
To celebrate the NHS’s 70th birthday, the Wessex Clinical Research Network have issued a special edition of their Vision Magazine.
You can access the magazine online here.
Happy reading!
Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
To celebrate the NHS’s 70th birthday, the Wessex Clinical Research Network have issued a special edition of their Vision Magazine.
You can access the magazine online here.
Happy reading!
The second 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 focuses on the Festival of Learning, 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.
This year CEL has promoted active making and creative origami and lego workshops to connect with the Fusion strands of Education, Research and Professional practice. We were delighted to hear about the Annual International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference at BU. Dr Julia Round reports here with additional photos of ‘sketchnotes’ ( a superb visual note-taking process) by @Johnmiers and Paul Fisher Davies @CrosbieTweets For more information on the conference itself and our previous events, please see our website www.internationalgraphicnovelandcomicsconference.com.
From 27-29 June 2018, the Annual International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference (#IGNCC18) returned to Bournemouth University. This was our ninth annual event after many previous successful conferences held at various venues (Manchester Metropolitan University, Dundee University, Glasgow University, the British Library, the University of London in Paris, and Bournemouth University). We were overwhelmed with submissions and were delighted to welcome over 100 international scholars to the beach to explore comic books past and present under the theme of ‘Retro! Time, Memory, Nostalgia’.
Despite soaring temperatures, everybody kept their cool, and the event has been a fantastic success. Particular highlights included six keynote talks from many notable international practitioners, researchers and scholars. Local Bournemouth artist Rozi Hathaway (Cosmos, Njálla – Breakout Talent Award Winner, Broken Frontier Awards 2016) opened our event with a talk on ‘Retrospective Storytelling: From Childhood to Characterisation’, about how her own work uses and adapts autobiographical themes, and reflecting on the methods and reasons for doing so. The following sessions on Wednesday examined areas such as fan events and activities, methodologies for approaching comics histories, British comics, gender reboots, and more. We closed our first day with prolific author Anne Digby (writer for School Friend, Girl, Tammy, Jinty and the Trebizon children’s books), in conversation with Mel Gibson (University of Northumbria) (Remembered Reading) on ‘Writing Comics for Girls’. This was the first time Anne has spoken about her work at a comics event, and her insights and memories of the industry were incredible.
On Thursday 28 June we welcomed Ian Gordon (National University of Singapore) (Superman: the Persistence of an American Icon; Kid Comic Strips: A Genre Across Four Countries; and Comic Strips and Consumer Culture 1890—1945) who spoke on ‘Nostalgia and the Materiality of Comics’, drawing on his personal history to reflect on the changes seen in the industry. Additional papers on curation, conflict and memory, hidden histories and anonymous creators all followed, as well as discussions on how ‘retro’ could be used as a theme, aesthetic, or idea. These debates were summarised wonderfully by Woodrow Phoenix (Rumble Strip, The Sumo Family, Sugar Buzz, She Lives) in our closing keynote, who spoke on ‘The Intersection Between Memory And Possibility In Alternate Realities, Or: What If? Is The Past More Than Just A Story-Generating Machine?’ Woodrow’s reflections on his work drew together ideas about how retro styles might be used to complement – or disguise – deeper meaning, and was inspirational in its scope and enthusiasm (as well as in the free comics he generously gave us all!)
Our final day on Friday 29 June was led by a keynote from 2000AD artist and British comics researcher David Roach (Masters of Spanish Comic Book Art), who spoke about ‘The Spanish Masters’ – giving a detailed history of the Spanish artists who worked on British and American comics in the last century and whose work reshaped both industries. Papers on memory, trauma, temporality, digitization, rewritings and revisionism were also presented, alongside a further talk and display of Woodrow Phoenix’s giant graphic novel She Lives – a celebration of the physical properties of comics as well as an exploration of the intersection between installation artwork and comic strip. Finally, the presentations were closed by keynote Catherine Anyango Grünewald (Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden) (Heart of Darkness: Observer Graphic Novel of the Month 2010) speaking on ‘Committed To Memory: Remembering And Responsibility In Visual Storytelling’ – reflecting on the methods she uses in her own practice to reintroduce marginalised and unspoken points of view.
IGNCC18 was also complemented by the art exhibition ‘Retro! in Process: From Scripts to Comics’, which was curated by Alexandra Alberda and Zuzanna Dominiak and on display at the Executive Business Centre from Wednesday 13 June 2018 – Saturday 30 June 2018. These images conveyed the process of artists turning writers’ scripts into a finished comic, encouraging visitors to explore the process of making comics through the works themselves and the reflections of their writers and artists. The exhibition was tied into the launch of the Retro anthology – a themed body of work produced on the conference theme and published by Inkpot Studios/UniVerse Comics, which was launched at the close of the event with a free copy for every delegate.
Across all three days we were overwhelmed by the quality and thoughtfulness of papers and research presented by all of our participants. IGNCC welcomes scholars, practitioners and students alike, and one of our key strengths comes from blending different perspectives in this way. We particularly encourage outstanding work from doctoral candidates through our annual Sabin Award, which is presented to the best paper given by a postgraduate student. The conference is organised by Julia Round (Bournemouth University), Chris Murray and Golnar Nabizadeh (Dundee University), and Joan Ormrod and Dave Huxley (Manchester Metropolitan University), and under the aegis of two scholarly peer reviewed journals: Studies in Comics (Intellect Books) and the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Routledge). Selected papers will be published in a special issue or edited collection.
For more information on the conference itself and our previous events, please see our website www.internationalgraphicnovelandcomicsconference.com.
The Doctoral College would like to present the July monthly update.
In this July update we would like you to be reminded that the Doctoral College is open all summer, we are still holding one-to-one support sessions so if you are not sure where to begin with your researcher development or where to go next book in to speak to one of us. Also, remember that the August Summer School Masterclass is now bookable click here.
Thank you to all who completed our PGR Communities Questionnaire. We presented initial findings at the UK Council for Graduate Education Annual Conference this week which you can read about in our blog piece and will be disseminating findings wider in the coming months.
The Doctoral College hosted it’s first ever PGR and Supervisors BBQ at Branksome Dene Room on Wednesday 27 June. It was an enjoyable event with good weather, great food, and the timeless classic Giant Jenga was a huge hit. The evening culminated with a beautiful sunset over the sea. If you couldn’t attend on this occasion we hope to see you at a future Doctoral College event.
Don’t forget to check out the Doctoral College Facebook page.
There are several initiatives to develop state of the art low carbon energy technologies to capture, generate and store energy from renewable sources. Non-renewable sources of energy especially those derived from fossil fuels are finite, and have been contributing to greenhouse gases. In turn ozone depletion and global warming are on the rise.
There have been recent developments in terms of tidal, wind, solar PV and solar thermal technologies, however there are still challenges in terms of efficiency and amount of useful energy that can be generated versus global demands. In addition, dependency on rare earth materials still exists, thermal efficiency of thermo-fluids (fluids used as a medium of heat energy transfer) have upper thresholds and have implications on the durability of systems. Costs of conventional energy materials such as cobalt and lithium carbonates have been rising sharply since 2015-16. Thermal instability of lithium ion batteries and issues are still significant.
At BU NanoCorr, Energy & Modelling (NCEM) Research Group we are developing novel solar thermal (low carbon) technologies incorporating nano enhanced thermofluids and storage materials.
Research and development in low carbon technology at BU is focused on two main themes; clean growth and future of mobility. For further details and to take part in discussion by providing your comments please click on the link (it takes less than a minute to register).
“IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications”, an influential magazine with a wide readership in both academia and industry, has just published the paper “4D Cubism: Modeling, Animation and Fabrication of Artistic Shapes”.
This multidisciplinary paper proposing a novel technology on the edge of art and science has been written by a team from the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) of the Faculty of Media and Communication. The authors are Quentin Corker-Marin, Prof Alexander Pasko, and Dr Valery Adzhiev.
The paper has a non-trivial history. Initially, there was an UG student project (“Innovations” unit, “Computer Visualisation and Animation” course, Level 6) that was submitted as a Poster to the ACM SIGGRAPH 2017 conference in Los Angeles. As it was reported in the Research Blog in September 2017, Quentin was awarded there the second prize in the prestigious ACM Student Research Competition sponsored by Microsoft. Then a full-scale paper was submitted to the top magazine, and after successful peer-reviewing it was accepted and published. As to Quentin, in the end of 2017 he graduated from NCCA with a first class honours degree in computer visualisation and animation and works now in London as a 3D Artist for an award-winning production company Glassworks.
References
On 2nd-3rd July 2018, the Doctoral College Research Skills and Development Officers Natalie and Clare attended the UK Council for Graduate Education Annual Conference ‘Creating Inclusive Postgraduate Cultures and Communities’ in Bristol where the initial findings of the PGR Communities Questionnaire were presented.
The conference was attended by delegates from UK and International institutions (reaching Australia), policy makers and advisors from the Office of Students, Research England, Advance HE and industry. This was a fantastic opportunity to have discussions with colleagues on how best to support and accommodate an inclusive postgraduate research culture and community. We look forward to exploring further opportunities towards enhancing a strong and vibrant postgraduate research community here at BU.
Today colleagues will be available on both campuses to answer all your queries in regards to Open Research.
We’ll be in BG11 on Lansdowne between 9 and 12pm and FG04 on Talbot between 1 and 4pm.
Pop on down… there is cake! 🙂
There are spaces available at the following sessions for BU staff. To find out more and to book, simply follow the link to BU intranet and log in:
This Wednesday – 4/7/18:
Forthcoming…
12/7/18:
24/7/18:
Public and patient involvement, or in other words, ‘PPI’ is a growing area in clinical research, and something that is increasing in importance as the clinical research landscape expands.
The BMJ have published an interesting article, where a researcher, patient advisor and patient reviewer describe how they included patient input in one of their trials, right from the start through to the publication of the results.
You can read the article here – https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/06/13/embedding-public-and-patient-involvement-in-research/
Are you currently running your own study, or do you plan to in the future? Social media is an effective way to communicate your research, engage with patients and colleagues or as a way to support social learning.
The NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) have created a toolkit to help you achieve this, in combining practical resources on how to get started and real case studies from how colleagues across the CRN are currently using social media to support their work.
You can access the toolkit here – https://sites.google.com/nihr.ac.uk/accelerating-digital/digital-enablers/social-media-toolkit
Remember for all research you are required to submit an online ethics checklist for BU ethical approval, and in the case of studies involving the NHS, sponsorship from BU and external approvals.
Email researchethics@bournemouth.ac.uk if you have any queries.
Sam Gyimah, the self-styled “Minister for Students” has been campaigning this week on student mental health.
You can read the government press release here. “The plans include, As part of a new package of measures announced by Sam Gyimah on student mental health:
The Charter is being developed by Student Minds, who have covered it on their website here:
The Minister was on Radio 4 and the BBC story is here. The story from Thursday is in The Guardian:
The BBC have the link to this week’s Office for National Statistics report – interestingly this showed that the proportion of student suicides is lower than in the general population for the same age group – but of course suicides are, as the Minister says, only part of the problem:
And on Friday, Nicola Barden from the University of Winchester has written for Wonkhe on the role of parents in supporting students:
Race equality has also been in the HE headlines. There was an article in the THE about the “onerous” red tape requirements of the Race Equality Charter.
Wonkhe have had a series of articles this week on the issue.
Jess Moody of Advance HE writes about definitions and ownership:
Amatey Doku, the VP (HE) of the NUS, writes on the Black attainment gap:
Arthi Nachiappan writes about the lived experience:
And she looks at data before concluding:
David Morris of the University of Greenwich writes about admissions:
He goes on:
The discussion, anecdotes and arguments about free speech at universities continue – there is no real agreement about whether there is an issue or not. What seems clear is that even if there is no actual free speech problem on university campuses, enough people think there is, and there is enough confusion, it seems, about what the rules are and whose responsibility it is to (a)} ensure free speech and (b) stop illegal hate speech or radicalisation to mean that something needs to be done. Student Unions think they need safe space policies to stop hate speech (or protect snowflakes from potentially offensive views, depending on your perspective). Universities have to implement Prevent. Many commentators forget that universities don’t control Students’ Unions. And the Minister and others keep talking about being “nearly” censored, about self-censorship (I decided not to go because they wanted to see my speech in advance) etc. etc.
Research Professional report:
[NB, Ed ; it wasn’t at BU]
And then we have a survey by YouGov.
Research Professional report, using this research:
However, the reporting of this story seems to demonstrate our opening point – that this debate all depends on your perspective. The Telegraph use the same data to say:
Conclusion: at least we are all free to say what we believe about all of this. More serious conclusion: the debate seems really to be really about this (from the Telegraph article):
So is this really about the perception that universities are monocultures (left-wing, remain voting ones)? And therefore not really about safe spaces or free speech at all?. It might be argued that this is more about the government shaking up an academic establishment which it believes is home to a lot of people who disagree with its views, and who have a dangerously high level of influence on impressionable students. That may be true, of course.
And what will be impact of all this be? There may be some clearer guidance. But generally, those who believe in snowflakes will become further entrenched in their views as this goes on, and the reputation of the sector will continue to be diminished in the minds of those people and also others who only catch the headlines.
And it all sits very oddly besides the focus on mental health – which is one of the reasons behind safe spaces. Politics can get a person into some very sticky paradoxical situations, it seems.
The Quality Assurance Agency has published a report on whether social media reviews can identify poor courses in higher education.
Wonkhe also have an article on this topic by Alex Griffiths
This comes as The Minister promotes his app development competition
Wonkhe have an article by Sue Attewell from JISC:
You’ve seen our views on this in previous issues of this update
The government have issued responses from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Business, Energy and the Industrial Strategy to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report “Life Sciences Industrial Strategy: Who’s driving the bus”. They respond to each recommendation, but the headlines are:
Since the publication of the Sector Deal in December, the Government has:
The government have issued their response to the Industrial Strategy: Intellectual Property Call for Views: Proposals:
Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.
Think tank Localis have produced the report Monetising Goodwill: empowering places for civic renewal following a public survey. The survey finds that many people would be willing to pay more in council tax or voluntary one-off levies to better fund certain local services across the country, in particular (and in order of popularity): public health, fire, police, adult social care and children’s social care. The survey uncovered six issues with majority support for paying some extra cash as a voluntary one-off levy: helping older people to live independently for longer; support for local homeless people; improving disability access; repairing potholes; reducing loneliness and reducing anti-social behaviour.
To subscribe to the weekly policy update simply email policy@bournemouth.ac.uk
JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER
Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer
Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk
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 ResearchProfessional. 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 ResearchProfessional.
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 ResearchProfessional. 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 ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:
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:
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.
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.
Dr Choe in Dept of Events and Leisure is co-organising a
Nexus of Migration and Tourism: Creating Social Sustainability Symposium at Vietnam National University, Hanoi Vietnam (20-21 September). BU Prof Adele Ladkin will give a keynote presentation among 4 other world renowned scholars. Please see more information here:
https://tourism-migration.co.uk/
The registration is open, and we are delighted to have received diverse and interesting papers from over 17 countries and various disciplines. Please join us for a set of international papers, 5 amazing keynote speakers, networking opportunities and publication possibilities!
We are also very pleased to announce that we will organize two special issues:
-‘Migration and Tourism: Creating Social Sustainability’ in the Journal – Tourism Geographies (http://www.tgjournal.com/). Please send your paper to Dr Choe via email (jchoe@bournemouth.ac.uk) by the 15th of December. The paper should be related directly to the theme of the symposium, and must follow the journal’s submission guidelines: http://www.tgjournal.com/notes-for-authors.html
-‘Tourism and Sustainable Development’ in the Journal e-Review of Tourism Research (https://ertr.tamu.edu/). Please send your manuscript to Dr Choe via email by the 15th of December. Paper format guidelines are available at https://ertr.tamu.edu/paper-submission/
We are absolutely excited and grateful to confirm the keynote speakers and their presentation titles:
Prof Michael Hitchcock, Goldsmiths, University of London
‘Tourist and Resident Relations: A Comparison of Hong Kong and Macau’
Prof Adele Ladkin, Bournemouth University, UK
‘Family Ritual 2.0: When Work Take Us Away from Home’
Prof Alan Lew, Northern Arizona University, USA
‘Diaspora Migration and Social Sustainability: A Tourism and Resilience Perspective’
Prof Sabine Marschall, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’
‘But Is It Tourism?’ Social Sustainability and the Blurred Boundaries between Travel, Tourism and Migration’
Prof Noel Salazar, KU Leuven, Belgium
‘Migration and Tourism Mobilities: Time to Bring Sustainability into the Debate’
Symposium Aims
Despite rapid tourism economic development, and research into labour and employment such as economics and employment issues, research hasn’t caught up to the rapidly changing issues, such as tourism linked migration and social and cultural aspects of sustainability. Thus, we invite you to discuss, reflect and develop upon issues pertaining to sustainability and the nexus of migration and tourism. We are particularly interested in the complexities of trends, issues, challenges and opportunities around migration linked tourism, which remains a relatively minor part in academic research. While large numbers of migrant workers move to ‘new’ tourist destinations such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Dubai for employment, issues pertaining to social sustainability (e.g., well-being, quality of life, integration, the distribution of power and resources, employment, education, the provision of basic infrastructure and services, freedom, justice, access to influential decision-making) have yet to be fully developed within tourism research.
We invite contributions from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, cultural/human geography, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, economics, border studies, leisure studies, tourism studies and hospitality/event management. We invite you to submit papers on topics that include (but are not limited to):
– (Re)definitions of sustainability
– Equitable access and the sustainability of the community
– Creating socially sustainable communities
– Migrant quality of life/ community well-being in tourist destinations
– Migrant tourism workers’ integration & inclusion
– Migration and tourist community formation
– Conflicts between/intersection of tourists, local residents and migrant workers
– Tourism (im)mobilities, ethics, morals and (in)justice
– Tourism mobilities and border crossings
– Human security, transnationalization and citizenship
– Social networks, borders and the allure of tourist destinations
– Gender and mobility in tourism
– Intersectionality, gender and race
– Roles of religion in tourism migration and mobilities
– Religious and spiritual mobilities and tourism
– Migrant leisure spaces, constraints and opportunities
– Academic mobilities / Mobilities in education
– Social sustainability in ASEAN tourism development
– Social sustainability and future directions
– Destinations resilience
– Effect of Brexit and Trump on tourism and migration
While we have closed the public abstract submissions process, we have room for a small number of quality papers, if fitting to the symposium aims. If you are interested, email Dr. Jaeyeon Choe (jchoe@bournemouth.ac.uk).
Thank you!
Refugee and Migrant Leisure Network Meeting, June 28 2018
Associate Prof Jayne Caudwell, Prof Janet Dickinson and Dr. Jaeyeon Choe established the Refugee and Migrant Leisure Network in 2017 after finishing their QR funded project entitled, ‘Refugee and Migrant Leisure and Community Well-being.’ The network consists of BU academics across faculties and disciplines and local community partners who mainly work with and represent migrants and refugees. The network has successfully organised four meetings since its conception.
On June 28th, at the meeting in BU, community partners and academics shared updates about supporting migrant and refugee groups including social events, funding applications and other activities. For example, Dr. Jayne Caudwell and Dr Jaeyeon Choe shared their recent research findings on ‘Multicultural lunches: Sharing food in post-Brexit south coast of England’; Dr. Nicola De Martini Ugolotti shared his research results on ‘Here to Play: forced migrants, music and belonging’. Community partners gave their practical and helpful feedback to the BU academics with future recommendations for research projects. The community partners also shared their progress. BU academics and community partners are working together for funding applications.
As the RMLN network has gained reputation in the Dorset community, it has expanded with more partners. As a new partner, the Dorset Ethnic Minority Awards representatives (including our own graduate, Nanzy Sebata) attended the meeting, shared their event details and asked for support. RMLN has been successful bringing community groups together and provided a venue for meetings, sharing and mutual support. We will continue these activities while inviting more opportunities and partners to introduce ‘real’ change to the challenges that community workers and migrants face. By securing additional funding, we can create healthy, sustainable and productive relationship with the local communities and beyond. We appreciate all partners who joined us today with great spirit, and look forward to the next meeting in the autumn!
Please visit our Facebook Page if you are interested in the Refugee and Migrant Leisure Network activities and stories: https://www.facebook.com/groups/400355213641367/
Planning Ahead – A Reminder (Staff & PGRs)
Projects which are ‘above minimal risk’
If you’re hoping to start data collection activities at the beginning of September and are in the process of completing your research ethics checklist, please remember that during August there are NO Research Ethics Panel Meetings. If you want to start your data collection activity in August/September, please submit your checklist in time for final Panel meetings to be held in July. Checklists received during August which need to be reviewed by full Panel will be deferred until September (dates to be advised).
Projects which are ‘below minimal risk’
Reviews for low risk projects (Staff and Postgraduate Research) will continue as normal during August.
More details about the review process and Panel meeting dates can be found on the Research Ethics Blog. Email enquiries should be sent to researchethics@bournemouth.ac.uk.
Protest Art for Social Change
This week’s photo of the week was taken by Dr Anastasia Veneti and shows how protests and social movements can transform spaces into a form of art. Our Photo of the Week series features photo entries from our annual Research Photography Competition taken by BU academics, students and professional staff, which gives a glimpse into some of the fantastic research undertaken across the BU community.
From the squares of Athens and Istanbul to the streets of New York and Cairo, social movements have been rising during the 21st century. Contrary to public perceptions of urban protest camps as arenas of violence and confrontation, this research at the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement indicated that protest camps can transform the city into an open space of massive arts participation. Thousands of protesters, citizens and tourists participated in collaborative arts projects that communicated universal values related to freedom, equality and democracy. The research team suggest that, in an increasingly turbulent world, peaceful and collective protest art has the capacity to empower, unify and motivate people.
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Dr Anastasia Veneti is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing Communications at Bournemouth University. For more information about this research, please contact Anastasia here.
Researchers involved: Dr Georgios Patsiaouras (School of Business, University of Leicester), Dr Anastasia Veneti (Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University), Dr William Green (School of Business, University of Leicester).
The research project was recently published online at the prestigious journal, “Marketing Theory” in August 2017:
Patsiaouras, G., Veneti, A., and Green, W., (2017) Marketing, art and voices of dissent: promotional methods of protest art by the 2014 Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Marketing Theory. Online first: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1470593117724609
The 2018 World Cup inspires new gamblers. Shutterstock
By Dr Raian Ali, Bournemouth University; Dr Emily Arden-Close, Bournemouth University; Dr John McAlaney, Bournemouth University, and Keith Phalp, Bournemouth University.
Sports betting is worth up to £625 billion per year, with 70% of that trade reckoned to come from football. During big sporting competitions, such as the World Cup, even more money is spent gambling than usual. Over the 2018 World Cup, bookmakers are estimated to make a profit of US$36.4 billion (£41.3 billion). And in the UK, the amount of money spent on gambling during the World Cup is expected to more than double from £1 billion in 2014 to £2.5 billion this year.
Sports gambling is being driven by the unlimited availability of online betting and the fact that no physical money is exchanged, making financial transactions seem less real. The vast amount of data that online gambling sites collect also enables them to personalise offers to individual gamblers. Instead, this data should be used to help people gamble responsibly by warning users in real-time that they are exhibiting problematic gambling behaviours.
For many people, gambling isn’t just a fun novelty every four years. About 430,000 citizens in the UK can be identified as problem gamblers. These individuals have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds online, which has impacted not only the gamblers but also their families.
High profile but infrequent betting events such as the Word Cup exacerbate the issues that problem gamblers face. Seeing others engage in betting, coupled with the advertisements from betting firms, leads problem gamblers to attempt to convince themselves that they do not have a problem. Environmental cues can also trigger the urge to gamble in those who have a gambling problem. So, the intensive advertising used by betting firms during the World Cup, along with media coverage of the World Cup in general, may further push problem gamblers towards making harmful decisions.
Online gambling sites have an infinite memory for bets – when made, for how much, regarding what, and so on. This data is a rich source that websites use for tailoring offers and marketing material to fit a gambler’s potential interests. But this personalisation exploits cognitive biases in gamblers and encourages them to increase risk-taking and by extension, gambling.
There is only a fine line between the legitimate marketing and personalisation of content and offers on the one hand and exploitation and manipulation on the other. For example, the tracking of a gambler’s betting pattern means the gambler can be targeted with offers following heavy losses, encouraging them to chase losses even further.
But this same data could also be used to support reductions in problem gambling, either led by gamblers themselves or with the support of a counsellor or software. Such transparency could enhance the image of the gambling industry and make responsible gambling a shared responsibility between gamblers and bookmakers.
In our EROGamb project, funded by GambleAware and Bournemouth University, we advocate a policy change where gambling sites provide gambling behavioural data to gamblers and their surrogates in real-time.
This data would provide an unprecedented opportunity to tackle problem gambling. For example, the data could lead to the app informing gamblers that they are exhibiting problematic gambling patterns. The real-time collection of information such as “the gambler has reached the monthly spending limit” could trigger a message visualising their past betting behaviour and a reminder of a commitment already made.
Read more:
Fixed-odds betting terminal cap must be just the start of gambling regulation
In our studies, digital addicts, including online gambling addicts, have indicated that having access to such data would act as a wake-up call, raising awareness. Digital media users, in general, like to be in control of their usage through labels and awareness tools.
Similar facilities have started to exist in mainstream digital media. For example, on Google, it is now possible to download your data and on Facebook to download your profile data history of interaction, but not currently as real-time streaming of data as actions happen.
We understand the barriers to implementing this vision. Gambling operators may not have such data readily available and may even rely on third parties to offer certain games. Some also fear that gamblers might share the data with competitor gambling sites, giving away information about marketing practices. But the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) right to data portability holds that gamblers shall not be prevented from accessing and sharing their data.
Given the advantages, and also the increased demand for transparency, this would eventually become the recommended practice for demonstrating advanced corporate social responsibility and inspiring the trust of the public and clients in the gambling industry. We are preparing a charter for the gambling industry towards a commitment for that.
The rise of online gambling, combined with the record amount of money being spent on gambling at this year’s World Cup makes this the perfect time to discuss what we can do to prevent and combat gambling addiction. Simply by using data to help people be better aware of their gambling habits, rather than hooking them back into their next bet, gambling sites could make a massive difference.
More evidence-based articles related to the World Cup:
Raian Ali, Associate Professor in Computing and Informatics, Bournemouth University; Emily Arden-Close, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University; John McAlaney, Principal Academic in Psychology, Bournemouth University, and Keith Phalp, Faculty Dean, Bournemouth University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.