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CQR and CEL: Creativity, the key to connectivity

The Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) and the Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR) are natural allies for creative endeavours–in research and dissemination for CQR, and education or CEL. Members from both centres will be working together to share ideas, skills and resources across the fusion areas of Education, Research and Professional Practice.

CEL are developing a strong creative strand, led by Curie Scott with Lego, Collage and Origami workshops continuing to be taken forward in the University. For example, using collage with 60 post-graduate research students and Lego with MA Corporate Communication students. Origami is used across education and research, read a report on the Origami in Science, Maths and Education conference here.

CQR is led by Kip Jones, Centre Director, and Caroline Ellis-Hill, Deputy Director.

CQR members are known for:

  • Involving creativity in humanising health and social care;
  • gathering data in novel ways;
  • participant involvement at every stage of research and dissemination;
  • unique ways of interpreting and disseminating data;
  • and new ways of writing–including fiction, script-writing, poetry, and auto-ethnography.

CQR has been the home of the development of Performative Social Science (PSS) for more than fourteen years, led by Kip Jones. An arts-led approach to research and its dissemination, it is not simply art for art’s sake, but based in the theoretical premises of Relational Aesthetics. 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’.

CQR consists of several subgroups:

  1. Arts in Research Collaborative
  2. Humanisation Special Interest Group
  3. Narrative Research Group
  4. “Gang of Four” Doctoral Methodological Support Group

This year’s CQR ‘Go Create!’ seminars support the BU 2025 call for “Advancing knowledge, creativity and innovation”. List of dates and topics can be found here.

CEL and CQR are excited about more endeavours together in 2018 and beyond.

Join us in our mutual creative endeavours!

Tokyo 2020 Educational Legacy

In September Dr Debbie Sadd and Dr Hiroko Oe were invited to Tokyo by Toyo University to help staff and students build educational legacies from the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This was as a result of Dr Sadd being invited by the British Council in December 2015 to present at a symposium Bournemouth University’s educational legacies from London 2012.

Toyo University have visited BU twice since as well as a larger delegation of universities with the British Council and this latest visit continues the work being undertaken to help Universities’ in Japan learn from the UK experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During their recent visit Debbie gave some keynote lectures which were followed by Q&A sessions with staff and students. Hiroko then led workshops where the students presented, in teams, plans for legacy building and educational lessons from Tokyo 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of this work stems from the Festival Maker Legacy that BU set up with Bournemouth Council to facilitate volunteer opportunities (thanks to Ian Jones, Regional Community Engagement Manager) and Toyo are particularly keen to get their students setting up a similar scheme as soon as practical and to continue long after the Games have finished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EU funding opportunities – reminder to register

As previously announced, RKEO will host seminar on EU funding opportunities (FG06, Talbot Campus, Fusion Building) on 10th October 2018. Sessions will be delivered by European Advisor of the UK Research Office Dr Andreas Kontogeorgos.
Please register to allow us to order lunch and refreshments for all attendees this week.

Sessions will commence at 11:30 with an update on Brexit, followed by a networking lunch. In the afternoon there will be a review of future ICT-related calls and more detailed overview of the COST Actions and Marie Curie training networks (MSCA ITN) funding schemes.

Everybody is welcome to choose to attend any of the sessions below:

11:30 – 12:00 – Brexit News, Q&A (to be continued during lunch if necessary)
12:00 – 13:00 – Networking Lunch
13:00 – 14:15 – Cross-disciplinary nature of ICT – forthcoming Horizon 2020 calls and topics under pillars of Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges
14:15 – 14:30 – Comfort break / over-run time / time for people to come and in and out
14:30 – 15:15 – COST Actions – bottom-up driven networks for expanding European Cooperation in Science and Technology
15:15 – 16:30 – Overview of MSCA ITN funding scheme, followed by Q&A session

P.S. If you were unable to register, (quiet) drop-in to any separate session will be accepted.

‘Traces of Play’ in concert at SMC 2018 and NYCEMF 2018

I recently presented my multichannel electroacoustic composition ‘Traces of Play’ in two international concerts. The first was at the esteemed music computing conference SMC 2018 (Sound and Music Computing) in Limassol, Cyprus. The programme featured a range of music encompassing fixed media, instruments + electronics, improvised, and mixed media works. Held in Limassol’s Rialto Theatre, this was the first ever multichannel loudspeaker concert to be staged in Cyprus. It was an honour to be involved.

 

The second concert was at the NYCEMF 2018 (New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival). The festival programme, scheduled over a number of days at the Abrons Arts Centre, New York, featured many established names alongside emerging artists, and this was a great opportunity to share and promote BU practice-based research. As well as diffusing (spatialising) my own work, I presented music on behalf of two composers: Antonino Chiaramonte, a doctoral researcher in the Faculty of Media and Communication here at BU; and David Berezan, Professor of Composition at the University of Manchester.

 

If you would like to experience surround-sound electroacoustic music in concert, we have four experimental music concerts running this year as part of the University Music programme. The first takes place on Wednesday 17th October at 7pm in the Allsebrook Lecture Theatre, Talbot Campus, and features Owen Green from the University of Huddersfield. Owen’s research focuses on improvising and composing with computers.

International students on British drinking habits – ‘people don’t know when to stop’

File 20181001 195278 1ehvki.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
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Thomas Thurnell-Read, Loughborough University; Lorraine Brown, Bournemouth University, and Philip Long, Bournemouth University

Of the 2.3m students starting courses at UK universities each autumn, well over 400,000 are international students from non-UK countries.

The scale and importance of international students to the UK higher education sector is now well established. Yet we know very little about how students from non-UK countries experience and interact with the heavy drinking culture that predominates on and near many universities.

Many international students often come from cultures marked by moderation or abstinence around alcohol. And concerns have been raised that activities centred on alcohol may exclude international students.

We’ve conducted new research to reveal the perceptions of British drinking cultures held by international students studying on postgraduate courses at a UK university. In focus groups and interviews, students from countries including Nigeria, the US, China, Turkey, Poland, Germany and Greece told us of their experiences of drinking culture at university.

The British ‘like to drink’

The British Council, and many city and university marketing teams, often promote the British pub as a safe and friendly leisure space in their bid to market studying in the UK to international students. The students we spoke to were aware of the iconic image of the British pub. They spoke of their desire to participate in what they saw as being an important part of British culture. Others spoke with excitement of being able to try British real ale and craft beer as a part of their experience of living and studying in Britain.

Having seen depictions of British pubs in television, film and, increasingly, social media, most international students were aware of alcohol consumption being important to British culture before they came to the UK. This prior perception was confirmed by their initial experiences on arrival. Our interviewees felt that getting drunk was an important part of British cultural life and reported being initially surprised that drinking to excess was an expected part of university life.

Despite these concerns, drinking alcohol was an important part of the social lives of many international students. Many had enjoyed their experiences of socialising in bars and pubs. For others, whose degree programme cohorts were predominantly fellow international students, the pub was a space in which they could view and interact with British culture and British people – such as non-student locals.

Drinking cultures in contrast

International students made ready comparisons with the drinking habits and attitudes of their own cultures. Many told us about how people drink alcohol and get drunk in their own cultures. But they contrasted this with the tendency of “going too far” and of “not knowing when to stop” that was perceived to be a major characteristic of British drinking culture.

That said, many interviewees had enjoyed learning about the practice of buying “rounds” of drinks, using “cheers” before drinking and the lack of table service in Britain. They saw this as a fun and a pleasurable part of getting to know local culture.

International students say they are shocked at the amount of booze consumed by Brits at university.
Shutterstock

As identified in other research, gender is an important feature of how students view drinking and drunkenness. Concern was expressed in our study about a perceived lack of control among some British women when drinking alcohol. Words such as embarrassment and shame were used by both male and female interviewees to define the boundary between fun, sociable drinking and excessive drunkenness.

Interviewees expressed surprise that public vomiting and urination or collapsing in the street were so widely tolerated and even in some cases expected and celebrated by British students.

Finding the balance

Most students felt capable of negotiating their involvement with student drinking culture by choosing times, spaces and styles of drinking that suited their own tastes. This involved a clear preference for drinking as part of other events such as eating a meal out with friends or watching televised sport in pubs. At social events where heavy drinking was the main activity, some would try to enjoy “one or two” drinks but leave once other people became noticeably drunk.

But while many students spoke of the pub as a welcoming and relaxed space for socialising with friends, bars and nightclubs were said to be intimidating places where they felt at risk of violence or harassment. Many students witnessed fights.

Female international students had particular concerns – several spoke of their strategies to stay safe when out at night. The avoidance of the streets at night due to a fear of potential violence or aggression was also highlighted in a previous study that looked at levels of racism experienced by international students.

That said, UK drinking culture is changing. More than a quarter of young adults in the UK do not drink alcohol.
“Sober campuses” during fresher’s week are becoming more prevalent, as are teetotal university halls. And many students are eager for advice on avoiding or moderating the pressure to drink heavily while at university. But only time will tell whether this is a trend that is set to remain.The Conversation

Thomas Thurnell-Read, Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, Loughborough University; Lorraine Brown, Associate Professor, Department of Tourism and Hospitality, Bournemouth University, and Philip Long, Honorary Visiting Research Associate, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Looking for a new challenge?

Bournemouth University invites expressions of interest from internationally recognised mid-career to senior researchers who currently work outside the UK, and are active within the social sciences and humanities who wish to apply for the British Academy Global Fellowship scheme (BAGF).

The purpose of the Global Professorships is to enable world-class scholars to further their individual research goals while strengthening the UK research base and advancing the research goals and strategies of their UK host universities. Each four-year appointment is intended to be a complete project in itself and is expected to involve a specific research focus.

More information about the scheme will be available presently from the British Academy. There are strict eligibility requirements and potential candidates are advised to check these carefully.

Candidates who intend to apply for a BA BAGF at Bournemouth University as the host institution are asked to submit the following BA EOI form – Prof 2018  application to apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk no later than 27th November 2018.

There is no guarantee that applications which arrive after this date will be supported or processed.

 

Procedure For applicants applying through Bournemouth University

Should you be interested in applying through Bournemouth University for a BAGF, please note that your expression of interest application will be assessed by the relevant Faculty in the first instance.

Once your application has been approved by Faculty, it will be sent for internal review. The panel will be convening on the 13th December 2018, and candidates can expect feedback by 4th December 2018.

If your application has been approved, the research facilitator responsible will work with you on your application.

The internal deadline for submitting applications via the BA’s Flexi-Grant system will be 5 working days before the external BA deadline (28 February 2019) – this is to allow time for institutional approval of your application, a requirement by the British Academy.

If you have further questions or queries please contact lease contact apekalski@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Doctoral College: Researcher Development Programme

The Doctoral College would like to present the October monthly update. We would like to welcome all new PGRs to BU and the Doctoral College, and remind any new PGRs that have not attended the Doctoral College induction to get in touch. There are limited spaces left on the Pre-Transfer / Major Review Induction and the Post-Transfer Induction for continuing PGRs, so please book to avoid disappointment. We are also still offering Brightspace Researcher Development Programme training.

New for 2018Postgraduate Research Live Exhibition. Applications for postgraduate researchers to display are now open.

The Researcher Development Programme is LIVE on Brightspace. You can no longer access this information on myBU. Workshop bookings, online resources and modules, plus much more are accessible on this new platform. Download the free ‘Brightspace Pulse’ app to easily keep up-to-date. If you are a PGR or PGR Supervisor and cannot access this please get in touch.

Don’t forget to like the Doctoral College Facebook page for regular news and information.

BA Small Grants – call open 5th Oct 2018

The call for the next round of BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants will open 5th October 2018 and close 5pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018 and is aimed at Early Career Researcher and/or pump priming purposes.

It is strongly advised that you attend the British Academy small guidance session on 9th October 2018, where the Funding Development team will go through:

  • The British Academy scheme notes for applicants
  • The British Academy  FAQs
  • The British Academy  Assessment Criteria
  • As well as a chance to ask questions from recent British Academy award winners

After the session you will have the chance to sit with a Research Facilitator and Funding Development Officer, to go through costs and your draft proposal.  As well as the opportunity to have your proposal reviewed by an external application reviewer.

If you can’t attend this session, then we ask you to submit your intention to bid form to your Funding Development Officer by 9th October 2018, after this date applications will be moved to the summer round.

The British Academy have provided updated guidance on the small grants – BA scheme notes for applicants and BA FAQs . They have asked that all applicants read the documentation carefully before starting their application.

Timeline

The call closes at 5pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018.

Date Action
5 October 2018 Scheme Opens
9th October RKEO British Academy Guidance session and/or

Intention to bid forms to be submitted to your faculty funding development officer

4th November midnight Nominated referee supporting statement to be completed via FlexiGrant
4th November midnight Your final application must be submitted on FlexiGrant  by this date at the latest
5th – 7th November 2018 Institutional checks to take place by RKEO
7th November 2018 Submission

Any queries please contact Alexandra Pekalski 

Postgraduate Research Live Exhibition

New for 2018
Postgraduate Research Live Exhibition

This live exhibition is a unique display of the breadth and quality of research undertaken by postgraduate researchers at the University and allows those who take part an opportunity to disseminate their research in new, creative and interactive ways to a wide audience.

Applications are now open for postgraduate research students.

Application deadline 09:00, Monday 29 October 2018.

Live Exhibition Guidance
Application Form

If you have any questions or wish to discuss your idea please contact me:

Email: pgconference@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Emotional Processing Therapy for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Workshop – 26 October 2018

 

Our very own Professor Roger Baker is facilitating a one day workshop on Emotional Processing Therapy for PTSD in Leeds on 26th October 2018.

The workshop will explore what an emotional processing style is and how this is relevant to the development and presentation of PTSD, there will be a range of teaching, skills training, role play, discussion and exploring case studies.

Please see flyer here for more information or book online here.

Don’t forget, BUCRU can provide FREE methodological advice and support in designing your research project. We’re based on the 5th floor of Royal London House so feel free to pop in and see us, call us on 61939 or send us an email.

EU FIRST Project

A Bournemouth University team from the Faculty of Science and Technology visited University of Groningen for FIRST mid-term review. It was a very productive meeting with a lot of effective outcomes for research and knowledge exchange. Dr. Lai Xu and Dr. Paul de Vrieze are FIRST coordinators representing Bournemouth University and the team is pleased to announce that FIRST will continue to move towards a factory of the future for European Union.

If you want to know more about the project and get involved, please contact Dr. Lai Xu or Dr. Paul de Vrieze. You can also follow our social medial links on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube Channel.

During the mid-term review meeting, the FIRST EU project advisor Irina Elena Tiron giving a talk on RISE projects. A useful instrument for researchers in EU (and beyond).

BA Small Research Grants opens 5th Oct 2018

The call for the next round of BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants will open 5th October 2018 and close 5pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018 and is aimed at Early Career Researcher and/or pump priming purposes.

It is strongly advised that you attend the British Academy small guidance session on 9th October 2018, where the Funding Development team will go through:

  • The British Academy scheme notes for applicants
  • The British Academy  FAQs
  • The British Academy  Assessment Criteria
  • As well as a chance to ask questions from recent British Academy award winners

After the session you will have the chance to sit with a Research Facilitator and Funding Development Officer, to go through costs and your draft proposal.  As well as the opportunity to have your proposal reviewed by an external application reviewer.

If you can’t attend this session, then we ask you to submit your intention to bid form to your Funding Development Officer by 9th October 2018, after this date applications will be moved to the summer round.

The British Academy have provided updated guidance on the small grants – BA scheme notes for applicants and BA FAQs . They have asked that all applicants read the documentation carefully before starting their application.

Timeline

The call closes at 5pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018.

Date Action
5 October 2018 Scheme Opens
9th October RKEO British Academy Guidance session and/or

Intention to bid forms to be submitted to your faculty funding development officer

4th November midnight Nominated referee supporting statement to be completed via FlexiGrant
4th November midnight Your final application must be submitted on FlexiGrant  by this date at the latest
5th – 7th November 2018 Institutional checks to take place by RKEO
7th November 2018 Submission

Any queries please contact Alexandra Pekalski