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The Royal Society- Entrepreneur in Residence scheme- DEADLINE: 4/1/18

The Royal Society are inviting applications to the Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR) scheme.  The purpose of the scheme is to give academics in UK Universities practical experience the latest science, research and innovation in industry.  The scheme allows for the successful translation of academic research into industry and likewise for the growth of entrepreneurial culture within universities.  The close working with industry will also help with developing relevant curricula to produce graduates ready to work in industry.

The scheme covers residencies in all areas of the Natural science except for clinical medicine. The scheme will contribute up to £40k over two years towards salary (0.2 FTE) and travel or project costs.

For further information please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

 

AHRC report about arts and humanities research on mental health

A new report, Exploring Mental Health and Wellbeing, published by the Arts and Humanities Research Council highlights the important role that arts and humanities based research can play in helping to address complex issues around mental health.

The report brings to life a wealth of case studies that are contributing to the mental health debate. These include examining the work of academics at the University of Cambridge who are pioneering an innovative design of a personalised fragrance dispenser to help manage anxiety to a project being managed by the University of Essex to educate policy-makers on the issues surrounding impaired decision-making capacity.

Research around mental health is focused around developing a cross-disciplinary approach – and arts and humanities scholars have a key role to play. The AHRC has funded research in many different aspects of mental health research in recent years, with an investment of over £10m in seventy-six projects since 2010.

The new cross-disciplinary mental health research agenda sees the UK’s seven research councils joining forces to collaborate on mental health research. Published in August this year, the agenda paves the way for cross-council collaboration on mental health, highlighting the importance of including the arts and humanities in this area of research.

Cross-Border Event on Natural and Cultural Heritage – post event report

international

On Wednesday 11th October, BU were pleased to welcome the Interreg France (Channel) England (FCE) team and their guests for their cross-border event, considering Specific Objective 3.1: Natural and Cultural Heritage:

3.1- Realise the potential of the common natural and cultural assets to deliver innovative and sustainable growth 

The focus of this Specific Objective is to develop the economic potential of the Programme’s natural and cultural heritage. By investing in this Specific Objective the Programme aims to improve the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the Programme’s cultural and natural heritage, and to support economic growth through developing a more competitive tourism offer.

This has the aim of increasing not only the regions appeal to visitors, but making it a more appealing place to live and work with the intention of attracting businesses and therefore jobs to the area.

With over 70 attendees from across the area of eligibility, the day gave all attendees the opportunity to find out more about the programme, explore areas of common interest, meet with like-minded potential project partners and consider how their own disciplines may contribute to the delivery of innovative and sustainable economic activities which enhance common cultural and natural assets.

The day began with a welcome from Carolyn Reid (FCE Programme Manager) and Prof Michael Wilmore (Executive Dean, BU’s Faculty of Media and Communication). Following presentations outlining the scheme, attendees found out more about two funded projects – VISTA-AR and GO TRADE. Following a panel discussion with heritage experts from both France and the UK, the afternoon consisted of themed breakout sessions (Natural Heritage, Built Heritage, Intangible Tourism and Events and Trails) plus surgeries with FCE facilitators.

The day concluded with project pitches and recognition that the event had been a fruitful experience for all those in attendance.

If BU staff are considering applying for this or any other Interreg scheme, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International Funding.

FHSS PGR Impact Workshop

Many thanks to all those who attended the Health and Social Sciences PGR Impact Workshop on 5th October. This was a great opportunity for those at various points on the PhD journey to consider how their research might be impactful.

Those who attended commented that the workshop was a timely reminder of the importance of integrating impact into a doctoral project as well as understanding the importance of public engagement as knowledge exchange.

Thanks to Dr James Gavin and Jane Forster for their input to the session on the importance of public and patient involvement in research and seeking impact in the context of policy.

For those in HSS please feel free to contact Clare Killingback, Impact Champion for more information on Research Impact.

Funder Visit – Japan Society for the Promotion of Science on 21st November 2017

Funding opportunities, Info Days, international

BU’s Research & Knowledge Exchange Office is delighted to be hosting the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science visit on Tuesday, 21st November 2017.

The schedule for the event is:

13:00           Welcoming Address

13:05            JSPS – Overview, Institutional and Group Programmes

 Ms Chika Itoi, Deputy Director, JSPS London

13:25            JSPS Fellowship Programmes

 Ms Shiho Hayashida, International Programme Associate, JSPS London

13:45            Experiences of Doing Research in Japan

 Professor Chang Hong Liu (BU’s Department of Psychology)

13:55            Questions and Answers

14:00           Close

This event is open to BU academics and those from other regional universities. To book your place, please email RKEDevFramework@bournemouth.ac.uk, putting JSPS in the subject line. The event will take place on BU’s Talbot Campus, with the room confirmed to you after booking.

Please also see the post concerning JSPS’ Fellowship scheme which is open until 1st December 2017.

 

Photo of the Week: Baltic Pride: The visibility of LGBT human rights claiming

Baltic Pride: The visibility of LGBT human rights claiming

Baltic Pride: The visibility of LGBT human rights claiming

Our next instalment of the ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Dr Jayne Caudwell’s image of a Pride bus in Baltic Pride 2016.  The series is a weekly instalment, which features an image taken by our fantastic BU staff and students. The photos give a glimpse into some of the fascinating work our researchers have been doing across BU and the wider community.

This research project focuses on Baltic Pride 2016 and the politics of LGBTQ visibility. Pride parades can be important for the advocacy of LGBT human rights claims. Prides take place across the world and their histories and scales vary enormously. Some adopt en-mass celebration and carnivalesque styles, whilst others face severe opposition. Global manifestations of Pride are uneven and yet, they are connected. Many take place around the month of June because of the legacies of USA-based LGBT liberation triggered by the Stonewall Riots on June 29th, 1969 in Greenwich Village, and most rely on rainbow flags, LGBTQ-positive banners and slogans to carry the politics of global Pride.

The research explores the transnational flow of the Pride movement and associated universal human rights claims through the visuals of Baltic Pride 2016.

If you’d like find out more about the research or the photo itself then please contact Dr Caudwell.

This photo was originally an entry in the 2017 Research Photography Competition. If you have any other questions about the Photo of the Week series or the competition please email research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

Nursing Students Experience Virtual Reality

 

The ADRC is working with Alzheimer’s Research UK to evaluate another form of simulated learning and evaluate the effectiveness of their newly created Virtual Reality app ‘A Walk Through Dementia’ (AWTD) which offers a unique glimpse into life for a person living with dementia. The Android and IOS Phone app was developed by Alzheimer’s Research UK and virtual reality specialists VISYON, and uses the widely-available Google Cardboard headset. It is designed to help the public think beyond memory loss to gain a fully immersive insight into the varied symptoms people with dementia can experience in everyday life.

 

A Walk Through Dementia is the first time a smartphone Cardboard app has been used to engage the public with the condition. The experience, which can also be viewed headset-free on the app or online at www.awalkthroughdementia.org, uses a combination of computer generated environments and 360 degree video sequences to illustrate in powerful detail how even the most everyday task of making a cup of tea can become a challenge for someone with dementia.  To date Alzheimer’s Research UK have received some preliminary feedback on using AWTD from the public, health care professionals and care sector.

 

On 11th October over 280 year 1 undergraduate adult and mental health nursing students attended a Dementia themed study day, led by Dr Michele Board, and during the day they gained insight into the lived experience of dementia using the AWTD Virtual Reality App. With support from Professor Jane Murphy, Laura Phipps from Alzheimer’s Research and Professor Liz Falconer, the students were instructed to use the app and discuss questions about the film and how it might influence their practice. The prospect of this session was a little nerve wracking, but the result amazing. The students really engaged and said how valuable the app was and giving them an insight into dementia.

Cross-Research Council Mental Health Network Plus call is now open

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

The research councils are pleased to announce the cross-disciplinary mental health network plus call.

The aim of the call is to encourage the creation of multi-disciplinary networks that cross the remit boundaries of the research councils. These networks will address important mental health research questions that require an innovative, cross-disciplinary approach to accelerate progress; to build cross-disciplinary research capacity in the field; and to strengthen the UK mental health research base.

The call for network plus proposals closes at 16:00 on 22 March 2018.

If you are interested in applying to this call, please contact your Research Facilitator. We will be holding a networking event for BU academics who are interested in this call. Details of this event will be announced on the BU Research Blog shortly.

For further information and to apply see here.

Real-time Research Professional Updates at the click of a button

Funding opportunities

Have you noticed this box on the BU Research Blog?

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.

Alternatively, receive regular alerts by signing up to as many groups as you want by clicking on ‘Bournemouth University‘ on the Research Professional home screen and selecting relevant searches that have been set up to locate funding calls. Just find the ones which suit your needs, click on the name of the group and select ‘Join this Group’.  You can also modify a shared search to save into your own alerts area by clicking on the padlock symbol.

You can find out more about Research Professional from the RKEO monthly updates which give further details of this service and the help available to BU staff. Just search ‘Research Professional or click on Research Professional tag at the bottom of this post to see all our posts about this subscribed service for BU staff.

We will still continue to blog about specific calls of note as usual.

If you need further assistance with using Research Professional, please contact your Funding Development Officer.

Forthcoming Event: Branded Content Research Network Conference

The Branded Content Research Network are pleased to announce that their forthcoming Branded Content Research Network Conference is taking place next month from Tuesday 7 to Wednesday 8 November in London.

A one-day conference will take place on the Tuesday, while Wednesday will consist of pre-conference meetings of the network and an open public meeting ‘Is there anything wrong with branded content?’ to end the two-day event.

The Branded Content Research Network is an academic network project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, who seek to bring together academic researchers, industry and civil society interests to explore the practices and implications of branded content, native advertising and the convergence of media and marketing communications.

About the Conference:

Marketers increasingly produce their own branded media content (‘owned’ media) and they seek to integrate advertising more seamlessly into the editorial forms and flows of publishing, audio, audiovisual, and social media communications. The integration of media and advertising is not new, but it is intensifying. Forms of branded content and ‘native’ advertising are developing rapidly, transforming marketing communications, challenging regulatory arrangements, and raising a host of issues from consumer awareness and acceptance of advertising to the consequences for the media’s editorial independence and creative autonomy.

The Branded Content Research Network aims to investigate the changing relationships between media and marketing and to promote research, collaboration and dialogue across a very wide range of interests and perspectives. The network brings together academic researchers, industry and civil society interests to explore the practices and implications of branded content, native advertising, and media-marketing convergence. Branded content is both an economic and a cultural phenomenon that requires cross-disciplinary resources and new approaches in analysis.

The conference will bring together international researchers at all stages of their careers, and marketing practitioners, for presentations and dialogue to explore insights and help to build research capacities and international collaboration. The conference is hosted by the Branded Content Research Network and the Advertising Research Group (ARTWG), a temporary working group within the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA).

Click here to view the full draft conference programme.

Registration

The event is free but places are limited and advance booking is required. To register, please click here.

Please complete your booking by 2 November as we will not be able to accept late bookings after that date (except for the public meeting, space permitting). Please note that all those who have booked a two-day ticket for 7-8 November do not need to book separately to attend the evening meeting.

If you would like any further information, including travel and accommodation, please email j.hardy@uel.ac.uk.

Molecular basis for a healthier heart…new work published by BU

Research funded by the British Heart Foundation looking at tissue fibrosis (scarring), will soon be published in Experimental Gerontology, one the world’s leading journal on ageing. Fibrosis occurs naturally as part of our injury response process but also develops in ageing and chronic disease. Treatments are scant despite fibrosis leading to organ failure and increased risk of death.

The image shows valves (v) in the hearts of young and ‘late middle aged’ fruit flies that have been genetically engineered to express fluorescent collagen, an key ‘scar protein’. Although the fly heart is just two cells wide it represents a lot of the genetic machinery for a human heart. Amazingly, the function of human and fly hearts declines as they age – and they both accumulate collagen.

Our previous work linked heart function with SPARC – a protein associated with fibrosis in humans.  We’ve now demonstrated that the heart’s ‘health-span’ during ageing can be significantly lengthened if the expression SPARC is reduced. We also show that if SPARC levels increase – fibrosis is increased too. Hence, we’ve nailed a cause-and-effect relationship between SPARC and heart function which supports the idea of targeting SPARC clinically to control cardiac health and fibrosis.

Paul S. Hartley (Department of Life and Environmental Science).

*Last chance to book* The BU Protocol of academics engaging with business- 18/10/17

Business Engagement

If you are interested in working with local industry stakeholders, and don’t know how best to approach communication, please attend “The BU Protocol of academics engaging with business” on 18/10/17.

BU has many partnerships and established relationships with local and national stakeholders. This short session, run by Ian Jones, Head Of Regional Community Partnerships within the Office of the Vice-Chancellor, will cover the route of communication and protocol for approaching and working with these stakeholders. Examples of best practice will be presented along with details on how to understand when institutional commitments are being made.

The intended learning outcomes of this session are:
•Attendees will learn who they need to speak to before contacting some of our partners
•Attendees will learn the protocols expected by some stakeholders
•Attendees will gain insight into when they are making “institutional commitments”

You book through the link here. For any questions about how this course may be useful to you, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk)

PGRs hurry! Get your 3MT application in.

PG research

The Countdown Begins – Can you beat the clock?

Deadline for the Doctoral College 3MT application submission is Sunday 22 October 2017.

For more information, eligibility and how to apply visit the website.

Don’t miss out on the chance to win £400 towards a conference of your choice, plus entry into the Vitae National 3MT competition plus £100 voucher.

 

SAIL Project Team Meeting

Knowledge Exchange

Last week, Prof Ann Hemingway,  Prof Adele Ladkin  and Dr Holly Crossen-White joined European research colleagues in Ostend, Belgium for a SAIL Project bi-annual team meeting. Over two days  all research partners from four different European countries had the opportunity to share their initial research data from pilot projects being developed within each country for older people. The BU team will be undertaking the feasibility study for the SAIL project and will be drawing together all the learning from the various interventions created by the other partners.

 

 

BU Briefing – Fatigue management programme for people with multiple sclerosis

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. 

The manualised group-based programme called FACETS (Fatigue: Applying Cognitive behavioural and Energy effectiveness Techniques to lifeStyle) is a conceptual framework integrating elements from cognitive behavioural, social-cognitive, energy effectiveness, self-management and self-efficacy theories. The aim of the intervention is to help people with multiple sclerosis (MS) normalise their fatigue experiences, learn helpful ways of thinking about fatigue and use available energy more effectively.

This paper presents the results from one year follow-up data obtained from a pragmatic three-centre trial of FACETS.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Professor Peter Thomas at pthomas@bournemouth.ac.uk or Roger Baker at rbaker@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.

New CMMPH midwifery publication

international, Publishing, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Sue Way and Prof. Vanora Hundley in BU’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) on their latest publication on the latent phase of labour.  Their paper ‘Defining the latent phase of labour: is it important?’ appeared in Evidence Based Midwifery and was written with midwifery colleagues across the UK, Germany and Canada [1].

 

Congratulations

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

Reference:

  1. Hundley V, Way S, Cheyne H, Janssen P, Gross M, Spiby H (2017) Defining the latent phase of labour: is it important? Evidence Based Midwifery 15 (3): 89-94.