address any queries as below.

The closing date for applications is 18th April 2018. As these require faculty support, please start your application and obtain faculty approval as soon as possible. Applicants are responsible for obtaining faculty sign-off and for submitting the application to the email below.

Please address any queries to Emily Cieciura, Research Development & Support lead for this scheme, via acorn@bournemouth.ac.uk

Putting the ACORN 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 over the coming weeks.

These panels align with the BU2025 focus on research, including BU’s Research Principles. Specifically, but not exclusively, regarding the ACORN Fund, 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)
  • Outcomes 4 and 5 – where ECRs are provided with the mechanisms for support such as mentors and, through schemes including the ACORN fund, gain budgetary responsibility experience

RKE News – latest issue out now

Knowledge Exchange

The latest issue of RKE News is now available. The purpose of the newsletter is to provide a termly update of internal and external research and knowledge exchange news, successes and opportunities.

This issue is packed full of hopefully useful information including the launch of ‘Research Development & Support’, our new Research Funding Panels, REF 2021, some of the many funding opportunities which are available and upcoming events.

I hope this information is helpful and of interest to you. If you would like to send in any stories or ideas for inclusion or if you have any feedback in general, please let me know.

Calling all ECRs!

Do you want to meet with fellow BU ECRs in an informal setting to discuss  the highs and lows of being a Early Career Researcher?

Then … come and join the BU Early Career Researcher Network!

We meet monthly and have a programme of topics for the year. The next meeting is on Wednesday, 13th March, where we will be discussing how to find research funding

The network is open to those BU academics who define themselves as ECRs and includes PTHP. The Brightspace group is also open to others across BU who wish to support our ECRs.

If you would like to come to this event, or find out about future events by signing up to the ECRN community on Brightspace, just let us know.

 

2 days left to vote in this years Research Photography Competition!

A reminder that voting is now live for this years research photography competition, and ends this Friday at 5pm!

The research photography competition is an annual competition where staff and students are set the challenge of telling the story of their research in one single photograph.

This years competition centres around the theme of place, which can range from the place an individuals research was carried out, to the place that inspired their research, to their own individual understanding and interpretation of what represents ‘place’.

It’s up to you to decide who this year’s winners will be.  Perhaps a particular image strikes you as interesting or the story behind the research captures your imagination – the choice is yours! You can find out the story and vote upon what captures you here.

This year’s entries will be displayed in the Atrium Art Gallery in Poole House from mid March, with the winners announced on 14 March. You can book your free ticket to the prize giving here.

NERC standard grants (July 2019 deadline) – internal competition launched

Funding opportunities

NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures at: http://intranetsp.bournemouth.ac.uk/policy/BU Policy for NERC Demand Management Measures.docx.

As at January 2019, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.

BU process

As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. The next available standard grant round is 16th July 2019. The deadline for internal Expressions of Interest (EoI) which will be used to determine which application will be submitted is 29th March 2019.  The EoI form, BU policy for NERC Demand Management Measures and process for selecting an application can be found here: I:\RDS\Public\NERC Demand Management 2019.

NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RDS submit applications through Je-S on behalf of applicants, RDS will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.

Following the internal competition, the Principal Investigator will have access to support from RDS, and will work closely with the Research Facilitator and Funding Development Officers to develop the application. Access to external bid writers will also be available.

Appeals process

If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.

RDS Contacts

Please contact Lisa Andrews, RDS Research Facilitator – andrewsl@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RDS Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.

#TalkBU with Jayne Caudwell

We will be joined by Jayne Caudwell at March’s #TalkBU session, who will be discussing racism and sexism in sport and why we need sport feminsim!

A recent report identified that 40% of women in the sport industry face gender discrimination (Women in Sport, 2018). Black and minority ethnic (BME) sportswomen face increased levels of prejudice because of the dual effects of sexsim and racism. 

In this talk, Dr Jayne Caudwell will discuss the cases of UK footballer Eni Aluko and US tennis player Serena Williams, and the unjust treatment of these athletes to demonstrate the level of sexism and racism in contemporary sport culture. She will be referring to feminsim (theory and activism) in order to call out racism and sexism, and to explore how we can challenge oppression.

We hope to see you in CG11, 1-2pm on the 7th March, with lunch provided! You can register for free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talkbu-with-jayne-caudwell-tickets-56879367720

National Research Landscape Survey

Research England is interested in understanding how researchers think the research landscape (i.e. research outputs, impacts and the research environment) might change over the next 5 to 10 years, in order to inform their planning for future research assessment (post 2021). This survey is intended to collect information on these issues and is part of a wider study being conducted by RAND Europe on behalf of Research England.

This survey is for researchers within English Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

It should take 8-12 minutes to complete and can be accessed here: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/nationalresearchsurvey/

If you have any questions about the survey please contact the RAND Europe project team at research_landscape_survey@rand.org.

Clinical Research Transparency – Responsibilities

NHS, Research Ethics

‘Researchers, sponsors and funders have responsibilities – that may be legal requirements or ethical and moral expectations within an accepted governance framework of best practice and standards – to participants in research, patients and the wider public and research communities.’

The HRA have recently released a page of useful links and guidance that encompasses areas such as ‘top tips for transparency’, making your research results public, and also registering your study.
Related to this, hopefully you will have seen a recent blog post regarding the HRA’s commitment to ensuring research transparency. This has been a hot topic lately, and the subject of a recent House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report.

Take a look at the HRA guidance here.

BU has access to the ClinicalTrials.gov system so get in touch if you would like access. This is a great opportunity to register your study and study results in the public domain. It is free to use.
Despite the name, the system may be used for other clinical research projects.