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Coping with stress and anxiety: Health and well-being for researchers

Training

Focus on themesMessage from Vitae:

“We all know that being a researcher can be very satisfying, but it often comes at a price of high levels of stress and anxiety. It could be the pressure of deadlines, writers block or dealing with fixed term contracts, or perhaps the anxiety of not knowing where your next steps will take you. Research can also be isolating and hard on your self-confidence and motivation. Good mental health and well-being can help researchers deal with the stresses of life in academia and make the most of the opportunities around them whatever their future may hold.

Join us for a Google Hangout to learn more about looking after your own mental health and well-being and hear from researchers share their experiences of balancing life and research”.

For further details, please see the Vitae website. 

Healthcare social media publications

In the past week I have had two publications accepted which are both linked to my research areas of social media and healthcare.

The first was the main study from my PhD which has taken 4 years to get published after being rejected by three journals! This is in the Journal of Athletic Training and summarises a feasibility study of a Facebook concussion intervention called “iCon” or interactive concussion management.

The second is in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM) in their new “infographic” section and was modified from our previous BJSM editorial (Ahmed OH, Weiler R, Schneiders AG, McCrory P, Sullivan SJ. Top tips for social media use in sports and exercise medicine: doing the right thing in the digital age. Br J Sports Med 2015;49:909-910). BJSM are trying to push the publication of infographics such as this as an adjunct to traditional research papers. 

Both of these publications are timely as on Thursday I am due to present at the International Olympic Committee ~World Conference on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport in Monaco (http://www.ioc-preventionconference.org/?page_id=1188). I will be leaning heavily on both of these papers in our symposium when I discuss the use of social media to deliver healthcare interventions in sports and exercise medicine.

References:

  • Ahmed OH, Schneiders AG, McCrory PR, Sullivan SJ. Sport Concussion Management Using Facebook: A Feasibility Study of an Innovative Adjunct ‘‘iCon’’. Journal of Athletic Training 2017;52(2):(in press-awaiting page numbers).
  • Ahmed OH, Weiler R, Schneiders AG, McCrory PR, Sullivan SJ. Infographic: Top Social Media Tips for Sports and Exercise Medicine Practitioners. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2017;(in press).

NERC standard grants – internal competition closing soon

Funding opportunities

nerc-logo-largeFurther to the earlier blog-post concerning the internal competition for NERC standard grants (July 2017 deadline), please be reminded that the closing date is this Friday 17th March. Further details can be found here, but to summarise, the process is as follows:

  • Internal call launched 20 February 2017
  • Internal call deadline 17 March 2017. Academic submits one page expression of interest on research to be carried out, stating aims, objectives, potential impact, and any collaboration – to Lisa Gale-Andrews, RKEO
  • From 20th March, peer review takes place by DDRPP, BU academics with NERC experience, and external peer reviewers
  • Applicants will be informed of the decision regarding which application is to be taken forward after 27th March 2017. The successful applicant will then work with RKEO to develop, refine and draft their application before peer review in May and submission in July 2017.

NIHR Fellowships Event 25th May 2017 – Book Now

Funding opportunities

RKEO dev logo - banner

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are holding a session on NIHR Fellowships.

The NIHR Fellowship Event will provide information about NIHR’s Fellowship schemes, and offer some hints and tips for a successful application. We are pleased to welcome the following speakers:

  • Professor Jane Sandall – Professor of Social Science & Women’s Health King’s College London, and NIHR Academic Training Advocate (Midwifery Lead)
  • Dr Dawn Biram – NIHR Trainees Coordinating CentreRKEO RKE NIHR
  • NIHR Fellows – Bournemouth University

Date: Thursday 25th May 2017

Time: 14:00-16:00

Venue: Executive Business Centre, Lansdowne Campus

The session is open to all academics, researchers and clinicians who have an interest in applying for NIHR Fellowships.

Please book your space through Eventbrite.

About the NIHR Fellowship Programme: The NIHR is the UK’s major funder of applied health research. All of the research it funds works towards improving the health and wealth of the nation. The NIHR develops and supports the people who conduct and contribute to health research and equally supports the training of the next generation of health researchers. NIHR training programmes provide a unique opportunity for all professionals to improve the health of patients in their care through research. Training and career development awards from the NIHR range from undergraduate level through to opportunities for established investigators and research leaders. They are open to a wide range of professions and designed to suit different working arrangements and career pathways.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange

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

EXTENDED DEADLINE: MRC Harwell genome editing mice for medicine grant

Medical Research Council, GB

*** The closing date for this opportunity has been extended. The previous deadline of 10 March has been extended to 17 March 2017. All other call details remain unchanged. This grant supports the production of genetically modified mouse lines that advance knowledge of human disease or are of widespread use in biomedical science. ***

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 17 Mar 17 Closing soon

UK-Thailand workshop on infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases

Medical Research Council, GB

This enables UK researchers to meet researchers from from Thai institutions and explore opportunities for research collaboration in Bangkok between 17 May and 19 May 2017. The grant covers costs for the UK attendees.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Mar 17 Closing soon

Scoping group for enhancing resilience of UK peatlands – meeting

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

The scoping group will develop the science case for a potential strategic research programme on enhancing resilience of UK peatlands. NERC will cover all reasonable travel and subsistence costs associated with attending the scoping group meeting.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 23 Mar 17 Closing soon

Diagnostics, prosthetics and orthotics to tackle health challenges in developing countries

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, GB

This supports internationally leading programmes of research, centred around innovative healthcare technologies, to tackle the challenges faced by developing countries. The total budget is worth £7.5 million, and six to eight projects will be funded.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 20 Apr 17

Innovation Caucus PhD intern opportunity

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

This enables PhD candidates to undertake research to inform the strategy and practice of Innovate UK and the ESRC.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 20 Apr 17

Cabinet Office high level knowledge exchange fellowship

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

This aims to improve the impact from NERC science within national resilience policy making, and enable the Civil Contingencies Secretariat to be a better user of science and better able to showcase the value of science in policy. The fellowship is paid at 80 per cent full economic costs, and will be for a two-year period initially, with a possibility of extension.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 27 Apr 17

Insurance knowledge exchange fellowship

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

This aims to foster collaborations between the insurance and reinsurance industry and academia to accelerate the uptake and impact of environmental science. The fellowship is paid at 80 per cent full economic cost, and financial support includes but is not limited to travel and subsistence, and events such as workshops, seminars, open days or user training.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 27 Apr 17

Antarctic logistic support

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

This provides logistic support for Antarctic fieldwork including the use of British Antarctic Survey infrastructure.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 28 Apr 17

International Journal of Social Research Methodology seminar competition

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

This supports the development of critical and innovative approaches to ongoing and emerging methodological debates across a range of approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, including mixed and comparative methods, as these relate to philosophical, theoretical, ethical, political and practice issues. £3,500 is available and covers costs of room and equipment hire, hospitality, consumables and travel for speakers.

Maximum award: £3,500

Closing date: 30 Apr 17

Environmental science impact programme

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

These enable research organisations to collaborate with business, policy bodies and other actors that contribute to the economic development specific to their location, in order to deliver significant regional impact from NERC environmental science. The total budget is worth between £2.5 million and £4m over a period of four years.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 22 Jun 17

Industrial CASE studentships

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

This promotes collaboration between the research community and the end users of research. Each studentship is worth up to £84,392 over maximum 4 years.

Maximum award: £84,392

Closing date: 06 Jul 17 (recurring)

COMING SOON: Infectious diseases call

Medical Research Council, GB

*** This opportunity will be available soon. The next call is expected to open shortly. The following information is subject to change. This supports research on infectious diseases of relevance to Thailand and the Thai population. Projects are tenable for three years. ***

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: Not known

COMING SOON: Non-communicable diseases call

Medical Research Council, GB

*** This opportunity will be available soon. The next call is expected to open shortly. The following information is subject to change. This supports research on non-communicable diseases of relevance to Thailand and the Thai population. Projects are tenable for three years. ***

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: Not known

Clinical scientist fellowships

Motor Neurone Disease Association, GB

These provide support to laboratory based studies in the field of motor neurone disease. Funding provides support for four years.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 05 Apr 17 (recurring)

Senior clinical fellowships

Motor Neurone Disease Association, GB

These support clinical researchers wishing to pursue research into the pathogenesis and treatment of motor neurone disease. Funding provides support for five years.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 05 Apr 17 (recurring)

COMING SOON: Breast radiology professorship

Royal College of Radiologists, GB

*** This opportunity will be available soon. The next call is expected to open in January 2018. The following information is subject to change. This professorship enables a fellow to undertake six to eight visits to training programmes to deliver lectures, and undertake appropriate workshops or small group teaching, with the aim to foster high quality breast imaging throughout the UK. The professorship is worth up to £10,000 over one year. ***

Maximum award: £10,000

Closing date: Not known

Find more funding opportunities

Search all the latest calls

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.

Lifelong health and wellbeing: improving orthopaedic practice and patient care

ORI-3

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at the Orthopeadic Research Institute (ORI).

Living well in older age is increasingly becoming a concern for our society. A key priority for our health services is to enable people to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible. BU’s newly established Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) is addressing this need by carrying out research to improve orthopaedic practices and patient care, thus supporting people to improve their activity levels and mobility as they age. Orthopaedics will become a critical issue as our population ages, as longer and more active lives will increase the risk that joints will wear out and replacements or treatments will be needed.

Deputy Head of ORI Associate Professor Tom Wainwright explains: “Knee and hip problems are going to become more prevalent, so we’re going to need better solutions to manage that; whether it’s better surgical procedures or better nonsurgical interventions. We have some very effective treatments in orthopaedics, but they’re not 100% effective, so part of our role is to work out how to make them better – improve them, through developing better surgical techniques, testing new medical techonology or developing better rehabilitation processes.”

Between them, Associate Professor Wainwright and Head of ORI Professor Rob Middleton have a wealth of clinical and research expertise. Professor Rob Middleton is a practising orthopaedic surgeon, specialising in hip replacement, while Associate Professor Wainwright is a physiotherapist and clinical researcher. They carried out research alongside their clinical practice before joining BU and have a national and international reputation for their work to date.

One of their biggest successes so far is speeding up the recovery process after hip and knee surgery, which has led to their work being cited in best practice health guidelines around the world. This approach, called Enhanced Recovery after Surgery, seeks to minimise the impact of surgery and accelerate recovery by employing strategies throughout the patient pathway, to improve outcomes and reduce the need for medical interventions. Their research into this area was a first in the UK for orthopaedics and demonstrated its value to patient care, as well as showing an improvement in patient and staff satisfaction and leading to significant cost savings to hospitals.

A more recent example of their work is a programme developed with local partners in Dorset called CHAIN – Cycling Against Hip Pain – which is designed to help people to live well with conditions such as osteoarthritis and to improve their mobility. The programme provides a combination of education and static cycling sessions,designed to improve mobility and increase people’s confidence in managing their conditions. The results have been excellent, with patients reporting improvements in walking, finding daily living tasks easier and most importantly, decreases in pain. Even the least likely candidates have seen improvements, demonstrating the value of education and exercise in improving patient care and in helping to reduce or delay the need for further medical interventions.

“As well as developing interventions to help patients recover from surgery and manage their conditions. We also work with a number of global orthopaedic companies to test and run clinical trials
on the latest orthopaedic technology,” says Associate Professor Wainwright. “We work with companies such as ZimmerBiomet, Lima Corporate, and Firstkind Ltd to ensure that their technology is delivering the best possible outcomes for patients.”

One example of their work with ZimmerBiomet was to explore ways to improve the technology used in hip replacements. The hip joint is a ball and socket joint and one of the risks of hip replacement is dislocation; where the new ball comes out of the socket. ORI’s research has shown that a larger ball reduces the risk of dislocation, and does not adversely affect the rate of wear.

“We currently have five trials underway within local hospitals and more to come,” explains Associate Professor Wainwright. “These trials are looking at different ways that we can improve the medical technology used in orthopaedics and means that not only are we contributing to improving future care, but we’re also bringing the latest technology to Dorset and improving care in the local area. As Dorset has a very high proportion of orthopaedic surgeries, there is potentially a very large group of people we can benefit.”

“We take a very interdisciplinary approach to our research. Establishing ourselves within BU is a real advantage for us, because we can draw on the expertise of colleagues in other areas of research, including other health professionals, psychologists, technologists and engineers,” explains Associate Professor Wainwright, “Ultimately, our driving force is that we wantto ensure that everyone gets the best possible treatment for their condition – it’s just the right thing to do.”

Wainwright, T.W., Immins, T. and Middleton, R.G., (2015) A cycling and education programme to promote self-management and to increase functional ability in patients with osteoarthritis of the hip. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 23 (2), 372.

Howie, D.W., Holubowycz, O.T., Middleton,R. and Grp, L.A.S., (2012) Large Femoral Heads Decrease the Incidence of Dislocation After Total Hip Arthroplasty A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery – American Volume, 94A (12), 1095- 1102.

Wainwright, T. and Middleton, R., (2010) An orthopaedic enhanced recovery pathway. Current Anaesthesia and Critical Care, 21 (3), 114-120.

ORI was established at BU thanks to generous funding from the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

This article appeared in the 2016 Bournemouth Research Chronicle. Download a copy of the magazine, or view the articles online.

New Ageing & Dementia Research Centre opens for business

ADRC

A new Ageing & Dementia Research Centre (ADRC) has launched at Bournemouth University (BU), bringing together cross-Faculty expertise in the areas of dementia and ageing. At a time when our population is living longer, often with long-term medical conditions including dementia, the centre’s research is likely to have a significant impact on theory, education and professional practice.

The aim of ADRC is to use the team’s collective expertise to develop person-centred research which will improve the lives of people with dementia and their families. Their research falls under three broad categories – developing ageing & dementia friendly environments, nutrition & wellbeing and activity & social inclusion. Each topic builds on a wealth of research knowledge and projects already taking place at BU.

The ADRC will be led by Professor Jane Murphy and Professor Jan Wiener, supported by staff and students from the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science & Technology.

For more information about their work see the centre’s web page or email Michelle O’Brien if you’re interested in finding out more about a particular project.

The team are currently working on the following funded research projects:

  1. Dementia-friendly architecture: Reducing spatial disorientation in dementia care homes. A two year funded project conducting innovative research using virtual reality technology and eye tracking to simulate unfamiliar care home environments. Knowledge gained as a result of the project will help to create dementia-friendly architectural guidelines for use in the design of care homes for people with Alzheimer’s Disease. The project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Staff involved: Professor Jan Wiener and Dr Ramona Grzeschik.
  2. Eating and drinking well: Supporting people living with dementia. Understanding how nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle factors impact upon quality of life, wellbeing and the progression of dementia to inform new innovative approaches for prevention and management of dementia including new educational models and assistive technology. Funded by the Burdett Trust. Staff involved: Professor Jane Murphy and Joanne Holmes.
  3. TAi ChI for people with demenTia (TACIT trial). A three year funded project to conduct a phase II randomised controlled trial to test the benefit of Tai Chi for people living with dementia living in the community. Funded by the National Institute for Research (NIHR) as a Career Development Fellowship. Staff involved: Dr Samuel Nyman.
  4. Using serious games to support the quality of life of people with dementia. A European funded project in collaboration with Alzheimer’s Valencia, Alzheimer’s Greece, Alzheimer’s Slovenia and Alzheimer’s Romania and Instituto de Biomecanica de Valencia (IBV), exploring the use of gaming activities for people with dementia and their care partners. Funded by ERASMUS+. Staff involved: Dr Ben Hicks, Professor Jan Wiener and Professor Wen Tang.
  5. Using graffiti to explore identity in people with dementia. Exploring the use of graffiti to explore identity in people with dementia and their care partners. Funded by British Psychological Society (BPS). Staff involved: Dr Shanti Shanker and Dr Ben Hicks.
  6. Dementia Education And Training through Simulation2 programme (DEALTS2). National delivery of Higher Education England (HEE) Tier 2 training programme across all 13 Health Education England (HEE) regions of UK. Funded by HEE. Staff involved: Professor Jane Murphy, Dr Michele Board and Dr Michelle Heward.

Dr. Masi Fathi appointed to the board of Sociological Research Online

open access, Publishing, writing

SROCongratulations to Dr. Mastoureh (Masi) Fathi, FHSS Lecturer in Sociology, who has been appointed to the editorial board of Sociological Research Online.  Sociological Research Online is a peer-reviewed online sociology journal looking at current social issues, and it is in its twenty-second year.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Developing a novel self-optimising femtocell network for indoor communication with mobile devices

PG research

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.

 

Speaker: Haseeb Qureshi (Creative Technology PhD Student)

 

Title:     Developing a novel self-optimising femtocell network for indoor communication with mobile devicesFemtoCell

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 15th March 2017

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

The need for a fast and reliable wireless communication system has increased with the development of social and business activities around the world. A promising cost and energy efficient way of meeting the future traffic demands is the idea of very dense deployment of low cost, low power and self-organizing small base stations i.e. Femtocells. Self-configuring, self-optimizing and self-healing base stations have the potential to significantly increase the capacity of mobile cellular networks in the future 5G while reducing their energy consumption. The aim of this research is to consider the integration of Femtocells as Self Optimising Networks for the future communication network. An extensive and thorough research has been carried out to investigate what drawbacks of the existing communication 4G network are and whether Femtocells as a Self-Optimising network can improve the current network. In order to evaluate the algorithms for self-optimising Femtocells that have been proposed by other authors in the existing literature an evaluation criteria has been developed, and a simulating environment has been constructed. The evaluation is performed by measuring the effect that changing parameters has on the output of the environment. From the results of the evaluation a new algorithm to enhance the self-optimisation of the network will be designed and developed in a simulating environment.​

 

We hope to see you there.

How to Write a 4* Article

BRIAN, Publishing, writing

mark-reedIn December, Prof Mark Reed, Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University and the man behind Fast Track Impact, tweeted some thoughts on how to write a 4* paper for the REF. He went on to explain his thinking in more detail in a guest post on the Research Fundementals blog, the post is published here with the authors permission.

_____________
How do you write a 4* paper for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)? It is a question I’ve asked myself with some urgency since the Stern Review shredded my REF submission by not allowing me to bring my papers with me this year to my new position at Newcastle University.

Obviously the answer is going to differ depending on your discipline, but I think there are a few simple things that everyone can do to maximize their chances of getting a top graded research output.

I’m going to start with the assumption that you’ve actually done original, significant and rigorous work – if you haven’t then there is no point in reading any further. However, as I am increasingly asked to pre-review papers for colleagues across a range of disciplines, I am seeing examples of people who write up work as a 2* or 3* paper that has the potential to get a better score. I should point out that I believe that there is an important role for 1* and 2* papers, and that I regularly write these on purpose to address a problem of national significance and frame it for the specific, narrow audience that is likely to be able to benefit most from my work. However, whether I like it or not, as a Professor in a research-intensive University, there is an expectation that I will be submitted as a 4* researcher, which means I need a few 4* papers as well.

You can see some more detailed thoughts on what I think makes 4* for different types of paper in this Tweet:

As you’ll see from the discussion under that tweet though, my more detailed thoughts probably only apply to Units of Assessment across panels A-C, and probably isn’t relevant to the arts and humanities.

Having said this, I think there are a number of things we can all do to maximize the chances of our work being viewed favourably by REF panelists.

  1. Write to the criteria: when I was learning to drive, my instructor told me that in the test I should make sure I moved my head when I was looking in the rear view mirror, to make sure the examiner noticed I was using my mirrors. We’re all used to writing to the criteria of funding calls, and in fact we are all perfectly used to writing papers to the criteria of our target journals. In the last REF, research outputs were judged against three criteria: originality, significance and rigour. Whatever the interpretation of these criteria in your discipline, have you made it explicit to REF panelists reading your work exactly what is original, and why it is so original? Have you explained and effectively justified the significance of your work? And have you included evidence that your methods, analysis and interpretation is rigorous, even if you have to use supplementary material to include extra detail about your methods and data to get around journal word limits?
  1. Get REF feedback before you submit your work for publication: find out who is going to be reviewing research outputs for REF internally within your Unit of Assessment at your institution and ask them to review your work before you submit it. They may be able to make recommendations about how you might improve the paper in light of the REF criteria. Sometimes a little bit of extra work on the framing of your research in relation to wider contexts and issues can help articulate the significance of your work, and with additional reading and thinking, you may be able to position your work more effectively in relation to previous work to demonstrate its originality more clearly. Adding a few extra details to your methods and results may re-assure readers and reviewers that your approach is indeed rigorous. This is not just about doing world-leading research; it is about demonstrating to the world that your work is indeed world-leading. For me, these criteria are nothing new and are worth paying attention to, whether or not we are interested in REF. Meeting these three criteria will increase the chances that you get through peer-review and will increase the likelihood that your work gets cited.
  1. Analyse and discuss good practice in your own area: the only way to really “get your eye in” for REF is to actually look at examples of good and poor practice in your own area. Below, I’ve described how you can design an exercise to do this with your colleagues. You can do it yourself and learn a lot, but from my own experience, you learn a lot more by doing this as a discussion exercise with colleagues who work in your area. If you can, take notes from your discussion and try and distill some of the key lessons, so you can learn collectively as a group and more effectively review and support each others’ work.

How to organize a discussion to work out what makes a 4* paper in your area:

  • Identify top scoring institutions for your Unit of Assessment (UOA): download the REF2014 results, filter for your UOA (columns E or F), then filter so it only shows you the outputs (column J), and then filter for 4* (column L), showing only the institutions from your UOA that had the highest percentage of 4* outputs. Now for those institutions, look across the table (columns L-P) to see which has the highest proportion of outputs at either 3* or 4*. For example, an institution may have 80% of its outputs graded at 4* and 15% graded at 3*, meaning that 95% of its outputs were graded at 3-4*
  • Download a selection of papers from the top scoring institutions: go to your UOA on the REF website, find and click on the institutions you’ve identified in step 1, under “view submission data”, click on “research outputs”, copy and paste output titles into Google Scholar (or your search engine of choice) and download the articles. You may want to select outputs randomly, or you may want to go through more selectively, identifying outputs that are close to the areas your group specialize in
  • Repeat for low scoring institutions so you can compare and contrast high and low scoring outputs
  • Discuss examples: print copies of the high and low scoring outputs, labeled clearly, and in your next UOA meeting, let everyone choose a high and a low-scoring example. Given them 10-15 minutes to quickly read the outputs (focusing on title, abstract, introduction, figures and conclusions so you’re not there all day) and then ask the group (or small groups if there are many of you) to discuss the key factors that they think distinguish between high and low scoring outputs. Get your group(s) to distill the key principles that they think are most useful and disseminate these more widely to the group, so that anyone who wasn’t present can benefit.

It would be great if I could tell you that these are my “three easy ways to get a 4* paper” but doing work that is genuinely original, significant and rigorous is far from easy. If you have done work that is of the highest quality though, I hope that the ideas I’ve suggested here will help you get the credit you deserve for the great research you’ve done.

Prof. Matthew Bennett – My publication story so far…

BRIAN, BU Challenges, Guidance, Publishing, writing

writingOn Wednesday 29th March, the Writing Academy will be hosting a Lunchbyte session with Matthew Bennett. During the session Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, his tips on developing a publication strategy and working with co-authors, reviewers and editors. He will talk about all types of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations. Drawing on personal experience, he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.

Aims:

  • Developing a Publication Strategy
  • Dealing with Co-Editors, Reviewers & Editors
  • Targeting high impact Journal

Click here to book on!

Blog by the Vice-Chancellor – what next for the Teaching Excellence Framework

Fusion, Research assessment

The BBC 2 series “Meet the Lords” could not have been better timed. The House of Lords has flexed its muscles on the Article 50 Bill and this week’s episode coincided with them passing an amendment to the Higher Education and Research Bill (HE Bill) that breaks the link between the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) and fees. Since then another amendment has been passed that would change the nature of the TEF, and bring it under Parliamentary scrutiny.

It would be easy to dismiss these (as some have done) as acts of rebellion by a non-elected chamber that is in the case of the HE Bill, representing vested interests in the face of a genuine government attempt to reform a sector that is badly in need of it. The Department for Education could be forgiven if they had thought that the HE Bill was nearly home and dry. They had published a long list of amendments which had been largely welcomed by the sector. The TEF does not require Parliamentary approval. Universities UK and GuildHE, amongst others, had expressed support for the HE bill as amended and expressed support for the TEF – opposing the addition of more detail as it would reduce flexibility in future negotiations on the detail. But the House of Lords did not agree – they have not sought to add more detail in the TEF, but to change its nature completely. Reading the debates, it is clear that members of the House of Lords, like most of the sector, generally support the objectives of TEF in bringing focus on the quality of education and student outcomes. They support the provision of more and better information about universities for applicants and others. They, like many in the sector, also generally support an inflationary increase in fees.

In the latest amendment, the provisions for the TEF in clause 26 have been removed and the new clause instead requires the Secretary of State to bring forward a scheme to identify whether an institution meets or fails to meet expectations based on quality standards but it “must not be used to create a single composite ranking of English higher education providers”.  The arguments are neatly summarised by Lord Lucas: “Bronze will be seen as failing because these universities will be marked out as the bottom 20%. This is just not necessary. We have succeeded, in our research rankings, in producing a measure of sufficient detail and sophistication for people to read it in detail. It produces quite marked differences between institutions, but nobody reads it as a mark of a failing institution. It is information, not ranking…”.

An earlier amendment removed the differentiation between fees based on different ratings. The speeches in the House of Lords demonstrate that they are opposed to this link for different reasons, for example:

  • Baroness Deech “If we detach fees from gold, silver and bronze, we stand a chance of increasing social mobility under the amendment. If we do not, social mobility will be frozen and ghettoisation will increase.”
  • Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: “I want to cite three groups of academics ….all of which feel, as do students, that in their current state the TEF metrics are not up to the job of determining fee levels and that, until we are sure that we have valid and reliable measures, we should not do this.”
  • Lord Lipsey : “… what seems knocking on bizarre is to plough on with bringing in this link between fees and the TEF before we have got the TEF right….The Government would give themselves the best chance of proving themselves right and the sceptics wrong if they gave time for the TEF to settle down before they brought in the fees link.”
  • Lord Kerslake: “My second reason for not making the link is that the TEF rating will relate to the university, not the subject or course. We will not see subject-level ratings until 2020 and yet we know that it is perfectly possible to have a mediocre course in an otherwise excellent university, and indeed vice versa. It can be argued that the TEF ranking gives an indication of the overall ​student experience at a particular institution, but the variation which so obviously exists within institutions makes that argument quite unconvincing.”

Except for the subject level fee point (which has not become a topic of debate yet), these are all arguments that were made by the sector in responding to the Green Paper and the TEF consultation. These are all things that we have continued to raise as we discuss the implications of subject-level TEF.

So as it stands, the TEF has lost both of its “incentives” – aka its carrot and its stick, which were both in the form of the impact on fees and reputation. It is not at all clear what will happen next – some ideas are given in this Wonkhe blog. In blogs on the Times Higher Education, Maddaleine Ansell of the University Alliance and Sorana Vieru gave very different perspectives.

So what compromise could there be to address all the concerns and yet still preserve the positive aspects of the TEF – i.e. the increasing focus on education and outcomes? I go back to BU’s response to the Green Paper, when we said that the TEF should model itself on the REF.. It should celebrate excellence wherever it is found, there should not be a link with tuition fees and there should be no forced ranking. To achieve that now, a remodelled TEF could include the following features:

  • no link to fees
  • have two rather than three levels of award – perhaps indicating good and outstanding. The last category is those who fail their quality assessment and don’t qualify for TEF.
  • take a different approach to benchmarking that does not force differentiation
  • include a place for commendations

I am not convinced by the argument that no-one would participate in the TEF without the direct financial incentive. That does not hold true for the REF. The REF has increased the focus on impact and had a beneficial impact on research. (We have some reservations about the changes proposed in the latest REF consultation, but that is a separate issue.) The concerns about the TEF would be mitigated substantially if the Olympic rating system and the link to fees were dropped. The sector would be able to engage in a much more constructive debate about subject-level TEF.

The TEF does not need to be thrown out completely – but this is an opportunity to go back to where this started from and ensure that the TEF brings focus on the quality of education and student outcomes.

Congratulations to your winners of the 2017 Research Photography Competition!

PG research, Student Engagement, student research

Bournemouth University researchers have given us a glimpse into some of their fantastic research, for the Research Photography Competition. The competition which ran in its third year challenged BU academics and students to capture the impact of their research in a single image.  Researchers from across BU and all its faculties entered the competition.

Entries to the competition demonstrated some of the research taking place both here at BU and across the globe from forensic investigation, midwifery in Nepal, meeting the identity needs of older people and looked at repairing trust in the service sector.

The competition saw an overwhelming response with close to 1000 votes from BU staff, BU students and the wider BU community.

Vice Chancellor John Vinney congratulated the winners on 9 March in the Atrium Art Gallery.

“It’s been brilliant to be able to announce the winners. There’s a great diversity of winners that really encapsulate the range and impact of research here at BU,” commented Vice Chancellor John Vinney.

Below are your winners:

 1st Place- “This is Me. I am Ron” by Chantel Cox

Chantel Cox, PhD Student, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences

Chantel is a PhD student from the Faculty of Health and Social Science. She is looking at the cultural processes that underpin healthcare professionals meeting the identity needs of frail older people.

On winning first prize Chantel commented,

“It’s very exciting to win. It’s really good to get your research known about and out there in a different format. I’d like to use photography somehow in my research, so it’s really inspired me.”

2nd Place- The Compound Eye of Calliphora Vomitoria (Bluebottle fly) by Christopher Dwen

Christopher Dwen, Forensic Research Assistant, Faculty of Science & Technology

Christopher is a Forensic Research Assistant from the Faculty of Science & Technology. He’s been looking at the blood feeding activities of flies at crime scenes, as these can often be confounding. These patterns can help in instances of violent assaults.

3rd Place- A Concerted Effort to Repair Trust by Samreen Ashraf 

Samreen Ashraf, Lecturer in Marketing, Faculty of Management

Samreen is a Lecturer in Marketing from the Faculty of Management.

Samreen is a Lecturer in Marketing from the Faculty of Management. Samreen has been looking at the service sector and examining trust repair endeavours from various stakeholders’ perspective related to three different contexts: mis-selling financial services (e.g. PPI); HR issues in the retail sector (e.g. Sports Direct) and safety issues within the leisure sector (e.g. Alton Towers).

All entries from this year’s Research Photography Competition are currently being exhibited in the Atrium Art Gallery until 22 March.

FACETS research featured on MS Society blog

FACETS

BU’s FACETS project, which focuses on managing fatigue in people with MS has been featured in a blog post by the MS Society.  Fatigue is one of the most commonly reported and debilitating symptoms of MS and can have a real impact on people’s lives.  It’s the main reason why people with MS eventually give up work.

Research from Professor Peter Thomas and Dr Sarah Thomas from BU’s Clinical Research Unit have developed a group based fatigue management programme called FACETS.  The programme helps to equip people with the tools and strategies they need to effectively manage their energy and cope with fatigue.  Below is an expert from the blog.

Mind the gap – getting care and services research to the clinic

It can sometimes take years for research findings to be rolled out in clinics. The gap between clinical trials and the clinic means that people often miss out on services that were developed with them in mind.

We want to make sure that everyone has access to the therapies, services and support that are right for them. And we’re working hard to make sure that happens.

Managing MS fatigue effectively

‘FACETS’ is a group-based fatigue management programme for people with MS. FACETS stands for Fatigue: Applying Cognitive behavioural and Energy effectiveness Techniques to lifeStyle.

During the programme, people learn strategies to help them manage their energy levels more effectively and explore different ways of thinking about fatigue.

The programme was shown to reduce fatigue and improve quality of life for people with MS in a 2013 trial we funded.

Since then we’ve supported the research team to roll out FACETS, via training days for health care professionals so they can deliver the programme in their practices.

Over 200 health professionals have been trained so far. And a recent survey suggested that more than 1,500 people with MS have already attended a FACETS programme.

Dr Sarah Thomas, who developed the programme, said “One of the most rewarding aspects of carrying out this work has been seeing FACETS rolled out into clinics and, we hope, making a difference to people’s lives.”

The blog can be read in full here.