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PCCC study finds that choice in HE can be more about managing relationships between parent and child than just making the ‘right choice’​

Helen Haywood and Richard Scullion have had their paper titled ‘It’s quite difficult letting them go, isn’t it?’ UK parents’ experiences of their child’s higher education choice process accepted for publication in ‘Studies in Higher Education’, a prestigious 3 star journal. The paper derives from Helen’s doctoral research on parents’ experiences of their child’s Higher Education choice process. The main findings include that parents experience this process, not as ‘rational’ consumers, in the way that much government and HEI communication assumes, but primarily as parents whose main aim at this key stage in their relationship with their child is to maintain this relationship and to minimise any arguments and conflict. ‘Relationship maintenance’ is thus the main theme. In some cases, parents are prepared to go to considerable lengths in order to manage this process and to ‘keep the peace’ with their adolescent child and their experiences are vividly captured in lengthy quotations which derive from the qualitative, interpretive research undertaken with this under-researched group. The findings in this paper will resonate with parents and particularly parents of adolescents. It also has important implications for HEIs and government policies and focuses on an often neglected facet of choice – the role of relationships in making choices.
Abstract:
This paper challenges the dominant discourse that Higher Education (HE) choice is a consumer choice and questions assumptions underpinning government policy and HE marketing. HE choice is largely viewed as a rational, decontextualized process. However, this interpretivist study found it to be much more complex, and to be about relationships and managing a transition in roles. It focuses on parents, an under-researched group, who play an increasing part in their child’s HE choice. It finds that they experience this process primarily as parents, not consumers and that their desire to maintain the relationship at this critical juncture takes precedence over the choice of particular courses and universities. The role of relationships, and in this context relationship maintenance, is the main theme. This is experienced in two principal ways: relationship maintenance through conflict avoidance and through teamwork. These significant findings have implications for the way governments and universities consider recruitment.

To read the full article, please click on the below link:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2017.1315084

The importance of justifying yourself! Writing a Justification of Resources Session 4th May 2017 – last chance to book!

Funding opportunities

Many people see the ‘Justification of Resources’ document as another thing to quickly pull together and tick off the list, after having already completed a 70+ page funding application. As a result, it often doesn’t get the prior consideration needed to write a good one – even though applications are often rejected due to insufficient justification of resources.

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are holding a session on ‘Writing a Justification of Resources’. The session will provide an overview of the Justification of Resources document, and will offer tips for writing this section of the application form. Examples of effective Justifications of Resources will be provided.

Date: Thursday 4th May

Time: 10:00-11:30

Venue: Talbot Campus

Book your space via the RKE Development Framework page for this event.

For further information, please contact Lisa Gale-Andrews, RKEO Research Facilitator.

BRIAN Upgrade – Next Week!

BRIAN

BRIAN will be upgrading to a new version next week, the main improvements from this upgrade include:

  • New Impact Tracking Module
  • New Homepage
  • More User Friendly Navigation

These new and improved features will make BRIAN easier and simplier to use for everyone, whilst also providing a valuable tool to academics helping them record the impact of their research

All relevant guidance notes and video guides on the Staff Intranet will be updated in due course. If you need any help using the new system or if you encounter any problems after the upgrade, please do send an email to BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk and a member of staff will be able to assist you.

BRIAN training sessions are also available:

  • Tuesday 25th April 2017
  • Thursday 15th June 2017

With further dates planned. If you are interested to book on to any of these training sessions, please click here to book on!

In the meantime, if you do have queries relating to the upgrade, please get in touch with BRIAN@bournemouth.ac.uk

Dr. Miguel Moital contributes to amateur documentary on FoMO

As I was about to leave home and head to Heathrow to travel to India as part of the Bournemouth University’s Global Festival of Learning, I checked my work email one last time. There was an email inviting me to be interviewed about FOMO, but with a caveat: the interview had to take place that day or on the morning of the following day. This is because the interview was for the documentary competition #docinaday organised by the London Documentary Network.

The competition involves giving a theme to participating teams on Saturday morning, and they then have 36 hours to plan, record and edit a film of up to 6 minutes that captures the theme. The theme was fear and the team decided to focus on FOMO – Fear of Missing Out. They googled for experts in the area and came across the research blog entry reporting my 14:Live presentation on 14 March (a BU event), precisely on that topic.

Given the urgency of the request, I immediately replied that I was unable to do it in person as I was about to leave to the airport. They suggested we met at the airport (they were based in London), which I agreed as I had a 3 hour wait. During the interview, I talked about some of the findings of the research we have carried out on FOMO in events.

The team has just notified me that they were actually runners-up!


I think they have captured the essence of FOMO well, and I shall be using the film as part of my consumer experience and behaviour lecture on the topic. While it is unlikely that the film will have a large viewing, this example shows how important it is to keep feeding the Internet with information about what we do. You never know when someone needs an expert in one of your topics of expertise, and having this information readily available on the Internet may lead them to you.

Dr. Miguel Moital, Department of Events & Leisure

Midwifery lecturer Sara Stride and Associate Professor Susan Way deliver key note speech at the University of Ljubljana

Sara Stride ( Midwifery Lecturer Practitioner) and Associate Professor Susan Way from FHSS, travelled from the UK on the 18th April for a 5 day visit to the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The trip was funded through Seedcorn (Bournemouth University) and ERASMUS teaching mobility fund (British Council) to extend research and education collaboration between the two Universities.

We received a warm welcome from the Head of Midwifery Education, Dr. Polona Misvek who had helped to arrange our visit. Polona has previously visited Bournemouth University and has co-authored a number of papers with Professors Vanora Hundley and Edwin van Teijlingen.

The Seedcorn funding enabled Sara to provide a key note lecture to an audience which included midwives, student midwives and midwifery lecturers. In attendance was also the CEO of the Nurses and Midwives Association of Slovenia, Anita Prelec. The lecture related to a recent project funded by the Wellbeing of Women charity where Sara was the Principle Investigator. Other team collaborators were Professor Vanora Hundley, Associate Professor Susan Way and Dr Zoe Shepherd. The topic was entitled, ‘Updating the Understanding of Perineal Practice at the time of birth (UUPP Study)’. It was well received and generated many questions.

We have also been able to agree with the support of Polona Misvek and Anita Prelec to repeat the survey element of the research with midwives in Slovenia.

For further details regarding the teaching mobility aspect of the visit please visit the HSS Blog.

(L-R) Sara Stride, Anta Prelec and Susan Way

 

Audience Invitation to Key Note Speech

New projects in the Student Project Bank!

There are new projects in the Student Project Bank from Bournemouth CVS and Midlands Workplace Wellbeing!

Short project briefs are listed below and full briefs available upon request.

SPB059: Bournemouth Young Volunteers (BYV) – Profile Building

Design and implement a marketing strategy to help raise the profile of the BYV awards through marketing materials and social media. There will need to be tailored promotion around ‘volunteer week’, a week long series of events and an award ceremony celebrating volunteering.

SPB060: Rebrand of workplace health and wellbeing company

Midlands Workplace Wellbeing Ltd works with employers to create happy and healthy employees through consultancy, training and health activities. Help Midlands Workplace Wellbeing Ltd rebrand the business as Mindful Workplace Wellbeing. They are looking to find a new identity that has impact whilst still remaining professional in order to increase their client base.

Apply now

Projects are available to all undergraduate and postgraduate students at BU and can be used for their dissertation, assignment, unit or group work. Members of staff may also choose a project to set to their students.

A complete list of projects is available here. Send us an email to request a project brief and application form.

Volunteers Required (without ticklish feet!)

We are looking for BU staff and students to help us test the accuracy and reliability of the newly developed NERVE device.  Designed to monitor loss of sensation in the hands and feet, it is hoped that this device will eventually be used by patients in their own homes. Our research study will compare the accuracy and reliability of the NERVE device to a device currently used in clinical settings.

So as long as you’re over the age of 18, have 10 minutes to spare and don’t have overly ticklish feet, we need you! All you need to do is lie down and tell us at what point you feel a vibration on the finger, big toe, and possibly the ankle and knee.

For more information please contact Emma Frampton (eframpton@bournemouth.ac.uk) and arrange a time suitable for you!

Photo of the Week: Honey Bee Heart

honey bee heart

Dr Paul Hartley, Senior Lecturer in Functional Genetics, Faculty of Science & Technology

Honey Bee Heart

The first instalment of the returning ‘Photo of the Week’ series features Dr Paul Hartley’s image of a Honey Bee Heart. 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.

In this image we can see the pericardial muscles and oenocytes of a honey bee heart- these are stained red and green.  The oenocytes act as toxin-treatment and excretion plants, to help maintain clean blood – much as our livers and kidneys do. The pericardial muscles hold the heart in place so that it can contract properly. Research has shown that human and insect cardiovascular systems share similar genetics. Dr Hartley’s research is based on a simple premise- if something causes disease in one organism, it probably causes disease and can be studied in the other. Dr Hartley took this picture using a Leica SP8 confocal microscope.

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

This photo was orginially an entry to 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

European Structural Investment Fund (ESIF) event on Thursday, 27th April 2017

Funding opportunities, international

Working with local businesses? Why not alert them to this opportunity?

 
The European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) are the European Union’s main funding programmes for supporting growth and jobs across the EU. They form part of the UK Government’s overall growth activity. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) aims to improve economic and social cohesion in the European Union by focusing its investments on areas such as innovation, research, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Borough of Poole is hosting a workshop to maximise the quality of the funding applications in Dorset, with the collaboration of the Departement for Communities and Local Governement (DCLG), the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and the ESIF Technical Assistance in Dorset.

The event is targeting public and private organisations looking at submitting an application to the current ERDF calls in Dorset, published on GOV.UK. Speakers from the Dorset LEP and from DCLG will cover the ESIF priorities for Dorset, the call criteria and the national ERDF rules. The audience will have the opportunity to meet potential partner organisations and to discuss collaborative applications. One to one surgeries with Technical Assistance will be available in the afternoon (limited places).

The current ERDF for Dorset calls are accessible on the Gov.uk website

Event details – Thursday, 27th April from 10:00 – 15:00 at the Civic Centre, Poole.

Registration is required but the event is free to attend. More information is also available on the Dorset LEP website.

If BU staff are unable to attend but would like to find out more, Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International, will be attending, along with other BU staff.

 

Spaces still available: Building resilience in research and knowledge exchange 27/4/17

Professor Heather Hartwell will be delivering a lunch-time workshop on Thursday April 27th 2017 that will help participants gain insight into how it is possible to build resilience in the area of Research and Knowledge Exchange. This session will explore how it may be possible to build resilience in the area of research and knowledge exchange, where rejection for funding and from publishers is common.

The speaker will offer views and share experience of how resilience can be built and how to overcome obstacles.

There will be the opportunity for discussion and advice around the topic. For those interested in booking onto the course, please follow the link here.

If you would like further information about the workshop, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk)

British Conference of Undergraduate Research 2017 takes place in Bournemouth

Student Engagement, student research

This week Bournemouth University will be welcoming hundreds of undergraduate students from over 60 universities to present their research as part of the 2017 British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR).

The annual conference is an opportunity to celebrate student research from across many different disciplines.  Since 2011, BCUR has been hosted by a different British university, with this year’s event taking place in Bournemouth.

BCUR gives students an insight into an academic conference and an opportunity to network with other student researchers, post graduates and practicing academics.  It also helps them to develop their confidence and presentation skills alongside honing academic strengths, all of which can help to boost their employability.

“We’re delighted to be hosting BCUR at Bournemouth University,” says Dr Mary Beth Gouthro, conference co-chair and BCUR Steering Committee member, “We’ve been supporting BU students to attend BCUR since its start at UCLAN in 2011 and the feedback we’ve received has shown how much they value and benefit from the experience.  Over 100 BU students submitted an abstracts to take part in BCUR this year, which is wonderful to see.”

“It’s really important to be able to share and celebrate the research being undertaken by our undergraduates,” explains Dr Luciana Esteves, conference co-chair, “Taking part in research, whether as part of a dissertation, alongside a business or as part of a placement, is a great way to develop skills which can be applied to many different careers.

“It can also help students to tackle real-world problems and develop contacts that may help them once they have graduated.  During the course of the conference, we’ll be hearing from students who have worked on fascinating projects with charities, government organisations and businesses as part of their research.”

BCUR will take place in the Fusion building on 25 & 26 April.  To find out more details about the conference visit www.bournemouth.ac.uk/bcur17

You can find out more about some of the research BU’s students will be presenting here.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

 

The following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Institute of Physics

Public Engagement Grant Scheme

This public engagement grant scheme provides up to £2000 to individuals and organisations running physics-based events and activities in the UK and Ireland.

Maximum Award: £2000 Deadline: 12 May 2017

Royal Society

Research grants

The scheme provides ‘seed corn’ funding for new projects of timeliness and promise. The objective of the scheme is to increase the availability of specialised equipment and essential consumable materials, and to support essential field research. The scheme also provides support for research in the history of science or to assist with publication of scholarly works in the history of science.

Maximum Award: £15000 Deadline: 6 June 2017

MRC

Call for Research to Improve Adolescent Health

The joint funders invite researchers to apply for funding to address questions of effectiveness and access to health interventions that will result in improved adolescent health in low and middle income countries (LMIC’s). Together the three funders have agreed to commit up to £10 million to this scheme.

Maximum Award: Unknown Deadline: 15 June 2017

Innovate UK

Jiangsu-UK Industrial Challenge Programme

 

The aim of this competition is to stimulate economic growth in China and the UK through projects in one of the following areas:

  • innovation in infrastructure systems that address the challenges faced by infrastructure owners, cities, towns and users
  • transformational or disruptive innovation leading to novel, new products, processes or services drawn from any technology, engineering or industrial area

Maximum Award: £500000 Deadline: 21 June 2017

Shanghai-UK Industrial Challenge Programme

The aim of this competition is to stimulate economic growth in China and the UK through projects in one of the following 2 areas:

  • future cities: addressing the challenges brought on by rapid urbanisation, demographic and social change, resource scarcity and climate change
  • transformational or disruptive innovation leading to novel, new products, processes or services drawn from any technology, engineering or industrial area.

Maximum Award: £500000 Deadline: 21 June 2017

NERC

Innovation Placements

Placements will work within a host organisation, on a specified project or one of their choosing, which is organised independently of NERC. Researchers will explore and demonstrate how partner organisations can make use of scientific knowledge, data, models or other tools to understand and manage their impacts and/or dependencies on the environment.

Maximum Award: £400000 Deadline: 29 June 2017

British Council

Promoting & Responding to Maternal, Neonatal, Child & Adolescent Health

Funder is now inviting early career researchers from the UK, South Africa or Kenya to apply for this workshop.

Maximum Award: Unknown Deadline: 30 June 2017

NIHR

Public Health Research Programme Researcher-led (evidence synthesis)

The primary aim of the programme is the evaluation of practical interventions. The funder will fund both primary research (mainly evaluative, but also some preparatory research) and secondary research (evidence synthesis); precise methods will need to be appropriate to the question being asked and the feasibility of the research.

Maximum Award: Unknown Deadline: 25 July 2017

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Policy update for w/e Friday 21 April

General Election: The general election (#GE2017) has been announced for Thursday 8 June meaning Parliament will dissolve on 3 May. In local news Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) was reported as announcing he will stand down and not contest the next election; however this related to 2020 and he has confirmed he will contest 2017.

Current bills must receive Royal Assent before Parliament dissolves or fail; therefore a ‘wash-up’ period will likely take place to hurry key bills through. The ‘wash-up’ business must be agreed between the Government and the Opposition. Its a time when deals can be made, although its likely the Government may tighten ranks to push through a bill with the main thrust of its intent intact.

Select committees are wrapping up their business with several inquiries prematurely closing their requests for evidence. The chairmanship of several select committees will also change as Members can only chair a committee for the maximum of two parliaments or 8 years (Standing Order 122A).

Purdah, commencing at midnight tonight, will impact and delay the TEF year 2 results, the release of the full LEO (Longitudinal Education Outcomes) data, the Schools that Work for Everyone white paper, and other announcements including the appointment of the Chief Executive for the Office for Students.

 

HERB: The next stage for the Higher Education and Research Bill is ping pong, where the Commons respond to the Lords Third Reading amendments. Currently, no date is scheduled for ping pong and the bill is absent from next week’s published parliamentary business. With Parliament’s dissolution looming speculation abounds on the bill’s fate, its likely it will be considered on Thursday where the parliamentary business has been left unspecified. Opinion divides on whether the Government will concede or hard line to push the bill through. The House of Commons Library has published a useful briefing paper summarising the Lords Amendments. Furthermore, Research Professional report “the amendment to widen the grounds for appeal of Office for Students decisions is understood to have been accepted by government”, no authoritative source is provided to confirm this, although as one of least controversial Lords amendments it seems plausible.

 

Student migration: Frequent in the press this week (Times, Huff Post, Wonkhe, Reuters) was Theresa May’s rumoured U-turn on counting overseas students within the net migration figures However, there are no firm commitments and the position is neatly summarised by THE: May is “offering to change the way that student numbers are calculated, with the promise of further concessions”; the government is likely to offer a “regulatory compromise” in how overseas student numbers in Britain are calculated. On Thursday Theresa May told the BBC: “We want to see sustainable net migration in this country, I believe that sustainable net migration is in the tens of thousands.” A recent UUK ComRes poll highlights that only a quarter of the public consider students to be immigrants. We wait to see how migratory targets are tackled in the Conservatives election manifesto.

 

2018/19 EU Students: The government has confirmed that 2018/19 EU students will remain eligible for undergraduate and masters student loans and retain their home fees status even if the course concludes after Brexit. EU students can also apply for Research Council PhD studentships for the duration of their study.

 

Industrial Strategy – HE research commercialisation: HEFCE have launching the Connecting Capability Fund (£100 million) as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy to support university collaborations and research commercialisation. It is intended to help universities to deliver the industrial priorities, forge external technological, industrial and regional partnerships, and share good practice and capacity internally across the higher education sector. It is expected to be channelled through the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) programme with the first round deadline set as 10 July.

 

Other news:

The Common’s Science and Technology select committee have published: Industrial Strategy; Science and STEM skills. It urges government to increase the R&D investment and make up net shortfall for international collaborative research lost through Brexit, alongside stepping-up measures to increase children and students STEM skills.

Research Councils UK have launched the £700k Strategic Support to Expedite Embedding Public Engagement with Research (SEE-PER) call aiming to better embed support for public engagement with research in higher education institutions The call will be open for a limited time, assessed by panel over summer 2017, with activity commencing no later than 1 October 2017.

British businesses winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise (2017) have been announced, the winning product/service for each business is listed in the Gazette. Among the winners is Poole based BOFA International Ltd (fume extraction).

Rachel Hewitt, HESA, writes for Wonkhe to provide feedback on the new DLHE consultation. HESA report 80% support for the proposed survey design and a mixed response to the financial model mainly due to lack of information. A final version of the model is earmarked for publication later in June. Hewitt states: “We now want to ensure that HE providers have certainty over the implications of the review outcomes, and to enable them to start reviewing their systems and processes”, and commits to sharing information through the rolling FAQs.

HEA and Action on Access have published: What works? Supporting student success: strategies for institutional change.

RKEDF Survey – Finishes today!

It’s been over six months since Bournemouth University launched its new Research & Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, which was designed to offer academics at all stages of their career opportunities to develop their skills, knowledge and capabilities.

Since its launch, over 30 sessions have taken place, including sandpits designed to develop solutions to key research challenges, workshops with funders such as the British Academy and the Medical Research Council and skills sessions to help researchers engage with the media and policy makers.

The Research & Knowledge Exchange Office is currently planning activities and sessions for next year’s training programme and would like your feedback about what’s worked well, areas for improvement and suggestions for new training sessions.

Tell us what you think via our survey and be in with a chance of winning a £30 Amazon voucher. The deadline date is Friday 21 April.

Upcoming sessions:

  4 April Public engagement: an overview
  13 April Getting started on applying for research funding
  25 April How to update your Staff Profile Page using BRIAN
  9 May Writing Academy – Writing Day
  10 May Using social media to share your research
  18 May Targeting high quality journals
  18 May Writing an academic paper
  18 May Writing a good abstract
  18 May Dealing with editors
  24 May Research Data Management
  24 May Introduction to the Royal Society
  24 May My publication story so far… Prof. Tim Rees
  25 May Writing Academy – Writing Day