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Calling all undergraduates… SURE 2018 is now open for abstract submissions!

student research

Bournemouth University’s annual undergraduate research conference – Showcasing Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) – returns for a third year in March 2018

As well as giving students a supportive platform to showcase the quality of work they do, it gives others at BU an insight into the excellent research undertaken by our undergraduates.  Not only is it a unique opportunity to further develop skills, prizes will also be available which include a fee waiver for a Master’s course at BU for the best overall contributor.

All undergraduate students at BU are eligible to apply, as are recent graduates.  Examples of research could be anything from preparing for a dissertation or an essay to work carried out during a placement year to volunteering or work with academic societies.  The key criteria is to be able to evidence critical thinking through the work.  Please do encourage your students to apply.

How to apply

To apply to present at SURE 2018, students will need to submit an application form, which includes a 250 word abstract, to sure@bournemouth.ac.uk.  Please read our ‘how to apply’ guidance first.

Abstracts will be accepted for oral or poster presentations.  If a student would like to present your research through another medium – a film, art exhibition or performance – please contact sure@bournemouth.ac.uk initially.

The deadline for submitting abstracts has been extended Friday 12 January 2018.

 

Prizes

Best overall contribution – a fee waiver to any BU Master’s

Best original research via oral presentation – 4 x £350 funding (1 per Faculty) for students to attend and present their research at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research

Best poster, demonstration or art installation: 4 x £25 Amazon voucher (1 per Faculty)

 

Conference attendance

SURE 2018 will take place on Wednesday 7 March 2018.  Registration for the conference will open in January 2018.

Staff and students from across BU are encouraged and welcome to attend.

For any queries, please contact sure@bournemouth.ac.uk or visit www.bournemouth.ac.uk/SURE2018.

 

 

External Application Reviewers Available

We are delighted to confirm that as part of the Research Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, we now have funds available for external application reviewers.

A reminder of the process has been outlined below, and all documentation is available on MyBU here.

Who decides when an external application reviewer may be used?

The permission of academics to use the faculty tied budgets will be under the control of the Deputy Deans of Research and Professional Practice (DDRPP) of each faculty.  This is to keep strategic control under the charge of each DDRPP for their respective faculty. 

How will academics access this support?

Academics who wish to access external support need to consult with their faculty DDRPP.  Please read the “Appointing an External Expert- Procedure” documents and complete the “External Support Checklist” along with an “Intention to Bid” form and send this to the relevant DDRPP.  If the request is approved, the DDRPP will send the approved paperwork to RKEO who will then contact the external consultant and the academic to work on a service specification.  All contracts and legal/financial arrangements will be dealt with by RKEO.

Who provides the External Support?

We currently have several external application reviewers available, details of which can be found on MyBU.  This process is still open so additional providers may be added at a later date. 

What do academics need to do?

Those interested in making use of an external expert should allow at least four weeks to work on an application before a funding call closing date. Shorter notice would not allow sufficient time for the experts to 1) make room in their schedules for working on a new application and 2) provide an appropriate level of in-depth advice with enough time to incorporate changes and suggestions.

Applicants will be asked to send a copy of an Intention to Bid form as well as a completed checklist to their DDRPP which will explain the background to their proposal and why they would find support helpful.

Is it worth applying for all this new Horizon 2020 funding, then?

Funding opportunities, international

Recipients of updates from this blog will have, no doubt, seen updates concerning the many new funding calls arising as a result of the release of the Horizon 2020 Work Programmes for 2018-2020. With current uncertainties, is it worth UK-based researchers applying, especially following the announcement on the Participant Portal that the eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant (i.e. the researcher’s country of application being either a member or associate country to receive the funding)?

The UK Research Office (UKRO) however, has reminded the sector via their website’s public area that – UK businesses and universities should continue to bid for competitive EU funds while we remain a member of the EU and we will work with the Commission to ensure payment when funds are awarded. The Government will underwrite the payment of such awards, even when specific projects continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU.

In the FAQ document, it is stated that even if UK partners cannot continue to receive funding from the European Commission because the UK has become a third country, the UK Government has guaranteed funding for successful bids submitted by UK participants before departure, including those that are successful afterwards. Third country participation is routine in Horizon 2020. 

It should also be noted that Horizon 2020 has always been open to Third Counties; it is the access to funding that may not be available unless it is a stipulation of the call, where the country is associated with the EU (Norway, for example) or where there is a specific provision in place.

With many calls having a closing date before the expected date of the UK exit, information about calls, info days, brokerage events etc., will continue to be posted on this blog, in anticipation of BU staff applying for funding to support their excellent research.

BU staff can register to receive their own updates from UKRO.

BU staff considering applying for any of these Horizon 2020 calls and other international funding, should contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: International Funding, for further information and support.

 

Final Report of the Industrial Strategy Commission published

The final report of the Industrial Strategy Commission has been published.

Key sections include:

  • The research and development landscape
  • Investment in Infrastructure
  • Decarbonisation of the energy economy
  • Health and social care at the centre of industrial strategy
  • Unlocking long-term investment
  • Supporting high-value industries and building export capacity
  • Enabling growth everywhere

If you would like to discuss your research, and how your research networks can fit within the UK’s Industrial Strategy, please contact Ehren Milner, Research Facilitator for Industrial Collaboration (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

 

HSS PGR Reseacher- Elizabeth Waithaka at the Nursing World Conference 2017 in Las Vegas-Nevada

conferences, PG research

The Second Edition of the Nursing World Conference took place in the City of Las Vegas in the United States.

This forum brought together distinguished nursing scholars and nursing practitioners from across the globe. There was a wide representation of the various practice specialties including: nursing educators, nursing managers at the frontlines of care to country level chief nursing officers, clinical practitioners and consultant specialists, nursing researchers and thought leaders amongst other health and social care professionals.

There was also the odd anthropologist and whose presence and presentation reminded us of the importance of cross disciplinary work to foster continued development of nursing practice and theory.

I was privileged to make my first oral presentation at this conference in which I shared a select aspect of findings from a systematic review of the public health nursing evidence base for interventions targeted at children and young people. The findings revealed that contemporary public health nursing (PHN) interventions are typically individual level- behaviour change interventions- a finding with significant implications on PHN efforts in addressing inequalities in health.

This was a very exciting opportunity to be able to present my work and represent Bournemouth University as well as my supervisors Prof. Ann Hemingway, Dr. Karen Rees and Dr. Kate Harvey. It was also satisfying to see leading researchers have some interest in my work- and we had fruitful discussions with especially Dr. Araelis de Peralta-Clemson University, USA about our shared research interests in community health workers and health disparities.

I would like to extend my gratitude to Bournemouth University for sponsoring my participation and to the scientific committee for organizing a very well organised and resourceful event.

If you would like to learn more about our research project, please feel free to contact me at: ewaithaka@bournemouth.ac.uk

Spheroid of Performance, Algorithm and Speculative Nature in Spatial Texture

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Creative Technology Research Centre.

 

Title: Spheroid of Performance, Algorithm and Speculative Nature in Spatial Texture

Speaker: Dr Erik Nyström

Composer and Performer

Leverhulme Research Fellow at The University of Birmingham

 

Date: Wednesday 15th November 2017

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Room: Lawrence LT, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract

 

This session uses the author’s live computer music work Spheroid as point of departure for discussing an approach to electronic music practice based on real-time composition/performance of spatial texture interior, also branching out into related topics of synthesis, spatiality and ontology of sound.

Presenting research undertaken as part of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at University of Birmingham, the lecture engages in both practical and conceptual reflection on how an ostensibly acousmatic sonic terrain responds to the composition of potential rather than fixed morphology, describing a step towards a practice which attempts at achieving the richness and complexity of studio-composed multichannel music in a format that is entirely real-time and not reliant on absolute structure. This reflects a central aesthetic and conceptual emphasis on music as a process of becoming, where notions of composer, performer, material, structure, are all considered part of a synthesis which has no independent elements. The ‘spheroid’, described both as an irregularly revolving algorithm for textural growth, embedding and responding to performance, and as the physical and virtual sphere of interaction between human, nature and technology, also invites some interdisciplinary modes of thinking concerning the ‘human’ in the music of our age.

 

Biography

 

Erik Nyström is a composer and performer whose output includes live computer music, electroacoustic works, and sound installations. He is currently a Leverhulme Research Fellow at Birmingham Electro-Acoustic Sound Theatre, University of Birmingham, UK, developing new aesthetic and technological approaches for spatial texture synthesis in composition and performance. His studies include a PhD in electroacoustic composition with Denis Smalley at City University, London, and computer music at CCMIX, Paris. He performs frequently worldwide and his music has been released by empreintes DIGITALes.

 

We hope to see you there.

15 Minutes to Develop your Research Career – Episode 1

PG research

What does ‘public engagement’ mean? What can researchers gain from encouraging people outside of academia to read their work? And where should you begin?

We hear from Lucy Robinson, Citizen Science Manager at The Natural History Museum, as well as PhD students explaining their thesis in three minutes as part of the Three Minute Thesis competition.

Download the podcast here. Taylor & Francis Group created with Vitae.

BU Physiotherapy Programme Co-Creation Publication Success

Publishing

Congratulations to Alex Evens (BU Physiotherapy Graduate 2017) and Dr Carol Clark for their successful publication in Physical Therapy Reviews.

Their article entitled ‘Does assisted cycling improve function in those with Parkinson’s disease?’ was accepted last week. This was based on work carried out through the Level 6 unit, Research for Physiotherapy Practice.

Well done to you both – it’s great to see our students publishing so early in their career.

Clare Killingback

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

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:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

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:

28th November 2017

23rd January 2018

27th February 2018

27th March 2018

24th April 2018

22nd May 2018

26th June 2018

24th July 2018

28th August 2018

25th September 2018

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.

Have you noticed a new box appear on the BU Research Blog homepage?

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.