The two-day International Conference on Quality Education in Federal Nepal has just started in Kathmandu. Prof. Stephen Tee, executive dean of FMC and FMSS is one of the invited guests giving a short opening address. He spoke after the organisers had shown Prof. John Vinney’s recorded supporting message from Bournemouth University. Steve was part of the plenary session with the theme ‘Quality in Higher Education’.
This international conference has already attracted national media attention as the pre-conference press conference was reported in The Kathmandu Post today (click here to read news story).
The following projects have been awarded for the summer round of the Student Research Assistantship (SRA) scheme. Projects are open for applications and students can apply via MyCareerHub using the links below.
This summer programme is for 120 hours work between May and 31st July 2018 and is open to all campus-based undergraduate and postgradaute-taught students from all faculties, who have grades of over 70%.
Please promote these vacancies to students where applicable. All jobs are live on MyCareerHub, our Careers & Employability online careers tool. You will need to use your staff/student credentials to login.
Please do look out for SRA updates on the BU Research Blog.
If you have any questions about this scheme, please contact Charlene Parrish, Student Project Bank Coordinator, on 61281 or email sra@bournemouth.ac.uk.
The Ageing, Frailty and Dementia Steamlab took place at BU on the 14th February, co-hosted by the Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) and Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU). The Steamlab brought together academics and clinicians from across the county with an interest in the topic area.
The event kicked off with an introduction by the Directors of the host research centres: Prof Jane Murphy, ADRC; Prof Jan Wiener, ADRC; and Prof Peter Thomas, BUCRU. Attendees were then given some time to individually reflect on their own skills, knowledge and experiences, and asked to identify current key challenges in the field. Guest speaker Esther Clift from Southern Health gave an interesting talk about her experiences of frailty based on her practice as an Occupational Therapist and the importance of what she believes is the first community-based Multidisciplinary Frailty Team in the UK, which she is based in in the New Forest.
After lunch, attendees heard from guest speakers: Prof Peter Thomas from BUCRU about how BU can support practitioners undertaking clinical research with an overview of the staff and services that BUCRU provide; and Dr Mike Vassallo from Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital about his personal experiences of undertaking research as a practitioner and the value that this has had on his clinical practice.
Attendees then teamed up to develop a research project idea based on one of the areas identified as a key challenge from the morning session. Teams then had 5 mins to each feedback their ideas to the group. Attendees voted for the project they felt was the strongest. The winning team with representatives from BU and Poole NHS Hospital Trust have been given the chance to submit a proposal for some pump prime funds to kick start work on a new project to inform a larger research bid!
With over 30 people attending, the Steamlab was lively and lead to some interesting discussion and debate about the key challenges we face as an ageing society. The opportunity to think about and discuss challenges through the integration of research and practice was particularly useful.
The future of YouTube is focus of a new co-created paper by Dr John Oliver (FMC) and Emma Parrett, Strategic Partnerships Director at OMD UK. Published in the US based journal, Business Horizons, the paper presents theoretical and empirical findings on how Scenario Planning was used to enable media executives to strategize and prepare YouTube for multiple futures, with multiple strategies.
The paper combines imaginative and systematic thinking in a way that provides a unique insight into future media environments and how YouTube could compete in each scenario.
Dr Oliver commented that “this co-created paper illustrates the benefits of academics working with industry professionals to create knowledge and impact with multiple stakeholders”.
The full article can accessed from: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Wbaj1lnoC6sq
“Facebook! WhatsApp!” – shouts one of the Eritrean teenagers. “No, Viber!” – contradicts his friend. The promt for this, was the question: what is your favourite app? I’m in a centre in the north of the Netherlands which accommodates 20 unaccompanied minor refugees. I’m here because we’re conducting an EU-funded Marie Curie project on how these displaced children (aged 14-18) use digital technology and (social) media.
I’m running the focus group in the mentors’ office, while in the kitchen some other boys are listening to Eritrean music. From one of the rooms, I can also hear Arabic music playing. Wherever I went during the two weeks field work in the Netherlands, music was the one constant. Most of the time YouTube was on auto play, and I watched some of the videos together with the teenagers.
“What is it about?” – I would ask. The girls would start laughing: “Ah it’s too complicated.” “Is it about love?” – I continued. “Yes!”- they’d reply and laugh even harder.
In the two weeks spent in the Netherlands, I interviewed 16 unaccompanied refugee children. In that time, I was lucky enough to be invited into their homes. Upon entering I was regularly offered tea, or in one house, a traditional Eritrean cake called Himbasha. Despite their struggles and constant waiting for their families to arrive from a different country, these teenagers were trying their best to live a fairly normal life.
I was also humbled by the work of their mentors. The mentors are employed by a Dutch non-governmental organisation, and have a very important role: to help young refugees adapt to their new country, help them understand the way Dutch society functions and to support them in their everyday life. From applying for a new bus card for the teenagers to asking them about school work, the mentors are basically a new family to them. Some of the mentors I’ve met, have themselves arrived as refugees to the Netherlands. Needless to say, their work is equally demanding and fulfilling.
The final aim of this project is to understand unaccompanied minor refugees’ lived media experiences in order to create media literacy educational materials for them. I hope that our work will be as beneficial as the work I’ve seen done by these mentors.
photo credits: Nidos, RedDishKitchen
I’m very grateful to the non-governmental organisations Nidos and Vitree for their support during this field work.
Bournemouth University leads the Kosovo-strand of a major four-year AHRC ‘Global Challenges’ project titled ‘Changing the Story‘. This project aims at supporting the building of inclusive civil societies (CSOs) with, and for, young people in five post-conflict countries. It asks how the arts, heritage, and human rights education can support youth-centred approaches to civil society building in Cambodia, Colombia, Kosovo, Rwanda and South Africa. The Kosovo strand benefits from an established track record of collaboration with University of Prishtina (Co-I) and Stacion: Centre for Contemporary Arts in Prishtina as well as several arts-based civil society organisations in the country. The BU-led strand focuses on formal and informal civic education through the arts in Kosovo, to be explored locally by a Postgraduate Research Assistant, attached to University of Prishtina, through a critical review and proof of concept exercise during the first year. In support, BU is contributing a fully-funded PhD scholarship under the title ‘Imagining New Futures: Engaging Young People Through Participatory Arts in Post-Conflict Kosovo‘, which is currently being advertised.
International collaborative activities commenced last week in collaboration with an internationally-acclaimed CSO partner in Dorset, devoted to developing global youth citizenship through culture and the arts. The award-winning Complete Freedom of Truth project (TCFT), with which BU collaborated already previously, kindly offered a one-week residency to Albert Heta, Director of Stacion: Centre for Contemporary Arts in Prishtina. This residency brought together a group of artists, workshop leaders and young people from across the UK between February 12 and 16 in Bridport. Albert’s visit from Kosovo was funded by the AHRC and facilitated by BU’s new Research Centre ‘Seldom Heard-Voices: Marginalisation and Society Integration’ of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (FHSS). Together with Albert, some of the Centre’s members also participates in the events organised by TCFT, exchanged experiences and discussed best practice of working with young people of various background through the arts towards social justice. TCFT has a long history of working with young people, internationally, starting in post-conflict Srebrenica in 2008. Based on our observations during one week in Dorset, including of the issues selected as important by the young UK-participants during this period, we are currently reflecting on the extent to, and ways in, which arts-based interventions with a given set of young people in one specific socio-cultural context and its underpinning conceptualisations (such as of empowerment or vulnerability of, and pressures on, young people) can or cannot be transferred to another, such as that in which young people in Kosovo negotiate their aspirations.
British Federation of Women Graduates: Research Presentations Day
Saturday May 12th 2018 (10.30am – 4.00pm)
At BFWG HQ: 4 Mandeville Courtyard, 142 Battersea Park Road, London SW11 4NB
Are you a postgraduate woman student? Do you have research you would like to present to a discerning audience – and have the chance of winning a small prize of £120 for the best presentation to a general audience? Or would you like to join with us just to listen to other postgraduate women students presenting their research? The British Federation of Women Graduates Research Presentations Day (RPD) offers these opportunities. Past attendees, both presenters and audience, have found the Day thoroughly enjoyable and helpful in developing presentation skills.
If you think you would like to submit an abstract please go to the following webpageswww.bfwg.org.uk where you can find more details and an abstract form. Closing date for applications is Saturday March 24th 2018.
All, postgraduates and anyone else interested (male or female), are welcome to attend as audience. Bona fide students (UG or PG) come free. For others there is a charge of £10. A sandwich lunch is included. For further information or to express interest in attending, please contact: rpd@bfwg.org.uk
Sent on the behalf of the Doctoral College, Researcher Development Programme
To mark LGBT History Month and Football v Homophobia Month of Action [see: http://www.footballvhomophobia.com] staff in the Departments of Sport & Physical Activity (Carly Stewart, Emma Kavanagh & Adi Adams) and Events & Leisure (Jayne Caudwell) ran a LBGT+ Sport, Leisure and Wellbeing symposium (Weds 21st Feb). Statistics demonstrate homophobia, biphobia and transphobia exist in sport, physical activity and active leisure. For instance, Stonewall reported (2016) that 72% of football fans have witnessed homophobic abuse, and 43% of LGBT people consider public sporting events as unwelcoming for LGBT people.
At the symposium, we discussed experiences of, and challenges to homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Speakers included Communi-T, a Bournemouth based social group for trans people and anyone who is on the trans spectrum. We know little about transgender and non-binary people’s participation in sport, physical activity and active leisure. The symposium provided opportunity to consider what can be done to address incidents of transphobia. A significant issue is the way we organise sport, physical activity and active leisure, especially infrastructures such as the changing rooms. This aspect was the focus for one of the speakers – Ali Greey a Masters student at the University of Toronto. Ali provided a compelling pre-recorded presentation entitled: It’s a bad case of the locker room blues [see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGiEWy7o_XM&feature=youtu.be]
The symposium was supported by local organisations keen to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Speakers from Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue service, Dorset Police and Dorset Football Association discussed policies of inclusion and processes of reporting hate crime as well as the Prejudice Free Dorset partnership.
Two Bournemouth University students, Grace Connors and Emily Rogers, have presented their undergraduate research to MPs and policy makers at the annual ‘Posters in Parliament’ event.
Around 40 students from across the UK are given the opportunity to share their research in Parliament each spring. The exhibition allows MPs and policy makers to learn more about the innovative undergraduate research taking place across the country. It’s also an excellent opportunity for current undergraduates and recent graduates to hone their presentation skills as they share their work with lay audiences.
Grace Connors, a BA English student from the Faculty of Media & Communication, presented her research into BBC drama The Fall which explored the representation of women in crime dramas.
“I looked at the way female characters were treated in The Fall¸ and whether or not it impacts on the way that real women are treated,” explains Grace, “I’ve always been interested female characters and the way they’re portrayed.”
“The Fall is often described as being a feminist or woman-led show, despite the fact it has numerous poorly treated female characters. I wanted to see if there was a link between poor treatment of women in a ‘feminist’ programme and how women are treated in reality. Through my research, I found that the prevalence of negative treatment towards women often leads to people no longer finding this kind of behaviour taboo.”
Emily Rogers, a BSc Nutrition student from the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences, shared her research into boosting fruit and vegetable consumption of school-aged children and their parents. Previous research has suggested that family meals can help to improve dietary intake, so Emily decided to see if meal time frequency could help to boost a family’s fruit and vegetable consumption.
“I chose to work with children aged 9 – 11 years old and their parents, as statistics showed that by the time children reach 10 – 11 years old one third are overweight or obese. 63% of adults in the UK are overweight or obese too, so I wanted to see if good eating habits were being shared throughout families,” says Emily.
“I sent out over 200 questionnaires to parents of year 5 and 6 children at Christchurch Junior School. To encourage a high response rate, I gave children the opportunity to win a couple of hampers filled with prizes designed to help them get more involved in food production and preparation: gardening tools, seeds and cooking utensils, as examples.”
“My research showed that there was a positive link between family meal times and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption for both children and adults,” continues Emily, “Children had more opportunities to eat healthily and adults, perhaps because they were modelling good eating practices for their children, also improved their diets.”
“I was inspired to submit my research to SURE, BU’s undergraduate research conference, and Posters in Parliament by my lecturer, Dr Fotini Tsofliou. She has always been extremely supportive, and I can’t wait to use both opportunities to inspire others and help to create healthier communities.”
More information about BU’s undergraduate research conference can be found on the SURE website. Staff and students are welcome to attend the conference on 7 March and can book free tickets via Eventbrite.
Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field.
This research reflects on practice-led research involving a community video project in southern India – Andhra Pradesh. Four of the women involved in this project were asked if they would use their cameras to film their everyday lives.
The aim of this paper was to build on current practice by combining participatory filmmaking with traditional observational documentary techniques and video diary interviews to locate a ‘third voice’ in order to create an engaging narrative and new perspectives on life in rural India.
Open access is about making the products of research freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increased use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.
There are two complementary mechanisms for achieving open access to research.
The first mechanism is for authors to publish in open-access journals that do not receive income through reader subscriptions.
The second is for authors to deposit their refereed journal article in an open electronic archive.
These two mechanisms are often called the ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to open access:
Gold – This means publishing in a way that allows immediate access to everyone electronically and free of charge. Publishers can recoup their costs through a number of mechanisms, including through payments from authors called article processing charges (APCs), or through advertising, donations or other subsidies.
Green – This means depositing the final peer-reviewed research output in an electronic archive called a repository. Repositories can be run by the researcher’s institution, but shared or subject repositories are also commonly used. Access to the research output can be granted either immediately or after an agreed embargo period.
To encourage all academic communities to consider open access publishing, Authors Alliance has produced a comprehensive ‘Understanding Open Access‘ guide which addresses common open access related questions and concerns and provides real-life strategies and tools that authors can use to work with publishers, institutions, and funders to make their works more widely accessible to all.
Bournemouth University is closely involved the international conference organised by HISSAN in Kathmandu this week. HISSAN is the overarching organisation of over 1,100 independent higher education colleges and secondary schools in Nepal. Together with 16 education partners from Nepal and abroad HISSAN runs the first ever International ConferenceonQuality Education in Federal Nepal to help build the future education system in the new federation. The conference will be held in Kathmandu on 22-23 February this week.
This is a broad-spectrum education conference bringing together delegates from colleges and universities who represent a wide-range of disciplines taught at colleges across Nepal, from Computing to Management and from Engineering to Public Health.
Our intention is that delegates from Nepal can discuss and learn from education innovations in their own country as well as from abroad. There will 31 interesting sessions over two days, including some exciting plenary presentations.
Speakers are from different academic disciplines representing views from Management Studies, Education, Public Health, Law, Nursing, Disability Studies, Engineering, Disaster Management, Human Rights Research, Ageing, Road Safety Research and Science & Technology.
Many different countries are represented at the conference. Apart from papers on Nepal, there will be presentations or speakers from China, India, Bangladesh, the UK, Israel, Vietnam, the USA, and Sweden.
Different speakers will be addressing various aspects of education and education development, including Prof. Stephen Tee from Bournemouth University. He will be addressing the question: ‘What Can Nepal Learn from the Latest UK Technology-Enhanced Teaching Learning?’ Other interesting contributions in the programme, that caught my eye, include Prof. V. G. Hegde from the Faculty of Legal Studies at the South Asian University in Delhi (India) who will be presenting a paper called ‘Implementation of Right to Education in a Federal Context: Lessons from India and Nepal.’ And also the paper by Prof. Qin Jie from the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing (China) who will be talking about ‘The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and Higher Education in China.’
Ken Emond from the British Academy will again be returning to BU on Tuesday the 6th March 2018. Don’t forget to get yourself booked in!
This is an invaluable opportunity to find out more about the international and domestic funding available through the organisation. For those of you who are not familiar with the British Academy, it is the UK’s leading independent body for the humanities and social sciences, promoting funding, knowledge exchange and providing independent advice within the humanities.
The session will last just over 1 hour (12:30pm-13:30pm) and will comprise a presentation focusing on international and domestic funding opportunities along with an overview of the British Academy and any recent developments, followed by a Q&A session.
Representatives of the British Academy will be available to answer any individual queries not covered in the presentation or Q&A session, and members of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be on hand should you wish to discuss BU’s processes for bidding to the organisation.
Places for this event can be reserved through Organisational Development here
In June of this year, Dr Luciana Esteves will be running a Researcher Links workshop, funded by the British Council, in South Africa. The workshop will support Early Career Researchers with an interest in the sustainable management of coasts and estuaries to network, increase their knowledge and develop potential collaborations for future research.
Coastal and estuarine ecosystems worldwide are under pressure from population growth, urbanisation and other land-based and marine activities. In the UK and South Africa, coastal areas greatly contribute to the local and national economy by supporting key urban centres and industries. Climate change tends to exacerbate existing problems, including but not limited to flooding, erosion, water quality and resource availability, which can have implications on environmental quality, food production, water supply and human health.Ecosystem-based management (EBM) has emerged as an integrated approach for the sustainable management of the trade-offs between socioeconomic development and nature conservation. EBM requires a transdisciplinary understanding of the natural system, nature-human interactions, and how they change through time.
The workshop will bring together researchers from South Africa and the UK to discuss how they can collaborate to support EBM through the development of long-lasting UK-SA collaboration and government-research partnerships. The workshop aims to attract researchers from the social and natural sciences to create the required combination of expertise to co-construct, advance and share knowledge to support estuarine and coastal EBM. The integration of scientific and practical knowledge will be facilitated by the participation of NGOs and government practitioners.
The workshop is currently open for applications. Early Career Researchers from the UK and South Africa are invited to apply by 16 March 2018. Further information about the workshop, eligibility criteria and how to apply can be found here.
“It is important to remember that impact is not always a moment in the sun, then yesterday’s news”.
Bournemouth University colleagues Kip Jones and Lee-Ann Fenge discuss the “long tail” of meaningful community impact and the outputs needed to get there, featured from today in the LSE Impact of Social Science Blog.
“The ’long tail’ of research impact is engendered by innovative dissemination tools and meaningful community engagement”, an article reported in the LSE Impact Blog, discusses the involvement of Jones and Fenge in almost a decade-and-a-half of research at Bournemouth University on older LGBT citizens in Britain. In addition to in-depth research, their efforts included producing creative outputs alongside traditional publications. Using these tools, they have engaged community partners not only through workshops and trainings, but also as participant researchers and members of an Advisory Committee.
BU produced tools for diversity: Method Deck and the film, RUFUS STONE
For example, the blog highlights the particular relationship formed with Camilla Gibson, Strategic Equality and Inclusion Manager at Hampshire County Council’s Adult Services. She organised staff trainings with the help of the LGBT tools produced at Bournemouth University—a Method Deck to Diversity set of cards, and the research-based short film RUFUS STONE. In this way, Gibson was able to “change hearts and minds” about diversity and equality issues with over 4,000 staff in Hampshire.
Gibson’s story and more are outlined in the LSE Impact Blog, which refers to Fenge & Jones’ longer output published in the Qualitative Research Journal. A draft of that journal article, “Meaningful dissemination produces the ‘long tail’ that engenders community impact” can be downloaded here.
On 7th February 2018, BU’s Ageing and Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) hosted a half-day seminar exploring the principles and applications of NPT in healthcare implementation. The seminar was delivered by Dr. Mike Bracher (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, ADRC).
Video lectures from the seminar are now available.
Background:
Successful implementation of new processes, technologies, and service developments in healthcare depends not only on their effectiveness, but also how well they become a normalized as a routine part of practice. Understanding factors that may help or hinder implementation of service development is an important topic for practitioners and researchers working in healthcare. This seminar introduces Normalization Process Theory (NPT) – an approach to understanding implementation that has been used across a wide variety of areas in primary and secondary care, involving both mental and physical health services.
Session 2: Applications of NPT – in this session, we explore how NPT has been used in health services research, through general overview followed by more detailed discussion of three case examples.
On Tuesday 6th February, Bournemouth University Research Associate Katie Thompson from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (SciTech) joined the SAMARCH (Salmonid Management round the Channel) team in search of sea trout in the river Frome. The five year EU Interreg Channel Programme funded project (2017-2022) will track juvenile salmon and juvenile and adult sea trout through four English and French estuaries to fill the gaps in our knowledge of how quickly fish migrate through intertidal habitat, their migration pathways and where adult sea trout spend time at sea. Currently, 95% of our salmon and sea trout die at sea, compared to only 75% in the 1970s. The project aims to answer the question of what proportion of this mortality occurs in estuaries and coastal waters compared to the open sea by using small acoustic and data storage tags. The project includes 10 partners from France and England who are a blend of research and regulatory organisations, and key stakeholders (Bournemouth University, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, University of Exeter, INRA Science & Impact, Environment Agency, Salmon and Trout Conservation, Agro Campus, Agence française pour la biodiversité, Normandie grands migrateurs, Obersvatoire des poissons migrateurs Bretagne).
Athletes from Western nations have various protections, and many now share equal rights in most aspects of the law. But when they travel to compete in countries with regressive human rights records, these protections can be lost.
Australia competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, both of which were held in Russia. It will again send a team to Russia to play in this year’s FIFA World Cup and aims to compete in the 2022 edition in Qatar. Both countries have poor human rights records, particularly on LGBTI+ issues.
Sport is often lauded as a platform to advance human rights. But, for LGBTI+ individuals and athletes, this may not necessarily be true. The continued hosting of mega sporting events in countries with anti-LGBTI+ laws brings the role of sport in campaigns to advance human rights into focus.
Sochi became a platform for LGBTI+ rights when Western activists called for a boycott based on several human rights concerns. Their resistance increased in direct response to the implementation of laws in Russia outlawing sexual minorities.
The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.
Athlete activists have begun to challenge the hosting of mega sporting events in countries like Russia that ignore human rights and reinforce systems of oppression. But what has really changed since Sochi for Olympians?
This year a country with a questionable stance on LGBTI+ rights is again hosting the Winter Olympics. South Korea scores only 13% on the Rainbow Index, which measures the impacts of a country’s laws and policies on the lives of LGBTI+ people. This is only a marginally better score than Russia’s 8%.
Although homosexuality is legal in South Korea, LGBTI+ rights remain highly volatile. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has courted controversy with comments opposing homosexuality, and sexual minorities continue to face significant stigma in the region.
Australia is taking 51 athletes to compete in South Korea, with two openly gay women on the team. One, Belle Brockhoff, has criticised the anti-LGBTI+ laws in host countries. She joined 26 other athletes who signed a letter opposing Kazakhstan’s bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics due to its anti-LGBTI+ policies.
However, it is not only host nations that can be called to account for their poor LGBTI+ records. Adam Rippon, an openly gay figure skater who has won bronze in Pyeongchang, recently said he did not want to meet Vice President Mike Pence as part of an official reception for the US team. Rippon argued the Trump administration does not “represent the values that [he] was taught growing up”.
A Fox News executive has criticised the inclusion of “African-Americans, Asians and openly gay athletes” in the US team. He claimed that “Darker, Gayer, Different” was now a more suitable Olympic motto than “Faster, Higher, Stronger”.
Current evidence suggests that anti-LGBTI+ discrimination is rising. Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBTI+ charity, reports hate crimes toward the LGBTI+ community have increased: one in five LGBTI+ people have experienced a hate crime due to their sexual orientation or gender identity in the last year.
In the US, Donald Trump tried to ban transgender people from serving in the military. Several states have attempted to pass laws to restrict access to bathrooms for people who are trans or gender-diverse.
Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff has publicly criticised the anti-LGBTI+ laws in Olympic host countries. Robert Cianflone/Getty Images
With increased visibility comes increased risk
An increasing number of athletes now openly demonstrate their sexual orientation, but many acknowledge it leaves them open to homophobic abuse – especially on social media platforms.
American Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy referred to social media as a space that serves to reinforce the presence of casual and aggressive homophobia. British Olympian Tom Bosworth said he believed fear of abuse on social media could be preventing athletes from coming out.
Mega sporting events can be problematic for LGBTI+ athletes as many may not be “out” and there can be serious implications if they were to do so.
The safety and welfare of LGBTI+ athletes made headlines when a journalist went undercover in the athletes’ village at the 2016 Rio Olympics to identify out or closeted athletes. Several athletes who were identified were from countries where being gay is criminalised or even punishable by death.
Sport is responding at a notably slow pace to the advancement of LGBTI+ human rights.
Major sporting codes have shown they are not ready to tackle trans and gender diversity. For example, the Australian Football League recently banned transgender player Hannah Mouncey from joining its women’s competition.
There is still much work to be done around athletes with intersex variations, sex testing in elite-level competition, and transgender and transitioned athletes.
Ice skater Adam Rippon said he did want to meet US Vice President Mike Pence due to the Trump administration’s record on LGBTI+ rights. Matthew Stockman/Getty
Hope for the future?
One particular social inclusion legacy to come from a mega sporting event is Pride House International. This initiative provides a safe space for the LGBTI+ community to engage with a sporting event.
In addition, the Principle 6 campaign, launched in response to Russia’s anti-LGBT laws, led to the expansion of that particular part of the Olympic Charter to include sexual orientation as something sport should be free from discrimination on.
It will be interesting to see whether the 2018 Winter Olympics can contribute to the advancement of LGBTI+ rights within South Korea and beyond. However, more scrutiny must be directed to the human rights records of potential host nations when awarding mega sporting events.
The two-day International Conference on Quality Education in Federal Nepal has just started in Kathmandu. Prof. Stephen Tee, executive dean of FMC and FMSS is one of the invited guests giving a short opening address. He spoke after the organisers had shown Prof. John Vinney’s recorded supporting message from Bournemouth University. Steve was part of the plenary session with the theme ‘Quality in Higher Education’.
This international conference has already attracted national media attention as the pre-conference press conference was reported in The Kathmandu Post today (click here to read news story).
– I would ask. The girls would start laughing: “Ah it’s too complicated.” “Is it about love?” – I continued. “Yes!”- they’d reply and laugh even harder.
Our 
Open access is about making the products of research freely accessible to all. It allows research to be disseminated quickly and widely, the research process to operate more efficiently, and increased use and understanding of research by business, government, charities and the wider public.
“It is important to remember that impact is not always a moment in the sun, then yesterday’s news”.
On Tuesday 6th February, Bournemouth University Research Associate Katie Thompson from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (SciTech) joined the SAMARCH (Salmonid Management round the Channel) team in search of sea trout in the river Frome. The five year EU Interreg Channel Programme funded project (2017-2022) will track juvenile salmon and juvenile and adult sea trout through four English and French estuaries to fill the gaps in our knowledge of how quickly fish migrate through intertidal habitat, their migration pathways and where adult sea trout spend time at sea. Currently, 95% of our salmon and sea trout die at sea, compared to only 75% in the 1970s. The project aims to answer the question of what proportion of this mortality occurs in estuaries and coastal waters compared to the open sea by using small acoustic and data storage tags. The project includes 10 partners from France and England who are a blend of research and regulatory organisations, and key stakeholders (Bournemouth University, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, University of Exeter, INRA Science & Impact, Environment Agency, Salmon and Trout Conservation, Agro Campus, Agence française pour la biodiversité, Normandie grands migrateurs, Obersvatoire des poissons migrateurs Bretagne).
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