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New book published by FoM Academics

Publishing

Julie Robson (Department of Marketing) and John Toth (Department of Leadership, Strategy and Organisation) have recently published a new text on customer service and ethics.

The book focuses on the insurance loss adjuster market and is believed to be the first to provide the reader with an understanding of the importance of good customer service and sound business ethics in a loss adjusting context. Customer service topics include when customer service takes place, its benefits and different forms; how to measure and manage service quality, including response to complaints; and the impact of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the FCA’s Treating Customers Fairly. Business ethics topics includes the ethical theories, ethical decision making and ethical dilemmas; in addition, the text explores how ethical organisations are built in a diverse and global environment, including aspects such as corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and whistleblowing.

Loss adjusters investigate large or complicated claims for insurance companies and seek to resolve claims in a fair manner. Both customer service and ethics are recognised as important to this sector and the hallmark of a modern profession

Produced in association with the Chartered Insurance Loss Adjusters (CILA) and published by Witherby Publishing Group the text is recommended to students undertaking CILA professional examinations.

research*eu: July issue highlights

The European Commission publishes a monthly round-up of research project results – research*eu

The July feature is – The Grand Plan for Carbon Capture

This month the highlights pertinent to BU include:

If you have an EU funded project coming to an end, with results to share, why not think about sharing this? Get in touch with the editorial team to request an article, free of charge, as part of the European Commission’s support for dissemination and exploitation of research results.

Copies of this magazine are placed in the Talbot Campus Staff Centre  – for reference only, as copies are limited.

 

First PhD in Project Management from the Faculty of Management

PG research, student research

Yogarajah Nanthagaopan has successfully completed the first PhD in Project Management from the Faculty of Management. He was supervised by Dr Nigel L. Williams and Professor Stephen Page and his thesis was titled: A Resource Based Perspective on Project Management in NGOs. Dr Nanthangaopan has returned to his native Sri Lanka and is the current Head of Economics and Management department and Coordinator for the BBM in Project Management degree program at the Faculty of Business Studies, Vavuniya Campus of the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka.

£80m for the Creative Industries Clusters Programme

Funding opportunities

The AHRC have announced that £80m will be made available through the AHRC as part of the Governments Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) to support eight research and development partnerships between industry and a group of universities to respond to challenges identified by the creative industries in 2018.  The pre-call document may be found here.

It is expected that the call for proposals to host the Policy and Evidence Centre in relation to this fund will by made available in October 2017.

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

 

 

 

 

European Innovation Partnerships

Funding opportunities

Do you want to work collaboratively with researchers across Europe?

If so, take a look at the European Innovation Partnerships!

EIPs act across the whole research and innovation chain, bringing together all relevant actors at EU, national and regional levels in order to: (i) step up research and development efforts; (ii) coordinate investments in demonstration and pilots; (iii) anticipate and fast-track any necessary regulation and standards; and (iv) mobilise ‘demand’ in particular through better coordinated public procurement to ensure that any breakthroughs are quickly brought to market.

The current EIPs are:

But what if your discipline is not within one of these topics?

Then take a look at CORDIS.

Here you can search for your topic of interest and find out, amongst other important project information, what has been funded before, results from this previous research and who was involved in the project, which may direct you towards potential partners for future collaborative working. For certain topics, there are also thematic Results Packs, including Securing cyberspace and Independent Living.

If you are thinking of applying to a funding call, from the EU or otherwise, CORDIS might assist by sparking a idea based on a previous project, help you assess the state-of-the-art or inform your choice of potential partners.

Whatever your research interests, check out CORDIS!

Help is also available to BU staff – please contact Emily Cieciura in RKEO to discuss your EU and International funding requirements.

 

 

 

Building Roman Britain: The Movie

Bournemouth University’s archaeologists have released a short video on one of their projects in which they have been working closely with partners at the famous Roman sites of The Roman Baths and Fishbourne Roman Palace. The project has been using new methods to examine the main materials used by the Romans in their buildings.

Project Director, Professor Mark Brisbane, said “When the Romans arrived in Britain in the first century AD they brought with them a new form of architecture that used carefully cut, squared stone blocks and materials made of fired clay such as bricks and tiles. This would have been a completely new form of construction to most of the local inhabitants whose main building materials were wood, thatch and daub.”

In order to better understand these ‘new’ materials of the Roman World, the Building Roman Britain project investigated their composition and production through an innovative programme of archaeological science. To do this, BU’s Department of Archaeology, Anthropology & Forensic Science worked in a knowledge exchange partnership with two well-known heritage organisations, Fishbourne Roman Palace Museum near Chichester and The Roman Baths in the City of Bath.

The project aimed to characterise stone and ceramic building materials (the bricks, tiles, etc.) by using a relatively new type of instrument known as portable X-ray Florescence (or pXRF for short). This allows us to chemically ‘fingerprint’ archaeological examples of these materials, so that we can learn more about where the stone was quarried and where the ceramic building material was produced.

Mark Brisbane added, “Central to the project was a need to communicate the process of scientific discovery to the general public. To do this we decided to produce a short video to communicate to a wide audience the project’s novel scientific approach to understanding the organisation of early Roman Britain’s building industries. We are particularly grateful to our partners in Bath and Fishbourne for their assistance in the project and to IMMIX Media Ltd who brought their creative know-how to the video and its production.”

As well as discussing the project’s results and their implications, the video includes an outline of the development of the project, the manner in which questions were structured to examine the potential and limitations of the use of the handheld pXRF, and the way in which the approach was applied within the museums and in the field. Some preliminary results are also discussed as well as where the project goes next.

The work was largely funded by HEIF (Higher Education Innovation Fund), part of HEFCE (the Higher Education Funding Council for England) and will be the subject of on-going collaborations between the university and our partner museums.

The work has subsequently helped underpin a successful bid by The Roman Baths to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a major new learning centre known as the Archway Project: https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/archway-project

For further information on the Building Roman Britain Research Project see: https://research.bournemouth.ac.uk/project/building-roman-britain/

For further information on Fishbourne Roman Palace see: https://sussexpast.co.uk/properties-to-discover/fishbourne-roman-palace

MSCA Individual Fellowships Seal of Excellence Holders

Funding opportunities, Guidance, international

Were you awarded a Seal of Excellence in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions​ (MSCA) 2016 Individual Fellowships scheme and planning to resubmit to this round?

If so the European Commission and Research Executive Agency (REA) have advised that you should not mention the Seal of Excellence in the main body of the proposal to ensure equal treatment of proposals. If you would like to mention the Seal of Excellence, it can be included in the CV under section 4 of Part B-2. Note this is only for resubmissions where the Fellow, Supervisor and Host Organisation all remain the same.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Research-Professional-logoEvery 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:

22nd August 2017

26th September 2017

24th October 2017

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.

Participant Portal Updates

Funding opportunities

Changes are being made to the European Commission’s Participant Portal over the coming months with major changes due to be finalised by 2020.

One of the first updates is a Partner Search facility. This allows you to find potential partners for your research project, based on organisations already registered on the Portal and are in receipt of funding. As part of this, there is a useful overview of the organisation and its interaction with European funding schemes. Access is also given to top level information about funded projects. This complements the other partner searches already available. Why not use this feature to find out who else is being funded in your research area?

Going forwards, the Portal will provide access to more than Horizon 2020 and a few other schemes. It is planned to become a single-point of entry to EU funding.

More news will be posted on the Participant Portal and by UKRO  – sign up to receive alerts through BU’s membership.

 

 

Pharmacoeconomics Workshop (Professor Darrin Baines) – Egyptian (Cairo) Delegates

The Pharmacoeconomics Workshop funded by The British Council to promote economic and social impact in Egypt, recruited nine Egyptian delegates from academia and government, which involved key collaborator Professor Samir Farid from the Pharmacy Department, Cairo University;  Dr Amar Saad, Former Associate Minister of Health for Pharmaceutical Affairs. Researcher at the National Organization for Drug Control and Research (NODCAR); Dr Mahmoud Elmahdawy, Director, Patient Access & HEOR, Novartis Pharmaceuticals; Dr Ahmed Abuelhana, Director of Consultation & Training Center, Misr University Science & Technology Park.

The July one week workshop programme taught by Professor Baines, Health Economics, Faculty of Management, included a presentation from Professor Zaheed-Ud-Din Babar, Medicines & Healthcare, University of Huddersfield and concluded with a visit to McCann Health, London.

 

BU research models spread of disease through aquatic communities

The interaction of species within an ecosystem is important in predicting how they will respond when diseases are introduced, Bournemouth University (BU) modelling has found.The research examined how aquatic communities can recover after a disturbance – in this case, the introduction of the rosette agent, a fish parasite which was introduced to UK waters through invasive species the topmouth gudgeon and has had severe effects on native UK fish populations.

The BU study modelled the introduction of a healthy carrier of a fungal infection into a host community and examined how the susceptibility of predators at the top of the food chain influenced the spread and impact of the disease.

The paper, published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Animal Ecology, found that to make predictions about the effect of a disease on a given disease, the species’ interaction with each other is as important as their response to the disease.

The presence of resistant hosts at the top of the food chain controlled the population growth of the disease carrier, but was not able to effectively eliminate the spread of infection.

The study was led by Dr Demetra Andreou, Principal Academic in Environmental Science at BU, with PhD student Farah Al-Shorbaji and Professor Rob Britton alongside Rudy Gozlan and Benjamin Roche from L’Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) in France.

“Different communities can recover to different degrees, based on many factors,” said Farah Al-Shorbaji.

“Two of those factors are how much the disease affects each species, and interactions like predation. Our model combined both those factors. This allowed us to test possible ways of controlling the disease. For example, we could test if adding a predator that would eat infected fish might control the spread of the disease.”

Dr Andreou added: “Our results demonstrate why disease emergence can occur in some communities but not others, and show how management practices such as biocontrol (the introduction of one species to manage another) must be closely monitored.

“It also highlighted the danger of a fungal pathogen that can transmit widely through direct contact and the environment.”

Read the full paper on the Journal of Animal Ecology website.

Creative Europe – current calls and tenders

Funding opportunities, international

Open microbusiness models for innovation in European family-owned heritage houses

The objective of the action is to strengthen the capacity of private owners of heritage houses and equip them with innovative business models.

The preparatory action will map the existing business models used by family-owned heritage houses in the EU, compare them, identify and share best practices and potential innovations.

It will also quantify and qualify the economic value of family-owned heritage houses in the EU and identify their potential to contribute to various EU policies, including innovation, social inclusion, education, youth work and intercultural dialogue. Added value will derive from the synergies with current EU actions dedicated to cultural heritage (European Heritage Days, EU Prize for Cultural Heritage, European Heritage Label).

Finally the action will contribute to the objectives of the European Year of Cultural Heritage through dissemination and awareness raising of European value of heritage.

Deadline: 13/09/17

Proposals to design innovative interdisciplinary modules for Master degrees, combining arts and ICT with entrepreneurial skills and business exposure

The action will be implemented through the design and implementation of innovative modules that will be included in existing arts, culture, science, engineering, technology and/or other relevant masters.

Deadline: 10/10/17

If you are considering applying, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU and International.

Launch of the VISTA AR project at Exeter Cathedral

Discover the digital possibilities in cultural heritage at the launch event of the VISTA AR project (led by the University of Exeter), held in Exeter Cathedral. Experience first-hand the range of augmented reality and virtual reality scenario available and how the project could help you to develop affordable digital solutions for your business model.

There will be demonstrations of cutting-edge geospatial tracking / augmented reality / virtual reality thanks to headsets and apps on tablets. This is your chance to engage with the project and register your interest in this new solution. It is also a unique opportunity to find out about Exeter Cathedral and also Fougères Castle in France. We are taking over the Cathedral for the event so it is a fantastic chance to see first-hand one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture anywhere in the world.

Key note speakers: Sir Tim Smit, Co-Founder of the Eden Project and Tom Barker, Head of Digital at the National Trust. 

To find out more more and register click here